Run Afoul (18 page)

When Wiki looked at him, George was politely pretending to admire the array of huge paintings. “They say it is the equal of Astor House in New York City,” said Palgrave. “But, as I haven't been there myself, I cannot comment. There is even talk of fitting the place out with pipes and drains!” he went on. “A huge mistake, in my opinion!”

“But ain't it a great luxury to have running water on tap?” George objected. “And drains save an awful lot of labor, surely.”

“A luxury indeed—but pipes and drains
leak,
Captain Rochester, they burst, and disgorge their contents! And who wants water running loose inside a building, eh? If too many buildings had pipes and drains, we'd need a complete workforce trained to mend those pipes and drains and put the water back in its proper place—a truly ridiculous situation! No, no, it will never work.”

Wiki stopped listening. A marvelous smell was wafting to his nostrils, and he saw that the maid was on her way back into the room with a huge tureen of some kind of bean and sausage stew. Then he heard a meaningful cough.

When he looked at Sir Patrick Palgrave, the Englishman was smiling slightly. He said, “My guests will be arriving very soon. You and your friend are most welcome to join us, but…”

Wiki shoved back his chair, mortified and flustered. He had thought his father was the host, but now, with a lurch, he realized his mistake. “Duty calls—the
Vincennes,
” he blurted, and looked at Forsythe and jerked his head. For a horrid moment he thought the southerner wasn't going to take the hint, but then Forsythe stumbled to his feet, and bowed elaborately and vertiginously to all the company before wavering unsteadily toward the arched doorway.

Wiki hurried after him, just in time to straighten him up. A clumsy pirouette later they were out of the room,
thank God,
though for a moment it looked as if the southerner were in great danger of tumbling over the balustrade. Then Wiki realized that George Rochester had joined them.

George said determinedly, “I'm coming with you.”

“E hoa,
don't be a fool.” Then Wiki moderated his tone, saying with a wry smile, “I'm sorry about all the misunderstandings, and I'll call on board the
Swallow
the first chance I get.”

“Fine—but right now I think you need help.”

Wiki wanted to refuse, but Forsythe was teetering so precipitously on the top stair that he was glad to accept. Together, he and Rochester worked him down the stairway to the ground floor, and across the marbled hall. Then at last they were standing in the main entrance, and the plaza lay before them, lamplight gleaming off the paving stones.

It was fully dark, and the sounds the carriage made as it rattled up to the main entrance were very loud in the night. On either side of the driver's bench there were flambeaux in holders, which flickered as the carriage jolted to a stop, and then burned steadily, so that the woman who emerged from the vehicle was framed in gold. Her form was hidden in a shapeless black cloak, above which her face was an alabaster oval, crowned by a wealth of coppery hair which tumbled out from the gold-embroidered blue silk mantilla draped over her head.

Wiki forgot his chagrin and embarrassment, instead lost in profound appreciation. The young woman was nibbling her full lower lip in concentration as she put out a dainty slippered foot to step down from the coach, lifting her skirts to display a pair of elegant ankles. Then, halfway through the movement, she looked up and saw Wiki.

He was standing in a patch of light himself, so that her eyes focused at once on his admiring expression. Instead of glancing modestly away, as expected, she surveyed him right back, taking her time while she studied his stalwart frame. When her gaze returned to his face her expression became mischievously teasing, and she lifted her ruffled petticoats, just a little, not quite as far as a rounded knee.

Then the skirts were hastily dropped. From behind, Wiki heard a servant cough, then say in Portuguese, “Madame de Roquefeuille, you will find Sir Patrick Palgrave's party dining in the ordinary on the second floor.”

Wiki heard the servant's footsteps retreat, but hadn't taken his gaze off Madame de Roquefeuille's wickedly enchanting face. As soon as they silenced he executed a gallant bow, and said in Portuguese, “Madame, may I introduce Captain Rochester? He's another of Sir Patrick's guests, and would be glad to escort you to the dining room.”

“How kind,” she murmured. Her eyes sparkled.

“Enchanted,” said George, once he understood. He looked extremely taken aback, but had the natural good manners to gracefully extend his arm.

“Obrigado,”
she said demurely. As Wiki watched George lead her toward the stairway, she glanced back, and when Wiki winked, she giggled. Then she and George headed upward. As they receded from sight, Wiki could hear her talking to George, first in rudimentary English, and then in fluent French, asking questions.

When he looked back at Forsythe, the lieutenant was shaking his head reprovingly, as owlish as a drunken Dutch uncle. “My God, you really do ask for bloody trouble,” he said, but Wiki, feeling very much more cheerful, merely laughed.

Fourteen

By noon next day, the
Vincennes
had been completely discharged, and rang like an empty barrel. Wiki's sea chest and bedding, which had been the last dunnage to be removed, were down in the cutter. Apart from him, Lieutenant Forsythe, a caulking gang, and a squad of marines, the entire crew, including the thirty surly volunteers from the USS
Independence,
had been lightered ashore. Now, they were living in a city of tents that had been pitched on the grassy ramparts of Enxados Island.

Now, those still on board the
Vincennes
had the job of making a chemical smoke in the bilges, and battening down the hatches so that the smoke would kill off the plague of rats. Lieutenant Forsythe had been put in charge of the operation, with the squad of marines to patrol the ship for stragglers, the gang of caulkers ready to stop gaps in the deck seams, and Wiki to write an official report.

After the squad formed up in the bright sunlight, the marines listened to the lieutenant attentively, because Forsythe was taking pains to impress on them the importance of making absolutely certain that there was no one left below decks. In pungent phrases he told them about past experiences where dead men had been found in among the dead rats when ships had been opened up after smoking, and described in gross detail how nasty the discovery had been. Then he sent them below.

In order to rouse these hypothetical men, some of the soldiers were carrying side drums. After Wiki arrived in the holds, he could hear the rat-tat, rat-tat noises progressing here and there around and above him, near at times, and faraway at others. As he went forward, bulkheads, oozing dampness, reared up on all sides. It was very dark, and the lantern he was holding flickered every now and then in the stale, foul air. Every time it flared up, he could see hundreds of rats' eyes gleaming red in the corners, and could hear their squeaking as they skittered away from the light.

When a corporal spoke from just a couple of yards away, Wiki jumped a foot. “There's thousands of the brutes,” the man said. His voice echoed against the wet iron walls of huge water tanks. There was a squeal as he kicked out, and a whole wave of skittering as a dozen rats fled.

“Releasing a coupla dozen snakes would work a treat,” said Forsythe in his Virginian accent. He emerged from the dark with his rifle propped over his shoulder, giving every appearance of enjoying the job.

The very idea of serpents let loose in the bowels of the ship sent shudders up and down Wiki's spine. Even though he knew the southerner was joking, he couldn't help saying, “You'd have trouble getting the men back on board.”

Forsythe, who knew very well how Wiki hated snakes, let out a loud, echoing guffaw, while all the time the drums went rat-tat, rat-tat, and boots stamped to and fro. There was a sudden shout of,
“Goddamnit, what the hell are you doing there?”
from one of the marines on the deck above. They all broke into a startled run in that direction, convinced that he had found a stowaway. However, it turned out that he had blundered into another marine who had taken a wrong turning, and so they returned to the search.

Gradually, the reports came back that the field was clear. The squad, led by Forsythe, and Wiki bringing up the rear, trailed down to the bowels of the ship where a row of barrels, filled with a mixture of sawdust, brimstone, birchbark, charcoal, and other devilish ingredients, had been firmly wedged in the ballast. The corporal struck a spark, and set the first, and then the others, to slowly burning. Acrid smoke billowed out, carrying a throat-clenching smell of bad eggs. As they waited to make sure the fires would not go out, the marines shifted nervously from boot to boot, and there was general relief when Forsythe gave the word to retreat.

It was a good feeling to get into the bright light again, and batten down the hatches. Then they all waited to see which deck seams needed stopping up to keep the ship smoke-tight. Meantime, the marines sat in the sun and practiced on their instruments. First, “Hail Columbia” racketed out over the water, and then the marines sang, “The Parliaments of England,” while the drummers beat out the rhythm, and derisive cheers echoed from the British ship, a couple of hundred fathoms away. Smoky threads were beginning to curl out from gaps in the seams. The caulking gang set to stopping them up, while Wiki and the marines searched inside the various deckhouses for other leaks.

He and the corporal, along with a couple of others, went into the afterhouse, where Wiki checked the big drafting room. The afterquarters seemed eerily silent, but then the corporal's Yankee voice spoke up.

“Hello,” he exclaimed. “We got one of the bastards already.”

Wiki stepped through the double doors into the corridor, to see the corporal holding up a dead rat by the tail. He was standing by the credenza. As Wiki arrived beside him, he put the corpse down, and dropped to hands and knees to look underneath the big dresser. “Look,” he said. “There's a hole.” Smoke was threading up and wafting out.

So that was where the rats had gone, Wiki thought—and how they had come, no doubt. He hunkered down by the corporal to have a look for himself, but then his attention was caught by the dropped rat. It was lying on its side in a rigid, hooked attitude, as if it had been grotesquely deformed by whatever had killed it. When he pushed the cold, limp body with one finger, to turn it onto its back, the spine was so strongly arched that it flopped over onto its other side instead. Its abdomen was purple, and distended. Under the stiff whiskers its nose was tinged blue, and the gaping lips exposed tightly clenched teeth.

The sight brought Grimes's final convulsion so vividly to mind that Wiki's stomach clenched. Without a word, he stood up, and searched through the cabins until he found a suitable box. Then he dropped the dead rat inside this, put on the lid, and put it in his pocket before he and Forsythe climbed down the side of the ship to the cutter.

When they got to the boat, the lieutenant propped his rifle against Wiki's sea chest, and said, “Orders are to carry your duds to the
Swallow.
”

Wiki blinked. “Captain Wilkes is sending me back to the brig?” It was great news, but the first he had heard of it. “Why the change of mind?” he asked.

“Dunno,” said the southerner, and the cutter headed for the shipyard.

The brig was dancing at her mooring lines as they braced up to the dock, and as pretty a sight as ever. George and Captain Coffin were nowhere to be seen, and the old boatswain was in charge of the ship. After shoving his chest under the double berth in the cabin he shared with Midshipman Keith, Wiki came out on deck again, looked down at Forsythe, and said, “I need to go to Botafogo.”

“What? Why?”

Wiki jumped down into the boat. “To see Dr. Tweedie.”

To his surprise and relief, Forsythe didn't argue. Instead, the lieutenant directed the men into setting the sail, as the breeze was in their favor. They headed south, coasting past a fortified island and then around Flamingo Point to arrive at the secluded bay of Botafogo. There, it was breathtakingly beautiful. The deeply curving foreshore lay before them, fringed with riotous tropical growth. Low white walls surrounding pastel-colored buildings stood out against the dark green. Beyond the shorefront settlement, more villas were dotted among coffee plantations and orange groves, as far as the forested foothills that swooped up to the abrupt heights of Corcovado Mountain.

The cutter touched sand. Wiki and Forsythe jumped out, leaving the men to paddle off a short distance, and amuse themselves fishing. As they walked up the beach, Wiki studied the beachfront village. Though small, it looked prosperous, made up of a number of substantial, flat-fronted structures, some several stories high. The houses had French doors, and windows with wooden shutters, and were set in luxuriant gardens of ferns, tamarinds, and trees with enormous yellow blossoms. Rippling creeks wound between the trees, noisy with frogs, and crossed with little footbridges. The air was perfumed with myrtles and mimosas, along with the honeyed scent of ripening bananas. Unseen insects chirped, and every now and then flocks of tropical birds burst out of the growth. In the hot brightness of the afternoon the colors were intense.

It was all quite a contrast to the alleys of the port and the polluted waters of the anchorage, and it was hard to believe that the city was just a walk away. “Is Tweedie rich?” asked Wiki.

“Made a fortune selling spectacles and thermometers to the English population when he first arrived, but whether he managed to keep a grasp on it is open to question,” said Forsythe. He led the way along a paved road that followed the curve of the beach and was densely edged with palms and filmy-leaved trees. There was no movement in the heat of the afternoon, save for a line of black slaves undulating along gracefully with burdens on their heads.