The dining table had been set up in the captain’s cabin and the officers summoned to present themselves in dress uniform. It was an uneasy gathering for all, though it was Woodfall, sitting next to Elizabeth, who seemed to be suffering the most. His was the indignity of seeing the Iceland Queen passed on to the command of another man, and yet having to remain on it as it sailed towards a thing that he couldn’t admit he feared. He seldom raised his eyes beyond the rim of his plate.
The ship’s previous scientific officer bristled whenever he looked at her. Since her arrival he’d been evicted from his cabin, in accordance with the commodore’s orders, and was obliged to bunk with the crew. First Mate Ryan had taken some of the blame for the disorder and drunkenness that preceded their southward voyage. The junior officers seemed unsettled by the mission, as well they might be, and by the change in command.
The commodore’s personal steward had also been granted a place at the table, though his position wouldn’t ordinarily have allowed it. It was to him that Captain Locklight addressed his first question:
“How does it feel to be waited on, Mr Watkins?”
“I should be on the mother ship,” he said.
“And yet Mr Barnabus thought otherwise. So here you are. We should drink the health of our disfigured scientific officer, don’t you think?”
He lifted his wine glass and when even the old scientific officer had complied by doing the same, he drained it in one go. It was his third, to her counting. He held it out to be refilled by the cook, who was hovering near the table with a fresh bottle.
“How are we provisioned, man?”
“We’re run out of butter, sir,” said the cook.
“And beyond that?”
“We’ll stretch to three weeks for food.”
“And water?”
“Less than a week, sir. Unless it rains.”
“Then we shall pray for the heavens to open. Indeed, fortune does love us all!” He raised his glass again. “To wherever you send your prayers – to God, the Company or the Patent Office!” On this last part, he nodded towards her.
This time she was obliged to drink with them, but allowed only a taste to pass her lips. It was not good wine. Perhaps the crew had found the better stuff. It was a miracle that any alcohol remained after the last few days.
In the months she had sailed with Captain Locklight she’d witnessed his many moods which, good or ill, were always fierce. But never had she seen him possessed of such a dark humour. It animated him, making his movements jerky. He was easily ten years older than Captain Woodfall, she thought. But helplessness and fear had drained the younger man of his energy. He looked more fit for a retirement home than a whaling ship.
“How would you rate our chances of finding wreckage from the Mary May?” Locklight asked. When no one seated would meet his gaze, he turned to the cook. “A good chance, do you reckon?”
The cook’s face reddened from the unexpected attention. “Aye, sir. We’ll find it.”
“Good man! See it before me and I’ll give you twenty silver dollars.”
The cook beamed. “Thank you, sir!”
“First to catch sight of wreckage will get that from me on top of the bonus from the Company. You can tell the rest of the crew. We’re going to make good money on this voyage!”
A terrible bitterness lay below the captain’s display of enthusiasm. Elizabeth could feel it. A sickness, even. But the other officers seemed too intent on their own individual miseries to notice. The cook was mesmerised.
“We should drink to the silver and gold we’ll make,” announced Locklight. “And not with horse piss.” He pulled a key from inside his jacket and tossed it for the cook to catch. “I have a mind there’s a few bottles of something stronger and sweeter in my trunk.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Good man. And pour a measure for yourself!”
Elizabeth watched the cook scampering to the captain’s sea chest. As he knelt to open it, she looked back to the captain and saw the dark coals of his eyes were flicking around the table from one officer to the next. First Mate Ryan was watching the opening of the sea chest. The others were staring at their plates.
“But it’s empty, sir,” said the cook.
“Ah,” said Locklight. “That must be my mistake. Then go search for something that escaped Captain Woodfall’s chaos. Something strong.”
When the cook was gone, Locklight thumped his fist on the table, hard enough to make the cutlery jump. “You will stand tall in front of the men, God damn you! You will tell them from your bearing that they’ll return, rich, to their families from this voyage. When the time comes, I will remember your actions – every one of you. Your obedience. Your conduct. And your thievery.”
The cook’s locked store yielded two bottles of good brandy. The captain made them drink toasts to the success of the voyage. Scared into compliance, the officers joined in. And though it was plain to Elizabeth that they were only acting their enthusiasm, by degrees and with the help of the alcohol, their spirits caught something of Locklight’s mood, so that by the end of the dinner, they were thumping on the table and shouting huzzahs when he required it. Not Woodfall, though, whose mood had sunk lower with every glass. Elizabeth raised hers when ordered, though she didn’t let a sip pass her lips. And when a tray of sponge cake was served they were all too far gone to see her slipping three extra pieces below the table, where she wrapped them in a clean handkerchief.
During her time at sea, Elizabeth had decided that engineers were a different kind of sailor. They had their own technical schools and their qualifications were measured on a different scale. They served the end of their training on board under the care of the senior engineer. Regular sailors respected them, but left them to themselves.
The Iceland Queen’s senior engineer was the old man who’d told her that the monster was a machine. It was he that she found on duty in the engine room, together with his apprentice.
“I’ve brought you cake,” she said, holding out the bundle she’d sneaked from the captain’s cabin.
“Why?” asked the senior engineer. He held a grey rag in one hand, with which he’d been wiping the glass of a water-level dial.
“To say thank you for what you told me,” she said. “It was important and I’m grateful.”
He nodded towards a small workbench. On the wall behind it, spanners and screwdrivers had been strapped in rows of ascending size. She placed the bundle, untied the corners and opened it out. The smell of lemon zest rose up to her. The apprentice stepped forwards for a closer look.
“Why three pieces?” asked the senior engineer.
“So I can eat with you. It seems to me you know more about the running of a ship like this than any of the so-called sailors on deck.”
“We may do,” he acknowledged.
“And it seems to me you don’t get paid the respect you deserve. When Captain Woodfall was taken off the ship and all the crew were getting drunk, you kept the wheels turning down here. They’d have been drifting without a hope if it wasn’t for you.”
After a moment’s consideration, he nodded. A click of his fingers and a gesture had the apprentice running to fetch three stools. When they were all sitting and each had a square of cake in hand, he said: “Thank you.” Though whether it was for the cake or for the sentiment of her words, she couldn’t tell.
“How did you get that mark on your face?” blurted the apprentice.
“I was born with it.”
This seemed to disappoint him, as if he would have preferred an accident to be the cause. “Is that why you came to sea? To hide from people?”
The idea seemed curious. There were people enough on board a ship. And cruelty to spare. But then, the engineers were cloistered like monks.
“Don’t mind him,” said the chief engineer. “He doesn’t know better.”
“It was a fair question,” she said. And then, to the apprentice: “We are all of us hiding from something.”
She watched them eat the cake. The apprentice demolished his in three large mouthfuls then sat blissfully chewing with his eyes closed and cheeks bulging. The chief engineer broke small pieces, taking time with each, watching her as he chewed.
“Why don’t you eat yours?” he asked.
“I’ve just come from the captain’s table,” she said. “Now I come to it, I find my stomach’s full.” It was a lie. Such had been the tension of the banquet that she’d only been able to pick at the food on her plate. “If I wrap it up and leave it here, perhaps I could come back later?”
He weighed this for a moment before saying: “I don’t see why not.” And then: “You’re right. They don’t listen to us down here. But I don’t reckon they listen to the scientific officer, neither. Seems like you might have some stories to tell if anyone would listen.”
She wrapped the cake and left it hanging from a peg on the wall. “To be clear of the rats,” she told them. But in reality it was to be clear of their view. For the place she’d chosen was a yard into the passageway and sunk in shadow. The hook might once have hung a lamp, she thought.
Having said goodbye and taken her thanks from them, she headed out and up the steps, treading heavily enough for them to hear her go. Only when she was back to the door of her own cabin did she stop, hold her breath and listen. No footsteps had followed. No shadow was out of place. So she turned and retraced her path. And when she came to the final flight down towards the engine room, she placed her feet on each step so as to make no sound. Then, halfway down, she sat in the shadow and waited.
From time to time, she could hear the engineer and his apprentice moving about in the control room. Whenever one of them approached the passageway she would get to her feet. If they discovered her she could pretend to be on her way back down. The third time it happened the shadow of one of them loomed into the space at the bottom of the stairs. She stood, ready to give her explanation, but the shadow pulled back. She counted ten before lowering herself to sit once more.
The engine control room was merely one part of the space they occupied. There was a walkway behind the bank of dials and levers. Beyond that would be the fuel tanks, the boiler and condensers, the funnel inlet, the great cogs that geared down revolutions of the engine, and, somewhere forward, the axle of the paddlewheels, running clear across the ship.
She had seen Captain Locklight’s trunk hauled aboard. It had taken two men to carry it below decks. Having spent years in the company of conjurors, she knew better than to believe the obvious truth, that it was full and heavy. His trunk might already have been empty and the men feigning the weight of it. But then, the emptying could only have happened on the mother ship. And the crew of the Iceland Queen could have had no message to prepare for such a deception. Also, they had no motive.
Therefore, the captain’s trunk had been full when brought aboard. There’d been perhaps two minutes between it being carried below and Locklight following it down. Time enough for an expert with a pick to have it open. And if there’d been others to help carry, the trunk could have been stripped of its books.
Before leaving the captain’s cabin she’d stepped across to the trunk and crouched for a moment to examine the lock. It was made of brass and had the name Chub engraved on the front. Not something an amateur could pick. But there’d been scratches where a knife blade had been inserted underneath the lid. Whoever had taken the captain’s books hadn’t bothered with subtlety. He’d levered the metal wall of the trunk, bending it until the bolt popped free from its catch.
But the question that had most perplexed her was why anyone should wish to steal the captain’s books. What was it that made them so valuable as to be worth the risk of a lashing and dishonourable discharge? Indeed, where on board a whaling ship could such a quantity of books be hidden?
It wasn’t until she turned the question around that the answer had come to her. The books had not been taken because they were valuable. They’d been removed because they had no value. They did not need to be hidden, merely thrown overboard. The thief was illiterate. And he’d had no use for the contents of the trunk. He only needed the space the books had previously occupied.
There was a clanking sound from within the engine room, as if someone had begun to use a soft hammer against metal. Every few beats, it stopped and she heard the chief engineer giving instructions. They were disassembling some part of the machinery to be cleaned.
Keeping her eyes on the foot of the stairs, she stood, tensed and ready. The hammering continued. She began to count the seconds. Before a minute had passed, she saw a new shadow move across the floor. And then Tinker stepped into the passageway, reaching up towards the small bundle of cake. She was down the remaining stairs and had grabbed his arm before he had a chance to lift it from its hook.
His first reaction was to pull away. But then he saw her properly. She put a finger to her lips and eased him back into the shadow, up the stairs and away.