Collector of Lost Things (21 page)

‘Shall I?’ he said, offering to pour. ‘You are the kind of fellow that takes two lumps of sugar.’ I let him do as he wished. He poured the thick black liquid into the coffee cups and added two lumps of sugar from a tray, using a surprisingly dainty pair of silver tongs.

‘Would you like another game of draughts?’ he asked, hopefully.

‘Bullet against bone?’ I replied. ‘How ironic. Do you wish to test me again, or just want to beat me?’

He regarded me sagely, stroking and flattening his moustache either side of his nose, as if already considering a move of his players.

‘I went to sea when I was twelve, Mr Saxby, working the slave route from West Africa to the Caribbean. My duties were largely below decks, spreading sawdust on vomit and blood and sweeping it up to the best of my abilities. We had the negroes on bunks, in the dark, and while we worked they would spit or they would shout in strange languages. Do you have any idea how much the negro can spew in the duration of a voyage? I will let you imagine how unpleasant it was down there. Please, take some of this parlour cake with your coffee. It is exceptional. On the return leg we brought spice and produce to Liverpool. There was nutmeg and cinnamon and pepper and fresh pineapples. We would sit on deck, eating mangoes and papaya, and had very little to do. I spent many hours drawing and that is where I began to practise my art of needlework.’

Sykes stopped for a dramatic pause, eating a slice of the cake with an elaborate savouring of it.

‘As I said, delicious. I learnt very early on,’ he continued, ‘that the sea trades life and death with equal measure. We stacked pineapples on the bunks where a few days before I had pulled dead men from their chains. Why, this very ship, Mr Saxby, was originally launched as a trader of slaves. You may not have appreciated that. I suggest, during your wanderings to the lower deck, that you examine the bulkheads, for there you will see the wood is riddled with fixings where the slave chains were attached. Quite hazardous, even now. If the negro could write, he would have scratched his initial there, too. The point being, ships have long lives that equal the journeying of any one of us. They might start sailing in warm waters, then are laid up in ordinary for many years on a Welsh beach or in an Essex creek, before some new vision is applied, they become refitted and re-conceived, new thwarts are cut in, bows strengthened, new masts erected or taken away, royals and upper topgallants added and cabin quarters refitted to accept the likes of paying passengers, such as yourself, Mr Saxby. The velvet settee and the mahogany table is for your benefit, sir, a sailor will sit on a bucket and he’ll be glad of it. Through it all, these ships have lives very similar to our own—they adapt and survive and continue their purpose, and very little stops them, short of reefs and bergs and insurmountable seas.’

‘Why are you bothering to tell me this, Captain Sykes? I am hardly in the mood to listen to you.’

‘Because I wish to clear the air between us, Mr Saxby. On the island of Eldey we had a difference of opinion. You conceded to my authority, as you had no choice, but we are both men and I wish to put you straight. You may see the death of the birds as a loss to the world, but I see it as one day in the life of the sea. There are days of profit among days of privation. That is all there is to say on the matter. You will accept that as you will accept the order of this ship, to which, for the time being, you belong.’

‘I believe you know my position very well,’ I said. ‘I have not changed my opinion at all.’

He gave me an appraising look. ‘I am prepared to offer you a share in our profits.’

I refused to answer him. He faltered. The mention of money was vulgar, and only strengthened my moral position.

‘As you wish,’ he said, with indifference. He ate some more of the cake, making small appreciative noises as he did so. ‘You will do one thing, though,’ he said. ‘While you are on board this ship you will not stand up to me in front of the men.’

‘I understand. I shall not do it.’

‘It has been brought to my attention that several of the men are not content with the events on that rock of yours. I simply cannot have dissent among the crew.’

I was surprised. Nothing that I had witnessed had suggested this to me. ‘What have you heard?’ I asked.

‘Fo’c’sle rumours, that is all. But a captain should not hear even that.’

‘Who has told you?’

‘Mr French,’ he replied, simply. ‘I rely upon my officers, Mr French in particular, to inform me of all that is going on on board ship. Are you aware of Mr French’s role?’

‘Yes, I think so,’ I said, cautious.

‘He is a fool, of course,’ Sykes said, lightly, his eyes squinting into narrow slits. ‘He failed the navy in peculiar circumstances, that is for sure, but I am duty bound to give him a home here.’

‘Why is that?’

‘He is family.’

‘Family?’

‘A distant cousin. My wife believes there is a family resemblance in the way he carries himself, but I fail to see it.’

‘I had no idea you were related.’

‘It is little known. But you appreciate my point, Mr Saxby. Mr French is my eyes and ears.’

‘An aide-de-camp.’

‘You could say that.’

‘You have nothing to fear from me,’ I said, thinking rapidly how this news had altered the situation. French and Sykes, despite their regular spats, were to be considered in a different light. I could not estimate the unknown loyalties they might have.

Sykes pointed to an instrument that was bolted to the ceiling, above his bed. ‘That,’ he explained, ‘is known as a tell-tale compass. I watch it from my pillow. You see, a captain is always at the helm, even when he’s not.’

‘Mr French was once in the navy?’ I asked, trying to sound casual.

‘He had an unfortunate—how shall I word it—entanglement,’ Sykes said, amusing himself. ‘To happier matters,’ he continued, brightly. ‘I have started a new image in needlework.’ He indicated a small desk below the aft window, upon which was a wooden frame and the clear outline, even at this early stage, of a great auk, sitting on a rock.

‘You really are a truly heartless man,’ I said, half joking, but only half. He decided to laugh, loudly.

‘Absolutely!’ he replied. ‘I am a rare specimen.’ He laughed again, and his laugh developed into a hacking cough. His face went red and he held a handkerchief close to his mouth, attempting to muffle it. I had noticed this before, a cough coming through the cabin walls at night, or from on the quarterdeck when he was commanding the course. Once, on the ice floe, a chair had to be brought down to him when his fit would not abate. I had put it down to the rapid changes in temperature, but here I was not so sure. The captain was ill.

Seeing my doubt, Sykes waved his hand at me, as if swatting a fly. ‘A trifle,’ he said, as he regained control. ‘Mrs Sykes claims she can hear my cough even while I am up here in the Arctic sea. It consoles her, she says, to know I am alive.’

‘How comforting for her,’ I said, sarcastically.

‘And what of your upbringing, Mr Saxby? I suppose you went to a fine school?’

‘I was privately tutored,’ I said. ‘My father was a physician, in Suffolk.’

‘A boring county, I have heard.’

‘A peaceful one.’

‘With many illnesses?’

‘As many as other counties, I am sure.’ I had a fleeting memory of the times I had accompanied my father, visiting the sick. I was eight or nine. How he would enter the labourers’ cottages, taking off his hat, and leave me outside to sit in the lane or wander the fields. Drinks would be brought out, but people treated me—even as a child—as someone they did not want near their house. My presence was part of the illness that had settled among them. My father would emerge, straight-backed and gentle, after twenty minutes or so. We would walk in silence to the closest church where he would sketch the architecture, especially the porches. It calmed him, he used to tell me, although I was never sure what it was that he needed calming from. We would make models of these churches, in the evenings, from balsa wood, sitting at a table in the parlour. And while he drew the church architecture, I would scour the graveyard and hedges for bird nests. I had built up a sizeable knowledge and collection of eggs by the time I was fifteen. It was the year my father had died, quickly and without fuss, from an illness he had not diagnosed.

‘You are a curious man,’ Sykes said, catching me somewhat unawares.

‘Why do you say that?’ I replied.

‘It is my job to know the nature of the passengers I have on board.’

I regarded him, indignantly. ‘What makes you so sure of your judgements?’ I asked.

He laughed. ‘We shall yet be friends, Mr Saxby,’ he said. ‘Let us shake hands,’ he added, rising, offering me his outstretched hand. I shook it, perfunctorily, thinking how rare it is to shake the hand of a man who has conducted an extinction.

The fine weather didn’t last long. As we neared Greenland the clouds lowered, brooding, onto a sea that rose in long high swells. Each wave stretched for several hundred yards either side of the ship, as if the surface of the ocean were rolling on iron bars, and French directed a course to meet them straight on, making the bow rise and lower with unpleasant motion. The ship sank heavily into each crest, and the water rose as high as the scuppers. The
Amethyst
headed as it had before, west-south-west, but now the weather was ominous and bleak in that direction, with a horizon that had almost entirely vanished.

On the pretext of examining my luggage, French led me, with a dark-lantern in his hand, to the place where he had concealed the bird on the lower deck. Although the arrangement of the ships was different, I recognised it as the same spot where Captain Bray had stored his frozen polar bear. ‘It is in here,’ French whispered, giving me the key to a padlock of a small door right under the bow of the ship. ‘In the navy, it was not unheard of for a woman of dubious character to be concealed in this spot.’

‘Then it is known as a place where people might search?’

‘It is safe,’ he replied. ‘There is already a woman on board this vessel,’ he quipped. ‘She is pleasing to the eye—so I doubt whether the men would think to search for another.’

‘I think that’s inappropriate for you to say.’

‘Really? Just a comment upon a lady’s beauty, in case you hadn’t noticed. Perhaps you are immune to such things.’

‘Were you in the navy?’ I asked.

He visibly stiffened. ‘Briefly.’

Inside the locker, he hung the dark-lantern from a roof beam, showing me how I could close the slide to conceal the light. Below it, piled in a heap almost as high as my waist, were the giant links of one of the anchor chains. The light swayed above them, playing with their shapes and shadows, giving them a living, seething, snakelike texture. It was an eerie place. The locker smelt of iron and wet salt, and had the trapped frigid air of an ice-house.

‘This is a horrid place,’ I said.

‘Exactly,’ he replied, grinning wolfishly. ‘A fine home for prostitutes.’

At that moment the ship must have sunk deeply into a wave. Being so close to the bow, it was as if the floor had risen to hit us. I stumbled against Mr French, who out of experience had braced himself against the door-jamb. I heard the wave sweep above me on the other side of the hull and realised that for a second or two we must have been below water level. The sounds of rushing water fell away as I regained my position, haunted by the feeling of a darkness that had swept through the room, unseen.

‘Thank you,’ I said. I smelt the scent of his cologne on my lapel.

The great auk was at the back of the space, behind packing crates and surrounded by the heavy outline of the anchor chain. It was a miserable sight. I thought, despite myself, of the dioramas that would be constructed at the world’s great museums after they had purchased one of Sykes’ skins. How the auks would be mounted on plaster, a few twigs or weeds arranged around their feet, a background painted in colours of the northern Atlantic: slate grey and moss green. The auks would be made to look magnificent, proud and wild and free, so unlike the auk that looked up at me in this horrid locker room. It felt like the darkest space in the world, a space that only men can truly make, filled with cruel machinery and the stench of bitumen and oil. Yet it held the most precious and unique of all of God’s creatures. In this foul room, under the greasy light of the dark-lantern, I saw the brilliant flickering glow that only the last can emit.

C
LARA AND I MET
on deck following dinner, waiting for the eight o’clock change between the second dog and first watches. As the crew were handing over in a boisterous manner, we quickly descended the companionway to the lower deck. Beyond the cable-tier we saw barrels and sacking, ropes and tins, metal boxes and wooden crates, all bending with the shadows that moved vaguely across their edges. It was certainly no place for a woman.

‘Tread carefully,’ I whispered. I held Clara’s hand, leading her forward between the crates of the cargo, and her hand felt cool and strong in my own. It is good, I thought, good that she feels determined and calm.

‘The bird is in here,’ I said as we reached the locker door: ‘be aware of the beam when we enter, it is low.’

Inside the locker room, I was relieved to see her undaunted by the smells of oil and iron or the sight of the links of the anchor chain, heaped across the floor.

‘Here?’ she said.

‘Yes, quite the dungeon, isn’t it?’ I said, trying to be light, pushing against the anchor chain with the toe of my boot. It didn’t shift. ‘Forgive me bringing you to such a place. The bird is behind those crates at the side.’ I pulled the wooden chest that French and I had positioned, fully expecting the bird to have vanished. But as soon as I had moved the box, there was movement among the shadows, and the pale breast of the auk shuffled as it attempted to remain hidden.

‘I can’t see it,’ she said. We listened as the rough feet of the bird scratched the floor of the locker then, beneath me, the anthracite gleam of the auk’s extraordinary beak emerged, like the handle of a dark knife being held towards us. Larger than I had remembered, it was heavily grooved and as ridged as a tribal spear. The beak remained still, impossibly weightless above the floor, then it tilted to one side and the glint of an eye defined itself from the shadows, watching us, unblinking.