Читать книгу Secret of the Sands - Sara Sheridan, Sara Sheridan - Страница 12

Chapter Five

To the east, on the ocean, the atmosphere aboard the Palinurus has become intolerable on more than one count since the departure of Dr Jessop and First Lieutenant Jones from the complement of officers. If only the damn malaria had taken Wellsted instead of any of the others, Captain Haines curses to himself. However much Haines hates losing good men to the fever, even as he is damning his only surviving lieutenant’s good health, he feels a wave of shame. He does not admit that the reason he is so angry is because he wanted to achieve what Wellsted has done and write a memoir of their trip so far. Instead, he blusters that the lieutenant is an upstart who has behaved abominably. Still, the captain has to grudgingly allow that perhaps to wish Wellsted dead is too harsh.

The mortalities were unexpected, of course – if Haines had known that a fever was about to break out, he would never have sent Jessop onto the jabel. Choosing him for the mission, Haines can’t help thinking, was an unfortunate mistake. Had he been aboard, the doctor might have been able to save at least some of the crew from the sickness. But the man was keen and how was Haines to know what was going to happen? Generally, this side of Africa, if a chap survives his first weeks in Bombay, he tends to be fine. The dead men, of course, wherever their souls may be, probably don’t believe that anymore. In only a few days, over half the Palinurus’ officers and a third of the crew have died. However, despite the losses and the weather, the Palinurus is still making progress along the coast, the chart is coming along, the soundings are accurate and the brig has so far not run into a single French vessel. Nonetheless, the captain has a strong sense of duty for his men’s welfare, the stricken cadavers buried at sea weigh on his mind and he blames himself. Still, rather than think on it too deeply, he diverts his inner invective towards his only remaining senior officer.

It was only a few days before the malaria outbreak that the captain found by chance the package that contained Wellsted’s memoir while he was checking the mail going off the vessel. Damn cheek! Now he wishes he had stopped its dispatch, but at the time he felt so wounded at what the lieutenant had written, so terribly shocked at the man’s blatant use of other officers’ experiences and discoveries that he went into some kind of shock and simply parcelled up the damn thing again and sent it on its way, for his overwhelming emotion, at first, was that he wanted rid of it.

The book Haines intended to write about the trip would have used, of course, much the same material, but as captain he considers that his right. Haines envisioned reporting to the Royal Society as the head of the expedition and doling out credit where it was due to his talented officers whose dedication, he had decided on wording it, was a credit to both the expedition and the Bombay Marine. He’d have credited Wellsted, of course. However, the lieutenant’s manuscript has squarely put paid to any such grandiose dreams and Haines wishes he could recall the parcel, which by now will no doubt have cleared the Red Sea and, safe aboard a company ship, be dispatched westwards to London. What rankles the captain most is that Wellsted did not dedicate the tome to him. In an unheard of lapse of etiquette, the lieutenant barely mentioned any of the other men on board, least of all the illustrious Haines. Worst of all, he is entirely unapologetic, which only makes Haines even more furious. When the hell did the man find the time to write a damn book, anyway?

A knock on the cabin door interrupts Haines’ furious train of thought. Three midshipmen hover in the doorway, boys of eleven, twelve and thirteen years of age, dressed in pale breeches and smart, brass-buttoned, navy jackets. Their hair is uniformly the colour of wet sand and they look so alike that they could be brothers, though really they are only brothers in arms. Haines notes to himself that they have been through a great deal, these boys and they are good lads. They have seen, between them, too many cadavers the last few days. As the captain motions them into the room, by far the largest on the ship, the boys seem suddenly taller as if growing into the space. Each of them silently hopes that one day he will be man enough to be called captain.

‘Ah. Dinner. Yes,’ says Haines.

Jardine, the captain’s portly, Scottish steward follows the deputation, closing the door behind him with an unexpectedly deft flick of the ankle. The man’s face is like a craggy cliff of pink chalk, fallen away slightly on one side, as if the steward’s very person is as old as time and disappearing gradually into the sea. There was, during the time of the fever, no expectation that Jardine might succumb; he is an indestructible kind of fellow. Now in one hand he holds a decanter of brandy and in the other a flacon of red wine, which he lays on the table.

‘What is it tonight, Jardine?’

‘Mutton, sir. Stewed,’ he replies, lopsided in the mouth.

They last resupplied far south of Makkah and bought a flock of small, dark-coated sheep from an unwilling tribe of Wahabi for a small fortune. Supplies further along the coast have proved limited. Many of the Musselmen refuse to trade with the English at all although some tribes are easier than others. This coast – to the east of the Red Sea – is proving particularly troublesome. Islam, in this area, appears to be taken to extremes and is most unforgiving in its tenets – quite a contrast to the more laissez-faire Ibadis who populate the other side of the Peninsula and to the south. In this neck of the woods the mere sight of white skin often provokes an apoplexy of virulent hatred. The landing parties have been spat upon, screamed at and chased off at knife point by wild-eyed, pale-robed assailants spewing a torrent of abuse, which upon later translation, turned out to mean ‘Eat pig, pig-eaters!’ and the like. At one port a merchant even pissed into a sack of flour rather than sell it to the infidel ship to be eaten by unbelievers. ‘Die empty-bellied, kafir,’ the man sneered. No amount of money or attempt at goodwill seems to make the long-bearded zealots change their minds. The holy cities are closed to foreigners so it has been mutton for some weeks now, supplemented with thin dates, ship’s tack, sheep’s milk, coffee, a small amount of cornbread and any decent-sized fish the younger members of the crew can scoop out of the water.

‘Well, lads, you did not join up, I trust, in the hope of feasting at the expense of the Bombay Marine?’

Haines pours his officers a glass each.

‘A toast, shall we?’ he says with largesse.

That very morning the last of the dead was buried at sea – an Irish seadog from Belfast called Johnny Mullins, who fought the malaria like a trouper but lost in the end. All members of the crew who caught the sickness are either dead or cured now. The worst has passed and Haines holds up his glass.

‘We survivors, gentlemen. May our poor fellows rest in peace.’

The boys shift uneasily. Protocol demands that they do not start the proceedings of dinner without all the invited officers present. They may be young, but they know the form.

‘Come now,’ says the captain testily, imposing his authority.

Slowly, the boys concur. Uneasily, they pick up their glasses and down the wine.

‘Jardine!’ the captain calls for service.

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Mutton stew is it?’

‘Yes, sir. With seaweeds. But …’

‘If Lieutenant Wellsted cannot be troubled to join us on time, then I see no reason why we should wait on his pleasure.’

Haines turns back to the little group.

‘Now,’ he says. ‘The soundings you took today, young Ormsby. I checked over your work and I was most impressed. Heaving the lead all afternoon like that and collating your measurements with excellent accuracy – why, you are a regular Maudsley man, are you not? We’ll have you in charge of this survey yet!’

Ormsby’s grin could illuminate London Bridge. ‘Thank you, sir,’ he says as Jardine shuffles in with a pewter casserole dish, steam emanating from the open lid, and starts to serve the officers their dinner.