Run Afoul (22 page)

Captain Wilkes laughed as he said jokingly, “We mustn't be wasteful—we must be prudent with our resources—so why use a translator when I can deal with the local gentry perfectly well myself?” Then he said, “Which reminds me,” picked up a folded card from the table, and handed it over.

Wiki took the card, unfolded it, and read it twice, with growing disbelief. It was from Sir Patrick Palgrave, inviting him, with Lieutenant Forsythe, to a dinner party at his house on Praia Grande, on the opposite side of the bay to Rio de Janeiro, at seven in the evening in three days' time.

He looked at Captain Wilkes again, and said quietly, “I don't think I can accept this.”

Captain Wilkes flushed. “You certainly
will
accept it.”

“But surely I will have sailed with the survey by then?”

“Certainly not. December second is the emperor's birthday, and it would be most undiplomatic for the
Swallow
to leave before that.”

“But why
me?
” demanded Wiki. Even more pertinently, he meditated, why
Forsythe?
Inviting him to a formal affair was a recipe for disaster.

Captain Wilkes's lips pressed together. “I trust you will both behave with the good reputation of the expedition in mind.”

“Of course, sir,” said Wiki, hiding a wince, and was dismissed.

*   *   *

When Wiki arrived at the boat stairs, it was to find that the cutter crew had disappeared, so he asked the sentinel to hoist a signal for a boat from the
Swallow.
Then, instead of waiting, he went along the gravel walkway to the far end of the convent. Here, another path wound up to the plateau where the sailors and marines were camped. He followed this to the top, and found that a deep ditch, maybe once a moat, lay between the hilltop and the back wall of the building.

The convent reared above him. The stonework was unplastered, and the visual effect was solid and dramatic in the afternoon sun. Very few windows interrupted the rugged expanse, and so it took a while to work out where the pendulum chamber lay. Then Wiki spied a small pile of rubble, which looked as if it marked the place where the rats and the snake had wriggled into the room, and skidded down the steep side of the ditch to that spot.

At the bottom, he found that the hole was much bigger than it had looked from the inside of the chamber. He wondered about the thickness of the wall. About two feet from the outer side to the inner, he decided, judging by the size of the stones. Then he speculated about the size of the cavity. That snake had been six feet long and sturdy in build, and it had been coiled up in the hole for quite some time before it had lunged out after the rats. More crevices might fan out from it, winding through the gaps in the stones and crumbling mortar—indeed, there could be a complicated network of holes inside the wall.
A nest of snakes,
the sergeant had said. When he hunkered down and tossed in a pebble, he heard rustling sounds from the darkness.

Wiki had contemplated putting his ear to the hole to see if he could hear the swish of the pendulum and the tick of the clock from this side of the wall. Instead, however, he stood up in a hurry, and, abandoning dignity, he scrambled hastily up the steep slope, and headed briskly for the waterfront.

*   *   *

Back at the boat stairs, he found the boat from the
Swallow
waiting, with Tana at the tiller, and Sua at one of the oars. Because of the other four boat's crew, they couldn't talk in Samoan, but their broad grins testified to their pleasure that he was part of the brig's complement again—because of Sir Patrick Palgrave, Wiki remembered. Instead of going straight on board the brig, he walked along the quay to where the
Osprey
was hove down, just in case the
fallua
had brought Captain Coffin back.

However, he was nowhere to be seen, though it was noteworthy that even in his absence the carpenters were working hard. Wiki could hear Captain Hudson, in the distance, shouting with obvious frustration as he tried to harry along the workers who were supposed to be mending his poor, hard-used, ill-maintained ship, while on the
Osprey
the air was loud with the busy clangor of hammers and thump of caulking mallets. It was a testament to the force of his father's personality.

Lying over the way she was, the
Osprey
appeared clumsy and vulnerable. There was certainly nothing about her to remind him of the times he had sailed with his father as a lad—but then, it was hard to know what a ship looked like when you were constantly on board of her. Wiki remembered an incident on one of his whaling voyages when his captain had called him to the rail to look at another whaler passing by. She looked kinda familiar, the old salt had said, but he was damned if he could put a name to her. It wasn't until after the old man had hailed her and got an answer, that he realized that he had once commanded her—on a three-year Pacific voyage! Both the captain and Wiki had considered it a huge joke, but now he wondered if his father would laugh.

In truth, he hardly knew his father at all. Captain Coffin had sailed away when he was barely sixteen, after he had been in New England for just three years. Before that, Captain Coffin had taken him on the
Osprey
for short West Indies voyages, but now it was hard to remember what that had been like, except for the balmy evenings when his father had regaled him with yarns—which were probably farfetched, Wiki realized now, but which he had absorbed greedily at the time. While he had helped out with the work of the ship to the best of his ability, he'd had no role on board except that of the captain's son.

Since then, Wiki had sailed with a dozen or more masters, because he had quickly adopted the habit of jumping ship whenever it suited him—when he was keen to visit home in the Bay of Islands and the ship was not steering for New Zealand, for instance, or when he had become so disgusted with whaling that he needed a break. At other times, he had deserted to get away from a captain he disliked, though he had been lucky enough to never have served under one of the sadists who were the subject of ghoulish whispers all about the whaling fleet.

Whaling captains were an assorted lot, he'd found. There were some who were gentlemen, and others who were hogs in human form; there were poets, and musicians, and men who were so morose they did not seem sane. He'd been second mate for a master who'd carried a complete set of Hume's
History of England
to sea, and had willingly loaned the books to Wiki. They had walked the deck in the quiet spells, discussing wars and kings and politics, and though they had been steering for the northwest coast, where Wiki did not want to go at all, he had delayed jumping ship until he had finished the last volume. Would sailing with his father have been like this? It was impossible to tell.

Hearing a step behind him, Wiki turned hopefully, but instead of Captain Coffin, it was George Rochester. The afternoon sun glinted on his fair hair and fluffy side whiskers, and lighted up his broad smile. “I see you've shifted your duds into your cabin,” he observed. “It's good to have you back.”

Wiki grinned, and then said, “I wondered where my father was berthed.”

“Living with Sir Patrick Palgrave until the
Osprey
is back on her keel. I offered him a bed on the
Swallow,
but he didn't want to offend an old friend.”

Wiki looked at the
Osprey
again. “Tell me about running afoul of her.”

“
He
ran afoul of
me,
remember,” Rochester reminded him, and then described the incident with drama and flourish. “I doubt it would have happened with you at the helm,” he admitted at the end.

Or if he'd had a more experienced first officer, Wiki thought silently, but merely said, “It sounds as if it happened too fast to do much. What amazes me,” he added, “is that you recognized my father.”

“There's quite a resemblance, you know.”

“Good God!”

“
He
was flattered.”

“And
I
am, too.”

“You are?” George looked surprised.

“Of course,” Wiki said complacently. “My father is a handsome man.”

George laughed, and then said more soberly, “He's very fond of you.”

“And I of him,” said Wiki lightly.

“I wondered—well, knowing that he left you behind in Salem, and how you felt about it, old chap … And I couldn't help but notice how many young lads he ships along…”

“Carrying cadets is a Salem custom,” Wiki told him. “And an efficient one, too, if you belong to a port where every substantial man has his sights on foreign trade. If they don't turn into good seamen, with careers as shipmasters ahead, then they can be employed as supercargoes until a trading post becomes available in the Pacific or Indian Ocean. Some even turn into reasonably respectable United States consuls! And those who are not fit to take charge of either a ship or some farflung station can always find jobs as clerks in Salem.”

“Clerking being the last resort?” George said shrewdly.

“Aye,” said Wiki, remembering his father's disgust at the news that he'd become Captain Wilkes's clerk.

“Ouch,” said George with sympathy.

Carpenters were filing off the
Osprey,
and Wiki and George moved out of the way. Then they walked back toward the
Swallow.
As Wiki stepped onto the gangplank he said, “Tell me about what happened at the Pharoux Hotel last night.”

“After you left?” said Rochester. They crossed the deck, and he led the way down the companionway stairs to the saloon. “Room crowded, many people chattering,” he related as he sat down at his end of the table. “Came away deafened, but the grub was good. That sausage casserole was first rate—
feijoada,
they call it; apparently it's a national dish. But God, they were a bunch to talk.”

Wiki swung a leg over the small bench at the forward end of the table, which was his usual seat, sat down, and said, “In Portuguese—or French?”

“A lot of it was indeed in French.”

“For the benefit of Madame de Roquefeuille?”

“She's Brazilian. As a matter of fact, she's Sir Patrick's sister-in-law.”

“Good God, really?” exclaimed Wiki. So the other woman in the
fallua
was probably Madame de Roquefeuille's sister, he deduced, but he had not a notion what she looked like, because he hadn't noticed her at all. It had been quite a family party—one that included his father.

He inquired, “And what language did my father speak after I'd gone?”

Instead of answering, George studied him with a troubled frown. For a moment he was silent, obviously choosing words, but then merely said, “Wiki, your father—”

Wiki said flatly, “Girls.”

“You don't want to take any notice of Forsythe, old chap,” George protested. “He was fearfully drunk.”

“Nevertheless, he was right. Come on, 'fess up—you've apparently got to know my father quite well, and I'm sure he's shared a few confidences.”

George grinned. “You never told me about the milkmaid.”

“Who?”
For a moment Wiki's mind went quite blank, and then he suddenly remembered her hands. He saw them as clearly as if the girl were in the cabin—large, competent, experienced hands, the curled palms smoothly callused. “Oh,” he said, disconcerted, and George laughed.

At that moment, rather to Wiki's relief, Stoker came in, bearing a good repast of bread, butter, ham, cheese, and pickles. Looking down as he buttered bread, he said, “Did you know that Sir Patrick Palgrave is the guiding hand behind this survey of the coastal jungle?”

“Wilkes told you about it?”

“Aye. And I wonder why Palgrave should be so interested in the exploring expedition—which is an American enterprise, after all.”

Rochester scratched one fluffy sideburn meditatively while he chewed. “It must be on account of orchids,” he decided at last.

“Orchids?”

“Aye. He has a passion for them—well, he must have, considering he spent years at it. Before he inherited his father's estate and married into Brazilian high society, he was an orchid collector. Have you ever heard of such a thing?”

“I've actually met a few orchid collectors,
e hoa,
” Wiki told him.

“Good God, dear fellow, you never fail to surprise me. Where?”

“Brazil and Uruguay, particularly in the smaller ports. They'd come in from the jungle, driving mule carts loaded to the gun'ls with orchid plants in wet sacking bundles, looking for a vessel to freight them to New York, or London, or Boston. I don't think there was much money in it for them, as they were such a miserable lot, poor fellows. Their complexions were bright yellow, and they were invariably shaking with fever. I never saw the same man twice, because they died so easily.”

George frowned. “Sir Patrick doesn't fit that description, old chap.”

“That's right,” said Wiki slowly, as the same thought occurred to him. “Perhaps he employed collectors, instead of going after them himself?”

“You'll have to ask the man himself. All I know is that Palgrave sent the plants off to his father's estate in Cambridge, England, where the gardeners cultivated them in heated glasshouses until they were ready to be sold.”

Glasshouses. Palgrave. Cambridge.
Wiki put down his knife, and stared at his friend in startled speculation.

Seventeen

The sun was barely up next morning when Lieutenant Forsythe marched on board to take charge, and within an hour the brig
Swallow
was a hive of activity, taking on fresh water and provisions, as well as scientific and drafting equipment. Hollering around in his usual hectoring fashion, the southerner looked as if he couldn't wait to get into the jungle and start decimating the wild life. When Wiki asked him if he knew about the dinner party at Sir Patrick Palgrave's mansion on Praia Grande, he was most matter-of-fact about it, simply nodding before turning to roar at some innocent seamen who were delivering a raft of freshwater casks.