Captain Nemo: The Fantastic History of a Dark Genius (12 page)

Indeed, it hadn’t taken long for the change to occur in Nemo.
 
As the ship voyaged southward, the salty breezes and sun-glared blue expanse began calling to him like a mermaid’s song.
 
During the day, trade winds stretched the sails taut and made the rigging hum.
 
The layers of canvas lapped each other in patterns assigned by the captain, pulling the three-masted brig along as if by the finger of God.

In the lower decks, bunks and hammocks were shared between the port and starboard watches.
 
Open hatches let in sunshine and fresh air; lanterns hung from the rafters, providing the only light when the hatches were sealed against stormy weather.

Each man had his kit of meager possessions and changes of clothes that would last him for two years on board the
Coralie
.
 
When not on watch, the crew slept and lived amongst the coils of rigging rope, spare sails, and patch cloth.
 
Belowdecks on quiet evenings, older seamen told stories, topping each tale with another.
 
The thick air was redolent of old sweat and old fish.
 
Nemo swung in his hammock and listened to their lore with a contented smile.

The deck fittings were painted light gray to be visible on moonless nights; the deck houses were white and stood out smartly against a rich oiled deck.
 
And on the night watch, a blizzard of stars in the dark sky shone down like nothing Nemo had ever seen from Nantes. . . .

The Coralie had gone south along the coast of France and around the Iberian Peninsula, with a four-day stop in Lisbon, where Captain Grant had once spent several years learning his trade from a Portuguese mentor.
 
The Portuguese were themselves great explorers of the oceans, and revered their long-ago monarch, Prince Henry the Navigator, as if he were a patron saint.
 

Lisbon was a city that looked like a staircase.
 
The streets and whitewashed buildings stumbled down from the surrounding summer-brown hills.
 
The crowded houses stood in successive layers, their narrow windows bedecked with flowerboxes.
 
Level after level led down to the Tagus River, which spilled into a calm, sheltered harbor at its mouth.
 
The air was heavy with screaming gulls and the moist, salty scent of the sea.

After Portugal, they continued south to Casablanca in Morocco.
 
The
Coralie
sat at anchor across from Gibraltar where the sea turned a jewel blue against the curve of sandy shore.
 
Five times each day, the muezzins stood atop the elegant spires of minarets, calling out to summon the faithful into mosques for prayer.
 
Their warbling voices sang out across the crowded and haphazard streets, echoing along the walls of white-limed houses.

After putting ashore again on the Canary Islands, they cut across the hot and moist doldrums of the Tropic of Cancer, then rounded the western elbow of Africa, Cape Bojador, which was once thought to be the end of the world.

Standing on deck, Nemo saw bleak deserts that poked into the ocean, turning the water a dirty brown with suspended sand.
 
The
Coralie
sailed past barren cliffs of naked sandstone, where the burning sun baked the rock so that not even a weed could grow in the crannies.
 

Captain Grant guided them south along the Gold Coast, the Ivory Coast, the Ebony Coast, until they reached the wide mouth of the Congo River.
 
They stopped at a Belgian outpost, trading a few items from the hold to stock up on fresh fruit and meat.
 

When they reached the Cape of Good Hope, the
Coralie
lay at anchor while Nemo rode with Ned Land in a skiff dispatched to negotiate docking privileges at Capetown.
 
All travelers were welcome, and any non-hostile ship received permission to drop anchor in the harbor.

The Dutch had established Capetown Colony, raising vegetables to sell to passing ships that rounded the southern tip of Africa en route to the Orient.
 
In the past decade, the town had spread from the beach up the surrounding hills.
 
Now Capetown had three hospitals, a military parade ground, and six chapels and churches serving various faiths.

More than a century before, the Swedish naturalist Carl Peter Thunberg had filled volumes with specimens obtained from South African shores.
 
Thunberg had tramped across the wilds, heedless of predators, collecting samples from unexplored cliffsides and rugged valleys.
 
He wore out three pairs of shoes in a single expedition.
 

“‘Tis sad so little remains in all the world to discover, lad,” Captain Grant said, looking at the horizon.
 
“But whatever remains, we shall find it.”

Now, as the skiff from the
Coralie
approached the Capetown shore, Ned Land stood at the prow.
 
The big Upper Canadian pointed with a callused hand.
 
“Look there, scamp -- that be Table Mountain, and there be the Lion’s Head.”
 
He winked at Nemo.
 
“If ye want more civilized sights, in town ye’ll see elegant houses, the likes o’ which ye’d find in London, Glasgow, or Paris.”

The quartermaster was eager to be ashore, because once on dry land he could smoke tobacco again.
 
On board the ship, smoking was forbidden because of the fire danger; instead, the sailors had to chew plugs of tobacco and spit brown streams over the sides.
 
Ned pulled his clay pipe from a shirt pocket, holding it with anticipation.
 
Maybe, Nemo thought, the Canadian could also get a new striped shirt. . . .

The
Coralie
remained at the Cape of Good Hope for a fortnight while her crew cleaned hull and hold, refitted and restocked.
 
Nemo composed and sent long letters to Caroline Aronnax.
 
He still remembered the way her hair shone in the sun, the scent of her perfume, the feel of her parting embrace . . . all as if it were yesterday.
 
He hummed the melody of some of her illicit musical compositions.

Nemo also tore out the pages of his journal describing the voyage thus far and posted them back to Jules Verne, so that his friend could read a detailed account of more than a year aboard ship.
 
Though he wished Verne had been able to accompany him, Nemo had no regrets.

Captain Grant did not approve of his crew’s wild impulses in the city known as the “Tavern of the Seas,” but he preferred them to let off steam under the watchful eyes of Capetown’s magistrates, rather than on his ship.

When they returned aboard for the last time, exhausted and penniless, the
Coralie
’s crew was ready to set off for the Indian Ocean. . . .

ii

“Time for your Sunday lessons, lad,” Captain Grant said, interrupting Nemo from another afternoon of swabbing the sun-washed deck.
 
Naturally, the young man didn’t complain.

At sea, the ship was its own country.
 
On board, the captain became peacemaker and disciplinarian, judge and jury, physician, expert seaman, businessman, and any other role he chose.
 
For an eager pupil like Nemo, Captain Grant had become a teacher as well.

Inside his spacious, specimen-crowded quarters, the captain hauled out his favorite volumes -- the notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci, filled with drawings and musings and ideas.
 
“Leonardo lived three and a half centuries ago, yet verily his inventions remain marvelous today.”
 
Captain Grant stared at the pages with wistful eyes.
 
“I purchased these copies in Milan -- crude reproductions of the originals, but the magic remains.”

With a long finger, he pointed to sketches of contraptions that looked impossible, yet intriguing.
 
“Leonardo lived in troubled times, lad, when Italian city states waged war against each other.
 
Because he believed knowledge must be based on observation, he drew studies of anatomy, plants, architecture.
 
He developed theories of mechanics and mathematics, and applied them to engineering.”

Nemo could not decipher the writing on the pages in front of him.
 
“I don’t speak Italian, sir.”
 
He had been learning passable English aboard the ship, but had not yet managed any other languages.

Captain Grant chuckled.
 
“‘Twould be of no help to you, lad.
 
Leonardo was left handed, so he taught himself to write backward.
 
One must hold the letters in a reflecting glass to understand.”
 
He turned a ragged page.
 
“Feast your eyes on the drawings alone and allow your imagination to translate.”
 

An architectural plan of a cathedral, the cross-section of a human skull, designs for strange weapons. . .
 
Nemo pored over plans showing a gigantic crossbow, a chariot with revolving scythe-blades to mow down infantrymen like weeds, and a four-wheeled car armored with wooden planking.
 
The brilliant inventor had also drawn designs for flying craft, huge mechanical flapping wings, a flying screw, and a broad kite large enough to let a man soar on the winds like a falcon.

Most intriguing to Nemo, though, was a small boat designed to travel
underwater
, keeping a man safe and protected.
 
“Are these ideas possible, sir?
 
Or just fanciful visions from an impractical man?”

Captain Grant looked at the cabin boy, bemused, then closed the book.
 
He replaced it in a revered place on his shelf.
 
“Anything is possible, lad -- given enough imagination, some engineering knowledge, and a lot of persistence.”

iii

In the shark-infested Indian Ocean, the ship traveled around Madagascar off the eastern coast of Africa.
 
They put ashore several parties to collect colorful specimens of lepidoptera (which Nemo learned was a Latin name for butterflies).

Under Captain Grant’s guidance, the
Corali
e
sailed northeastward to the southern tip of India and the island of Ceylon, where they took on a load of black tea, saffron, and cardamom, which they hoped would remain fresh until the ship returned to the trading ports of Europe.

At dawn after a long night watch, Ned Land stood beside a bleary-eyed Nemo.
 
They watched a purplish-maroon sunrise brighten into a wash of scarlet before full daylight.
 
The muscular quartermaster turned to the cabin boy.
 
“Red sky at morning, sailor take warning.
 
Aye.
 
Know that much, don’t ye, scamp?”

“I’ve heard the saying, but I don’t know the truth of it.”

“Means a bad storm is coming.”
 
Ned sniffed the wind.
 
“Mark my words.”
 
The sailors on deck flashed knowing looks, and within half an hour, Captain Grant ordered the sails to be trimmed.

By afternoon Nemo found himself scaling the tarred ratlines with bare feet and callused hands to reach the topgallant sail on the foremast and yank ropes to furl it against a devastating wind.
 
The ropes were slippery, and the squall-drenched cotton canvas sails were heavy as wet clay.

In a team effort, the sailors worked the deck ends of the lift lines while Nemo and the younger crewmen stepped into footropes, clinging onto the horizontal yardarms high above the deck and the roiling sea.
 
The ship lurched like a wild horse -- and the sway was much more pronounced high on the masts.
 
But Nemo had no fear of falling, no loss of balance.
 
He felt like a
sailor
, at home even on the frothing seas.

After calling all hands, Captain Grant stood on the quarterdeck and let his men handle the situation.
 
The first and second mates yelled orders, which were sometimes lost in the wind.
 
Rather than riding atop the heavy swells, the brig’s sharp prow cut through them, which brought huge surges over the deck.