The Witchery, page 4
We heard them before we saw them: the splash of the jolly boat’s oars, and an admonition akin to “Row, rummies, row!” He who spoke this last had a voice—a rusty timbre as well as an accent tinged his tough-speak—that, though it chilled me, caused poor Calixto to blanch; for he had no need of sight to know who it was approached the Athée.
I moved starboard, from whence the jolly boat approached. I’d meet and greet this crew as a man might: I flexed my fist and fingers, readying them for that succession of hated handshakes. Turning, I saw that Calixto was gone from my side. And over where we’d stowed our simple packs at the base of the mainmast—Cal had told me that to choose our berths before the crew had come was to invite trouble—there he knelt, frantically tidying and retying his haversack. I’d yet to see the boy so discomposed: his manner had been constant, and constantly light aboard the Espérance as well as in Savannah. And though our association was a short one, any lesser species of beast could have seen, or sensed what I saw: the boy was upset. Fearful, in fact; such that it seemed he’d determined to leap from the Athée’s port side in order to avoid he who approached so loudly from starboard.
It was not the captain who came; for, drawn out by the approach of his crew, said officer appeared unseen from somewhere belowdecks to offer a greeting which, evidently, neither Cal nor I had merited—surely the captain had heard us, as we’d made no attempt to hush our inspection of a ship we thought empty. No: not applicable to us were those unspoken rules of congress and cohabitation, such as all seamen know. We were the waste of the lot: a ship’s boy and a fancy-man with naught but cash to recommend him.
The captain stood stolid and silent at my side, and Cal recessed himself into my shadow—I felt his quickening breath upon my neck—as the lesser boat approached and I saw…
Mon Dieu! Surely the captain of the Athée, or those landed stewards hiring on his behalf, had descended to Hell and raked its ’scape with a fine-toothed comb. How else to account for the provenance of such types as now approached?
Let this list of the crew’s deficiencies serve, thus: they lacked limbs, foreteeth, assorted fingers and toes, suitable attire, wit, hair, yes, and sobriety most certainly. Neither did it seem they’d any familiarity with such requisites as soap, brushes, darning needles, or eau de cologne. Worse yet would be a list of their excesses: rum—in its vaporish state—rose from the infernal fraternity as a secondary breath, and mingled with the scents of sea and shore; each to a degree showed his seeming contempt for the skin he’d inherited, and so had colored patches of same with anchors, ladies’ names, Christs upon crosses, and designs less readily discerned now that time, the sun, and Newton’s laws had found effect upon skin now wrinkled, hale, and sagging; and though the languages known by the lot were several, none apparently contained that commonest of courtesies: Hello. Indeed it seemed we had boarded a ghost ship, but we were the ghosts: Calixto and me; for not a single salutatory word was forthcoming from captain or crew. Thusly was the tenor of the trip established.
Though Cal sought landward passage aboard that jolly boat, he could not secure it; for the boat was laden not only with crewmen, but also those supplies that then were brought aboard by means of a man-chain, after which the dinghy was secured to the schooner’s side. What’s more: seeing that Cal sought a way off the Athée—as a lamb might seek its way out of a shambles—he of the aforementioned voice caught sight of the boy, and again spoke, saying by way of pronouncement, for all to hear:
“Eh bien”—yes: the foundation of that fearsome speech was French—“I see the sea has brought back to me my Jimmy Ducks of old, my Duxworth d’un autre jour.” Though all the men heard this, none of them seemed to consider the words that so discomfited my new friend. As for me, well, two things were evident: firstly, this aged salt knew Calixto; and secondly, the boy was not the least bit anxious to renew the acquaintance. As who would have been?
Diblis (so he was called) had cursed the earth for a half century or more. Leastways he was old enough to boast that he’d been to sea with both Nelson and Napoléon. Tales of his exploits at sea were oft shared; for he was our cook, and would be heard: any who ignored him went without.
Staring at the man that first night aboard the Athée, watching as he served us, overspeaking any who tried to take the floor from him, I wondered was he fish or fowl, and had he fought for the English or French, or both in traitorous turn? Too, I wondered what it was about the man—hideous, he was—that seemed to me so very familiar. Over old horse—thusly did I hear our salt beef referred to by the ship’s carpenter—I wondered if perhaps I’d seen Diblis in some portside sink? I’d been to such places in Marseilles, in Norfolk, in New York, and points between. Or had he shipped to St. Augustine and fouled its narrow streets, such that I might have seen him thereabouts and…? No. I knew what it was I’d remarked:
Diblis had about him a bluish cast, as do the newly dead.
Mistake me not: the man was not yet dead. No ghost, this. But Diblis had about his starboard…enfin, his right side showed a strange and lifeless pallor, a paleness well nigh blue, yes. Strange, this; the more so when it appears upon the living, and upon one side of them only. On Diblis it extended up his right arm toward the shoulder, from whence it spread like tentacles over his chest, neck, face, and upper back. Upon his arm and chest—which showed breasts rivaling mine in size; though unfortunately Diblis’s were not bound, nor even shirted, but swung in steady, pendulous display—the blue contended with the colors of his many tattoos. Upon his neck and face, however, that death-shade vied for dominance with a texture, a deep, dark pitting that readily told its cause: on a day long passed yet still undoubtedly damned, Diblis had stood too near a misfiring gun of great bore. Yes: it was half shot, half powder burn that had disfigured him so, that gave him his ghostly hue. Too, the shirt he’d worn that long ago day—whether it were of French, English, or mercenary issue—had been black or navy blue; for its shredded threads were still recognizable as such, there on that face into which they’d been blown too deeply to be retrieved by any tweezering surgeon. Remarkably, the man’s features were intact, marked only by ugliness:
Above a fleshy and full yet pointed chin, ever slick with grease, he’d a miser’s purse for a mouth: lips of thin leather drawn tight by unseen strings. It was a mouth otherwise unremarkable, save for the breath and words that issued from it, both equally foul. And lest anyone doubt the alcoholic proof of his breath, Diblis had a nose so swollen and red it told that if ever he’d entered a church it had only been to search out and steal a bottle of sanctified wine. His left eye was somehow…watery, and the white surrounding the iris was not white at all, but bespoke both the yellowish beige of butter and the brown of a light rum. And his right eye was worse: a blue marble bobbing in the creamiest of chowders. But it had not been blinded; for it did sometimes draw off to this side or that, and to find oneself fixed in its gaze was to suffer something cold, something slimy: like cold lard smeared onto skin. There was no doubting that Diblis was fully sighted. Indeed, it came to seem that he, too, had some supernumerary sense; for he saw, or knew all, all that happened aboard the Athée. Thusly did he have the ear of our captain, who preferred his charts to his crew, poring over the former whilst leaving rule of the latter to Diblis. And nothing, nothing renders a man more despotic than the command of men living in close quarters.
Somehow, the crew had sealed tacit pacts of their own with Diblis, and as long as they did their work and paid proper homage—deferring to Diblis on all matters, laughing at what he deemed humor, and complimenting whatever slop he served—they were let to keep to themselves. Not so Calixto.
He and Diblis had met before, yes. I’d learn that they’d shared a long sail up the California coast not two years prior. They’d been many, many months at sea, rounding Cape Horn before coming northward; and though Cal declined to tell me of the voyage in any detail—lest Diblis hear; or so I thought—it was clear those months had passed as years; for my friend—who’d have been but fourteen, fifteen perhaps—had been apprenticed to Diblis in that schooner’s galley. The pantryman, the preparer of all cold foods, and the keeper of what livestock had been brought aboard—goats, chickens, ducks, and such—and so it was that Calixto had earned that appellation common to such a one: Jimmy Duxworth, or Dux.
That Diblis would prove himself both strict and unpredictable, mean at night and meaner in the morning—owing to drink—did not surprise me. And though I was told in whispers that he’d treated Cal so badly the boy had sought to quit the ship and take to the California wilds, and would have done so had it not been for the intervention of an unnamed protector, well, neither that nor any other story could have prepared me for the license Diblis took with the boy, for the degradation, for the depravity I’d witness aboard the Athée. Which soon was such that something had to be done about it.
We were eight about the Athée: the captain, Diblis, a crew of four, Calixto, and myself. Our cook and his Duxworth slept in the small hold called steerage, and three berths angled into the bow were shared by we remaining five (as of course the captain had private quarters). This latter arrangement made me the object of envy and enmity both; for I was let to keep to my berth whilst the four useful sailors swapped theirs in accord with the watch kept above: two turning out as the other two turned in. Like as not, one or both men coming off the watch would fall to snoring only after a brazen bout of self-abuse—done none too privately, and as fast as possible lest precious sleep be lost—thus adding a quite gamy scent to the stink of our surrounds. Down in that hold, spices off-loaded long ago still were redolent, as were soured cetaceous oils that had seeped from their casks back when the Athée had done duty as a whaler; and, of course, there was the constant smoke of Diblis’s fire: Each day at dawn he smoked us from our sleep by means of said fire and a shut, smothering hatch, such that I’d wake choking and hating him more than I had the day before.
As I was still of little use—with Savannah not a half day behind us, I’d been told to graft the block straps, point the ropes, and set the handsome nets over the shrouds; and at said direction I’d nodded, eager but soon falling still: I knew not what to do—…as I was still of little use, nay no use at all, Calixto was doubly busy: His galley work seen to, Diblis would send the boy aloft to do all the light work, and then charge him with scrubbing the decks and sweeping the wash water down the scupper holes, et cetera. Meanwhile, I’d sit at a safe remove perfecting my Turk’s-head.
Once out of Savannah, we found those light, baffling winds and pleasant weather that made for slow going; for which I at first gave thanks, as red weather would have shown me for the landlubber I was. But soon I came to long for a gust, a gale, anything at all to fatten our sails and speed us toward Cuba; for I saw that Calixto suffered from his close proximity to Diblis.
But no such luck: Soon we lost what winds we’d found, and lay all but becalmed. The captain ordered subtle changes to our course, all to no avail. We’d gain no speed till the Athée traded the green sea for the faster blues of the Gulf Stream.
Slowed so, the men grew indolent and begged Diblis—the keeper of the kegs—to “up their daily cups.” This he did, to an end easily foreseen: Drunken, the men grew silly, sleepy, or mean, sometimes all at once. And it was Diblis himself who was rendered meanest of all by drink. I was offered grog—for which I alone was expected to pay, mind—but I declined; for I’d no taste for the water-cut rum. What’s more: Somehow I knew I’d need my wits about me, and soon.
And sure enough it was that very night that the abuse, the true and intolerable abuse, began.
I resisted sleep that rum-sodden night, hoping I’d be able to sneak topside and bathe with water drawn from our reservoir of rain. (I had only the privacy afforded me by night and the sleep of the sailors.) But just as I clambered down from my bunk—dropping down beside a Connecticut man, name of Chance, who lay face in and flatulent upon the lower berth—I heard words seeping in a hiss from steerage. This was not converse; for that stream of shaming words flowed at, only at and never from, my friend. I crept nearer, near enough to hear. No great effort, this: Diblis was drunk, louder than he knew—surely that blue burst of ages past had dulled his hearing—and steerage was separated from the larger hold by naught but a panel door.
Standing with an ear cocked toward that cabin, well…I heard enough to soften the hardest of hearts. How was it Cal, gentle Cal, had called down such invective upon himself? What could he have done to spur Diblis so, such that now I heard hatred, pure hatred, issuing from the older man? Wondering thus, and deeming the matter one for the cook and his boy to settle themselves—or wanting to see it as such—I crept topside. What could I do to spare the boy such shame? Rien. And so I had better leave off listening. Further: I convinced myself—it was a lie, and I must have known as much—that Calixto was strong, a match for whatever devils were resident in Diblis.
Topside, unremarked by the men of the watch, I pulled the plug of the funnel-shaped reservoir and washed as best a clothed man can. I would not risk being espied myself, not even at night; for there was star- and moonlight by which to be seen, and I’d no wish to become the scapegrace of the Athée, that being the sailors would delight in deriding; for already I’d learned that mankind en masse—be they sailors at sea or girls residing in a convent school—need such a being. No: I’d keep to the shadows, wherein my secrets had been stowed long ago.
Having washed, I stood now at the taffrail, letting what wind there was dry my loosed hair, which hung then to my shoulders: short enough to be tied into a queue (as a man might), yet long enough to pin into some upswept style and augment with false hair and ornaments (as is sometimes a woman’s wont). All was silent save for the songs of the sea and the ship: that chorus of wave-work and creaking timbers that is, in essence, silence to a sailor’s ear. Damnably, I still could hear Diblis; and soon saw the reason why: I stood near that same hatch, now covered only by that grate which sometimes he’d close to smother us from our sleep. A vent of sorts, meant to free the smoke of his fires, save now the only thing rising up was sound, sound like steam seeping from some infernal fissure.
Soon I heard mention made of another ship. Or so I thought; for Diblis’s speech was slurred by excess of spirits, and spleen. Other words came, too—California, captain, cravings, et cetera—concatenating one to another, like links in a chain, and contributing to a story which came together; as so:
It seemed Diblis referenced, in insinuating tones, those sea months he and Calixto had shared, sailing up along the California coast under the aegis of a captain other than our present one. Truly: Here was a tale the sordid particulars of which I’d no wish to hear. And so I determined to tie my still-wet hair into its leathern strap and slip back belowdecks to my bunk, and sleep, all the while wishing—for Calixto’s sake—that the sun would rise and hurry to its height, and that by its first light the boy would find a way out from under Diblis’s shaming thumb.
But just then I heard further words added to that alliterative list that caused me to stop, to take to a knee and turn my ear toward the open grate; for with these words Diblis’s tale had taken a turn; and what previously he’d only insinuated, he now spoke. “The corps,” said he. “Cocks,” said he. “Corn-holin’,” said he, speaking so that the Cs cracked hard and the Os opened as deep and as dark as wells. So it was I learned Cal had been abused before. So it was I witnessed his being abused again, right then.
Now that I knelt, I could—craning my neck this way and that—see down into steerage. I crouched so close to the deck that my nose grazed the grate when the schooner suffered a light swell and tipped toward starboard. But I braced myself, both bodily and otherwise, and bent again to see what I could see…. Diblis: there, not three feet beneath me, squatting on the edge of his rumpled bunk, bare-chested as ever, such that the blue of his powder burns set in relief his many crude tattoos. He sat leaning forward upon his bunk, like some collared carnivore straining toward its bait: something, or someone as yet out of sight. I looked down upon his balding head, upon his back quilted here with color, there with tufted hair; and then, as Diblis rolled with the schooner, as he tilted back I saw down the rounds of his breasts and belly to…
A devil indeed, this Diblis.
Down past a protuberant brow, past that roseate nose, past breasts like those of a Buddha, nay more like the pointy teats of a beast, down past his barrel of a belly I saw the…mais oui, a ruddy, crooked stub of cock protruded. Yes: Diblis was naked; and now that his hands were behind him seeking balance, he had only those shaming words with which to excite himself, to fire those desires dredged up by drink—shaming words and the sight of Cal sitting across from him and…caged.
Would that I used the word figuratively; but I do not.
There across the cabin sat a square of wicker standing perhaps as high as my thigh and three, four feet wide. Its top was secured by means of a peg; and therein, upon a voyage longer than ours would be, one might have kept fowl or a lesser, four-legged creature: a goat, perhaps, there to be milked prior to slaughter. But now the goatish one sat outside the cage, and within it, crouched upon a mat of fetid straw, there was Calixto, naked and trying not to cry.
How I burned at seeing him so debased! I think now that had I not been rendered dumb by the sight, I might well have worked some sister-trick upon Diblis then and there: caused his heart to seize like a sprung clock, or bled him dry via foul orifices both low and high…. Hélas, I did naught but watch that first night; and for such inaction I will not even essay an excuse.
…Poor Calixto, sitting caged, brimful of tears, and having heaped upon him such invective, such obloquy—and let it be said that amidst Diblis’s words were some I’d yet to learn in English or even French—but the boy met it all with silence. Not silence of the stony, dignified sort. No: This was that species of silence that—along with the tears that fell and his posture: he sat cowering in the cage with his knees drawn up—bespeaks guilt and contrition and a coming punishment that was his due. Seeing this pained me the more. And then, maybe then I’d have acted if only a drunken Diblis had not begun to lay out his case (as it were) against Calixto. This I’d hear. I had to.
