Robbie was surprised to learn they would sail the next day. When he commented to Pike on his good fortune to show up when he did, the unlikely captain merely responded with a mysterious half grin, as if he knew luck had nothing to do with it.
Sleepless in his bunk later, Robbie tossed about restlessly. Finally around midnight, attributing his lack of sleep to anticipation of the following morning’s departure, he rose and made his way topside, hoping a stroll on deck might soothe his nerves into slumber.
He climbed the companion ladder to the forehatch, and had only just poked his head above deck when he saw three shadowy figures crossing up the gangway. Robbie would have given them little thought except by their very stealth, with many covert glances over their shoulders, and their obvious attempts to remain quiet, the men drew the attention that Robbie instinctively felt was the very thing they wanted to avoid.
Two of the men carried a crate, hoisted above their shoulders, strikingly similar to the unmarked containers he had seen earlier in the hold, and were followed by another man limping along after them. Robbie was about to call out when he realized that the third man was Pike himself. He decided his best course of action was to remain silent. Curiosity was not one of Robbie’s strongest characteristics, be it virtue or fault, and he was content to shrug off the incident as none of his concern and of little sinister significance. If Pike had private belongings he wished delivered to the ship under cover of darkness that was his business—he was master of the ship. But whatever their intent, Robbie judged it better to pause several moments until the trio had descended down the aft hatch leading to Pike’s cabin before he completed his exit onto the deck.
The crisp February air stung Robbie’s face and invigorated him rather than offering promise of sleep. He remembered a brace that had been troublesome that afternoon, and wandered to the foremast to have a look. Forward of the mast he noted Drew perched somewhat precariously on the capstan puffing on a pipe, attempting to effect the perfect smoke ring, but finding each of his efforts immediately whisked away by the gentle night breeze.
“Evening, Drew,” said Robbie, climbing the ladder to the raised forecastle where the capstan was located. He was quite willing to forget the brace in light of an opportunity to chat with this odd mixture of sailor and poet known as the Vicar. For of all the assorted assemblage he had viewed that day, this one intrigued Robbie the most.
“Ah, ’tis the first mate,” replied Drew. “Out for an evening stroll, or were you perhaps investigating our late night visitors?” Drew’s words were slightly slurred and his eyes bloodshot. Robbie suspected his condition was not entirely due to lack of sleep.
“Only out for a walk . . . I couldn’t sleep,” Robbie replied.
“Sleeping with one eye cocked, as you sailors like to say, will do you no harm on this little cruise.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“Well, ’tis plain to see that Captain Pike—and I use the term captain only for the present. I don’t know about you, but I’ve never heard of a man in his condition being given his own ship! Makes me wonder, Taggart—but, as I said, ’tis plain to see that he did not recruit his crew from any Church of England congregation, no, nor a Dissenting one either.”
Drew took a long draw on his pipe before speaking again. “And those late night deliveries—this was not the first.”
“A master has a right to his personal ventures.”
“True, true,” agreed the Vicar, blowing out a long stream of smoke. “And I’m the last man with a right to judge his actions, for we are told not to judge our neighbor. But there is still the matter of the crew—of which, I might add, you are rather the anomaly.”
“I was thinking the very same thing about you,” replied Robbie with a friendly grin. “And what do you mean by you sailors? What do you call yourself?”
Drew laughed dryly. “Certainly not a sailor! I just humor the men I work for by going along with their little games of pitting their masculinity against the powers of the sea. It’s all futile, you know. You can’t win. The Powers”—and as he spoke the word he gestured grandiosely toward the darkness of the sky above—“of the heavens are infinite beside our puny little selves.”
“If you can’t win, and you’re no sailor,” said Robbie, “then why are you here?”
“Oh, I said you can’t win—you sailor types. Men like me, we’re the only ones who can win, because we recognize the futility in the universe.” He laughed again, but there was almost a pathetic ring to it. “Don’t you see, Taggart? It’s all a gigantic, cosmic game! But you’ve got to know the rules! And most of your sailors—they don’t know what they’re up against. But,” he added, in a softer tone, almost as if it pained him to make the admission, “I fit in more than you might suppose, Taggart. I do my job, and try not to let my past interfere in any other way than through the sayings that seem so bent on coming out of my mouth.”
“And where do you hail from?”
“From Glasgow, where else? Ye mean ye canna tell me Lalan’s dialect frae the rest o’ ’em?”
Robbie laughed. “No, to tell the truth. Your English is as perfect as any born Londoner.”
“That’s what Oxford will do to a man. But as for yourself, I still detect a ring of the Highlands about you—Grampian, I would say. Perhaps Aberdeenshire.”
“Bravo!” said Robbie. “But my father traveled about so much that we never settled in on the speech of any one place. I suppose that’s why I’m just a conglomeration—a true Britisher!”
“So you may say. But once a Highlander always a Highlander, or so I’ve heard.”
“You’re not so far off the mark there, Drew! Well, it is nice to find a fellow Scot among this aggregate mass of the world’s peoples!”
“Ah yes—Scotland, the fairest homeland among all homelands,” he said with overstated feeling, before launching into verse:
“‘O Scotia! my dear, my native soil!
For whom my warmest wish to Heaven is sent!
Long may thy hardy sons of rustic toil
Be blest with health, and peace, and sweet content!’”
quoted Drew, with just enough sarcasm to his voice to rob the poem of all sincerity.
“That is—” he began to add, but Robbie interrupted.
“I do know Burns, Mr. Drew,” he said, recalling their meeting that morning.
Drew laughed again, the laugh with which Robbie would soon become quite familiar. Like Pike’s, it held no merriment, but unlike the skipper’s, it did contain a good deal of humor—though not always of a pleasant sort.
“Of course,” he said. “Every Scotsman knows ‘Robbie the great bard,’ if nothing else.” Then he quickly added, “No offense intended!”
“None taken,” replied Robbie good-naturedly. Folding his arms over his chest, Robbie leaned against the forecastle rail, warming to the man despite his propensity toward cynicism. “Might I ask how you came by the label of Vicar?”
“Oh, that,” Drew said, waving his hand carelessly. “Nothing but a nasty rumor circulating that I was once a man of the cloth.”
“Only a rumor?”
“Come now, Taggart,” he replied. “One look on my unesteemable and decrepit person ought to answer that question.” Then he deftly changed the subject. “There are likewise rumors circulating concerning you, to the effect that you resigned a commission in the Royal Navy to join this rat-trap.”
Robbie caught Drew’s evasive ploy, and though disappointed to get nothing more from the Vicar, decided to let the matter pass. “That rumor is indeed true,” he answered. “I gave up the constriction of a prison for the freedom of this . . . rat-trap, as you so unjustly call it.”
“Was it not Samuel Johnson who likened the life of the sailor to that of a prison? His comment, preserved for all time in the annals of our country’s literature, was that being in a ship was to be in jail with the chance of being drowned to top it off. Moreover, a man in prison has more room, better food, and commonly better company to boot.”
“Is that how you see it, Drew?”
“A man is his own prison, Taggart.” With the words he reached into his coat and withdrew a small flask. “’Tis a cold night—I could use some warming for the innards. Won’t you join me?” He uncorked the flask and held it out to Robbie.
“No thanks,” Robbie replied. “I don’t wish to trade one prison for another.”
Drew laughed. “Well said, my friend! You’ve a wit to match your amicable nature.” He had a swig from his flask, then wiped a grimy sleeve across his mouth.
“You know, of course,” said Robbie, nodding his head toward the flask, “there will be none of that after we set sail.”
“To be sure . . . to be sure,” answered Drew lightly. “All the more reason to indulge now before the dawn breaks. But have no fear, Mr. Royal Navy Taggart, I’m a perfect teetotaler at sea.” He lifted the flask once more to his lips and drank long and greedily. When he finished, he turned the bottle upside down, showing it to be quite empty. “It’s gone now. I’ll behave myself from here on.” He jammed the cork back into place with morose finality, and dropped the flask into his coat pocket.
“Good night, Drew,” said Robbie. “I’ve enjoyed our talk.”
“You are too kind, Taggart. Especially when I can see our talk has disturbed you.”
“You are a difficult man to understand,” Robbie answered truthfully enough, for he realized their conversation had only deepened the enigma of the Vicar.
“Then don’t try. ‘A double-minded man is unstable in all his ways.’ So beware, Robbie!” He knocked his pipe on the capstan, then slid to his feet. “I shall join you, for I see no point in prolonging the dread coming of morning any longer.”
As he gained his feet, he swayed dangerously, his knees almost buckling under him. Robbie jumped forward and caught him, then slung the Vicar’s arm around his shoulder, and led him all the way to the crew’s quarters below. At the doorway Drew paused before staggering to his berth.
“You’re a good Scotsman, my friend,” he said, with an intensity that Robbie decided could be as much from the alcohol as from sincerity.
“Get to bed, Drew. Tomorrow’s going to be a busy day.”
“And I think you should know,” Drew continued as if Robbie had not spoken. “All those nasty rumors . . . they are entirely true. A stickit minister, that’s me, with all the privileges and mockeries thereof.” He wheeled around and disappeared into the darkness of the cabin, where the snores and movements of his sleeping shipmates accentuated the lateness of the hour.
Robbie turned and found his way to his own cabin. He was no nearer finding sleep than when he had left an hour before. The entire conversation with Drew replayed itself in his mind, and he found the man no less puzzling now, lying in bed, than he had seemed in the chill air on deck.
As sleep eventually began to overtake him, a new thought caught hold in his mind. But just as quickly as it flitted into his consciousness, he quickly and willingly let it go, for it was not something he wanted to dwell on. He and the Vicar were, oddly, very much alike.