Sea of Poppies

So what do they want with us? said Neel.

They're must with sharab, said the guard. Out for maza.

Fun? said Neel. What fun can we provide?

What do I know? Keep your hands steady, b'henchod.

It was a time of night when the fana was crowded with lascars, sleeping in their jhulis, and to walk through it was like trying to negotiate a thicket of low-hanging beehives. Because of their long confinement Neel and Ah Fatt were already unsteady on their feet and their clumsiness was now compounded by the motion of the ship and by their chains. Every roll sent them carroming into the hammocks, butting butts and ramming heads, provoking kicks, shoves and outbursts of angry galis.

… B'henchod slipgibbet qaidis…

… Your balls aren't meant for walking…

… Try using your feet…

Clanking and clattering, the two convicts were led out of the fana and taken up to the fo'c'sle deck, where they found Mr Crowle enthroned on the capstan. The subedar was waiting attendance on him, standing between the bows.

'Where's ye'been, quoddies? It's low hours for the likes of you.'

Neel saw now that both the first mate and the subedar had tin mugs in their hands, and it was clear from the slurred sound of Mr Crowle's voice that this was not his first drink of the night: even when sober, these two men were cause enough for trouble so it was hard to imagine what they might, or might not, do now. Yet, despite a tightening in his guts, Neel did not fail to take notice of the singular spectacle of the moonlit sea.

The schooner was on the starboard tack, and the deck was aslant, dipping and rising as the sails strained in the wind. From time to time, as the tilt lessened, waves would break on the port beam and wash across the deck, dripping out of the starboard scuppers when the schooner leant sidewise again before the wind. The phosphorescent glow of these whirling runnels of water seemed to add footlights to the masts, illuminating the soaring wings of canvas overhead.

'Where're ye'lookin, Jack-gagger?'

The sting of a rope-end, biting into his calves, brought Neel suddenly back to the moment. 'I'm sorry, Mr Crowle.'

'Sir to you, pillicock.'

'Yes, sir.' Neel pronounced the words slowly, cautioning himself to keep a hold on his tongue.

Draining his mug, the mate held it out to the subedar, who filled it from a bottle. The mate took another sip, watching the convicts over the rim of the mug. 'Jack-gagger – ye're a ready one with the red-rag. Let's hear it: do y'know why we called yer up on deck?'

'No, sir,' said Neel.

'Here's the gaff then,' said Mr Crowle. 'Me and my good friend Subby-dar Muffin-mug, we was coguing our noses with a nipperkin of the boosey and he says to me: Jackin-ape and Jack-gagger are as topping a pair of pals as I'se ever seen. So I says to him, I says, never saw a brace of jail-birds who wouldn't turn on each other. And he says to me: not these two. So I says: Muffin-mug, what'll you bet me that I can talk one o'em into pumping ship on t'other? And blow me if he doesn't show me a quartereen! So there's the nub of it, Jack: ye're here to settle our bet.'

'What's the wager, sir?' said Neel.

'That one o'yer is a-going to empty the Jordan on t'other.'

'The Jordan, sir?'

'Jordan's greek for piss-dale, Jack,' said the mate impatiently. 'I'm betting one o'yer is going to squeeze his taters on t'other's phizz. So there y'have it. No blows or beating, mind: nothing but suasion. Yer a-going to do it o'yer own will or not at all.'

'I see, sir.'

'So what do y'make of me chances, Jack-gagger?'

Neel tried to think of himself urinating on Ah Fatt, for the entertainment of these two men, and his stomach turned. But he knew he would have to pick his words carefully if he was not to provoke the mate. He produced an inoffensive mumble: 'I'd say the odds are not good, sir.'

'Cocky, in'e?' The mate turned to flash a smile at the subedar. 'Won't do it, Jack?'

'Don't want to, sir.'

'Sure o'y'self, are ye, quoddie?'

'Yes, sir,' said Neel.

'What if you go first?' said the mate. 'Spray his clock with yer pecnoster and ye're done and dry. How's tha'for a bargain? Give yer pal a wetting and that's that. What'd y'say, Jack-gagger? Roll the dibbs?'

Short of having a knife held to his throat, Neel knew that he would not be able to do it. 'Not me, sir, no.'

'Won't do it?'

'Not of my will, sir, no.'

'And yer pal here?' said the mate. 'What o'him?'

Suddenly the deck tilted, and Ah Fatt, always the steadier of the two, grabbed hold of Neel's elbow to keep him from falling. On other days, this might well have earned them swipes of Bhyro Singh's lathi, but today, as if in deference to some grander design, the subedar let it pass.

'Sure yer pal won't neither?' said the mate.

Neel glanced at Ah Fatt, who was looking stoically at his feet: strange to think, that having known each other for only a few weeks, the two of them – pitiful pair of convicts and transportees that they were – already possessed something that could excite the envy of men whose power over them was absolute. Could it be that there was something genuinely rare in such a bond as theirs, something that could provoke others to exert their ingenuity in order to test its limits? If that were so, then he, Neel, was no less curious on that score than they.

'If y'won't play along, Jack-gagger, I'll have to take my chances with yer pal.'

'Yes, sir. Go ahead.'

Mr Crowle laughed, and just then a foaming mop of spindrift washed over the fo'c'sle-deck, so that for an instant his teeth sparkled in the phosphorescent glow. 'Let's hear it, Jack-gagger, do y'know why yer pal was quodded?'

'Robbery, sir, as far as I know.'

'That's all he's told yer?'

'Yes, sir.'

'Di'n't tell you he was a gull-choker, did'e now?'

'Don't follow, sir.'

'Robbed a nest of devil-scolders, he did.' The first mate shot a glance at Ah Fatt. 'In'it true, Jackin-apes? Cabbaged the Mission House that took you in and fed you?'

Now, as Neel turned to look at him, Ah Fatt mumbled: 'Sir. Is true I join Mission House in Canton. But was not for rice. Is because I want to travel West.'

'West?'

'To India, sir,' said Ah Fatt, shifting his feet. 'I want to travel and I hear Mission House send Chinese churchmen to college, in Bengal. So I join and they send to Mission College in Serampore. But I did not like. Could see nothing, could not leave. Only study and pray. Like prison.'

The mate guffawed: 'Is't true then? Y'stole the print off their machines? Beat a round dozen of them Amen-curlers half to death? While they were printing Bibles at that? And all for a penn'orth of elevation?'

Ah Fatt hung his head and made no answer, so Mr Crowle prompted him again: 'Go on then – let's hear it. Is it true or not that ye'did it 'cause of yer yinyan for the black mud?'

'For opium, sir,' said Ah Fatt hoarsely, 'man can do anything.'

'Anything?' The mate reached inside his shirt and produced a paper-wrapped ball of black gum, no larger than a thumbnail. 'So what'd ye' do for this then, Jackin-ape?'

Ah Fatt was standing so close that Neel could feel his friend's body going suddenly rigid. He turned to look and saw that his jaw muscles had seized up and his eyes had turned feverishly bright.

'Let's hear it then, Jackin-ape,' said the mate, twirling the ball between his fingertips. 'What would y'give for this?'

Ah Fatt's chains began to rattle softly, as if in response to the trembling of his body. 'What you want, sir? I have nothing.'

'Oh ye've got something right enough,' said the mate cheerfully. 'Ye've got a bellyful of the pale ale. Just a matter of where y'want to pu'it.'

Neel nudged Ah Fatt with his elbow: 'Don't listen – it's just a trick…'

'Stow yer jawin tackle, Jack-gagger.'

With a swipe of his boots, the mate kicked Neel's feet out from under, so that he fell heavily on the tilted deck, rolling headfirst against the bulwark. With his hands and feet bound, he could not do much more than flop around like an upturned beetle. With a great effort he managed to turn away from the bulwark, towards Ah Fatt, and was just in time to see his friend fumbling with the strings of his pyjamas.