English passengers (6 page)

‘‘What’s the trouble?’’ I called up to the cab driver.

‘‘Some going on at Horse Guards Parade.’’

Craning my neck past Renshaw, I saw there was indeed a great commotion in front of the army headquarters, with carriages littering the road in profusion, and a large crowd was gathered, many of them in uniform. A strange sort of assembly they made, at once agitated and subdued.

‘‘It hardly looks like a parade,’’ I ventured.

Renshaw shrugged. ‘‘Must be some new war.’’

It seemed a remark both foolish and lacking in taste, and I was on the point of reprimanding him when the cab lurched forwards and began to proceed once more upon its way. Fortunately the roads southwards from Westminster proved empty enough, and it was not long before we were rumbling down a lane towards Jonah Childs’s home, which was one of a row of houses marooned in fields, being an advance colony of ever-spreading London. It was only with care that one might discern signs of the great trading enterprise that was Childs and Company: the portrait of Jonah’s father above the stairs, depicted in some faraway land, amid a scene of trees industriously felled, and ships awaiting their transportation, or the splendid reproduction of HMS
Victory
just beneath, constructed, so I had learned, from no fewer than twenty-two kinds of wood.

‘‘Mr. Wilson. Oh, and Mr. Renshaw too. How splendid!’’ Mr. Childs was irrepressible as we were shown into the study. ‘‘Our other guest has already arrived.’’

So this was the mysterious ‘‘somebody.’’ He was a heavy-shaped sort of man, intense of expression, even to the point of cheerlessness. Only when we shook hands did his face come to life with a brief smile, while even then there was something defensory about his manner, as if he felt some need to fend off imagined disapproval. A lingering London harshness to his speech suggested this was a man who had, like Timothy Renshaw’s father, raised himself from modest beginnings.

‘‘May I introduce the eminent surgeon Dr. Potter,’’ Childs explained.

‘‘He is a friend of Dr. Kite, who did such wonders for my poor sister’s feet.’’ He broke into a nervous smile. ‘‘Dr. Potter has kindly offered his services for our expedition. Isn’t that splendid?’’

I will not have a word said against Mr. Childs, whose character is beyond any reproach, and yet I confess I did wish he would refrain from making important arrangements without first consulting the views of others. It was not that I objected to this Dr. Potter, or his origins—I am never one to pay any heed to such trifles as a man’s birth, which are, besides, of little account in the eyes of the Lord—but I was more than a little concerned that such a great change was being proposed so shortly before our departure. There was, if nothing else, a danger of hastiness. I glanced towards Renshaw, but he was yawning at his own shoes, wholly uninterested in the matter.

Potter regarded me coolly. ‘‘I have long had a scientific interest in Tasmania, and so I was naturally most interested when I learned of your expedition.’’

‘‘Has Major Stanford been informed?’’ I asked. Our leader was away upon some windy hillside of Dartmoor, testing the new tents.

Childs nodded. ‘‘He was most delighted to hear you would have a physician.’’ All at once a frown appeared upon his brow. ‘‘You don’t seem very pleased, Vicar.’’

It seemed hardly useful, or wise, to object. I attempted a smile. ‘‘I’m sure Dr. Potter will prove a great asset.’’

Jonah’s face broke into a delighted smile. ‘‘But that’s splendid. Why, now I can show you the other little surprise I have.’’

For a moment I wondered if I was about to be introduced to further new members of the venture: a team of camel drivers, perhaps. Fortunately this was not the case. Childs led us in a polite straggle to an adjoining room where, laid upon a packing case, were six shining new rifles and a revolving pistol.

‘‘I have a cousin who owns a small factory in Birmingham that makes a part for them,’’ he explained. He picked up one of the rifles and aimed it carefully at a nearby wall. ‘‘They are the latest military issue, and quite as good as anything except sporting guns, so he told me, being of the new expanding-bullet type.’’

The lure of guns: I confess I myself felt it, though all my teaching
warned me otherwise. As for the others, they were quite captivated. Potter examined the pistol almost as if in a trance, then took one of the rifles, abruptly threw it in the air and caught it again, like some excited boy. Even Renshaw was ensnared, carefully handling one of the weapons though it was almost as tall as himself. ‘‘Do the bullets actually expand?’’

Potter knew. ‘‘They change shape. At first they’re spherical, so they can drop easily down the barrel, but the metal’s soft, and when the charge goes off it blows them sort of flattish. That way they exactly fit the bore of the gun barrel, and spin nicely. It’s the spinning that makes the gun so accurate.’’

Renshaw did not understand what bore was, and this prompted Potter to point one of the rifles in turn directly at each of our eyes, so we could make out the gently spiralling grooves in the barrel, all of which he did with a certain zest.

I felt a need to deflate the moment. ‘‘Please do thank your cousin. It will be a great reassurance to have such fine weapons with us, I’m sure, though I trust we will have no cause to put them to use.’’

‘‘I hope you’re right,’’ answered Childs, his mood suddenly sombre. ‘‘Although I must say I’m not so sure. After the news today I was more than pleased you’d have these fellows with you.’’

I was mystified, as were Renshaw and the doctor. ‘‘What news?’’

Childs seemed taken aback. ‘‘I assumed you’d heard. There’s been a terrible rebellion by the Bengal army. Delhi has fallen and hundreds of poor women and children are feared brutally murdered.’’

There is news and news. Most of it catches our sympathies only modestly, and though it may cause in us brief joy or sorrow, its distant protagonists soon fade from thought. This, however, was different. Here, surely, was catastrophe on a monstrous scale. I recalled those angry, anxious faces outside Horse Guards Parade—well did I understand them now—and for a moment it was almost as if I could hear the terrified cries of innocents, carried magically across the miles, from those cruel and dusty plains.

‘‘The news takes a month to arrive,’’ added Childs, ‘‘so there’s no knowing what may have occurred by now.’’

Dr. Potter carefully replaced his gun upon the floor and for a moment
we all stood in thoughtful silence. It was Renshaw who broke our solemn reverie, showing—as ever—his talent for misjudgment. ‘‘That could make trouble for your plans.’’

T
HREE LONG DAYS
we had those London customs boys groping their way about the
Sincerity
, all stiff and snurly and hardly speaking a word. They weren’t my favourites, those three days. They had put us in one of those new sealed docks, and there was nothing to do but wait, listening to the terrible mad din of London spilling over that high wall like a threat. All the while my poor vessel was poked and scrutinized in a way that was terrible to behold, and I was thinking it only takes one find, or one fool of a body getting himself into a scare…

Truly, there’s no thoroughness like customs’ thoroughness. First they had us move all the barrels onto the quayside and tip out the herring. Next they checked all our stores, down to every cask of hardtack in the pantry, as well as the chicken coop, the sheep pen and the boat where Quayle’s pig had been. They went through everyone’s sea chests, and took the prints of Victoria and her brood out of their frames. They even had a try at my uniform, scrinching up the cap, I suppose in case I had a few ounces of tobacco hidden inside. Then, when they’d done with all that, they started right over again, now tapping and banging their way round the vessel, now pulling up a floorboard, now making little fires to see where the smoke went. Worse was the interviews. One by one each of us was taken off alone to the dining cabin for his little chat. Stories were checked, particularly my foolish blurt about the boat Quayle was supposed to have bought his cheese off. All the while they were threatening and coaxing and hoping someone would bust and go off like a rocket.

‘‘We ’re going to find the stuff soon enough anyway,’’ was their sneer. ‘‘You may as well make it easier on yourself by telling us now.’’

Three whole days. And what did they find after all this fuss?

Not a thing.

I could hardly believe it myself I mean, I knew we had a wonder made of wood, and that the crew were every one of Manxmen from Peel City, but still I never thought the
Sincerity
would keep herself so tight and virginal as she did. This was the very cream of Her Majesty’s Royal English Spying and Conniving Customs Service, after all, and in their own dread nest of London too. And us just a shipload of poor, ignorant souls from Man Island, smallest country in all the wide world. Not that I’m one to go talking miracles, but it did seem out of the ordinary. Why, I almost wondered if giving that Bishop Chalmers his ride had earned us a favour after all.

Well, there was a thing to celebrate. Not that I’m much of a one for foolishness, but there was no stopping the rest of them after those three long days. Down the hold we went that evening where nobody could spy, with everyone speaking Manx just in case. Drinking? Well, there might have been a little. Singing? I dare say. Toasts? That there’s no denying.
‘‘Boiys da dooine as baase da eease,’’
we called out, which means in English
‘‘Life to men and death to fish,’’
and is about herring, as are all Manx toasts. Then it was
‘‘Death to the head that never wore hair’’
and
‘‘Here’s death to our best friend.’’
Meaning herring, of course.

I dare say there’s always a price to be paid for that sort of night. In this case, though, the price did seem higher than was fair. Stumbling out of my cabin the next morning with a sore head, made sorer by that din of London roaring out like some great fight with wheel carts, what did I find waiting on the deck but a stranger, perched nice and comfortable on a coil of rope, smoking his pipe. ‘‘Captain Kewley?’’ He got up in a gradual sort of way, as if I wasn’t worth any hurry. ‘‘My name’s Parish.’’ With that he reached into his pocket and handed me a letter. I guessed from its mean, interfering scribble that this was customs poison. Nor was I wrong.

‘‘The Board of Customs,’’ it announced, ‘‘has decided that, on the evidence of the foreign goods discovered aboard the
Sincerity
’’—this being Quayle’s cheese—‘‘that the merchant ship
Sincerity
broke her journey from Peel City to Maldon at a foreign port, for which she had no entitlement, and which her master repeatedly denied to an officer of Her Majesty’s coast guard. In consequence of these actions it has been decided
that her master’’—this being me—‘‘is to pay a statutory fine of two hundred pounds.’’

Two hundred pounds. That was as much as many men would hope to earn themselves in ten years. Two hundred pounds that we didn’t have. There were also port fees, which were high, being London—where we hadn’t wanted to go—and were rising with each day we stayed. Lastly there was ninepence duty for the cheese. This wasn’t real law, mind. This was just raw revenge for their being beaten. Forget all their talk, there’s no bad losers like Englishmen, especially Englishmen in uniforms. No wonder all those Indian Hindoos had mutinied against them with the likes of this going on. I wished them good luck.

‘‘I’m to stay here till it’s paid,’’ explained Parish in a leaning sort of way. ‘‘Just to see how you’re doing, you know.’’

I knew all right. He was there to spy. Having failed to find a thing through all their searching, the customs were now hoping to smoke us out with fines and watching.

I did what I could. I wrote a letter that same day to Dan Gawne, the Castletown brewer. I had hopes of that letter. Seeing as Gawne had already lent us jink, I supposed he might be scared into giving out more, just to get it back, while it seemed to me we were a fair enough risk, as if we could just get free of this gaol dock and away to Maldon we’d have money enough for anyone. In the meantime we did all the selling we could, to agents in the dock and other vessels too. First went the salted herring, though they didn’t catch very much, as they’d been out of their barrels twice now and it showed. Next went any spare ship’s stores, even down to the chickens that were left. Why, I’d even have peddled the prints of Victoria, Albert and the eight babes if there’d been a buyer. It was never enough, though. When all was done and I counted out the jink, we were still eighty-three pounds short. Then Gawne’s answer arrived, being short as could be.

Sell the ship and pay me what you owe.

That was no reply. That was just a low rottenness flung over oceans. As if I’d sell the
Sincerity.
As if I even could, considering what her new owners would find inside her. We called Gawne some names that morning, I can tell you. Scrissag. Scrawl. Sleetchy old scraper. Hibernator.

Castletown snot. Fat muck of a fritlag. Big slug, all sitting on his shillings with his little crab of a wife, snurly and high as if they thought they were somebody.

Not that it made any difference. Within the hour we were in worse trouble than ever, when two of the starboard watch, Tom Hudson and Rob Kneale, jumped ship, doing so clean in front of the whole crew, springing over the side with their sea chests as if they never cared. ‘‘No, thanks,’’ they jeered, when I ordered them back. ‘‘We’d rather find a boat that can pay.’’ With other vessels this wouldn’t have mattered, and would even have had its uses as their wages could be kept, but the
Sincerity
wasn’t other vessels and all her crew had to be Manxmen from Peel City. All of a sudden I knew it was time to be taking a chance, and a big one too. As the wise man says,
it’s no good betting pennies when the dice have snatched your horse and your house.

Now if a body goes knocking around ships he will hear things, including chatter about places he’s never seen and never expects to, and I’d heard talk about London, including the name of a particular inn that was near the docks, where certain people might be found and certain arrangements made, as it was said. Perhaps, I reasoned, I could get us a loan out of someone as part of an arrangement. It would be a good enough deal after all. Once we were free, those certain somebodies could have our cargo at a most reasonable price. There were dangers in such a venture of course. Most of all we didn’t know who to trust among all these Englishmen foreigners, and there was the fear we’d been getting help from a gang of customs officers in disguise, as they were known to play such tricks. For all this, it had to be tried.