Richard Marriott stood fast; the change was not for him; captains did not change with the watch, they endured forever, sustaining themselves, and their whole command, until the ship was out of danger. He had been wakeful for many days now, nursing the Lucinda D through her ordeal, trying to fix their position from vague headlands glimpsed through the scud, from soundings which brought up mud, or coral sand, or nothing, from guessing at the sun through the murky overcast. He had lent a hand at the wheel, he had helped to subdue torn canvas thrashing itself to ribbons on the yards, he had cheered his men and cursed the slow-witted and the afraid. That was what it was, to be a captain; he had discharged it heartily for five years, and he would discharge it for five years more, or ten, or twenty, whatever the burden, come hell or high water.
‘Watch on deck!’ called a hard voice in the darkness, to be answered, more quietly, by: ‘Watch below!’ as the men now relieved trooped off for’ard, towards the shelter and warmth of the fo’c’sle. The man who called ‘Watch on deck’ was Nick Garrett, his second-in-command, his rival; a rough-talking giant of a man who must be kept under close survey, even at the same time as he must be trusted. They had been shipmates for many years, in the good days and the bad; they had fought for the leadership, and Garrett had finally been bested, in circumstances which had not cured his bad blood. He was forever challenging Richard Marriott’s place, forever plotting and talking behind his back. But he was a brave and skilful man for all that, and Richard was content to use him and to watch him. The faithful John Keston watched him also, coolly, with a grim lack of esteem which Nick Garrett could never forgive.
The ship settled down again, after the coming and going; Peter Ramsay at the wheel spun the spokes, edging their bows offwind to catch a fleeting breeze; Richard Marriott walked to the rail, and stared down at the black water, and walked back again. Out of the darkness, Nick Garrett asked: ‘Anything in sight yet?’
‘No,’ answered Richard.
‘Did you manage a star-sight?’
‘No.’
Garrett cleared his throat, and spat noisily. ‘We might be in the China Sea, for all we know.’
Richard said nothing; this was, for Nick Garrett, common talk – the hint of incompetence, the implication that Richard Marriott did not know his task and would, if it were left to him, run all their heads into a noose. There was a murmur of voices from amidships, and the sound of a concertina picking its plaintive way through the tune of ‘Johnny’s Gone Down to Hilo’. That was Tom Dowling, forever dreaming of the old days with the thrusting Baltimore clippers … The torn mainsail slapped against a loose shroud overhead. At his side, Peter Ramsay the sea-lawyer said in his whining voice: ‘Maybe the boy has brought us bad luck after all.’
Richard disregarded this; Ramsay also was a malcontent, seizing on anything that might be good for a complaint or a snarling argument below decks. But after a moment, Nick Garrett took up the lead.
‘Aye, you may be right. A baby and a woman on board – that’s asking for misfortune.’
‘The woman alone is enough to put God’s curse on any ship,’ proclaimed Peter Ramsay, with ready spite. ‘An old Malay bawd with a tongue like a–’
‘Watch your helm!’ called out Richard Marriott sharply. ‘You’re a point or more off your course.’
‘She won’t answer,’ said Ramsay. His tone was cheeky and argumentative. ‘There’s not enough wind to fill the lashings of a hammock.’
‘Watch your helm,’ said Richard again. He had had enough of whining and disputing for that night. ‘And keep your tongue off the boy. You were all happy enough when he came aboard. You said he would bring us good luck, not bad.’
‘I never said he would bring us good luck,’ put in Nick Garrett, in a harsh voice. ‘I never said aught, except to damn the old woman for a witch. I shipped on board a brigantine, not a travelling circus.’
‘You can ship off again, if you’ve a mind to,’ said Richard Marriott contemptuously. ‘You can swim off, for all I care.’ He raised his voice, ignoring his company, and called out for’ard: ‘Keston!’
‘Aye, sir,’ came an answering hail.
‘Bring my jacket.’
The dew had begun to fall, or perhaps it was the morning mist, low-lying in these tropic seas; there was a foggy chillness in the air, which would last until the sun burned it away in an hour or so. Richard Marriott waited in the darkness, conscious of forebodings. Garrett and Peter Ramsay, known troublemakers, would always talk thus, always grumble and sneer; it was their nature, like a cat that spits at a dog – even a friendly dog. But soon, if nothing hopeful happened, if they did not make a landfall or fix their position, others would be talking too. The Lucinda D had not been so successful of late that they would all welcome a stretch of careless sea time, a rich man’s pleasure cruise … Against the gleam of the fo’c’sle lantern, a figure moved towards him. It was John Keaton.
‘Here, sir,’ he said.
Richard Marriott took the proffered pea jacket, and slipped it over his shoulders. The warmth comforted him, the rough blue serge had a companionable familiarity. Thus armoured, he could face the world with strength and confidence … At his side, Peter Ramsay spun the wheel again, and the cables leading to the tiller-head rattled and clanked under their feet. Out of the darkness, Nick Garrett spoke: ‘We need to take soundings, going blindly like this. Is there a hand ready in the chains?’
It was a question for John Keston, and he answered: ‘Aye. James Singleton is there.’
Nick Garrett laughed, not pleasantly. ‘Marvellous to hear! I thought the whole watch might be busy with fetching and carrying of jackets!’
Richard Marriott rounded on him, stung into an angry retort. ‘I’ll give what orders I choose!’ he said loudly. ‘If I want a jacket, I’ll have a jacket brought. If I want to gnaw on a heel of beef, I’ll have that, too. The men will do my bidding, as long as I command.’
‘I have a watch to run,’ said Garrett sulkily.
‘I have a ship to run. My ship. And by God–’
He was interrupted suddenly, by a faraway hail from the masthead lookout, ninety feet above their heads. ‘Below there! On deck!’
Richard Marriott bent back his head and cupped his hands. ‘Masthead!’ he shouted in return.
‘A light to port!’
Richard crossed the deck in a stride and jumped up on to the port rail, steadying himself with an arm clasped round the shrouds. He searched the horizon, but he could see nothing save blackness, and pale setting stars.
‘Where away?’ he called out
‘Port beam … Fixed light … Burning yellow.’
Richard turned inboard, and clambered halfway up the rigging, till he was well above the deck level. Then he searched again, and this time he found what he sought, a faint yellow gleam in the darkness, a pinpoint of light. It was the first such sighting, for many days and nights, and his heart brightened as he saw it. It might be any one of a thousand lights, it might mean danger or even treachery; but at least it was human contact again, it could lead them back, by slow stages if need be, to the world they had lost.
He made a swift calculation, judging courses, judging angles of approach, and the sailing skills of his ship and his men. The wind, though finger-soft, was gaining, and blowing them fair; if they went about on the other tack, they should fetch up with the light, or at least come near enough to make out what it was. And by that time it would be dawn, and they could see what their prospects were.
He jumped down again, ready for action. ‘We’ll go about,’ he called to Nick Garrett. ‘Rouse up your watch.’ And then to Peter Ramsay the helmsman: ‘Stand by to go about!’ he ordered. ‘And give her a good full, or she won’t come round, in this little breeze.’
Nick Garrett had walked forward to muster his hands; already there was a stir as they prepared to tend the sheets and tail on to the braces.
‘What light is that, then?’ asked Peter Ramsay, as he put the wheel over to free the wind for th
eir turn.
‘We go to find out,’ answered Richard Marriott curtly. ‘Down helm! Bring her round sharply.’
At that moment, even with the light beckoning them on the horizon, they were still lost. This might now be the end of it, or it might be a will-o’-the-wisp, a false promise. But it did not greatly matter – such was his new mood of hope. The Lucinda D had been lost before, many times – just as had Richard Marriott himself, in ten wild years of wandering.
ii
He was tougher, broader, stronger, more ruthless; compared with the youth of twenty who had left Marriott in such angry haste, the young man of thirty seemed a full generation older. The wandering had made the man; and the man, standing on the deck of his own ship, waiting for a Far Eastern dawn, was a man to be reckoned with, a hard man to cross.
It had been California first – California in the raucous gold rush days of 1850, when a quick fortune was the magnet for half the villains and thieves of Europe and America, and double-dealing was a currency almost the equal of gold itself. He was a year late upon the scene, a year behind the forerunners and the pioneers who had skimmed the cream; too young to avoid mistakes, too honest for pure villainy, he had not prospered, so that he left the gold fields of the Sacramento Valley little richer than when he arrived. Still attended by John Keston, he came back round the Horn, in a bleak, roaring winter voyage, and presently found himself in Liverpool.
The next few years had proved more profitable. He had some money saved; he invested all of it, and made two voyages himself, in a ship navigating the infamous ‘Round Trip’ – from Liverpool to the Slave Coast of West Africa with a mixed cargo of gin, beads, old firearms, and cheap trade goods; thence to the West Indies, loaded with twelve hundred black wretches, of whom more than nine hundred survived to be sold as slaves to the plantations; and then back to England again, their hatches crammed with sugar, tobacco, carved coral ornaments, and hogsheads of Barbados rum, as thick and as potent as treacle.
The profits were enormous (the slaves alone brought £30 a head), but the trade too risky; for more than forty years the British Navy had been fighting this stain upon the sea, and slowly they were succeeding in ridding the world of it. Blackbirding (he decided) had become too hazardous, as well as too strong for his stomach; returning to Liverpool, after a narrow escape from the law, and a brush with an American privateer off the coast of Cuba, he determined to move on. There must be easier waters, simpler fortunes to be had for the picking, without climbing halfway to Gallows Hill to enrich (along with himself) the smug merchants of the Merseyside.
He had £10,000 saved – a huge sum, but not enough for the future, for what he kept in mind. (He had cherished, for a long time, a vision of returning to Marriott, making his brother bankrupt, and taking over the great house again; or of buying some noble neighbouring estate and lording it over his poor relation. The childish dream had faded, but the urge to make his way in the world had never grown less.) With his money, he had bought his own ship, a brigantine newly built on the Tyne, in a forced sale for some debt of law; he had renamed her the Lucinda D, from a caprice which now meant nothing to him; and with her he had sailed for the China Seas, to see, enjoy, and ravish the other half of the world.
That had been five years earlier; and they had been five years of unending violence, harsh dealing, and piracy, in Far Eastern waters swarming with rogues. Richard Marriott had come to know, at first hand, every villainous character who infested the waters round the Malay Archipelago, Borneo, Celebes, the Moluccas, Java Head, and Sumatra. They ranged from crooked traders to British privateers; from Arab slaverunners to opium smugglers in ancient pole junks; from Chinese pirates to American mutineers on the run. He and his crew of twenty-three, recruited man by man over the years, feared nothing under heaven; they ran appalling risks daily, from the weather, from other freebooters like themselves, from disease and treachery; they had never met their match but once, nor were they likely to.
Nick Garrett had served four years with him; and the others – Tom Dowling, Peter Ramsay, James Singleton, Peal and Henty and Burnside; the cheerful Kanakas who worked the deck, the Negro cook who was a runaway from Charleston, Carolina – all were now welded into a crew ready to take on any task, if it promised to show the profit which they divided at the month’s end. The Lucinda D was geared for anything. She had smuggled opium – the best opium, from Patna in northern India, wrapped in poppy leaves, hidden in chests of tea. She had fought Chinese pirates, she had raided settlements on the coasts of Sarawak and Cochin China and Timor, stealing gold, stealing pearls, stealing women and barrels of rice wine and arms of any kind.
She had carried for trade, she had carried for revolutions, she had carried for love of profit and for hatred of the law. She had carried consignments of dried fish, and arrack wine distilled from coconuts, and Malabar teak; legal goods which, mysteriously swollen by saltwater invoices concocted while at sea, had sold for thrice their value on arrival. She had carried an elephant for a Maharajah, and smuggled spices to beat the Dutch monopoly, and a score of sloe-eyed boys for the Foochow merchants who relished such diversions. She had fought battles at sea – in the Pelews, in the Spice Islands; battles with lateen-rigged Arab dhows, battles with East Indiamen lagging behind their convoys; battles with the picaroons who were the little lice of piracy, and with redoubtable men like Black Harris of Boston, who could claim to be the very whale of evil.
In all these years, Richard Marriott had never been bested, save once by this same Black Harris; and that had been a matter of cut-throat cunning, not of valour or endurance.
He had grown tough and hard in this progress. He ruled his crew with an iron fist; he drove his ship with the same harsh insistence. They had arms aplenty, and they used them; flintlock blunderbusses, muskets, pistols, cutlasses for the close work of boarding. They had a cannon set in the bows of the ship; they had – a great prize this, stolen inthe China Wars – a repeating rifle gun which could (and often did) fire five rounds of ball before it grew red-hot. When discipline and punishment were necessary on board, it was swift and crude; borrowing from the old-time pirates, he had once keel-hauled a man caught stealing, and another time had used the old Spanish strappado – the culprit’s arms tied behind his back, with the rope leading to the yardarm, and the man then pushed off the yard, to fall twenty feet or more, and to be brought up short in mid-air, with his arms jerked out of their sockets. He had little trouble now, save when – as lately – they went for weeks without meeting a ship to plunder or a merchant torob, and the malcontents among the crew took to grumbling and shirking.
Finally there had been the boy, the year-old child whom Nick Garrett and Peter Ramsay had seen fit to whine about. The boy was his own son; he would never doubt it; and he did not regret the fact, though the manner of getting this, his firstborn, had been somewhat short of what was proper, for a possible heir to Marriott.
In Batavia, the trading settlement on the island of Java which the Dutch had turned into a bristling fortress, he had some sport, two years back, with a cheerful harlot, one Biddy Booker, a girl of the taverns who had professed to love him. When he returned, after a spell of foraging on the New Guinea coast, it was to find her dying. She had been brought to bed, and the birth was difficult, and the filthy-clawed midwife who attended her could do little save mutter spells and give her herb potions to ease her pain.
In all the deaths he had seen, in all the deaths he had encompassed, he had never forgotten that deathbed. She was in agony; the child, puny and pale, cried without ceasing; the old Malay woman who had befriended her stared at him from a corner of the noisome room with baleful, unwinking eyes. To smooth her passing, he had promised Biddy Booker many things; a decent burial in sacred ground, a sum of money for the woman, whose name was Manina, and care for the child, which he acknowledged as his own. He had been ready to forget the last promise – any man in this part of the world could get himself a dozen bastards, and sail away laughing. But when the Lucinda D was
three days out from Batavia on her next voyage, Manina had appeared from below, with the child in her arms.
He cursed the crew, who must have helped them to stow away; he threatened to put Manina and the brat ashore at the next place they touched at, no matter how desolate or outlandish it might be. But then he had changed his mind and relented – aided again by the crew, who adopted the child as the ship’s mascot, and made much of it, in the sentimental way of sailors. It would bring them luck, or so they claimed.
Manina, a grotesque figure in tunic and black trousers, as shrivelled, ugly, and sexless as a walnut, remained on board, making herself useful at cooking and cleaning and patching ragged clothes. The child, whom he called Adam, remained on board also. Presently it cried less, and took to laughing, and grew sturdy and brown. To love such a come-by-chance seemed weakness and foolishness, but Richard Marriott made bold to turn his back on any such misgivings. Adam Marriott was his son, and the Lucinda D was his ship, and anyone who wished to challenge him over either had only to say the word.
iii
They came up with the light slowly, creeping over the black water under their tattered storm canvas, advancing mile by mile towards a horizon which held nothing but this pinpoint of hope. The light seemed elusive, insubstantial; burning bright and near at one moment, fading to pale mockery at another. Presently, after they had pursued it for two hours or more, it blinked twice and disappeared, as if, too long untended, the oil were exhausted, and could only flicker away, to nothing. Or perhaps it had been lit by wreckers who, lacking custom, had given up their designs for that night … But whatever its origin, the Lucinda D now had a compass course to steer – west-nor’-west – and this course they held, towards the lighthouse or the land beacon or the people who they knew must be there.