When Robbie set foot upon the gangway of the Sea Tiger, he felt as though he was coming home. To a restless wanderer such as he, it was fitting that home should be a vessel capable of taking him anywhere, of reaching the ends of the earth, but with no port to call its own.
As he walked slowly up the thick wooden planks, Robbie concluded that no finer home had ever been his, even beneath the brilliant Highland stars of Scotland. The Tiger’s mast towered majestically in the harbor, and added the suggestion of power to the graceful lines of her hull. At her prow was carved the figurehead of a Mandarin dressed in fiery red robes, carrying a scimitar in his right hand and gazing out on the glassy harbor with eyes that were indeed as fierce as a tiger’s. With such an imposing figurehead, she could have been a warship, but she was built to do battle with the sea and the mighty elements of nature. And no soldier had ever faced a more merciless foe.
He stepped onto her shining teakwood deck, so absorbed in the glory of the ship that he hardly noticed that there was neither captain nor boatswain to greet him. He paused for a moment to feel the gentle movement—it was a good feeling, one he had missed. He moved slowly forward, taking in every familiar detail, pleased that he had forgotten nothing in his years away from the square-rigger.
His eyes picked out each line of rope and sheet, and quickly followed them to the sails they controlled. The seeming maze of complicated rigging was as clear in its integrated complexity as each finger on his hand.
Robbie gave a sigh, relieved. He had not been too long away.
“‘She walks the waters like a thing of life, and seems to dare the elements to strife,’” came an unexpected, however melodious, voice from astern, disturbing the inner quietude that had stolen upon Robbie. He turned sharply to face the speaker, who sounded too much like an oracle to be thus found anywhere in the regions of London’s shipyards. And what he beheld appeared indeed more a poet than any kind of seaman Robbie had ever seen, though he thought he had seen every conceivable type.
“Byron,” said the man. He was several inches shorter than Robbie and appeared ten or twelve years older, but was in fact only thirty-four. His dark eyes studied Robbie momentarily with an odd mixture of mockery and sensitivity, holding for a moment on Robbie’s face, then twitching quickly to find a temporary rest at some point over his shoulder. As Robbie drew closer he detected the unmistakable odor of whiskey about the man’s person.
“Good morning, Mr. Byron—” Robbie began, but before he had the chance to utter another syllable he was cut short by the man’s sudden burst of laughter.
“‘There were gentlemen and there were seamen,’” the man quoted again through his mirth, “‘in the Navy of Charles the Second. But the seamen were not gentlemen; and the gentlemen were not seamen.’ That was Macaulay,” he added.
“I see,” said Robbie, unperturbed. “And I take it the first was from Lord Byron?”
“Correct you are! And please forgive my laughter. I thought a gentleman such as yourself—”
Now it was Robbie’s turn to laugh. After four years of striving unsuccessfully to fit into a gentleman’s world, how ironic it was that the first person he met in the world where he rightfully belonged should take him for a gentleman.
“I am better acquainted with rigs and sails than poems,” said Robbie. “I am no gentleman, believe me.”
“Then the pleasure is all the greater in meeting you,” said the quoter of rhymes, thrusting out his hand. “I myself loathe the breed . . . Elliot Drew is the name.”
Robbie took the offered hand, which looked slender, almost effeminate, but with hard callouses upon its surface.
A shout from the stern brought their conversation to an abrupt halt as they turned their attention toward it.
“Hey, Vicar!” said the newcomer. “Who you gots there?” As he was speaking the man lithely swung a bulky frame down the companion ladder from the raised quarter deck and approached the two.
“I’m not quite certain,” answered the one called Vicar. “But if he wants a berth, I’d say give it to him. He looks like a good man.”
“And what’d ye know, ye lubber!” the other replied roughly. “Ye wouldn’t know a seaman from a wet rat.”
“Perhaps because there’s so little difference,” rejoined Drew.
The newcomer merely grunted, then brusquely pushed the Vicar aside and approached Robbie face to face.
“I’m Jack Digger, Bo’sun1,” said the large man, unsmiling and without the least inflection of welcome. He did not even offer one of his fleshy hands to Robbie. “If ye got business on the Sea Tiger, ’tis me ye’ll be speakin’ to.”
This last was spoken almost like a reprimand for his interchange with Drew.
“There was no one on deck when I came aboard.”
“Well, what’s yer business?”
“I’m here to see the ship’s master, Benjamin Pike.”
Digger sized Robbie up and down with eyes that appeared as mere slits in his thick face. Robbie wondered that this cumbersome man could function on a ship in any capacity. However, he appeared fit, and the enormity of his bulk was by no means given over to fat. And his agile negotiation of the companion ladder gave indication that his size was no hindrance to him.
“What’s yer name?” asked the bo’sun.
“Robbie Taggart.”
“Taggart, eh?” His look and tone left little doubt that he was singularly unimpressed. “So ye’re the new mate.”
Robbie had not seen Pike since that night at the Rum Runner; was the old seaman so confident of Robbie’s final decision that he had actually spread the word of his coming?
“Is the skipper available?”
Digger cocked his head toward Drew. “Run below an’ fetch the cap’n,” he ordered.
Drew complied, and soon disappeared down the main hatch. Robbie and the boatswain stood silently together. Digger peeled off a sweat-soaked bandana tied around his forehead, and with strong fingers squeezed it nearly dry.
“I’ll be headin’ back to work,” he said at length, turning to leave.
“Tell me,” said Robbie, and as he spoke the bo’sun stopped, “is that other fellow a member of the crew?”
“Just barely,” said Digger with a smirk; “he’s an ordinary seaman. Now if ye don’t mind, I gots me work.” Without waiting further leave, he swung away, scrambled up the ladder of the quarter deck where he had apparently been engaged in some activity at the back of the deck house.
Robbie tried to return his attention to the ship, but now his thoughts were filled with these two men he had just met. Two more dissimilar characters he could not hope to encounter. He wondered what the rest of the crew would be like. As first mate, Robbie would be required to command them all. And though he did not fear leadership, he knew that every man was capable of presenting his own special kind of problems to someone in authority. He was not left to ponder his fate long, however, for within a few minutes Pike climbed into view from the main hatch.
“Robbie—ha, ha! You son of a sea cook!” Pike’s barking laugh compensated for in volume what it lacked in merriment. “I knew I’d see yer ugly face afore long!”
“I suppose I knew it too.” Robbie drew the words out thoughtfully. Then he laughed lightly: “Well, where do I sign on?”
“No need for that, laddie. I’ll show you around the ship an’ we can end off in my cabin an’ have a drink on it.” Pike threw his arm around Robbie’s shoulders, and they started off.
Pike launched immediately into a detailed and comprehensive description of his ship, such that would have bored most laymen. But to one like Robbie the words felt like spring water to the mouth of a thirsty man, and he listened to every detail with fascination. The Sea Tiger was an Aberdeen-built clipper, first launched in 1869. She was 930 tons and had distinguished herself nicely in eleven years of life. During six years in the China trade she had acquitted herself well, twice making the homeward passage with the new crop of tea in under a hundred days. But speed was not her only strength. When steamers making passage via the Suez Canal began to monopolize the tea trade, most lovely clippers had been relegated to long distant voyages to Melbourne or Sydney or South America, picking up whatever cargos were available. But the Sea Tiger still demonstrated her great stamina and had weathered the torturous gales of Cape Horn three times since then, and though dismasted once on that run, she had managed to limp into port only a week behind schedule. She was one of the few clippers still able to compete strongly in the changing world of late 19th-century shipping. She was well-seasoned now, yet still very much in her prime with many voyages left in her.
Robbie liked what he saw. There was something comfortable and friendly about the Tiger, yet at the same time sturdy and reassuring. Out in the middle of the ocean a man trusted his life to the worthiness of his ship, and Robbie could feel—as if through the creaking timbers themselves—that such a trust would not be misplaced aboard the Sea Tiger.
“What’s her cargo?” asked Robbie as he climbed down into the hold of the ship. The air was thick and stale and too humid for comfort, yet to Robbie it only added to the mystique he had been missing for four years.
“General is all,” answered Pike. “Sheet iron, copper, yard goods—nothin’ interestin’.”
Robbie slapped his hand on a large wooden crate. “This one’s not marked,” he said casually.
“Them cursed loaders!” Pike exclaimed. “Can’t do nothin’ right. I’ll get it taken care of!” Pike seemed suddenly nervous on account of the unlabeled crates, and hurried Robbie off in another direction.
“Will we pick up tea in Shanghai?” asked Robbie as they continued through the hold.
“Ha!” barked Pike scornfully. “Them days is over, laddie. All we get is trinkets now—matting, paper, rattans, feathers!” He spat the last word out bitterly, as an ugly vision of a tea-laden steamship crossed his mind, all but blotting out memories of the glory days of the tea runs from the East.
Robbie wondered about the great riches Pike had promised. This hardly seemed the sort of cargo that would make a man wealthy. Had he been exaggerating merely to entice Robbie aboard? Yet what could be his purpose in that? They had never been that close as friends, so as to justify such efforts on Pike’s part to lure Robbie away from Her Majesty’s service.
Robbie shrugged off the question. He was, after all, a good sailor, a hard worker. Perhaps that was reason enough.
“But why go to China at all?” he asked.
“The owners of the Cathay Mercantile are old die-hards, I’m supposin’,” answered Pike. “They won’t give in t’ the new ways without a fight. They’re still tryin’ to play by the old rules. An’ the Sea Tiger’s worthy o’ the attempt. But if we can’t pick up a cargo in Shanghai, I’ve orders to swing down t’ Melbourne.”
Pike swung up the ladder almost effortlessly, slinging his crutch over his shoulder by a leather strap, then pulling himself up with extraordinarily strong arms. “As I recall, laddie,” he said with a grin, “ye was always fond of the galley . . .”
Robbie laughed. “Show me the way!”
The master of the galley was an elderly Chinese man whose unpronounceable name had been Anglicized years earlier—no doubt originally somewhat tongue-in-cheek—and the name had stuck. Ever since he had been known simply as Johnnie Smith. At seventy, the man was tough and sinewy, dressed in a combination of seaman’s attire of canvas trousers and peaked cap, and an oriental silk shirt. When he turned away from them, Robbie saw that he wore a braid stretching down most of the length of his back. He greeted them in a stream of Chinese which, working in combination with his furiously waving hands, gave the distinct impression of anger toward the intruders.
“Shut up, Johnnie!” spat Pike coldly. “You want something, you bloody well better learn to speak like a civilized human being!”
Pike’s outburst was met with another verbal barrage. Robbie would soon learn that words from Johnnie’s mouth hardly ceased from morning till night.
“Foreigners!” growled Pike scornfully. “But he can cook. I ne’er knew a ship’s vittles t’ be so good. The only man ever could match him would be mysel’, but then it wouldn’t do for a captain to be putterin’ about the galley, now would it?”
“It’s just as well,” quipped Robbie. “I don’t seem to have the same memories of your cooking.”
“You know how to hurt a man, Robbie,” he said, attempting a laugh to accompany his humor, but the effort fell short. Then turning to Johnnie, he yelled, “Fix us some vittles!”
Johnnie replied in Chinese that sounded as if it were the equivalent of, “Not on your life, you one-legged blag’ard!” But notwithstanding his outburst, he immediately began gathering the ingredients to a first-class captain’s lunch.
“He can understand you?” asked Robbie.
“The ol’ devil! He understands every word you an’ I are sayin’ an’ can probably speak better English than either one o’ us. But he’s a stubborn ol’ Chinaman!”
While they waited for their food, another crew member poked his head into the galley. His round, perpetually sun-burned, fair-skinned face was topped with thinning blond hair. In his early fifties and short of height, the man was broad of chest with long muscular arms. Pike introduced him as Torger Overlie the coxswain.2
“Glad to meet you,” he said after he and Robbie had shaken hands, his thick Norwegian accent contrasting colorfully with the cook’s, and his grin revealing a perfect set of straight, white teeth. “We have da new fittings in and ready to inspect,” he said to Pike.
“I’ll be right out,” replied the skipper.
When Overlie had departed, Pike shook his head dismally. “More foreigners,” he said. “I’m glad ye joined us, Robbie.”
“And what’s your trouble with foreigners, Ben?” asked Robbie. “Aren’t Scotsmen considered foreigners down here?”
“And what makes you think I’m a Scotsman, lad?”
“I always took it for granted. You sound enough like one, at least most of the time.”
“Purely feigned, my boy! I put on whatever tongue suits me best—a bit o’ Cockney, a bit o’ Scots.”
“You’re a remarkable man, Ben, I have to admit! You’ve got more sides to you than an African diamond!”
When they had finished lunch, the best Robbie had ever enjoyed aboard a ship, Pike led the way back to the top deck and fresh air. Robbie breathed deeply and looked around him with satisfaction.
“The rest of the crew’ll be comin’ aboard soon,” said Pike. “Sixteen in all, countin’ you.”
“A bit on the small size to run a clipper, isn’t it?”
“I’ll take sixteen good men any day over fifty dullards!”
Pike’s so-called “good” men proved to be a thorough hodgepodge of characters, of which those he had already met were a typical introduction. Robbie wondered if the captain could have selected a stranger lot of shipfellows. Already he’d met the genteel Drew, the surly bo’sun Digger, the talkative Chinese cook, and the grinning Norwegian coxswain. But the bunch ushered aboard that afternoon by Digger made these Robbie had first seen ordinary by comparison. Unkempt and bleary-eyed, they had probably been picked by Digger at the various boardinghouses for sailors after a long night of carousing.
As they shuffled on board, at least half of the ten men looked not just willing, but in some cases eager to pick a fight with anyone who might cross them. The look of one was particularly alarming, yet he seemed on friendlier terms than the rest with the bo’sun, sauntering next to him apart from the others. Robbie later learned he was the ship’s carpenter, a wiry, swarthy-skinned Arab who was known as Ahmed Turk. It seemed he was accorded some authority among the group, and, as Robbie learned soon enough, both Turk and the bo’sun exerted considerable influence over a certain contingent of the crew. The bo’sun did so by the sheer might of his imposing being and his position of responsibility in the hierarchy of the ship’s authority structure. But Turk leveled his influence with one piercing glance from his black eyes that looked out in evil stare from a face scarred with evidence of fights innumerable.
Immediately Robbie could sense the man meant trouble. Never had he beheld such scars. They ran from forehead to cheek, two in particular perfectly bisecting each eye. Robbie didn’t want to even consider what awful rite or battle could have inflicted such wounds. Moreover, he didn’t want to think of the possibility of opposing the man who had survived such an ordeal. Yet if he was to be first mate, having to be in charge of the whole motley crew, how would it be possible, in months at sea, to avoid an impasse with Turk? He hoped it wouldn’t come to that.
At first glance these new arrivals hardly seemed worthy to fulfill Pike’s boast, and if Robbie had been in the habit of praying, he might have prayed that his initial estimation was wrong. As if to confirm the worst of his fears, Robbie’s eyes gave him another surprise when they reached the end of the line. Wondering to himself why he didn’t see Kerr walking on board, considering his apparent and puzzling intimacy with Pike, Robbie looked up to see one Jeremiah Lackey, whose presence seemed always cause for alarm. Robbie knew him well; he had sailed on the Macao. He had to be nearly seventy by now, and looked every day of it, with a face as lined as a map, leathery and toothless. But his yellowed eyes were bright and alert. He was one of those ageless creatures who always seemed to haunt the sea and anything that sailed upon it, and though he looked ancient, he did not appear a day older than when Robbie had last seen him nine years earlier. It was very likely he had always looked seventy.
“Why, bless me!” he croaked like a piece of old rigging, “’tis little Robbie Taggart. If we dinna sink or flounder or mut’ny betwixt ourselves, we’ll do all right!” But the moment his feet touched the deck, his wrinkled countenance sagged. “’Tis a rum ship! I can feel it! Saints preserve us!”
Robbie had never forgotten the man’s capacity for instilling gloom and fear. By Lackey’s estimation, any ship that dared wet its hull was always on the verge of some catastrophe visited upon it by an angry Providence. He had taken upon himself the role of prophet of doom. And if none of his prophetic pronouncements ever came to pass, it hardly mattered. Seamen were a superstitious lot, and he could always find plenty of timorous souls willing enough to listen, and to fear the one time when his words just might turn out to be true.