Читать книгу The Road to Samarcand - Patrick O’Brian - Страница 5

All the way along the coast they met with calms or contrary winds, and the Wanderer, instead of the two hundred and seventy miles which she had logged in the first day and night after leaving Kwei Hai, now crept along, making no more than ten sea miles for a long day’s arduous tacking. Sullivan was particularly worried about their meeting with Professor Ayrton. ‘When I wrote,’ he said, ‘I underlined the words “God willing and wind and tide permitting,” but I don’t know whether he will understand the kind of winds that we have been having – and even if he does understand, I am not sure whether he will be able to wait. At this rate we shan’t make Tchao-King before Christmas. Derrick, go on deck and try whistling for a spell, will you?’

Derrick whistled. Olaf whistled. Li Han beat a gong and the Malays sang their wind-song: Chang howled: but still the sails flapped idly, and far away on the starboard quarter a small junk which had been in sight since dawn came nearer and nearer, propelled by the immense sweeps that her sweating crew pulled to the sound of conchs and drums. ‘Ay wish my old grandma was here,’ said Olaf, pausing for breath. ‘She’d blow us to Frisco if we was to ask her polite. If the Old Man was to go to her and tip his hat and say, “Good morning, marm,” or “Good afternoon,” as the case might be –’

‘You don’t suppose that’s a pirate, do you, Olaf?’ interrupted Derrick.

Olaf stared at the junk. ‘Could be,’ he said, indifferently, shading his eyes. ‘They come like wasps after honey along this coast. But they won’t meddle with us, not unless they was three, four war-junks all together. They tried that once, only two of them, off Tai-nan.’ He laughed reminiscently. ‘They won’t meddle with the Wanderer no more. No sir. Besides,’ he added, ‘there’s that destroyer on the horizon.’

‘What destroyer?’

‘Ain’t you got no eyes?’ asked Olaf, impatiently, as he pointed to the north-west. Derrick made out a low smudge that might have been smoke.

‘How do you know it’s a destroyer?’ he asked.

‘How do I know that’s my hand in front of my face? Ay look at it, see? Ay got eyes, see? Of course she ban a destroyer, U.S.N., and she’s bound for Manila.’

The day wore on, a hot and sticky day without a breath of wind: Derrick sat in the shade of the mainsail, trying to comb Chang’s coat into something like respectability. He was an ugly dog, it could not be denied; and if anything the combing made his appearance worse. He had enormous feet, and from his feet and his clumsiness Derrick judged that he was not nearly fully grown: Chang already weighed a good fifty pounds, and if he went on filling out he would soon be more like a lion than a dog. Derrick looked up from his hopeless task, and saw the destroyer bearing down on them. Olaf had been quite right: she was an American destroyer, belching smoke from her four funnels and cutting a great furrow through the oily sea with her high bows. The junk far behind had turned long ago, and was now creeping painfully over the horizon, still sweeping arduously.

‘What ship?’ hailed the destroyer. ‘Where bound?’

‘Schooner Wanderer,’ answered Sullivan, his great voice roaring over the water. ‘Thirty days out of Macao for Tchao-King.’

‘What ship?’

‘Schooner Wanderer, Terence Sullivan master,’ he answered louder still.

The destroyer made a sharp turn to port and came alongside. ‘Captain Sullivan, I’ve got a message for you,’ hailed the officer on deck. ‘It reads, “Ayrton at Tchao-King to Sullivan, schooner Wanderer: am waiting at Tchao-King until 31st, then moving to Peking by way of Tsi-nan.” Have you got that?’

‘Yes, thank you very much.’

‘You missed the typhoon, then?’ asked the officer, looking curiously down at the gleaming, orderly decks and the spotless canvas.

‘We had a little blow,’ said Sullivan. ‘Do you want to pick up a pirate junk? There’s one bearing south by east, just about hull-down at this minute. A gentleman by the name of Wu Sankwei, by the cut of his jib.’

There was the sound of a bell inside the destroyer, her screws whirled into violent life, and she shot off in a great curve, leaving the Wanderer rocking in her spreading wake.

‘Perambulating kitchen-stove,’ said Ross, who had just come up from the hold. ‘Why don’t they clean their flues, or at least lie to leeward of a real ship?’ He looked indignantly at the sails, grey from the destroyer’s smoke.

‘She brought us a message from Tchao-King,’ said Sullivan. ‘Professor Ayrton will be there until the end of the month.’

‘Well, perhaps there’s some good in the navy yet,’ said Ross, looking pleased. ‘Did you tell her about Wu Sankwei? He’s got a nerve, coming out after us with no more than a couple of brass nine-pounders: he must have lost what few wits he had.’

The message was particularly welcome. Sullivan had been fretting for weeks about the appointment, but now he knew that even if they made no better pace than they had for the last few days, they would reach the port in time. In the evening he harked back to a subject that he had already discussed quite often. ‘Now listen, Derrick,’ he said. ‘We want you to make a good impression on Professor Ayrton. Get Li Han to cut your hair in the morning.’

‘Okay,’ said Derrick.

‘And don’t say okay.’

‘Gee, Uncle Terry …’

‘And don’t say gee,’ said Ross.

‘We don’t want him to get the idea that we have made a barbarian of you. You must brush your nails, and you must not eat with your clasp-knife. Have you got any gum?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Then toss it overboard. I know what they think of gum at Oxford. And try to look intelligent.’

‘Like this?’

‘No. Not like that. No, perhaps you had better forget that: we don’t want him to think you’re sickening for something.’

Just before dawn all the whistling for a wind had its effect, and by the time that Derrick was sitting in the galley having his hair cut, the Wanderer was racing along under all canvas, leaning from the wind so that with every thrust from the following sea her lee rails vanished under the flying spray. The chair slid on the canted deck, and the hair-cutting had proved a tedious and difficult operation.

‘Hope results of Western-style hair-dressing satisfactory,’ said Li Han, anxiously. ‘Should not have made bald patch or cut ear, however. Please excuse.’

‘Oh, it’s okay,’ said Derrick, mopping his bloody ear with his handkerchief. ‘You’re a swell barber, Li Han.’

‘Don’t say okay,’ roared a distant voice.

‘Why not say okay?’ whispered Li Han.

‘Because of my cousin, the one we are going to meet at Tchao-King. It seems that he wouldn’t like it. Li Han, do you know what an archaeologist is?’

‘Archaeology is disinterment of ancient fragments,’ replied Li Han, promptly, ‘and piecing of same together to form harmonious whole. Very learned pursuit.’

‘That’s what my cousin does. He’s a professor of it.’

‘Your cousin a professor?’ asked Li Han, in an unbelieving tone.

‘Yes, of course he is. Haven’t you heard them talking about Professor Ayrton?’

‘Is the same honourable person?’ Li Han dropped his scissors. ‘Excuse please. Would never have cut ear …’

He was obviously deeply impressed, and he at once opened a can of lichees for Derrick. ‘Such face,’ he murmured. ‘Such estimable learning. Such dignity.’

‘How would you make a good impression on an archaeologist?’ asked Derrick, after thinking for some time.

‘Display intelligent interest, and ask acute ancient questions.’

‘Could you give me an acute question to ask him, Li Han? Just one or two really swell questions that will show him that I’ve already had enough education.’

‘Not knowing, cannot say. Regret lamentable ignorance.’

‘Now you’re really useful, aren’t you, Li Han?’ said Derrick, bitterly. ‘You mean to say you don’t know a thing about archaeology, and you a sea-cook? Some of your hashes have been pretty ancient fragments, all right. You ought to know the subject backwards.’

‘If I had inestimable privilege of serving worthy learned gentleman,’ said Li Han, with a sigh, ‘or even of beholding erudite face, it would be different. But, alas, sea-cook confined to maritime tossing existence is condemned to dog-like ignorance.’

‘Olaf,’ said Derrick, going for’ard to where the Swede was sitting on the well-deck, tying a beautiful turk’s-head at the end of a short length of rope, ‘Olaf, if you wanted to impress an archaeologist, how would you set about it? I want some right good advice, now.’

The big Swede scratched his head and closed his eyes with the effort of thinking. ‘Well,’ he said at last. ‘Impress, eh? An archaeologist, huh? Well, Ay reckon Ay would strike him just behind the shoulder with a twenty-four pound harpoon. Strike hard and fast, not too far back, see? My old man, he chanced on one of them things north-east of Spitzbergen in the fall of, lemme t’ink, 1897 was it, or 1898? Yes, Ay reckon it was 1898. It chawed up his long-boat something horrible, but they got fifty-three barrels of oil out of it.’

‘Olaf, you’re wrong. An archaeologist is a person who digs for ancient things.’

‘No. Ay ain’t mistaken, son. It’s a fish, it is, rather smaller nor a fin-whale, but mighty dangerous, and you don’t want to strike it too far back.’

‘Well, I’ve got to make a good impression on one, anyway.’

‘Hum. You watch your step, then. This one Ay talk about, he chawed up a long-boat, like I told you. Chawed it up,’ he repeated, gnashing his jaws, ‘just like that.’

‘What’s that rope’s-end for, Olaf?’ asked Derrick, changing the subject.

‘That’s for you, son,’ said Olaf, with a happy smile. ‘The Old Man, he told me to pick out a nice whippy piece. “Put a right good knot in it, Olaf,” he says. “I’ll learn the young – to talk proper,” he says.’

‘Is that what Uncle Terry said, Olaf?’ asked Derrick, turning pale.

‘His very words. “I’ll larrup him,” he says. “I’ll learn him to talk barbarious,” he says. “And when I’m tired, you can take over, Olaf,” he says. He’s going to lay into you like blue murder every time you say gee or okay,’ said Olaf, heartlessly tightening the knot.

‘Why, gee, Olaf, what am I to say?’ cried Derrick, appalled.

‘Well, you can say dearie me, or land’s sake – no, not land’s sake; that’s low. But you could say cor stone the crows. That’s English. I shipped along with a whole crew of Limeys once, and they all said cor stone the crows. There was this German submarine, see? Surfaced off Ushant and shelled us. “Cor stone the crows,” said the Limeys, particularly the Old Man, who was hit by a splinter on the nose. Then Ay rammed the – and the Limeys all stood along the side and said, “Cor stone the crows, Olaf’s rammed the –.”’

‘I never knew you had rammed a submarine, Olaf.’

‘Oh, it was just luck that time,’ said Olaf, modestly. ‘The other ones was more difficult.’

‘You must have been quite a hero in the war, Olaf. Did they give you any medals?’

‘Oh, no. They wanted to make me an earl or a duke or something, but Ay never was one for falals or doodads, see?’

‘Cor stone the crows,’ said Derrick.

The Wanderer flew on, and the next day at noon she raised the high cape of Tchao-King, by the evening she had threaded her way through the junks and the sampans to the inner harbour, and she was tied up at the wharf of the Benign Wind-Dragon, by the European godowns.

Derrick was standing in the saloon in a high state of preparedness, brushed, gleaming and nervous. His uncle gave him a final inspection, and said, ‘It’s a pity you look as if you had the mange, but otherwise your rig is trim enough. Have you tied up that monstrous beast?’

‘Yes, sir,’ answered Derrick, who could hear Chang’s desperate scratching at the closed hatch: he noticed that his uncle had dressed with more than usual care, and that Ross, huge and splendid in his best shore-going ducks, was nervous too.

‘I feel just like a nursemaid who’s got to display her charge to a crew of critical relations,’ said Sullivan, fingering Derrick’s tie. ‘You won’t behave like a roughneck shell-back, will you? Or go roaring about as if we were in a gale of wind? Or hurl the soup down your shirt?’

‘Perhaps it would be better if Derrick were not to keep his mouth ajar,’ suggested Ross. ‘He might look brighter with it closed. More intelligent.’

‘Yes, it looks better closed,’ said Sullivan, looking anxiously at his nephew. ‘Now the great thing to remember is not to be nervous, Derrick,’ he added, leading the way on deck.

The three rickshaws threaded their way through the bullock-carts, wheelbarrows and ancient lorries that crowded the streets of Tchao-King: they went slowly, for it was a market-day as well as the feast of Pong Hsiu, but they went too fast for Derrick, and when he arrived at the steps of the Kylin Hotel he felt that he would rather go for a swim with a tiger-shark than face the remainder of the evening.

Yet a few hours later, when their dinner was done and they were all sitting in long cane chairs on the verandah, he was talking away to Professor Ayrton as if he had known him all his life. His cousin turned out to be a tall, thin, frail-looking man, far older than Sullivan and Ross, with a face the colour of yellowed parchment and a somewhat Chinese cast of countenance that was accentuated by the large, horn-rimmed spectacles that he wore. If he had been dressed in a robe rather than a very old tweed jacket and a pair of disreputable flannel trousers he might have passed for a north-Chinese scholar. He had a thoroughly benign face that entirely matched his kind way of speaking: he was as unlike a tiger-shark as could be imagined, and he completely won Derrick’s friendship by welcoming Chang, who appeared ten minutes after their arrival, still dripping wet and trailing his broken leash. Chang did not behave as well as Derrick could have wished: the porter tried to keep him out, but was utterly routed; as Chang blundered at full speed down the long verandah he bowled over one waiter and two low tables, and when he reached them it was instantly apparent that he had been swimming in the horribly malodorous waters of the harbour.

‘Never mind, never mind,’ cried Professor Ayrton, as Derrick tried to induce Chang to go quietly away. ‘Let him stay. I should like him to stay very much. He looks a most interesting creature.’ He put out his long, thin hand to pat Chang’s head, and with a thrill of horror Derrick thought that Chang would have it off: hitherto no one had touched Chang without bloodshed, except Derrick. But Chang only looked amazed, then rather pleased, and finally he put a large and muddy paw on the Professor’s knee. ‘You’re a fine fellow,’ said Professor Ayrton, addressing the dog and pulling his ears. ‘You are a – what is the term? A bum pooch. I am sure you are a very swollen guy, and we shall be great budlets.’ He turned to Derrick. ‘I have been learning some Americanisms,’ he said, ‘to make you feel at home.’

Derrick burst into a wild laugh that he tried to disguise as a cough. ‘Uncle Terry has been laying for me with a rope’s end if I said so much as okay,’ he said, wiping his eyes when he could speak again. ‘Gee, sir, I certainly never thought I should hear you call Chang a swell guy.’

‘Swollen, my dear boy. Swollen, or perhaps swelled. In the adjectival use we must employ the past participle, must we not?’

‘Yet it seems to me that I have heard the expression swell guy,’ observed Ross.

‘Have you indeed? Perhaps it was some local variant – an elision of the terminal -ed? But I am persuaded that the general usage is swollen. I cannot cite the text of my authority at the moment, but I flatter myself that on this question I am an unusually hep cat. There were several American novels in the boat, and on the way over I perused them diligently: there was an American, a most respectable scholar from Harvard, who assured me that I had a greater command of these idioms than he had himself – indeed, that he had never even heard of some of them. It is a fascinating spectacle, don’t you think, Captain Sullivan, this development of a new language? I am no enemy to neologisms, and although I am no philologist it gives me a feeling of intense excitement to see an old language renewed and enriched by countless striking and even poetic expressions. There was an elderly gentlewoman on the boat, from some provincial town in the States – I believe it was Chicago – who referred to the Atlantic, which she had recently traversed, as “the herring-pond”. I was so moved by the noble simplicity of her remark that I noted it down in my diary that evening.’

‘Well, Professor, I must say that it had never struck me quite that way. But you wouldn’t have him chewing gum and addressing you as “Hi, Prof,” surely?’

‘Were the young man to address me as Prof, he would speedily learn the difference between liberty and licence,’ said Professor Ayrton. ‘But as for chewing-gum, for my part I find it a great help to meditation – I almost said to rumination – and an excellent substitute for nicotine. Allow me to offer you a piece.’

The Professor was a very agreeable relative to find after such dismal forebodings, and Derrick liked him very much; but he was adamant on the need for school. He thoroughly sympathised with Derrick’s longing to go to sea, and he entirely approved of the Wanderer, which he visited for dinner the next day – a dinner that an emperor might have admired, so hard had Li Han and three imported cook-boys laboured in the galley – but although he said nothing definite for quite a long time, Derrick felt sure that he had made up his mind. The Professor was closeted with Ross and Sullivan for days on end, and Derrick began to hope against hope that these long, unusual absences might mean that his uncle was putting up a lively opposition.

But in the end Derrick was summoned to the presence, and Professor Ayrton addressed him in these words: ‘My boy, we have been discussing your future, and your uncle, Mr Ross and I have all come to the same conclusion. We are all agreed that school is necessary.’ Sullivan nodded, and the Professor continued, ‘We feel that although for training in seamanship the Wanderer could hardly be improved upon, yet nevertheless you should not be loosed upon the world without a firm grounding of more general instruction. You may not suppose that a helmsman would steer any the better for being able to decline gubernator, but you are young, and absurd as it may seem to you now, you will find in time that such is the case.’

Derrick did his best to smile, for he knew that the Professor meant this as a joke to take away the sting of his decision.

‘You will always be able to come back to the Wanderer when it is all over,’ said Sullivan.

‘Aye,’ said Ross, in a comforting tone, ‘you’ll come back with a dozen new-fangled modern ways of sinking a ship, and we’ll have them out of you with a rope’s end in a week.’

‘Furthermore,’ said the Professor, ‘I intend, with your uncle’s consent, to gild the pill of education by a suggestion that may be new to you. How would you like to go to the school by way of Samarcand?’