“WHY ARE YOU set on it?” said William.
The men were clearing a space along the orlop. They pushed the chairs and tables against the hull, and lashed the hammocks, except for the stained one that hung above its wetness on the deck floor.
“Your companions have invited you to be of their inner circle of acquaintance,” said Jeremiah. “It would be discourteous, and folly, to refuse.”
“But what’s the odds, when I’m going home?”
“But if you are not?”
“But I am. And Pad. And Eggy Mo. And Renter. And it’s Renter as is the governor of this lot. So why?”
“Ah, friend Charles,” said Jeremiah. “I agree: Charles is of a devious nature, and one for any sport.”
“Come with us.”
“I fear that the geography would test not only my intellect but my constitution, William. But my heart will dwell on you, as I labour under a southern sun.”
“You think I shan’t do it, don’t you?”
“Not so much ‘will not’ as ‘cannot’,” said Jeremiah. “I look at you, and the picture is ever before my eyes:
‘O nimium caelo et pelago confise sereno,
Nudus in ignota, Palinure, iacebis harena.’”
William frowned, and worked his lips. “‘Sky and sea . . . Happy in the sand with nowt too much on his ignorant cufuffle’? No. That’s reckoned me up.”
“‘O Palinurus, too trusting in heaven and a calm sea, you shall lie naked on an unknown sand.’” said Jeremiah.
“Who’s Pallywhatsit?”
“A man who thought that he knew whither he was going, and took no heed.”
“Yay, but he didn’t have this, did he?” said William, and reached into his pocket. He opened his fist carefully. The quartz was dull in the grey light; yet, deep down, was the shadow of a rainbow.
“And what may that be?” said Jeremiah.
“Me swaddledidaff.”
“And that is what?”
“A promise,” said William. “My promise. Don’t you let on.”
Jeremiah looked at William.
“Ay,” he said. “I would trust that where I would not your compass.”
William nodded, and put the swaddledidaff back in his pocket. “Port Jackson. China. Turn left. And straight home.”
“Yet you are not troubled at the thought of our sable brethren, the Indians?”
“Oh, they’re nowt, by all accounts; what there is of them.”
“They are cannibal. Fee, fi, fo, fum, William. Fee, fi, fo. And the fum.”
“Are you there?” called Renter. “It’s time!”
“I’m coming!” said William.
“Nil desperandum,” said Jeremiah.
“It’s daft,” said William.
Renter was sitting on a table in the middle of the deck. William went and stood before him.
“Are you ready and desirous to be Stalled to the Rogue?” said Renter.
“I am,” said William.
“And are you ready and desirous to take the Oath, and, with it, a new name?”
“I am,” said William.
“Then swear on Man Thomas and on bawbles.”
William drew a deep breath, closed his eyes and spoke at a gallop of concentration.
“I do swear on Man Thomas and on bawbles that I, Crank Cuffin, shall be a true brother, and that I will obey the commands of the great tawny prince, and keep his counsel.
“I will take my prince’s part against all that do oppose him; nor will I suffer him, or any one belonging to us, to be abused by any strange abrams, rufflers, hookers, pailliards, swaddlers, Irish toyles –”
“Oh, they’re the ones!” shouted Pad.
“Shurrup. I’ll forget. Irish toyles, swigmen, whip jacks, jarkmen, bawdy baskets, dommerars, clapperdodgeons, patricoes or curtals.
“I will not conceal aught I win out of libkins or from the ruffmans.
“Lastly, I will cleave to my doxy wap stiffly, and will bring her duds, marjery praters, gobblers, grunting cheats or tibs of the buttery, is winnings for her weppings.”
A cheer broke out, and voices called: “Well told, Crank!” “Very good tale!” Renter lifted up a tin mug of lime juice and vinegar, and poured it over William’s head, and shouted for all to hear: “I, dimber-damber and upright-man, with this gage of bowse, do Stall thee, Crank Cuffin, to the Rogue! And from henceforth it shall be lawful for thee to cant for thy living in all places!”
There was more cheering, and Renter got down from the table and stood, facing William. Then a rhythm of leg irons being clinked together built up. Others joined, to a different beat. And the deeper notes of the long chains were added. William and Renter began to dance around each other, with as much grace as their own irons would allow. Pad and the Irish started to sing, and all joined in.
“Bing out, bien morts, and toure and toure,
Bing out, bien morts, and toure;
For all your duds are binged awast;
The bien cove hath the loure,
The loure,
The bien cove hath the loure!”
Another cheer, and Pad called, “You now, Crank! Let’s have one from you! And let’s have it a dance for us!”
“I can’t,” said William. “I’m no singer.”
“Oh, but you are!” said Pad. “There’s devil a man without a song!”
“Well,” said William, “I’ve a little ditty as we had used to sing at home every year.”
“And is there a dance in it?”
“Ay – there is.”
“Come on, then! Bear a bob!”
The chains began to ring in waiting: clink, clink, clink, clink.
“Faster,” said William. “Same as this: Di-dee, di-dee, di-diddle-di-dee.” They picked up the tune, and William sang.
“I’ll dye, I’ll dye my petticoat red;
For the lad I love I’d bake my bread;
And then my daddy would wish that I were dead;
Sweet Willy in the morning among the rush!”
Already the men and women were dancing, and the sound of their chains hammered through the deck.
“Together now!” said William.
“Shoorly, shoorly, shoo-gang-rowl!
Shoo-gang-lolly-mog, shoog-a-gang-a-low!
Sweet Willy in the morning among the rush!”
“Oh, that’s the fine tune!” cried Pad. “Let’s be having it again, and every Jack-rag of you singing!”
The noise was tremendous. The whole ship resounded to voice and iron.
Jeremiah watched.
“It would seem that the sea coals did their work,” said the chaplain. He had come down unnoticed in the tumult.
“As may be,” said Jeremiah. “For myself, I must own that they but piled Pelion on Ossa with their smoke. Though it may be said that the admixture did confound the individualities.”
The second round of the dance ended.
“Is there room for another at the horky?” shouted the chaplain.
“Come down, sir!” said Pad. “But you must sing your dues!”
“Sing?” said the chaplain. “I’ll dance ’em! And you’ll be chorus! Are you ready now for ‘The Merry Golden Tree’?”
“Aye aye!” came the answer, with rattling chains.
“Make space, then! For I’ve some spring to me!”
The crowd parted, the chaplain struck a pose, leapt and began:
“There was a gallant ship, and a gallant ship was she!”
“Eck iddle du, and the Lowlands low!” howled the chorus.
“And she was called ‘The Merry Golden Tree’!”
“As she sailed to the Lowlands low!”
The chaplain bounded across the deck.
“She had not sailed a league, a league but only three!”
“Eck iddle du, and the Lowlands low!”
“When she came up with a French gallee!”
“As she sailed to the Lowlands low!”
The chaplain made a pirouette, and clicked his heels.
“Out spoke the little cabin-boy, out spoke he!”
“Mother of God. The hammock.”
“Eck iddle du, and the Lowlands low!”
“‘What will you give me if I sink that French gallee?’!”
“‘As ye sail to the Lowland –’”
The chaplain stepped in the puddle of moisture, slipped, and fell across the slung hammock, face down.
“Oh, Christ and His Saints.”
There was not a breath, not a chink.
“This man,” said the chaplain. “How long has he been dead?”
“Dead, sir.” said Pad.
“He is putrefaction.”
“Well, we did think he was in a bit of a sulk.”
“Sulk?”
“But then he was never the great talker.”
“And you claim to have smelt nothing.”
“We thought it was the fumigatising you did, sir.”
The chaplain stood and lapped the edges of the hammock over and made the sign of the cross above it. He walked along the deck, and the crowd opened for him in silence. At the companion ladder he turned, and said, “I shall send those to sew him in. Four of you to carry.” And he left.
No one spoke. No one moved. Two sailors, and armed guard, came down; and they sewed the hammock into a shroud with twine. They laid the leg chain along the body.
“Take ’em off him!” said William. “Don’t send him in slangs!”
“He needs the weight,” said Jeremiah.
“He must go down free!”
“He is free,” said Jeremiah.
The sailors finished the job, and went. Pad lifted the body onto his shoulder and made for the companion. He moved his head. “Who’s for some air?”
Renter took the lashings of one end and gave a handful to Eggy Mo. William and Jeremiah took the other end.
“Follow me,” said Pad. “And easy does it.”
The body was nothing, but their irons made them unsteady onthe ladder.
“Watch for your eyes up top,” said Pad. “It’s a honeycomb of ages since you’ve seen such light.”
They went on the companion through the decks and out at the top. They yelled, and dropped the body, covering their faces with their hands.
“Didn’t I tell you?” said Pad, himself squinting.
They parted their fingers. The light was agony, and there was no colour but yellow gold. Gold deck. Gold mast. Gold sail. Gold agony of sky. Gold agony of flashing sea. No depth. No shade. All gold.
“Take him up,” said the voice of the chaplain, “and bear him here.”
There were the shapes of golden men, outlined in a greater gold, standing at a gold bulwark.
“Here’s me hand,” said Pad, gripping William’s. They lifted the body again, and Pad led them along the deck.
There was a plank already balanced on the after-rail, steadied by marines. Next to it were the Captain, the surgeon and the chaplain.
“Lay him on the plank,” said the chaplain. “Take hold.” The marines stepped back. William, Jeremiah, Renter and Eggy Mo held the plank.
“He did ought to go down free,” said William.
“The sea-lawyers will look to that,” said Pad, “when they render their account.”
Colour was coming back into the air, and William could open his eyes. He saw the water behind the ship slit by fins.
“Have you command of yourselves, Erbin?” said the chaplain.
“We have, sir,” said Jeremiah.
“Commit the body when I signify.”
“We shall, sir.”
The water was flecked with blue.
The chaplain opened his book.
“‘I am the resurrection and the life, saith the Lord; he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live; and whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die –’”
“Oh, fake the slangs,” William sobbed.
“‘Man that is born of woman hath but a short time to live, and is full of misery –’”
Take them off!
“‘In the midst of life we are in death –’”
Off! Off! Off!
“‘– suffer us not, in our last hour, for any pains of death, to fall from thee.’
“What may we say of our brother, Christopher, here departed?”
“Non omnis moriar,” said Jeremiah.
“He was sore afflicted; yet, in his affliction, we may see eternal hope still shine, and say with him: Yea! He did chase them. His apron he did flap at them. But they did see him coming. They did see his apron. Yet shall he get them. One day.”
“‘I shall not entirely die,’” Jeremiah said to William.
The chaplain nodded, and Jeremiah lifted the end of the plank. The hammock slid, and dropped.
“We therefore commit this body to the deep, to be turned into corruption, looking for the resurrection of the body, when the Sea shall give up her dead, and the life of the world to come –”
“He’s not sinking,” said Eggy Mo.
“Too much gas in him,” said Renter.
The shroud bobbed in the water, and slowly went under.
“Land ho!” cried the look-out from the crow’s nest.
“Na-a-a-a-y!” shouted William. “But you could have waited! Why did you not wait on? And lay him in earthen lake?”
“Land ho!”
“– who at His coming shall change our vile body, that it may be like His glorious body –”
“The sea-lawyers would appear to contest the brief,” said Jeremiah.