Mean Sun (18 page)

Mr. Hall came down the mast and walked over to show me his prize. The weathervane was in the shape of a seagull and decorated with tiny mirrors.

“Mr. Jacobs says they use these mirrors here to ward off evil spirits that cross over the seas,” said he.

Mr. Hall made a game of spinning his weathervane and dancing the mirrors’ reflections up at the sails. At one point he stopped and cast an eye back in Amoy’s direction.

“I pray they make it, Mr. Wren.”

“So do I,” I said.

“Tend to your instruments,” offered Mr. Hall. “I’ll hold the helm for you, Mr. Wren.”

There was one tiny compartment adjacent to the main cabin that appeared to be used to pilot the ship. All I found in it, however, were long thick sticks of incense and weedy depth lines, and a few grimy odds and ends. That there were no maps or instruments aboard told me that its former captain was a coaster. The Chinese used incense to measure time at sea. Mr. Grimmel warned me, however, that they were inaccurate in that any small element affects the rate at which they burn.

Twisting grey threads of fog began appearing on the distant horizon all that morning. By midday as I took my first shots and recorded our knots, the fickle wind had shifted and the fog bank had crept closer. The deck was quite chilly when Lord Douglas began distractedly strolling along its length.

The corner of my mind, perhaps in tandem with the wayward climate, returned to the killing. I saw my hand thrusting and flashing before my eyes and the Chinese fellow falling again and again. My mind would blow steady for a time and then those images would return. They walked with me along the rail and appeared unexpectedly in the glass as I scanned the horizon. I recoiled from them, but they begged contemplation. Something in me had been reordered. I was a man now, with a man’s black sins on my soul. This stage of blue sky and twinkling sea had blackness all around its edges. What troubled me most was Time. Days and months would stretch into years. I would grow old on this new course, dwelling, dwelling, dwelling.

I found Lord Douglas observing me as if reading my thoughts. He edged over and lightly tapped my shoulder.

“They report you did well, Mr. Wren,” said he, nodding an indication of where the Chinese man’s body was shipped overboard. I shrugged with a man’s indifference. “Well, sometimes in life we must take actions that are against our nature.”

Greyson had never taken a life. The man was a fool. I felt raw contempt in my heart for him, yet somewhere in me admitted grudging admiration, too. Some men take valiant actions because of their courage, others because of greed. Either quality can make the man. Lord Greyson was strengthened by his greed. Like pliant dough, my rebellious thoughts folded into submission. Somewhere, between England and this moment, my spirit had been broken.

“Our mission would not have succeeded had you done otherwise,” said he.

Lord Douglas was now peering over my shoulder at something in the distance. I turned and saw the faint ghostly impression of two heavily armed junks on the horizon, barely specks to the naked eye.

“”Ere they come, boys!” declared Mr. Jacobs suddenly at the top of his voice, then lowering it ominously. “We can’t outrun them.”

The ships were under full sail and charging hard.

“Mr. Wren!” Jacobs called out. “Report to Mr. Brooks.”

I found Mr. Brooks inclined on his side with his face to the bulkhead as I entered. A darkening ring was spreading from the dressed wound outward across his naked back, as varying in color as a sunset.

“I hope you are well, sir, “said I.

He reflexively winced at the sound of my voice.

“Who’s that?”

“Daniel Wren, sir.”

“Mr. Jacobs is a butcher, Wren,” said Brooks with feverish exhaustion. “Man and mutton chop are one and the same to him. Forgive me, Wren, but I cannot turn to face you. The lead in my back feels as large as a hat.”

“I come to report, sir, that two ships are closing.”

“Is the sail repaired?”

“No, sir, we would have to drop the sail to do so.”

“What do you propose, Mr. Wren?”

“We have been running along a fog bank, sir. We might evade them for a time.”

Brooks strained to turn, letting out an anguished groan. He glanced at me from the corner of his eye.

“For a time?”

“Aye, sir,” I replied. “At nightfall the fog may chill and blow off.”

“Will there be a moon, Wren?”

“In the western sky, sir.”

“We’ll shine as bright as a crown,” said he, thoughtfully. “Bury us in the fog, Mr. Wren. Heave-to, hope they pass us, and repair that sail.”

“Aye, aye, sir.”

Mr. Rollins was still posted at the tiller when I returned on deck.

“Lieutenant says we are to make for that fog, Mr. Rollins,” I informed him, pointing in its direction. “When we enter, we’ll wear three degrees off the port bow, south by southwest, and keep steady.”

“Steady it is,” replied Rollins.

“Thank you, Mr. Rollins.”

“You need not thank me, Wren,” declared he with a surly edge.

I returned to the hutch beside the cabin and claimed two of the incense sticks. A bundle of small pine fire sticks dipped in sulfur and a coarse stone produced a tiny flame that allowed me to light one. With my compass in hand, I returned to the ship’s prow just as we closed on the fog bank.

Behind us the faint outlines of ships were now more vividly defined. Our vessel presently dove into the rich loam of the fog, and our pursuers vanished from sight. Not only did the fog alter the light, but the sound changed, too. We were more keenly aware of any noise, no matter how subtle. The fog washed away the highest points of our mast; barely was one end of the ship visible to the other. A steady flow of water drops came trickling down the sails onto the deck.

I found a fissure at the prow rail into which I wedged my incense stick. As it slowly burned down, I kept my eye fixed to the
compass. The sea calmed and rolled by in lumbering glassy sheets, like laundry on the line.

“Night comes soon,” said Jacob, approaching me.

“When the stick dies,” I replied, nodding to the incense, “we’ll heave-to.”

“Heave-to? Why would we do that?”

“Let them slip by us before dark, sir,” I replied. “Mr. Brooks orders that we drop the sail and repair it.”

Jacobs thought this over, scratching his head with his dirty fingers.

“I pray he’s right,” he said. “Or we’ll be happy fools, won’t we?”

Mr. Jacob’s jaunty figure dissolved and I was left alone. Only I sensed I was not alone. I turned and spied another figure a few yards away. Wen Xi. She came forward a step or two and was looking directly into my face. Even in this hazy mist, I was struck afresh by her beauty.

“I thought I never be free again,” she said. She stepped forward and gave me an embrace that made my heart pound like a clock. “Thank you, Daniel Wren.”

“’
Wren
’,” I answered. “Much better.”

“
Wren
,” she repeated in a bell-like tone. “
Wren
.”

She peered blindly behind me at the fog in the direction the pursuing ships.

“They will come,” I said. “We will hide from them.”

She ventured closer to me by the rail until she was barely an arm’s length away. We stood in silence for some moments. The pungent fog blew over us and in a distracted manner she took it all in—the sea, the fog, the journey. Her wet hair was tangled in ribbons and threads across her cheeks and down her neck. Once or twice she caught me appraising her; instead of turning away, she regarded me with a gleam of affection, and I met that glance with a look of longing. Then something in me writhed away from myself. I felt shamed. The flag of my life had blown across my vision, and my many defects, my crimes, my penury, my feeble spirit were the patchwork of it. She read it as clearly as a signalman.

“You will return to your father?”

“Yes, I return to my father. We will be safe in Canton,” she said, edging away slightly.

A door seemed to shut between us.

The sergeant of the marines was a man named Ethan Woodman. He came meandering out of the fog in no hurry to claim his charge, but leaned over the rail watching the water pass before speaking.

“She gave them quite a tussle, my men report,” said Woodman. “Didn’t understand we were rescuing her. Bit and scratched and clawed, she did.” He leveled a resentful eye at her. “But for her my men would be alive now. Came at us with their axes.”

“She’s grateful, Mr. Woodman,” said I.

“Grateful! What do I care if she’s grateful,” he muttered. “Grateful is not enough when men die. Best not to say the word.”

I could see by her expression that most of what he said Wen Xi had comprehended, for her own flag now flew across her face. She edged away, wrapping her glinting robes about her against the chill air.

Our ship stayed steadily on course toward blue water. Above, the bright crown of white fog became suffused with color as the sun sank toward the horizon. Our decks darkened and the burning nub of incense glowed lavender on the stick. Finally the last wisps fled and the incense died.

I found Mr. Jacobs by the tiller.

“I believe it’s time to heave-to, sir.”

Jacobs whispered the order. Promptly Mr. Hall and the others claimed the rigging and lowered the sails. The rigging on the main sail was slackened until she sagged to the deck. They began to run through the folds searching for the rent until one cried out.

“Here it is!”

“Silently, you fool!” hissed Jacobs.

The men carefully spread the sail out and began to lay the patch in place. That section was brittle and runs had spread from the gaping hole outward like frail webs to its supporting battens.

“If we lay the patch and hoist her,” reported Hall, “the sail might shear off at the edges unless the runs are fortified, too.”

“Well, fortify them, then,” said Jacobs. “And be quick about it.”

More patching material was brought up as backing to the weaker stresses on the sail, and every hand who could run a stitch did so.

Lord Douglas came up from below deck, his face wet and shiny from the fog.

“Why the delay?” he demanded.

“We repair the sail, my lord,” replied Jacobs.

“With ships on our heels?”

“We hope to evade them, sir,” countered Jacobs.

“The sooner we reach Canton, the better.”

“Mr. Brooks’ orders,” said Jacobs.

Greyson gave a glance at the cabin where Brooks lay.

“My cousin is ill-” began Greyson.

“When he cannot command, the command falls to me, my lord,” replied Jacobs with finality.

“I’ll have a word with him,”

Greyson made for the cabin.

“Saved his life, he did,” muttered Jacobs ruefully. “Man has not a grain of gratitude in him.”

Perhaps it was intuition he had, for Greyson paused abruptly at the cabin door as if he had heard our words. He appraised our hard faces, then, evincing nothing, opened the door and entered.

“Mr. Wren, perhaps you might inquire after Mr. Brooks in a moment or two,” said Jacobs.

While the mending of the sail commenced, all on board became as silent as a graveyard. The lovely hues playing within the fog calibrated to the fast approaching sunset.

I entered the cabin to find Lord Douglas helping Mr. Brooks to sit in an upright position. Brooks grimaced in pain, then settled himself, hunching forward.

“Better,” he said. “Could you retie the bandages, Mr. Wren? I think they have slipped off the wound.”

I did as requested. It was plain to me that the two men had been in the middle of some grave conversation just prior to my appearance, for Lord Douglas was eager to take it up again.

“You make it difficult to thank you,” said he.

“Thank the captain.”

“It was you who lead the rescue.”

“I was ordered to,” said Brooks, suddenly breathing hard from the exertion of speaking.

His dressings had become knotted in his exercise; I began to delicately loosen them.

“I was told you volunteered,” countered Greyson.

“I volunteered,” replied Brooks, “to prevent the misfortune unfairly falling to another.”

“Misfortune?”

Here Mr. Brooks regarded Lord Douglas squarely in the eye.

“Cousin,” he said evenly, “God has thrown you a great mercy.”

“And what mercy is that, pray tell?”

“Clemency.”

“Nonsense.”

“When I sometimes consider my cruelties in this world,” continued Brooks. “I burn with regret. I am not a good man and don’t mistake myself as one. I have carried this musket ball in my back all my life. It is well placed. But you, cousin, feel nothing.”

“I know who I am.”

“You have driven people from you since you were a boy by your malice.”

“Like you drive me away here and now.”

“Having given you one mercy, He has forfeited another.”

“Happiness, no doubt,” replied Lord Douglas with a smirk.

“You will fall into your grave without ever having confirmed your measure as a man in this world. Wealth isn’t a reliable yardstick. ”

“A pity for you.”

“Which of us, I wonder, has the most pity for the other?”

Lord Douglas opened his mouth as if to reply, then closed it again, and reclined back on his stool. The bandages were snug again. With some clumsy effort I lay Mr. Brooks back onto his side.

“Thank you, Mr. Wren,” he whispered painfully.

My business done, I returned to the deck. At that moment, from deep within the fog, like the bray of an animal in the forest, I heard a voice cry out. Then another. The men at the sail halted their work and listened. We strained all to determine the direction from which they came.

“They close on us, boys,” whispered Jacobs. “Not a sound now from any of you.”

Just faintly, off starboard, I heard the regular sound of waves tapping against a hull. Then suddenly, with alarm, off our larboard came yet another cry, a watch order, a command of some sort. The ships had reefed their sails and were proceeding with slow caution. The voices sang out at intervals, one to the other ship.

“They’re trying to flush us out,” said Jacobs softly. “They know we’re hiding.”