Sea of Poppies

'Well then, Mr Crowle? What did you want to see me about?'

'Somethin ye'll thank me for, Reid.' The first mate reached into his vest and pulled out a yellowing sheet of paper. 'Got this off that gooby – Pander, innit? He was takin it t'the skipper. Ye're lucky I got a-hold o' it, Reid. Thing like this could do a cove a lot o'damage. Could'appen he'd never work on a ship again.'

'What is it?'

'It's the crew-list – for the Ibis, on'er run out from Baltimore.'

'And what of it?' said Zachary, frowning.

'Take a dekko, Reid.' Holding up the lamp, the mate handed him the tattered slip of paper. 'Go on – see fer y'self.'

Back when he first signed on to the Ibis, Zachary had known nothing of ships' papers or crew manifests, or how the filling-in of them might vary from vessel to vessel. He had walked on board the Ibis with his ditty-bag, shouted his name, age and birthplace to the second mate, and that was that. But he saw now that along with a few other members of the crew, there was an extra notation next to his name: he narrowed his eyes, squinting, and suddenly he froze.

'Y'see, Reid?' said Mr Crowle. 'See what I mean?'

Zachary answered by nodding mechanically, without raising his eyes, and the first mate continued. 'Lookat, Reid,' he said, hoarsely, 'it don't mean anythin to me. Don't give a damn, I don't, if ye're a m'latter or not.'

Zachary answered, as if by rote: 'I'm not a mulatto, Mr Crowle. My mother was a quadroon and my father white. That makes me a metif.'

'Don't change nothing, Reid.' Mr Crowle's hand reached up and he brushed a knuckle against Zachary's unshaven cheek. 'Metif or m'latter, it don't change the colour o'this…'

Zachary, still mesmerized by the paper, made no movement, and the hand rose higher still, to flick back a curly forelock with a fingertip. '… And it don't change this neither. Y'are what y'are, Reid, and it don't make no difference to me. If y'ask me, it makes us two of a kind.'

Zachary looked up now, and his eyes narrowed in puzzlement. 'Don't get the gist, Mr Crowle?'

The first mate's voice sank to a low growl. 'Look'ere, Reid, we di'n't get off to a good start, there's no denyin'it. Y'made a fool o'me with yer tofficky trolly-wags and yer buncomising tongue: thought y'was way above my touch. But this'ere paper, it changes everything – I'd never'a thought I could've been so far off course.'

'What do you mean, Mr Crowle?'

'Don't y'see, Mannikin?' The first mate put his hand on Zachary's shoulder. 'We could be a team, the two o'us.' He tapped the paper and took it out of Zachary's hand. 'This thing – nobbut needs be in the know of it. Not the Captain nor anyone else. It'll stay here.' Folding the manifest, he slipped it under his vest. 'Think about it, Reid, me as skipper, and y'self as mate. Tie for tye; no lies for y'self and none for me neither: we'd have the jin o'each other, both o'us. What more could two coves like us hope for? No need for gulling, no need for lies: ton for ton and man for man. I'd be easy on yer too, Mannikin; I'm one who knows what o'clock it is and which way the bull runs. When we're in port ye'd be on the loose, free for whatever takes yer fancy: don't make no difference to me, not ashore.'

'And at sea?'

'All ye'd have to do is cross the cuddy from time to time. That in't so long a walk, is it? And if it in't t'yer taste, y'can shut yer eyes and think y'self in Jericho for all I care. Comes a day, Mannikin, when every Tar has t'learn t'work ship in headwinds and bad weather. Y'think life owes y'any different from others just cause ye're a m'latter?'

Despite the brutal roughness of the first mate's tone, Zachary could sense that he was on the verge of an inner disintegration, and he was aware of an unexpected stirring of sympathy. His eyes sought out the piece of paper that he was holding between his fingers, and he was amazed to think that something so slight, so innocuous, could be invested with so much authority: that it should be able to melt away the fear, the apparent invulnerability that he, Zachary, had possessed in his guise as a 'gentleman'; that it should so change his aspect as to make him appeal to a man who could desire, evidently, only that which he held in his power; that the essence of this transformation should inhere in a single word – all of this spoke more to the delirium of the world than to the perversity of those who had to make their way in it.

He could sense the first mate's mounting impatience for an answer, and when he spoke it was not unkindly, but with a quiet firmness. 'Look, Mr Crowle,' he said. 'I'm sorry, but this deal o'yours won't work for me. It may look to you that this piece of paper has turned me inside out, but in truth it's changed nothing. I was born with my freedom and I ain't looking to give any o'it away.'

Zachary took a step towards the door but the first mate moved in front of him, blocking his way. 'Boat yer oars, Mannikin,' he said, on a note of warning. 'Won't do yer no good to walk yer chalks now.'

'Listen, Mr Crowle,' said Zachary, quietly. 'Neither of us needs to remember this conversation. Once I step out this door, it's over and done with – didn't happen.'

'Too late to toss up the bunt now, Mannikin,' said the first mate. 'What's said is said and can't be forgotten.'

Zachary looked him up and down and squared his shoulders. 'What do you plan to do then, Mr Crowle? Keep me in here till I knock the door down?'

'Aren't y'forgetting something, Mannikin?' The first mate tapped his finger on the paper that was tucked into his vest. 'Wouldn't take me more'n a couple o'minutes to run this over to the skipper.'

There was a desperation, almost a pathos, in this threat of blackmail, and it made Zachary smile. 'Go ahead, Mr Crowle,' he said. 'Whatever that paper is, it's not a letter of indenture. Take it to the Captain – believe me, I'd be glad of it. And I'll wager that when he hears about the bargain you were of a mind to make, it's not because of me that he's going to be all cut up inside.'

'Stow yer magging, Reid!' The first mate's hand came flying out of the shadows to strike Zachary across the face. Then a blade flashed in the lamplight and its point came to rest on Zachary's upper lip. 'I'se done my time, Mannikin, and ye'll do it too. Ye're just a broth of a boy: I'll bring y'to yer bearings soon enough.'

'With your knife, Mr Crowle?' Now the blade began to descend, travelling downwards in a straight line, from Zachary's nose, past his chin to the base of his throat.

'I tell yer, Mannikin, ye're not nigger enough to leave Jack Crowle hangin a-cockbill; not when he's all catted and fished. I'll corpse yer before I let yer gi'me the slip.'

'Better do it then, Mr Crowle. Better do it now.'

'Oh, I'd kill yer without a thought, Mannikin,' said Mr Crowle, through his teeth. 'Don't y'doubt it. I'se done it before and I'll do it again. Wouldn't make a penn'orth o'difference to me.'

Now Zachary could feel the cold metal point pushing against his throat. 'Go on, Mr Crowle,' he said, steeling himself. 'Do it. I'm ready.'

With the tip of the knife biting into his skin, Zachary kept his eyes fixed upon the first mate's, even as he was preparing himself for the thrust. But it was Mr Crowle's gaze that wavered first, and then the knife faltered and fell away.

'God damn yer eyes, Reid!'

Throwing his head back, the first mate gave voice to a howl that welled up from the bottom of his belly. 'The devil take yer, Reid; God damn yer eyes…'

Just then, even as the first mate was standing in front of Zachary, staring in disbelief at the knife he had been unable to use, the door of the cabin creaked open. Framed in the doorway stood the slight, shadowy figure of the half-Chinese convict: he had a sharp-tipped handspike in his grip, Zachary saw, and he was holding it not as a sailor would, but like a swordsman, with the point extended.