Jack, well aware of the smell of rotten apples, agreed, but he could not resist pausing to ask the tallest man present, as he passed him, “What about you?”
This time there was neither politeness nor excuse. The tall man glared at him, growled, “You teenk I om cra-zy?” And he turned his back, deliberately, with a toss of his head, and an ugly mutter.
Back in the truck, bumpetty-bump-bump along the shore road, Jack asked the trucker, “Now, what was all that about?”
‘“Deed, sah, I doesn’t know. I suspec’ ahl de men tired frahm lahng day work. Tomorrow you weel doubtless find some crew.”
Limekiller turned to the silent young man beside him in the cab of the truck. Mile 20 was still gamely earning his way. “Well, how about you, then?”
The lad’s voice was low, but it was in no way indistinct.
“No, sah!”
Skippy the Cat, the first mate of the Saccharissa, announced over the water between boat and dock that several Barbary corsairs had tried to take the sloop for a prize, but had been repelled with immense loss of life.
Limekiller, also tired from the long day’s work, slept later than usual. As always, before leaving from the day, he set out food and water for Skippy, a semi-domestic white short-hair, who had lost most of his tail in an encounter with forces unknown, before first meeting Jack. Who, on departing, cautioned him as always, “Keep the ship, now.” And the first mate answered, as always, that there was powder and shot a-plenty in the lockers.
This time there was no Royal Jeep waiting at the shore end of the pier, so Limekiller, re-assuming the most of his clothing which he had shucked for the splashing walk ashore, simply picked up his feet and walked. It was barely two miles to the center of Port Caroline Town, a point which he, somewhat arbitrarily, designated as the corner on which The Fisherman Wharf was located. The coconut walks (“walks,” here, meaning groves) ended rather abruptly where the shore road became a path across an immense field in which a long-ago cleric had pastured his horses: it was still called The Padre’s Paddock, but was now used for football, baseball, and cricket. Usually swarms of boys were engaged at play, but this morning: not one. The point where the shore road emerged again as a singularity was marked by a small obelisk topped by an even smaller bust of Queen Victoria.
“Mornin, Ma’am,” Jack said, tossing off a sketchy salute. “I am pleased every' time I see you, that no one has drawn a moustache on you.” And, indeed, no one had: but along the left flank of the obelisk someone had scrawled a pair of intwined hearts and the legend Dendry Love Betty. “We are very slightly amused,” said Oueen Victoria.
Would she have been amused to have seen the crowd in front of Government Buildings near the center of town? Probably only in the archiac meaning of the word, as “amazed.” Certainly, Jack was amazed. There may have been only a hundred, or a few more, men in the crowd, but for Port Caroline, and on a weekday which was not a holiday, it was an immense throng. Sure enough, the Land Rover of Governor Sir Joshua was there, and, as Jack, standing only slightly on his toes, peered over the heads of those in the street, he caught a glimpse of Sir Joshua. He was with Mr. Simeon Edwards, the soft-spoken Black man who was Superintendent of the Central Police District: both were talking to what was perhaps a delegation of the men outside.
“What’s up, friend,” Jack asked a man on the outskirts of the crowd.
“Mon, de Ahrawock di tekh ahp we feesh-eeng groend! Ahn we no gwevn stond fah eeet!”
This statement was confirmed and extended by others. Black Arawak fishing-vessels, moving up from the southern waters of the colony, had occupied the traditional in-shore fishing-grounds of the Port Caroline Bayfolk: and it was to protest this violation of ancient custom that the Caroline fishermen were gathered here before the habitation of authority, to wit, Government Buildings. Another peep inside showed the broad face and shoulders of the District Commissioner. D.C. Esequiel Bosco was a man of the utmost integrity'. He was also a member of the Black Arawak people.
Limekiller thought it discreet at this point to ask no more questions, but several of the Baymen around him thought it in no way- indiscreet to supply him with at least some answers to questions unasked. And these, collectively, were approximately thus:
“Suppose dev [the Black Arawak] stay doewn Sote. Suppose we Bayfolk stay ahp Nart. Dees only lee’ beet country, but beeg enough fah bote ahv we. Beeg enough fah bote ahv we, eef we each stays in we w’own place. Even de Bay hahv feesh enough fah feed bote ahv we. But w’onlv juss enough. Noew, what de arrangement? De arrangement, sah, de w’old custom fah hondred year aht leas’, we Bayfolk, us feesh Nart ahv Pelican P’int, sah, ahn de Ahrawock, dey feesh Sote ahv Pelican P’int. Ahn de bess place fah cotch feesh fah we, eet ees hahfwav between Pelican P’int narteast t’ards de Scotchmon Caves. Een fact, eet ees so good een yield feesh, we cahl eet De Garden, sah. We torms eet De Garden Groend.
“— Now, sah. Suppose we sees wahn Ahrahwock hahv he boat dere. We not say nut-teeng. Suppose we sees two Ahrahwock: hahv dey boat dere. May be we grumble lee’ beet. But sah. But sah. Consider. Consider. De whole Ahrahwock fleet, sah, ahs you might say, ees feesh-eeng dere. Feesh-eeng een oe-ah groend. Well sah. Dey dere forst, we fine dem dere dees marneeng when we arrive. Dey stay' dere. What we do, we no cotch nah-teeng becahs dey ahlready cotch eet ahl? Hoew we feed we pickney, sah? Hoew we fine meelk? Bread? Rice ahn bean? Sah, ahl-ways ah struggle, sah: but de Laard provide feesh fah we —”
And, indeed, the waters of the Inner Bay did not exactly teem. “Give us this day our daily fish” would have been a reasonable form of prayer: each day there was just so much fish at any given spot. And when that just so much was gone, there wasn’t anymore. Not that day.
“Ahn hoew we pay we rent, sah?”
As Limekiller had no answer, he ought to have done no more than shake his head, sympathetically. But he did not think of this. And, entirely without thinking, entirely automaticallv, he said, “Well. '
It just happened that one of those twenty-minutes-after-the-hour, angel-is-flying-overhead, sort of pauses, occurred just then. And so his “Well. ”, delivered in an ordinary tone of voice, sounded forth in a manner more declarative. It reached the ears, even, of those inside the front office, who looked up and out. At which, those outside, seized by what Mackay has somewhat prolixly called Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds, decided, for one, that though Limekiller was outside, he ought to be inside — and, two, that although he was not a Bayman (not, indeed, a professional fisherman, not even a National of the Colony), he was certainly a boatman: and perhaps also made aware that he was, certainly, White, and, perhaps, since White men were few in Port Caroline and there was no Poor White class there at all -
“Go een, Mr. Limekiller, go een, do, sah, do!”
“Tell, dem, Jock, go een ahn tell dem, mon!”
Exactly what he was to tell them was not specified, but they began to push him forward, they pushed him all the way to the very verge of the office, where he did catch hold of the wall-corner — to the Governor, whose face at the moment was not indicative of any great degree of welcome, he said, protestingly, “Sorry, Sir, I have really no idea what this —”
To which Sir Joshua, in voice between grunting and growling, replied, “Well, for God’s sake, boy, don’t keep on tottering there, like a virgin at a whorehouse door: Get in!“