We, the Drowned - Carsten Jensen [114]
When Albert became a captain himself, he'd had crew members jump ship from time to time. But he'd never seen this as disobedience or evidence of the sailor's bad character, so much as a failure of his own insight into human nature. He hadn't paid enough attention to set the man on the right track. He believed there was good to be found in everyone. He knew that there was evil as well. But his basic view was that evil too could be disciplined and kept in check.
Once, in Laguna, Mexico, sometime in the 1880s, an able seaman pulled a knife on him. Albert, who was unarmed, held out his hand for the weapon. He never thought for a moment that he was doing something unusual or courageous: he just did what he had to do in order to remain in charge. The seaman froze, frowning at Albert's outstretched hand, struggling to understand. Seizing the moment, Albert punched him in the jaw with all his strength and floored him. Then Albert put his boot on the man's wrist, twisted the knife out of his grappling fingers, pulled the dazed man to his feet, and calmly proceeded to beat the living daylights out of him—while taking care not to cause permanent injury. He was both inflicting punishment and enforcing his authority.
In the midst of this, he was aware that he didn't represent good any more than the seaman with the knife embodied evil. The two of them were simply opposing forces. Nobody sailed into a raging gale with all sails set. You didn't confront a storm head-on. You adjusted the sails and found a balance. All genuine order depends on that kind of balance, not on one man's suppression of another. No rule deserving of the name is writ in stone.
When James Cook faced a band of furious natives at Kealakekua Bay in Hawaii, in the moment before a club struck the back of his head and a knife slashed his throat, he waved to his crew to come and help. But the boat that might have rescued him turned back to sea. And the men on shore who could have rushed to defend him threw down their muskets and fled into the surf. On his last voyage on board the Resolution, Captain Cook had had eleven out of seventeen of his able seamen flogged, giving them a total of lashes. So when he needed their help, they simply turned their scarred backs on him. He'd pulled the wrong ropes.
Every sailing ship has miles of rope, scores of blocks, hundreds of square yards of canvas. Unless the ropes are constantly pulled and the sails endlessly adjusted, the ship becomes a helpless victim of the wind. Managing a crew is the same thing. The captain holds hundreds of invisible ropes in his hands. Allowing the crew to take charge is like letting the wind take the helm: the ship will be wrecked. But if the captain takes complete control, the ship will be becalmed and go nowhere: he strips his men of all initiative; they'll no longer do their best and go about their work with reluctance. It's all a question of experience and knowledge. But first and foremost it's about authority.
When Albert had finished beating up the mutinous seaman and the man lay battered on the deck, he helped him to his feet, then called the galley boy to fetch a basin of water so the man could wash the blood off his face. And that was the end of the matter. The man was again part of the crew.
Albert had once been beaten himself, with the thrashing rope. But he never became anything like Isager, who neither punished nor rewarded his pupils, but just hammered them repeatedly instead. Nor was he like O'Connor, the first mate who'd used his rank to indulge his murderous impulses. As for the captain who'd resorted to flogging to enforce his shaky authority, well, Albert was no James Cook either. Instead he was something Captain