CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
CAPTAIN PENHALIGON’S BUNK ROOM ABOARD HMS PHOEBUS
Around dawn on October 19, 1800
JOHN PENHALIGON AWAKES FROM A DREAM OF MILDEWED DRAPES and lunar forests to find his son at his bedside. “Tristingle, my dear boy! Such horrid dreams I had! I dreamed you’d been killed on the Blenheim and”—Penhaligon sighs—“and I even dreamed I’d forgotten what you looked like. Not your hair—”
“Never my hair, Pa,” says the handsome lad, smiling. “Not this burning bush!”
“In my dream, I sometimes dreamed you were still alive … Waking was a—a bitterness.”
“Come!” He laughs like Meredith laughed. “Is this a phantom’s hand?”
John Penhaligon grips his son’s warm hand and notices his captain’s epaulets.
“My Phaeton is sent to help your Phoebus crack this walnut, Father.”
Ships of the line hog the glory, Penhaligon’s mentor Captain Golding would say, but frigates bag the prizes!
“There’s no prize on earth,” agrees Tristram, “like the ports and markets of the Orient.”
“Black pudding, eggs, and fried bread would be heavenly, my lad.”
Why, Penhaligon wonders, did I answer an unasked question?
“I’ll tell Jones and bring your Times of London.” Tristram withdraws.
Penhaligon listens to the gentle clatter of cutlery and plates …
… and sloughs off wasted years of grief, like a snake’s skin.
How can Tristram, he wonders, obtain The Times in Nagasaki Bay?
A cat watches him from the foot of his bed; or perhaps a bat …
With a deaf and dumb hum, the beast opens its mouth: a pouch of needles.
It means to bite, thinks Penhaligon, and his thought is the devil’s cue.
Agony scalds his right foot; an Aaaaaaaaagh! escapes like steam.
Wide awake in closeted dark, dead Tristram’s father bites on a scream.
The gentle clatter of cutlery and plates ceases, and anxious steps hurry to his cabin door. Chigwin’s voice calls out, “Is all well, sir?”
The captain swallows. “A nightmare ambushed me, is all.”
“I suffer them myself, sir. We’ll have breakfast served by first bell.”
“Very good, Chigwin. Wait: are the native boats still circling us?”
“Just the two guard boats, sir, but the marines watched them all night and they never came within two hundred yards or I’d’ve woken you, sir. Aside from them, nothing bigger than a duck is afloat this morning. We scared everything off.”
“I shall shake my leg shortly, Chigwin. Carry on.” But as Penhaligon shifts his swollen foot, thorns of pain lacerate his flesh. “Chigwin, pray invite Surgeon Nash to call on the nonce: my podagra is troubling me, a little.”
SURGEON NASH EXAMINES the ankle, swollen to twice its usual size. “Steeplechases and mazurkas are, more than like, behind you now, Captain. May I recommend a stick to help you walk? I shall have Rafferty fetch one.”
Penhaligon hesitates. A cripple with a stick, at forty-two.
Young and agile feet pound to and fro abovedecks.
“Yes. Better to advertise my infirmity with a stick than a fall down stairs.”
“Quite so, sir. Now, if I may examine this tophus. This may …”
The lancet probes the rupture: a violet agony explodes behind Penhaligon’s eyeballs.
“… hurt just a little, sir … but it’s weeping nicely—a good abundance of pus.”
The captain peers at the frothing discharge. “That is good?”
Surgeon Nash unscrews a corked pot. “Pus is how the body purges itself of excessive blue bile, and blue bile is the root of gout. By widening the wound, applying a scraping of murine fecal matter”—he uncorks the pot and extracts a mouse dropping with a pair of tweezers—“we can stimulate the discharge and expect an improvement within seven days. Moreover, I took the liberty of bringing a vial of Dover’s remedy, so—”
“I’ll drink it now, Surgeon. The next two days are crucial to—”
The lancet sinks in: the stifled scream makes his body go rigid.
“Damn it, Nash,” the captain gasps finally. “Will you not at least warn me?”
MAJOR CUTLIP LOOKS askance at the sauerkraut on Penhaligon’s spoon.
“Might your resistance,” asks the captain, “be weakening, Major?”
“Twice-rotted cabbage shall never conquer this soldier, Captain.”
Membranous sunlight lends the breakfast table the air of a painting.
“It was Admiral Jervis who first recommended sauerkraut to me.” The captain crunches his fermented mouthful. “But I told you that story before.”
“Never,” says Wren, “in my hearing, sir.” He looks at the others, who concur. Penhaligon suspects them of dainty manners, but summarizes the anecdote: “Jervis had sauerkraut from William Bligh, and Bligh had it from Captain Cook himself. ‘The difference between La Pérouse’s tragedy and Cook’s glory,’ Bligh was fond of saying, ‘was thirty barrels of sauerkraut.’ But when Cook embarked on the first voyage, neither exhortation nor threat would induce the Endeavours to eat it. Thereupon Cook designated the ‘twice-rotted cabbage’ as officers’ food and forbade common tars from touching the stuff. The result? Sauerkraut began to be filched from its own poorly guarded storeroom, until six months later not a single man was buckling under scurvy and the conversion was complete.”
“Low cunning,” Lieutenant Talbot observes, “in the service of genius.”
“Cook is a great hero of mine,” avows Wren, “and an inspiration.”
Wren’s “of mine” irritates Penhaligon like a tiny seed wedged between molars.
Chigwin fills the captain’s bowl: a drop splashes on the tablecloth’s lovingly embroidered forget-me-nots. Now is not the time, thinks the widower, to remember Meredith. “And so, gentlemen, to the day’s business, and our Dutch guests.”
“Van Cleef,” says Hovell, “passed an uncommunicative night in his cell.”
“Aside,” sneers Cutlip, “from demanding to know why his supper was boiled rope.”
“News of the VOC’s demise,” the captain asks, “makes him no less obdurate?”
Hovell shakes his head. “Admission of weakness is a weakness.”
“As for Fischer,” says Wren, “the wretch spent all night in his cabin, despite our entreaties to join us in the wardroom.”
“How are relations between Fischer and his former chief, Snitker?”
“They act like perfect strangers,” replies Hovell. “Snitker is nursing a head cold this morning. He wants Van Cleef court-martialed for the crime, if you please, of ‘battery against a “friend of the court of Saint James’s.”’”
“I am sick,” says Penhaligon, “heartily sick, of that coxcomb.”
“I’d agree, Captain,” says Wren, “that Snitker’s usefulness has run its course.”
“We need a persuasive leader to win the Dutch,” says the captain, “and an”—abovedeck, three bells are rung—“envoy of gravitas and poise to persuade the Japanese.”
“Deputy Fischer wins my vote,” says Major Cutlip, “as the more pliable man.”
“Chief van Cleef,” argues Hovell, “would be the natural leader.”
“Let us interview,” Penhaligon suggests, brushing crumbs away, “our two candidates.”
“MR. VAN CLEEF.” Penhaligon stands, disguising his grimace of pain as an insincere smile. “I hope you slept well?”
Van Cleef helps himself to burgoo, Seville preserve, and a hailstorm of sugar before replying to Hovell’s translation. “He says you can threaten him all you please, sir, but Dejima still has not one nail of copper for you to rob.”
Penhaligon ignores this. “I’m pleased his appetite is robust.”
Hovell translates and Van Cleef speaks through a mouthful of food.
“He asks, sir, if we have decided what to do with our hostages yet.”
“Tell him that we don’t consider him a hostage but a guest.”
Van Cleef’s response to the assertion is a burgoo-spattering “Ha!”
“Ask if he has digested the VOC’s bankruptcy.”
Van Cleef pours himself a bowl of coffee as he listens to Hovell. He shrugs.
“Tell him that the English East India Company wishes to trade with Japan.”
Van Cleef sprinkles raisins on his burgoo as he gives his response.
“His reply, sir, is, ‘Why else hire Snitker to bring you here?’”
He is no novice at this, thinks Penhaligon, but then, neither am I.
“We are seeking an old Japan hand to represent our interests.”
Van Cleef listens, nods, stirs sugar into his coffee, and says, “Nee.”
“Ask whether he ever heard of the Kew Memorandum, signed by his own monarch-in-exile, ordering Dutch overseas officers to hand their nations’ assets to the safekeeping of the British?”
Van Cleef listens, nods, stands, and lifts his shirt to show a deep, wide scar.
He sits down, tears a bread roll in two, and gives Hovell a calm explanation.
“Mr. van Cleef says he earned that wound at the hands of Scotch and Swiss mercenaries hired by that same monarch-in-exile. They poured boiling oil down his father’s throat, he said. On behalf of the Batavian Republic, he begs us to keep both the ‘chinless tyrant’ and ‘British safekeeping’ and says that the Kew Memorandum is useful for the privy but nothing else.”
“Plainly, sir,” declares Wren, “we are dealing with Jacobin.”
“Tell him we’d prefer to achieve our goals diplomatically, but—”
Van Cleef sniffs the sauerkraut and recoils as at boiling sulfur.
“—failing that we shall seize the factory by force, and any loss of Japanese and Dutch life shall be on his account.”
Van Cleef drinks his coffee, turns to Penhaligon, and insists on Hovell translating his reply line by line so that nothing is missed.
“He says, Captain, that whatever Daniel Snitker has told us, Dejima is sovereign Japanese territory, leased to the company. It is not a Dutch possession.
“He says that if we try to storm it, the Japanese will defend it.
“He says our marines may fire off one round before being cut down.
“He urges us not to throw our lives away, for our family’s sakes.”
“The man is trying to scare us away,” remarks Cutlip.
“More probably,” suspects Penhaligon, “he is driving up the price of his help.”
But Van Cleef issues a final statement and stands.
“He thanks you for breakfast, Captain, and says that Melchior van Cleef is not for sale to any monarch. Peter Fischer, however, shall be only too delighted to hammer out terms with you.”
“MY ESTEEM FOR PRUSSIANS,” says Penhaligon, “began in my midshipman days …”
Hovell translates: Peter Fischer nods, not quite able to believe this wonderful twist of fortune.
“HMS Audacious had a Brunswick-born officer named Plessner.”
Fischer corrects the pronunciation of “Plessner” and adds a remark.
“Chief Fischer,” translates Hovell, “is also a native son of Brunswick.”
“Is that so now?” Penhaligon feigns astonishment. “From Brunswick?”
Peter Fischer nods, says “Ja, ja,” and drains his small beer.
With a glance, Penhaligon orders Chigwin to fill Fischer’s tankard and keep it filled.
“Mr. Plessner was a superb seaman; brave, resourceful …”
Fischer’s expression signifies, As one would expect, of course …
“… and I am overjoyed,” the captain continues, “that the first British consul of Nagasaki shall be a gentleman of Germanic stock and values.”
Fischer raises his tankard in salute and puts a question to Hovell.
“He’s asking, sir, what role Mr. Snitker may have in our plans.”
Penhaligon aspirates a tragic sigh, thinks, I could have walked the boards at Drury Lane, and says, “To be truthful with you, Envoy Fischer”—Hovell translates the snatch, and Fischer leans in closer—“Daniel Snitker disappoints us as gravely as does Mr. van Cleef.”
The Prussian nods with co-conspirator’s eyes.
“Dutchmen talk large, yet in action they are all piss and vinegar.”
Hovell struggles with the idioms but elicits a run of ja ja jas.
“They are too rooted in their Golden Age to notice the changing world.”
“This is the … waarheid.” Fischer turns to Hovell. “How to say, waarheid?”
“‘Truth,’” says Hovell, and Penhaligon tries to make his foot more comfortable as he expounds.
“This is why the VOC collapsed and why their much-vaunted Dutch Republic looks set to join Poland in history’s dustbin of extinct nations. The British crown needs Fischers, not Snitkers: men of talent, of vision …”
Fischer’s nostrils widen as he listens to Hovell’s rendition, the better to smell his future of wealth and power.
“… and moral rectitude. In short, we need ambassadors, not whoring merchants.”
Fischer completes his metamorphosis from hostage to plenipotentiary with a laborious tale of Dutch lassitude, which Hovell shortens. “Envoy Fischer says that a fire leveled the sea-gate quarter of Dejima last year. Whilst the two biggest Dutch warehouses were burning to the ground, Van Cleef and Snitker were disporting themselves in a brothel at the company’s expense.”
“Disgraceful dereliction,” declares Wren, a connoisseur of bagnios.
“Gross abandonment,” agrees Cutlip, Wren’s companion of choice.
Seven bells ring. Envoy Fischer shares a new thought with Hovell.
“He says, Captain, that with Van Cleef removed from Dejima, Mr. Fischer is now the acting chief—meaning that the men on Dejima are duty-bound to carry out his instructions. To disobey his orders is a corporal offense.”
May his powers of persuasion, thinks the captain, match his confidence.
“Snitker shall receive a pilot’s fee for guiding us here and a gratis berth to Bengal, but in a hammock, not a cabin.”
Fischer’s nod agrees, That is sufficient, and issues a pronouncement.
“He says,” translates Hovell, “‘the Almighty forged this morning’s pact.’”
The Prussian drinks from his tankard and finds it empty.
The captain sends Chigwin a tiny shake of his head. “The Almighty,” Penhaligon says with a smile, “and His Majesty’s Navy, for whom Envoy Fischer agrees to undertake the following …” Penhaligon takes up the memorandum of understanding. “‘Article one: Envoy Fischer is to gain the acquiescence of Dejima’s men to British patronage.’”
Hovell translates. Major Cutlip rolls a boiled egg on a saucer.
“‘Article two: Envoy Fischer is to broker negotiations with the Nagasaki magistrate to secure a treaty of amity and trade between the British crown and the shogun of Japan. Annual trading seasons are to commence from June of 1801.’”
Hovell translates. Cutlip picks eggshell from the rubbery white.
“‘Article three: Envoy Fischer shall facilitate the transfer of all Dutch-owned copper to His Majesty’s Frigate Phoebus and a limited trading season in private goods between crew and officers and Japanese merchants.’”
Hovell translates. Cutlip bites into the truffle-soft yolk.
“‘As remuneration for these services, Envoy Fischer is to receive a one-tenth share of all profits from the British Dejima factory for the first three years of his office, which may be renewed in 1803 subject to the consent of both parties.’”
Hovell translates the final clause. Penhaligon signs the memorandum.
The captain then passes the quill to Peter Fischer. Fischer pauses.
He senses the gaze, the captain guesses, of his future self, watching him.
“You shall return to Brunswick,” Wren assures him, “as rich as its illustrious duke.”
Hovell translates, Fischer smiles and signs, and Cutlip sprinkles a little salt onto the remains of his egg.
TODAY BEING SUNDAY, church is rigged, and eight bells summon the ship’s company. The officers and marines stand beneath an awning strung between the mizzen and mainmast. All the Phoebus’s Christian sailors are expected to toe the line in their best clothes: Hebrews, Mussulmans, Asiatics, and other heathens are excused from prayers and the hymn, but often they watch from the margins. Van Cleef is locked in the sailcloth store for fear of mischief, Daniel Snitker is with the lesser warrant officers, and Peter Fischer stands between Captain Penhaligon—conscious that his walking stick will already be the subject of speculation among the ratings—and Lieutenant Hovell, from whom the newly appointed envoy has borrowed a fresh cotton shirt. Chaplain Wily, a gnarled oboe of a Kentishman, reads from his battered Bible, standing on a makeshift pulpit set before the wheel. He reads line by slow line, allowing the unschooled men time to chew and digest every verse, and giving the captain’s thoughts some room to wander: “‘We being exceedingly tossed with a tempest …’”
Penhaligon tests his right ankle: Nash’s potion is numbing the pain.
“‘… the next day they lightened the ship; And the third day …’”
The captain spies the Japanese guard boat, keeping its distance.
“‘… we cast out with our own hands the tackling of the ship.’”
The seamen grunt in surprise and pay the chaplain close attention.
“‘And when neither sun nor stars in many days appeared …’”
The average is either too meek for so unruly a flock …
“‘… and no small tempest lay on us, all hope that we should be saved …’”
… or else so zealous that the sailors ignore, scorn, or vilify him.
“‘… was then taken away. But after long abstinence Paul stood forth …’”
Chaplain Wily, an oysterman’s son from Whitstable, is a welcome exception.
“‘… in the midst of them and said, Sirs, ye should have hearkened unto me …’”
Hands who know the Mediterranean in winter mutter and nod.
“‘… and not have loosed from Crete, and to have gained this harm and loss.’”
Wily teaches the boys their three Rs and writes illiterate men’s letters.
“‘And now I exhort you to be of good cheer: for there shall be no loss …’”
The chaplain has a mercantile streak, too, and fifty bolts of Bengali chintz in the hold.
“‘… of any man’s life among you but of the ship. For there stood by me this night …’”
Best of all, Wily keeps his readings briny and his sermons pithy.
“‘… the angel of God, whose I am’”—Wily looks up—“‘and whom I serve, saying …’”
Penhaligon lets his gaze wander the lines of his Phoebusians.
“‘Fear not, Paul; … lo, God hath given thee all them that sail with thee.’”
There are fellow Cornishmen, Bristolians, Manxmen, Hebrideans …
“‘… About midnight the shipmen deemed that they drew near to some country …’”
A quartet of Faroe Islanders; some Yankees from Connecticut.
“‘… And sounded; and found it twenty fathoms: and when they had gone …’”
Freed slaves from the Caribbean, a Tartar, a Gibraltese Jew.
“‘… further, they sounded again, and found fifteen fathoms …’”
Penhaligon considers how land naturally divides itself into nations.
“‘… Then fearing lest we should have fallen upon rocks, they cast …’”
He considers how the seas dissolve human boundaries.
“‘… four anchors out of the stern, and wished for the day.’”
He looks at the doubloons: men fathered by Europeans …
“‘And as the shipmen were about to flee out of the ship …’”
… on native women: on girls sold by fathers for iron nails …
“‘Paul said … Except these abide in the ship, ye cannot be saved.’”
Penhaligon locates Hartlepool the half-breed, and remembers his own youthful fornications, and wonders whether any resulted in a coffee-skinned or almond-eyed son who also obeyed the voice of the sea, who thinks the thoughts of the fatherless. The captain remembers this morning’s dream, and he hopes so.
“‘Then the soldiers cut the ropes of the boat, and let her fall off.’”
The men gasp at the recklessness. One exclaims, “Madness!”
“Stops deserters,” answers another, and Wren calls out: “Hear the chaplain!”
But Wily closes his Bible. “Aye, with the tempest howling, with death a near certainty, Paul says, ‘Abandon ship and you’ll drown; stay aboard with me and you’ll survive.’ Would you believe him? Would I?” The chaplain shrugs and puffs. “This wasn’t Paul the Apostle speaking with a halo round his head. This was a prisoner in chains, a heretic from a backward ditch of Rome’s empire. Yet he persuaded the guards to cut away the boats, and the Book of Acts tells that two hundred and seventy-six were saved by God’s mercy. Why did that raggle-taggle crew of Cypriots, Lebanese, and Palestinians heed Paul? Was it his voice, or his face, or … something else? Ah, with that secret, I’d be Archbishop Wily by now! Instead, I’m stuck here, with you.” Some of the men laugh. “I shan’t claim, men, that faith always saves a man from drowning—enough devout Christians have died at sea to make a liar of me. But this I do swear: faith shall save your soul from death. Without faith, death is a drowning, the end of ends, and what sane man wouldn’t fear that? But with faith, death is nothing worse than the end of this voyage we call life, and the beginning of an eternal voyage in a company of our loved ones, with griefs and woes smoothed out, and under the captaincy of our Creator …”
The cordage creaks as the climbing sun warms the morning dew.
“That’s all I have to say this Sunday, men. Our own captain has a few words.”
Penhaligon steps up, relying on his stick more than he would like. “So, men, there’s no fat Dutch goose waiting to be plucked in Nagasaki. You are disappointed, your officers are disappointed, and I am disappointed.” The captain speaks slowly, to allow his words to trickle into other languages. “Console yourselves with the thought of all the unsuspecting French prizes to be netted on our long, long voyage back to Plymouth.” Gannets call. The oars of the guard boats drag and splash. “Our mission here, men, is to bring the nineteenth century to these benighted shores. By the ‘nineteenth century’ I mean the British nineteenth century: not the French, nor Russian nor Dutch. Shall doing so make rich men of us all? In and of itself, no. Shall it make our Phoebus the most famous ship in Japan and the toast of the service at home? The answer shall be a resounding yes. This is not a legacy you can spend in port. It is a legacy that can never, ever be squandered, stolen, or lost.” The men prefer cash to posterity, Penhaligon thinks, but they listen, at least. “A last word, before—and about—the hymn. The last time a song of praise was heard in Nagasaki was as native Christians were slung off the cliff we passed yesterday for their belief in the true faith. I desire you send a message to the magistrate of Nagasaki, on this historic day, that Britons, unlike the Dutch, shall never trample on Our Savior for the sake of profit. So sing not like shy schoolboys, men. Sing like warriors. One, and two, and three, and—”