The Golden Ocean Read online

  It had seemed so easy when he cried, ‘I’ll ask him for five guineas or six,’ but now it appeared insuperably hard.

  ‘… and then Culmore assured me on his oath that the filly was sore of the near fore-foot—said his groom had it from hers, they being twins of a birth—and so I did not back her, either, ha, ha.’

  ‘Ha, ha,’ echoed Peter, suddenly aware that a response was called for, and wondering what FitzGerald’s topic had been.

  ‘But the truth of the matter, you know,’ said FitzGerald confidentially, ‘is that those stables are quite unfit to be used. I know my father would not even put one of the tenants into them, and …’

  ‘Now if I were to say to him, “Mr FitzGerald, please will you lend me some money?” ’ thought Peter; and he was still thinking when the explosion occurred.

  He did not see the beginning: there was a crowd filing along by their table, a great deal of talking, noise, laughter. And he was bent over the table, trying to hear FitzGerald through the din, and trying to think at the same time. Then there was a sharp cry, the crash of FitzGerald’s chair as it fell; the crowd was spread open, and a wig fell plump into Peter’s little puddle of porter. FitzGerald was out there on the wide floor, holding a young officer by the nose. The officer was pulling madly at his sword, but FitzGerald, with wonderful promptness, had his other hand on the hilt.

  From the wild hubbub of voices Peter gathered that Burke—the officer’s name—had trodden on FitzGerald’s foot. ‘Pull harder, your honour,’ cried Sean, with boundless delight, and then the two were heaved apart by a surge of violent peacemakers. For a moment FitzGerald and Burke were still attached, the grasping hand of the one extended to its utmost and the nose of the other to a great deal more than the usual length: then there was a wall of men between the two and FitzGerald, with a flush on his face and a brilliant gleam in his green eyes, was sitting down.

  ‘As I was saying,’ he said, ‘the course was entirely too soft for a horse with an action like that, so …’

  ‘My wig, sir, I believe,’ said a frosty-faced gentleman to Peter, very sharply.

  ‘… so although there is not his match over a measured mile on high, champaigne country,’ continued FitzGerald, ‘it would scarcely be wise to lay evens when he is to run in a plashy bottom like Derrynacaol after a week of rain.’

  ‘Just so,’ said Peter earnestly. ‘I am of your opinion entirely.’

  At this point two red coats approached the table. ‘We are from Burke, of course,’ said the elder, after the exchange of formal politeness.

  ‘My friend here will act,’ said FitzGerald. ‘Allow me to name Mr Palafox, of the Royal Navy—Captain Marney.’

  ‘Shall we discuss the details in an hour’s time?’ suggested the soldier. ‘I propose the Butler Arms.’

  ‘Charmed,’ said Peter, with a creditable appearance of phlegm, and Captain Marney walked away with his companion, humming the tune called Greensleeves.

  ‘I am sorry to wish this on you,’ said FitzGerald. ‘But I promise you it will not be long. We will come out at dawn: I will line his vitals with steel: and in five minutes we shall be on our way—it will serve to get us up early, which shows that even an oaf like Burke has his uses. Let’s have a bottle and drink to his slow recovery.’ He called the waiter.

  ‘I did not see what he did,’ said Peter.

  ‘Trod on my foot.’

  ‘So you must get up at half-past five and push a sword into him?’

  ‘Exactly so. He did it on purpose, you know. He has been seeking a quarrel with me ever since I fought his brother, and that was the only thing his boorish mind could find to do. However let us not talk about him. There are much more agreeable subjects.’ He paused. ‘So we are to be companions on the road? Well, I am very glad of it.’

  ‘So am I,’ said Peter, wondering if FitzGerald were really quite the ideal fellow-traveller. They sat contemplating one another, and after a pause FitzGerald repeated, ‘I am very glad of it, not only for the pleasure of your conversation, but because we have some desperate lonely country ahead of us, with a desperate number of thieves in it. But you have two servants with you, sir, I believe? And a band of four should be safe from any attempt.’

  ‘Not exactly—’ began Peter, meaning to set this misunderstanding straight right away; but he was interrupted by the coming in of a servant.

  ‘Mr Lyon’s compliments,’ said the man, ‘and he regrets he cannot oblige Mr FitzGerald.’

  ‘Oh,’ he said, looking a little blank. He felt in his pocket, and the servant’s smile grew. ‘However,’ he said, bringing his hand out again and waving it, ‘it does not signify. Thankee.’

  A long silence followed the servant’s departure, and eventually FitzGerald broke it by saying, as he filled his glass with a mixture of water and wine, ‘Let us drink to the confusion of Timothy Lyon. Do you know,’ he added, drawing his chair nearer, ‘that man has made his fortune out of my family, and now he has the monstrous assurance to decline an advance of a small note of hand.’

  ‘Well,’ said Peter, thoughtfully sipping his wine, ‘that’s very bad, I am sure.’

  ‘It is the blackest ingratitude,’ said FitzGerald. Then, fiddling with the stem of his glass, he said, ‘Mr Palafox,’ and stopped. Peter was surprised to detect a nervous tone in his voice, but he was so much occupied with his own problems and with his hurry of spirits at the recent quarrel and its approaching result, that it came as a complete surprise when FitzGerald continued, ‘Mr Palafox, it would oblige me infinitely if you could let me have ten guineas, just until we reach England.’

  He gaped at FitzGerald, hardly believing his ears, and FitzGerald hurried on, ‘You see, I made a foolish mistake at the races today, and I have left myself quite high and dry. It would be—’

  ‘But I was just going to ask you,’ broke in Peter. ‘I was going to say the very same words.’

  ‘Oh,’ said FitzGerald; and there was a short silence.

  ‘I am very sorry, indeed,’ said Peter, hesitantly.

  FitzGerald smiled. ‘It is of no consequence,’ he said. ‘But I confess I had hoped you would be rich, being so well attended.’

  ‘It is only Liam and Sean,’ said Peter; then, feeling the necessity of an explanation, he went on, ‘Liam farms my father’s glebe at Ballynasaggart: he is not what you would call a servant at all, but he does all kinds of things, like selling the pig, and he was going with me as far as Cork and he would take back the horses. And Sean came of his own notion, to see the world: he is Liam’s nephew and the son of my nurse. It was Liam who had the purse, you see, being cautious and used to the world: but it went at the races, and the horses are pawned.’

  ‘My poor shipmate,’ said FitzGerald, shaking him by the hand very cheerfully. ‘What a sad way you are in. And there was I imagining a Croesus—I was ill with expecting you. But tell me, you could not send home?’

  ‘I could not,’ replied Peter, ‘for I know very well there is not a gold piece left in the house. We are quite poor, you know,’ he added, simply.

  ‘I beg your pardon,’ said FitzGerald, flushing. ‘I did not intend to be impertinent. For myself I cannot send home either, and for much the same reason.’ He carefully shared out the last of the wine. ‘I cannot accept such ingenuous candour,’ he said, ‘without offering my explanations in turn.’ And Peter learned that he was the son of Edward FitzGerald of Ardnacruish, a gentleman who had almost ruined himself by pursuing three law-suits at once about a right of way through his demesne. ‘It was not so bad until the first affair came to the House of Lords,’ said FitzGerald. ‘But when that failed the poor old gentleman (who was in the wrong from the start, by the by) came to me with tears in his eyes and said, “Terence, my boy (my name is Peregrine, but he was thinking of my brother), Terence, my boy, I am vexed to the soul, but I cannot buy you the pair of colours I promised. Not even in a marching regiment,” says he, shedding tears. “So I suppose you will have to be a crossing-sweeper, if we can find someone t
o sell you a broom on credit.” “Stuff,” says my Aunt Tabitha. “Why will you not write to Cousin Wager, as I have said these five years gone?” “Sure, Tab,” says he, “it would be kinder to the boy to drown him in a stable bucket than to have him cooped up in a ship. There never was a FitzGerald who could do anything if he was not on a horse; and sweeping his crossing he will at least be within nodding distance of the creatures.” “Stuff,” says my aunt—and so it went on; but in the end the letter was written to Cousin Wager, who is something grand in the Admiralty, and the answer came back and my father borrowed twenty guineas from the tailor to carry me over. It is true that he had to order clothes to the tune of nigh on a hundred to do it, but they will always come in. And if only that slug of a horse had run faster this afternoon I might have been able to pay for them all out of hand: still, I have my appointment, and once I am aboard the Centurion—’

  ‘The Centurion?’ cried Peter.

  ‘Yes. You’ll not say it is your ship as well?’

  ‘It is, though,’ said Peter. ‘My father’s old friend Mr Walter is chaplain, and he begged me the place.’

  ‘Well, that is capital,’ said FitzGerald, shaking his hand again. ‘So we are to be shipmates in fact. But tell me,’ he said, pausing thoughtfully, ‘you are a great sailor, I dare say?’

  ‘No,’ said Peter, shaking his head. ‘Not at all. I have played about in our boat, and in the fishermen’s curraghs, but I have never set foot in a ship—a brig was the biggest I ever sailed in.’

  ‘Is a brig not a ship?’ said FitzGerald, with a smile. ‘But still, I see that you are sailor enough to answer a question that has been puzzling me ever since Cousin Wager wrote back and I began to read voyages. What is this larboard and starboard they are always talking about?’

  ‘Well,’ said Peter, ‘the starboard is the right as you look towards the front of the ship and the larboard is the other side. Some people say port. Yes, Sean?’ he said, breaking off.

  ‘If his honour is Mr FitzGerald,’ whispered Sean, bending low over the table, ‘he had best fly like a bird. And you too, a gradh. Will you slip out by the back now, before it’s too late?’

  ‘Why, what is the matter?’ cried Peter, amazed.

  ‘Sure, there’s information against you. Someone has sworn the peace against Mr FitzGerald, and the constable is coming to take you both up before the justice, Sir Phelim O’Neil, bad luck to his house.’

  That night they lay out on the mountain, on the crest of the line of hills that divides the County Galway from Roscommon, and they slept secure, for, as Sean said, ‘Wisha, your honour, the magistrate’s word goes no further than the edge of the county, and although the dear knows you cannot go back, you may go forward as far as ever you please.’

  They slept secure from arrest, but not from the rain: and in the sodden dawn Peter thanked his kind fate for a follower so foreseeing as Sean, who in their hurried departure had had the wit to whip up the wooden bottle that Mrs Palafox had provided for Peter’s morning draught. Now the fiery whiskey bored down his throat and lit up his stomach, preserving him from the noxious damp.

  ‘That is far better,’ he said, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. ‘But I wish—’ His words were cut short by the sight of Sean, who appeared suddenly on a naked rock above them: the wind was holding his long cloak straight up in the air, increasing his already considerable height to ten feet and more: his black hair also streamed up, and his blue eyes were glaring down in a hard, inimical, piercing way at a stranger far below them; and the reason for this was that the hare which had hitherto been concealed under his cloak was now entirely open to view. The inoffensive, uninquisitive stranger passed on his harmless way, and Sean came down.

  ‘If you did that on my father’s land,’ said FitzGerald, picking a clean bone of the half-smoked hare (it is hard to light a good fire when even your flint and steel drip wet on being shaken), ‘you would find yourself transported before you could very well bless the Pope. He is a Papist, I suppose?’ he asked Peter, nodding towards Sean in the manner typical of his kind.

  ‘He is not,’ said Peter, shortly.

  ‘Well, he is a wonderful poacher for a Protestant,’ said FitzGerald.

  ‘The mist is lifting,’ said Peter. It was: it tore and parted as they watched, thinner, and at last so sparse and rare that it was no more than a few wisps between their hilltop and the great plain of Ireland with the white road winding away, far below.

  ‘What shall we do now?’ asked Peter, more to himself than FitzGerald or Sean, after he had gazed at this sight for a while.

  ‘What we ought to do is go down there to the road and walk steadily towards the south,’ said FitzGerald. ‘It will dry us, perhaps, if the rain does not come back; and at least I am sure it will diminish the distance between us and Cork.’

  ‘I tell you what, Palafox,’ he said again, when they were down out of the sopping heather and the patches of rust-coloured bog and on the dry road, ‘it is an infernal thing not being able to go back to Derry: I have just thought of a prodigious fine notion, if only we were there. You could go round to all the parsons’ houses and tap them for five guineas apiece.’

  ‘Listen,’ said Peter, in a pitying voice. ‘Do you really think there is a parsonage in all the West with five guineas in it at one time?’

  ‘There are two in Derrynacaol,’ said FitzGerald. ‘My cousin is the Bishop of Clonfert, and I know the value of the livings there. There are a couple of charming snug places in Derry: I wish I had gone into the Church. But not hereabouts, ‘tis true,’ he said, looking forward to the thin and deserted country that lay far before them. ‘Here they live somehow on twenty or thirty a year.’

  ‘Perhaps I should go back and try,’ said Peter, standing in the road.

  ‘No,’ said FitzGerald, ‘it would not do at all. They would nab you at once and then it would be days and days of finding surety of good behaviour and all that. You would never reach Queenstown in time, to say nothing of being arrested for debt at the inn. I am sorry, upon my honour, for it is all in my quarrel: but a second is as much troubled as a principal in a duel.’

  They walked on in silence. Peter thought of Placidus. He thought of Liam. And he thought, with a sudden gasp of realisation, that his whole prayed-for, cherished, unexpectedly lucky chance of a career in the Navy was at stake. If he could not reach Queenstown in time to sail on the transport in which he was ordered to sail, everything would be lost. He knew little about the Navy, but he did know that a midshipman’s appointment was made by a captain to the ship he commanded—to that ship and none other. He knew that it was not a general commission, but a particular and a revocable appointment: if the Centurion sailed without him, he would no longer be a midshipman, and he would no longer have any way into the career that he longed for.

  There was a sudden, strangely unexpected thrumming of feet behind, and a man passed them, running with a steady, high-paced gait: he was dressed in a yellow-and-scarlet livery, and he carried a long, silver-headed cane.

  ‘Good day, Thomas,’ cried FitzGerald, as he went by, and ‘Good day, Mr FitzGerald, sir,’ called the man, waving his hat but never wavering in his stride. Peter was too desperately worried to take much notice, yet he did say, ‘What’s that?’

  ‘It is Culmore’s running footman: and I think it means good news.’

  ‘What is a running footman?’

  ‘Why, a footman that runs. That stands to reason. But come, let us not break our winds racing along like this. Sit down on this stone.’

  ‘No, no, no,’ cried Peter. ‘I will not. How can we sit down when every minute counts for so much?’

  ‘Why, what a fret you are in,’ said FitzGerald coolly, sitting down and resting his feet. ‘But listen to me for a minute. That was Culmore’s running footman: he runs in front of his master’s coach. So that means Culmore will be along in a little while. If I cannot borrow twenty guineas from Culmore, you may call me an ass—after all, I know how well he did at the
races. Therefore I can see no point at all in blazing along the road and making it more difficult for our salvation to catch up with us.’

  Peter hesitated. He was extremely unwilling to stop for a moment: but FitzGerald seemed so calmly certain that he was almost convinced. He hesitated. Then Sean said, ‘There’s the dust of a coach far behind us, so there is,’ and Peter sat down.

  Now he saw the dust himself, white, a slowly-travelling plume. He took off his battered shoes and cooled his feet in the grass. They were all very tired, and they sat quite still.

  The coach rolled up. On the box the coachman gathered the reins in one hand while he disentangled a horse-pistol: behind, one of the footmen had a blunderbuss ready. A face with its wig awry peered out of the window.

  ‘Good day, my lord,’ said FitzGerald, advancing and making a beautiful bow.

  ‘Why, upon my soul, it’s young FitzGerald,’ said Lord Culmore. ‘What are you doing in this horrible place?’

  ‘I am airing my friends,’ replied FitzGerald. ‘May I name Mr Palafox, of the Navy—Lord Culmore.’

  ‘Your servant, my lord,’ said Peter, making a leg.

  ‘Your most humble, sir,’ said Lord Culmore, bowing to the sill. ‘How is your father?’ he asked FitzGerald, coming out of the coach. ‘I hope you left him well?’

  ‘Not as well as I could wish, but low in spirits. He was talking of hanging himself on the Boyne apple-tree.’

  ‘That is the old crooked one, ain’t it, in front of the house?’

  ‘Yes, that’s the tree.’

  ‘Then it will not serve his purpose. I would lay seven to one that the branches would break under fifteen stone. Ten to one,’ he added, after consideration.

  ‘No takers, my lord,’ said FitzGerald, ‘for I am of your opinion.’

  ‘Where are your horses?’ asked Culmore, looking about. ‘Do you still ride that chestnut?’

  ‘Oh, we left them—we left them some way behind,’ said FitzGerald, ‘and as for the mare, I let Stafford have her at last. Johnny Stafford.’