Randolph Fflytte and Will Currie stood with their heads together, debating whether or not to film the activity.
Geoffrey Hale, meanwhile, settled atop the bulwarks with his pole. Collar open, face going pink with the day’s sun, mind far away, the man looked at ease for the first time since I’d met him. I simply could not envision him as a seller of illicit firearms and cocaine. Nor could I see him carrying out the cold-blooded murder of a young female assistant. Still, he had seen long years of active and bloody duty on the Front. And I have been wrong before.
The water around our bow boiled with activity, as if a school of small fish were being driven to the surface by deep and unseen hungers below.
Jack was the first to emerge, clambering up the rope ladder, blind to the disappointment he brought to an apprentice pirate and a constable. Edith was pleased to see him, however, and the two were soon immersed in the intricacies of knot-tying, as the young pirate showed the Major-General’s daughter how to construct a perfect monkey’s paw.
Dusk drew near, giving Adam an excuse to row after Annie and Bert, who had contrived to fall behind the slowly moving Harlequin. Annie’s shrieks of laughter at being hauled aboard the little boat rang across the intervening water, and although she was shivering when she came on deck, her eyes shone with the pleasure of having admirers.
Appetites were hearty for Maurice’s dinner. Afterwards, the gramophone was brought out again, and lamps were lit, and we danced beneath the stars.
* * *
It is, as one can see, impossible to keep much hidden in a universe 150 feet long and 23 feet wide. One need only keep one’s ears and eyes open, to overt behaviour and to nuance, for much to be revealed.
The problem being, it works both ways, making it necessary to construct a believable reason for such questions as, Why did Miss Russell climb a mast for a lengthy conversation with a gent she barely knew – and whom she had nearly drowned at first meeting?
Yet another story-within-a-story, with the only possible script being: A haughty young woman encounters, rejects, and ultimately is won over by a most unlikely man. The Taming of the Shrew, with pirates. And considering that with my trousers, hair-cut, and spectacles I might at first glance be taken for a man, and that Holmes was nearly thrice my age and already established on board as a lecher, the only way to construct the play was as a comedy.
Which placed us in the awkward position of being two married people engaged in a prolonged and very public flirtation, while three score of onlookers sniggered behind their hands at the unlikely pairing. At least our audience cooperated – egged us on, as they thought – by granting us a few square feet of privacy during our tête-à-têtes.
I had to be grateful this voyage was only 350 miles; had we been crossing the Atlantic, we’d have either had to stand before La Rocha while he performed an on-board marriage, or beside him while he performed at-sea burial services for a series of shroud-wrapped fellow passengers. Probably both.
Setting aside the burden of this exquisitely uncomfortable wooing performance, and its unfortunate effect on Holmes’ blood-pressure, the round-the-clock shipboard intimacy provided wide opportunity for a reverse espionage: While Holmes and I enacted a stage comedy at our end, we could also watch a series of other performances unfold among those who considered themselves our audience.
For example, I should never have come to realise Geoffrey Hale’s simmering resentments and irritations with Fflytte were it not for this continuous close surveillance. As it was, the entire ship heard him shout, “Oh for God’s sake, can you talk of nothing but this damnable film!” one night from the tiny cabin the partners shared. And I feel certain that the reaction of my fellow passengers was the same as mine: Of course he cannot; why would you even ask?
The next day, Hale’s usual long-suffering amiability was back in place, but once the slip had been given voice, it was difficult for him to disguise further small ventings of frustration as the good-humoured grumbles they had seemed before.
Further reasons to appreciate the brevity of our voyage cropped up almost hourly. I noticed that wherever Annie was, Adam-the-Pirate and Bert-the-Constable would often drift over to stand, listening casually. Although I’d caught the occasional flash of wit sullying Annie’s big blue eyes, and although she seemed to treat Bert with a sister’s dismissal, Adam’s attentions made her go all fluttery and girlish. Even though she had to be five years older than he.
Taking this to an extreme, Mrs Hatley seemed to be rehearsing her part of Ruth-the-Nursemaid even during her hours of rest, making much of Daniel Marks, our Frederic, patting his hair, adjusting his coat, laughing at his jokes.
Frederic seemed oblivious, because his eyes were usually on the beautiful young pirate Benjamin.
Benjamin’s beautiful eyes, however, followed Celeste.
And Celeste often looked back at him.
The older girls alternated their flirtations between the pirates and the constables, stirring the antagonism between the picture’s enemies. Two of the pirates were old enough to interest the mothers, who took to powder and paint (often lopsided, thanks to poor lighting and the ship’s motions).
One of those was Mrs Nunnally, whose preoccupation with the middle-aged pirate David freed young Edith to cultivate a friendship with Jack. Edith was happy to find someone with whom “she” could hunker on the decks with dice or a pen-knife.
Among the pirates I slowly became aware of some facts. I knew that La Rocha, Samuel – Selim – and Gröhe all spoke Arabic, although with a different accent from what I had learnt in Palestine. Over the next days, despite Samuel’s constant presence that had the sailors guarding their tongues and their actions, several of the men let slip a word here, a phrase there, betraying their knowledge of the language. Adam and Jack were the first two I overheard, followed by Benjamin, then Earnest.
And not only linguistic clues emerged: On our third morning, Adam spotted Annie in conversation with one of the constables (not, as symmetry might suggest, “Alan,” but her other attendant, Bert) and he took objection. Shouting soon escalated to jostling, but to my surprise, Annie did not perform the requisite girlish mock-protest that serves to feed tensions to the point of open violence. Rather, she shoved herself in between the two young cockerels. With her there, no punches could be thrown, and in a flash others had intervened to separate the would-be combatants.
I watched closely as Adam slid his knife back into its hiding place – then Samuel had the young pirate’s collar in his fist, to drag the lad off to the side and give him hell and a couple of hard shakes. When he let go, Adam staggered against the railings. Samuel snapped out a harsh order and pointed at a bucket with a frayed rope tied to its mended bail.
He was setting Adam to scrubbing the deck, on his knees, with a brush. The young man, face red and stormy, snatched up the bucket, upturned it so that a brush fell out, then dropped the pail over the side to fill it with sea water. As he stomped past Jack, the pail sloshing furiously, Jack reached out a comforting hand; Adam threw it off with a snarl. The younger lad shot a covert look at the quarterdeck, saw with relief that Samuel’s back was to him, then walked away towards the bowsprit, looking bereft at the rejection of his friend.