Run Afoul (2 page)

Wiki's mouth fell open.
“What?”

“If I'd had my way,” said Captain Wilkes, obviously harping on an old grievance, “the scientific corps would have been entirely manned by naval officers! There would not have been a single goddamned rascal of a civilian on board to usurp all the credit when we get back home!”

Insulted to the point of indiscretion, Wiki protested, “I have no intention of claiming any credit at all—I don't want it, I'd never ask for it, and I resent the slur on my character, sir!”

“But there's more, Mr. Coffin! Even though you're expected to assist the other scientifics, you have not bestirred yourself to make their acquaintance! You're not even aware of their specialities! Have you made any attempt to share your knowledge of the Pacific—or educate the members of the crew about the places where they are going? No, you have not!”

“I have answered all the questions I've been asked,” Wiki exclaimed.

“How dare you interrupt! You have not played your part at all! Did you bother to make any measurements at Shark Island—did you collect any plants? No, you did not! You have done
nothing
to earn your place with the expedition.”

“Captain Wilkes, that's unfair and unwarranted!” Wiki was angrier than ever. He was a translator, not a teacher or a surveyor or a botanist, and no one had given him any kind of hint that he was supposed to
measure
the ground he covered.

“Unfair? Unwarranted?” Captain Wilkes savagely echoed. “I don't
think
so, and you will find that I have
ways
of making you fulfill your obligations.” Again, his fist hit the top of the desk, and he roared, “You are reassigned to the
Vincennes!
”

Wiki opened his mouth, but then shut it again as alarm took over from affront and fury. He had joined the expedition only because his old friend George Rochester, the captain of the brig
Swallow,
had repeatedly asked him to do so. If George hadn't found him the civilian job of linguister with the fleet, right now he'd be on board some workaday whaleship, heading off to the Bay of Islands, New Zealand, for yet another visit with his
whanau
—his folks. The only reason he'd agreed to employ his vast knowledge of the Pacific and its languages in the service of the exploring expedition was that the prospect of sailing around the world with his old friend on his dashing little brig had been so appealing. The horrible notion that he might be assigned to a different ship had never even crossed his mind.

Battling a sense of panic, he said quickly, “Give me a moment to write my resignation, and you'll see the last of me in Rio.”

“How
dare
you argue with me!” Wilkes exploded. “Don't force me to remind you of the terms of agreement you signed! Get it into your head that you are reassigned, Mr. Coffin—to the
Vincennes!
—where you will live and work in this afterhouse, and satisfy the questions posed to you by the other scientifics! Try to understand that you have absolutely no choice in the matter!” And with that he barked that they were both dismissed, and the exceedingly unpleasant interview was over.

As they escaped from the afterhouse, Wiki could hear Captain Wilkes marching up the corridor behind them, his steps still ominously angry. Everyone on the quarterdeck jumped nervously to attention. Wiki and Forsythe stepped smartly aside to let him by, and watched him make his way to the waist deck, where Lieutenant Smith was supervising a couple of men who were untangling strands of seaweed from dredge nets. Then Forsythe headed off to a nearby companionway, and Wiki was left alone, standing about in the alcove without a notion of what he was supposed to do next.

Above his head, massive masts lifted to the late afternoon sky, interconnected with an intricate web of rigging. The lower sails of the
Vincennes
were brailed up, just the great main topsail being set to keep the ship still, and so Wiki could see all the way along the decks to the galley forward, where the food for the people who lived in the afterhouse was cooked. The smokestack plumed, and steam issued from the open doorway. Supper would be served soon, he thought, but he was far too tired to feel hungry.

Instead, Wiki was overwhelmed with something that felt perilously close to panic. Between the galley and the doorway of the afterhouse the vast expanse of planks was teeming with what seemed like a hundred men, and he couldn't even guess what most of them were doing. Groups of seamen were gathered about the foremast and mainmast, hectored by boatswains' mates with their shrilling calls, while others were hammering away amidships, where the ship's launch and two cutters were stored inside each other, the largest at the bottom, and the smallest—which also served as a pigpen—at the top. If he had been told to climb to the main topgallant crosstrees and then lay out along the yard, he would have had no trouble at all, but finding his way around this daunting seven-hundred-ton flagship—more than seven times the size of the
Swallow!
—seemed utterly beyond his powers, let alone making an adjustment to the unwritten laws of life on an overcrowded sloop of war.

A concerned Yankee voice said in his ear, “Be you quite fine, sir?”

It was the corporal who was on sentry duty. Wiki summoned a reassuring smile, though every muscle hurt and every bone ached from the aftereffects of the passage in the cutter. He had not slept for more than an hour at a time in the five days since leaving Shark Island, and it was an effort to focus his grit-filled eyes. Then he jumped a foot, as the marine glanced at the ship's clock hanging in the alcove above the door to the afterhouse, looked up at the officer who was pacing the roof, and bellowed right by Wiki's ear, “Time, sir!”

The officer lifted his trumpet, shouted, “Strike the bell!” and a boy rushed out of nowhere and energetically hammered at the ship's bell by the wheel. He rang the bell eight times—it was four o'clock, the end of the afternoon watch and the beginning of the first dogwatch; time for the men going off duty to get their supper and the second issue of grog for the day; a time of relaxation, when songs were sung, and many yarns were told.

If Wiki had been on board the
Swallow,
he would have been relaxed in a warm spot on the deck, exchanging stories in Samoan with Tana and Sua, the two
Kanakas
—Pacific Islanders—of the crew, before heading off to his comfortable berth. Now, he didn't even know where he was supposed to lay his head, except that it was somewhere in the afterhouse. Wearily, he turned and trudged back down the corridor.

Two

To Wiki's surprise, because he had heard no sounds from inside, there was someone seated at the big table in the saloon—or half seated, because he was so hugely fat that he was forced to perch on the forward part of his chair with his belly crammed against the table, as his bulk would not fit between the arms.

When this stranger saw Wiki, he swung the revolving chair around, releasing his great paunch with an audible plop. “You're brown,” he observed amiably. “So you must be Wiki Coffin. I believe we are to have the honor of your company in the afterhouse?”

Wiki spun round one of the chairs opposite, and slumped into it. “You overheard Captain Wilkes?”

Blue eyes studied him from above applelike cheeks, and plump lips smiled from the midst of a luxuriant black beard. “I did, indeed—not that it was difficult,” he said. “Winston Olliver, M.R.C.S., at your service.”

That little formality over, he swung back to the table, using both hands to wedge his paunch in place, and once in place, he picked up a glass of wine, and judiciously sipped a few times. When the wine sank to the halfway level, Mr. Olliver set it down and carefully topped it up from a decanter.

Wiki watched the procedure abstractedly, thinking about those letters
M.R.C.S.
Then he said, “Member of the Royal College of Surgeons?”

“You can call me Dr. Olliver,” the other generously said.

“You're a surgeon with the fleet?”

“I'm a naturalist, mostly with the plants.”

“One of the scientifics?”

“For my sins.”

“Yet, judging by your accent, you are English.”

“You are a very perceptive young man.”

“I thought only Americans were allowed scientific positions with the fleet?” Wiki himself would never have been given the job of linguister if he had not been half Yankee.

“When visiting friends in Washington, I happened to mention that I'd been helping Charles Darwin classify the specimens he brought to Cambridge from the
Beagle
exploring voyage, and the powers that be in the Navy Department couldn't recruit me fast enough.”

“You know Charles Darwin?” Wiki was impressed.

“You've heard of him?”

“Of course,” said Wiki, but then was distracted by the sight of the steward coming out of the pantry in the forward part of the dining room, carrying two plates and two mugs. He was a portly, middle-aged man, whose habitual expression of prissy sulkiness became evasive when he encountered Wiki's incredulous stare.

“My
God—you
!” said Wiki. The steward did not bother to answer. Instead, he slammed down the dishes and mugs and went away, leaving Wiki to contemplate his plate, which held a slice of cold, almost raw, salt pork, a weevilly ship's biscuit, and a pile of half-baked beans. The coffee in the mug was boiled to black bitterness, and had a slimy scum on the top.

The surgeon said with lively interest, “You know that man?”

“It's Jack Winter,” Wiki said moodily. “He was one of the eight sealers we rescued from Shark Island—their steward.”

“If you rescued him from a place with a name like that, he ought to love you. But he don't?”

“He most certainly does not,” Wiki agreed, examining his meal with disgust. “And now it looks as if he's trying to poison me off.”

“He often threatens to poison off the rats—of which, as I must warn you, we have a biblical plague,” the surgeon said. “And as for the food, it is always that awful—it was revolting before he came, and remained horrible after he replaced our old steward. We wouldn't even notice it if he added poison to the terrible mix—practiced on people before he moved on to rats, as it were.”

“The food is always this bad?” Wiki was appalled.

“Blame the navy. Each and every one of us has a weekly allowance of meat, bread, flour, and so forth, which the steward draws on Mondays. He stows them in his storeroom and pantry, where the rats sample them at their leisure.” The naturalist waved a meaty arm at a door alongside the pantry, presumably indicating the storeroom, and, as if on cue, three fat rats ran out from under the door, scuttled along the skirting, and disappeared under the dresser. “And out of that, three times a day, he prepares a dish, takes it to the foredeck galley to be cooked by the nasty old peg leg, and then dumps the result on the table and calls it a meal. It's not pretty viewing, but it ain't actually his fault. The coffee, however,” he added thoughtfully, “is entirely his responsibility.”

“Dear God,” said Wiki. He was wondering if he would ever eat again.

Then, with utter disbelief, he watched the fat surgeon attack the dreadful meal as if he expected to enjoy it, keeping his fork in his left hand and his knife in his right, and plying them with mincing movements, as neatly as a cat. Between forkfuls, he put down his knife, picked up his glass, and gulped wine—to take the taste out of his mouth, Wiki guessed.

Then, as if struck by a sudden thought, Dr. Olliver looked up, and Wiki found himself the object of his bright scrutiny again. “How odd,” he mused aloud, “that there are things you should know that you don't know, while at other times you demonstrate unexpected understanding.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“I wouldn't have expected a
Kanaka
to know about Charles Darwin.”

“Why not?” Wiki queried. “People in South American ports have been gossiping about Darwin for the past five years, ever since he arrived on the
Beagle
to explore the coasts and hinterlands—he's the stuff of myth and legend.”

“Ports?” Dr. Olliver looked animated. “You're a seaman?”

“A whaleman—for my sins,” Wiki dryly replied.

“Aha!” said Dr. Olliver, with even more enthusiasm. “You'll find a kindred soul here—Captain Couthouy.”

“He's a whaleman?”

“He commanded merchant vessels out of Boston, though I would strongly advise you not to call him ‘captain' in Captain Wilkes's hearing.” The surgeon stabbed a fat finger in the direction of a door sited next to the big chartroom, evidently indicating Wilkes's cabin.

“Why not?” said Wiki, more puzzled than ever.

“Captain Wilkes gets emotionally upset when shipmasters more experienced than he happen to be in his vicinity.”

“So what is Captain Couthouy doing here?”

“He got the mad idea that he wanted to sign up with the Deplorable Expedition, shell-collecting being his passion—he informed President Jackson that he would ship before the mast, if necessary, which entertained Jackson so first rate that he shipped him on the spot as a scientific.”

It didn't surprise Wiki that a Boston shipmaster should be an avid collector of shells, exotic seashells in good condition being worth a pretty price in the right market, but Couthouy sounded interestingly eccentric. He said, “Where is he?”

“Somewhere where he can keep clear of Wilkes, just the same as Wilkes is somewhere keeping clear of him.”

“They don't like each other?”

“Wilkes don't like civilian scientifics as a species—reckons that they will grab all the credit when the ships get home, relegating his officers to the subcategory of hewers of wood and drawers of water. However, he reserves a special antipathy for Couthouy—on account of the fact that Couthouy has accumulated a lot more sea time than he has. Wilkes wanted to eliminate the civilian corps completely, you know,” Dr. Olliver confided. “And he would have done it, too, if he could've located navy officers with the skills to take their places, but there ain't even a common gardener to be found in the U.S. Navy. Not that a man on the breast of the stormy wave has the chance to develop much interest in gardening,” he added with a surprisingly womanish giggle.