Boon Island - Kenneth Roberts [72]
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December 11th, Monday
I remember that day for other things. Our food, bad to begin with, had become steadily worse; and on that morning of December 11th there was none at all. Cooky Sipper, Langman told the captain, was sick, with a throat so full of phlegm that he could hardly swallow, and none of the other men knew how to cook.
So Swede volunteered to do the cooking until we reached Portsmouth; and when he went to the galley, Neal went along with him to help, not only to carry food to the after cabin, but to dish out to the men forward when they came to the galley with their mess kids.
We wallowed creakingly south, with those dirty gray seas and stinging snow squalls hissing all around us, until nightfall, when the captain turned over the deck to Mr. Langman, and Neal brought us boiled beef, boiled potatoes and ship's bread; then disappeared. We ate our supper as well as we could in that heaving, lurching cabin beneath the dim lights swinging in their gimbals.
The cabin felt empty without Swede and Neal, and as
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time went on I worried about them and so climbed on deck to go forward to the cookhouse. The quarter-deck, except for the helmsman, was empty; and when I half slid, half skated forward to the galley, I found Langman braced in the doorway of that narrow cubicle. Inside it the lamp cast a flickering light on Swede and Neal, both of whom were staring at Langman with eyes so shadowed that they seemed sunk in their heads.
When, to steady myself, I caught hold of the doorpost beside Langman, he opened his mouth as if to say something: then shut it again, turned, and worked his way back to the quarter-deck.
"Miles," Swede said, "something smells around here, and it's not the cheese. Langman's been in the hold after extra meat for White and Mellen."
"He's got no business tampering with the provisions," I said. "That's for the captain to do."
"Yes," Swede said, "and he also wants to head straight out to sea."
I couldn't believe my ears. "Straight out to sea! What for, for God's sake! We're running southwest before a northeaster. If we turn at right angles, we'll be in the trough and on our beam-ends before you can say Scat! Why would anyone want to take her straight out, anyway?"
"Tell him what you heard, Neal," Swede said.
"It was when he gave Mellen the meat," Neal said. "He said, 'If we can't wait for this blow to let up, we'll be in Portsmouth tomorrow.' Then he said, 'Tell 'em I'll get 'em more water too.' "
"That's what Neal heard," Swede said, "and as I see it, there's no two ways about it. Langman wants this ship for
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himself. He's waited till the last minute, all along, hoping for a fair wind and blue skies that would make it safe for him to take her over on one excuse or another. Well, he'll never get a fair wind or blue skies tomorrow, and he knows the only way to get 'em is to put straight out to sea and wait for the wind to turn. If he doesn't, we'll be in Portsmouth, and he'll have lost his chance."
I stared at him; and only now did I see clearly what I should have seen long ago. "Of course," I said. "And the extra meat and the extra water would be for bribes to get the others to side with him."
"What else?" Swede asked.
I told Swede to dowse the lantern, lock the galley and get back to the cabin with Neal as quickly as he could-and because I didn't like the way Langman had abandoned the quarter-deck to argue with Swede and Neal in the galley, I went behind them to make sure they got there.
When I reached the quarter-deck, I could just make out Langman in the snowy dark.
"I didn't see a lookout up forward," I told him.
"Lookout! What's the good of a lookout on a night like this?" I could sense the contempt on his swarthy thin face.
In the snug cabin Captain Dean had his coat off, readying himself for bed; but when I followed Neal and Swede through the door and started telling him what they had told me, he reached behind him