“Peter, your blandishments do not move me at all. I am not one of those who live for their bellies.”
“No, Karli.”
“On the other hand, it is important that I should not affront the Doctor, wouldn’t you say?”
“Yes, Karli.”
“Then I shall make the sacrifice and pretend to own an appetite. For his sake and yours.”
“What a splendid chap you are, to be sure.”
I threw a book at him and, while I was laughing, he popped a slippery cake of soap into my open mouth.
Kedgeree is very good. I reserved some for later on in the morning, to ascertain whether it is also good when cold.
It is also very good when cold.
Venturing upon deck in the mid-morning, to take the air and aid digestion, I encountered the First Mate, Lubbock.
“Good morning, Mister,” I cried airily. He stepped very close to me, I could smell the rank sweat of him.
“Only a Captain calls a First Officer ‘Mister’,” he snarled. “Nasty little snot-nosed lubbers of supercargoes call me ‘Sir’ or by the great horned toad I chew them up and spit out their gristly bits — if any.”
I had a decision to make. With an effort I met his eyes; studied the gravy-coloured whites of them.
“Thankyou, Mr Lubbock,” I said at last. “It is a fine morning, is it not?” I was ready to jump over the side if necessary, but I do not think that he recognised this. He, too, made a decision and an effort; decided to be jocular.
“Well,” he said, “bully for you to make the deck: thought the sea-sickness had turned you clear inside-out; haven’t heard the dad-blamed ship’s bell for days on account of your retching and puking.” I let that pass; it might have been an American sort of joke. Moreover, it became necessary for him at just that moment to rave and bellow at a number of seamen who were heaving at a fall — which is a kind of a rope — so I had ample time to prepare a rejoinder. He turned towards me again, affecting surprise to see me still there.
“Where are we?” I asked civilly, “Mr Lubbock?” He glared at first, then studied me intently. His small brain, I think, was puzzling out what to say to me. In the end, what he decided to say was “We are scudding south along the coast of Portugal, Mister Van Cleef. Jest as soon as the wind backs a little more we’ll likely lay a course for the Grand Canary. That’s an island, Mr Van Cleef; off the coast of Africky — belongs to the Portu-geeses.” He broke off to roar dirty words at a small gang of seamen who were trying to snub a little more of a brace: they did not seem to mind, nor indeed to pay much attention, for they were intent upon their work and had ears only for their boatswain, a cheery fellow who knew just how much they could do and would press them no further.
“Thankyou, Sir,” I said, for I was curious as to what he would think of this gratuitous form of address. He glared at me suspiciously: I gazed back amicably.
“You’re welcome,” he said, turning on his heel.
The weather ameliorated: before I was prepared for it we were entering the skirts of the Tropics; each hour of southward sailing seemed to call for the shedding of another article of clothing. Had it not been for the irksome presence of Lubbock, my worries about the Captain’s sanity, and the fretful lust which Blanche’s occasional appearances evoked in me, I swear I would have been as happy a man as my kind, careless, poxy Peter Stevenage. Only thrice a day did my horizons clear, for the Doctor’s skill and invention did not abate: each succeeding meal was a new, often bizarre, delight and, in the interims, one could always be sure that there was a “tabnab” to be had in the galley for any poor, perished, half-drowned seaman or any supernumerary officer who had had the foresight to give the Doctor a half-sovereign. These “tabnabs” were little gullet-tickling confections which the Doctor threw together when he was doing nothing else, for it was not in his nature to refrain from cooking, it was his very life, nor could he bear to waste any little oddments of food. Furthermore, he was full of concern and compassion for us all, ever concerned to make us fat and contented. He was, in a way, somewhat like my mother. My favourite “tabnab” was, without question, a little fried potato-cake with a morsel of kari’d mutton inside or perhaps a tasty scrap of cod’s sound. Sometimes, too, he would fill one’s pocket with small, folded-over pieces of pastry, filled with all manner of things, so that, munching at random, one might make a surprising, Lilliputian luncheon of marmalade, then chicken, then apple and finally fish: each course but a mouthful, each mouthful a delightful shock to the palate. Although I have never allowed myself to become preoccupied with food and drink, I must confess that the Doctor’s ministrations helped me to while away the time and forget the perils of the deep.
Meanwhile, the weather became more and more intent to please and light airs wafted us southward towards the fabled Grand Canary. Soon the sailor-folk had cast off their coarse weather-proof attire and had donned duck trowsers and straw hats, whilst we officers had our servants press our linen unmentionables and soon we revelled in the coolness of sea-island cotton shirts. Life became delicious except for those wretches who lusted after women.
CHAPTER NINE
Again it was Sunday — how far apart the Sundays seem to those of us in peril on the sea — and the Captain conducted Divine Service as though he were chewing something unpleasant. His own, private religious notions comprised some sort of hysterical mysticism but I never quite understood what they were, although he made it clear that there was no place in them for the Established Church of England, which he called “a shabby, money-grubbing conspiracy against the layman”. He had some personal agreement with God which was not clear to me. Blanche was constrained by him to attend Service, always in a light and seductive dress, “so as to give,” the Captain said, “a bad example and to keep the ship’s people’s minds off the damned, blasphemous mummery.”
After the service he read, in a high, clear voice, the Ship’s Articles and then — strangely — the Articles of War, as though he were still in command of a Queen’s Ship. This was one of his little eccentricities, I thought, but I learned later that every before-the-mast sailor had gladly signed a chit stating that he would be bound by man-o’war’s rules — which included flogging for breaches of discipline — and that this was not uncommon in East Indiamen and crack China clippers. At that time, however, my blood ran cold as he read out these Articles, for they listed countless offences and the condign punishments attached to them: each paragraph seemed to end with the words “… death or such lesser punishment …”but the men appeared to be asleep on their feet in the drugging sunshine, their half-closed eyes furtively fixed on the charming effect of the sunbeams piercing through Blanche’s clothes. She was not in the habit of standing demurely, her feet together.
When the ritual was finished and Blanche had disappeared into her cabin, the men ran back to the forecastle laughing and chattering like children released from school. One man from each mess was soon at the galley door to fill a bucket with the boiling water which the Doctor had readied; piggins were streamed overside on lines to raise sea-water and soon the ratlines were gay with the men’s laundry-work, for sailors are cleanly folk when given the opportunity: a dirty seaman soon becomes infested with vermin and will be much persecuted by his mates. At sea, moreover, there is no telling when the next chance to wash — still less to dry — one’s clothes will arrive, and a seasoned sailor loses no opportunity to fill his chest with clean, dry slops. Only those who have lived and worked and slept in sea-soaked clothes for ten days at a time can know what exquisite pleasure there is to be had from a clean, dry shirt and drawers. Later in the voyage, when the weather had been unremittingly foul and there was not a dry clout in the forecastle, the ever-kindly Doctor would often contrive to find room in his crowded galley to dry at least a strip of old cotton-goods for those who were courteous or generous towards him: these strips they would wrap about their private parts before going on watch so that at least those sensitive organs escaped, for a little while, the almost unendurable chill and chafing.