The North Water(12)

“Not impressed?” Drax repeats, with a mocking carefulness, as if the word itself is girlish and faintly absurd.

“Surprised then, if you like,” Sumner says quickly. “I’m not surprised by bloodshed. Not anymore.”

Drax shakes his head and looks across at Cavendish.

“I’m not too surprised by bloodshed myself. Are you surprised, Mr. Cavendish?”

“No, not too often, Mr. Drax. I generally find I can take a little bloodshed in my stride.”

After finishing his drink, Drax goes upstairs to look for Jones but can’t find him. On his way back to the table, he exchanges words with one of the men from the Zembla. As Drax sits down, the man shouts something back at him, but Drax ignores it.

“Not again,” Cavendish says.

Drax shrugs.

The fiddlers are playing “Monymusk.” Sumner watches the grubby, mismatched dancers as they swirl and stamp about. He remembers dancing the polka in Ferozepore in the days before the mutiny, he remembers the damp heat of the colonel’s ballroom and the mingled scent of cheroots and rice powder and rosewater sweat. The tune changes and some of the whores sit down to rest, or bend over, hands on knees, to better catch their breath.

Drax licks his lips, gets up from his chair, and walks to the other side of the room. He edges between tables until he is standing next to the man he argued with minutes before. He waits a moment, then leans forwards and whispers some carefully chosen foulness into the man’s ear. The man spins round and Drax punches him twice in the face. He raises his fist a third time, before he can deliver the blow, he is dragged backwards and is set upon by the other crewmen.

The music stops. There is screaming and cursing and the noise of breaking furniture and smashing glass. Cavendish goes over to help but is immediately knocked to the ground. It is two against six. Sumner, watching, would prefer to stay neutral—he is a surgeon, not a brawler—but he can count well enough, and he understands his obligations. He puts down his glass of porter and steps across the room.

*

An hour later, Drax, raw-knuckled, cock-sore, and reeking of whiskey, rows a diminished party back to the Volunteer. Jones and Black are absent, Sumner is coiled in the stern groaning, and Cavendish is lying next to him snoring loudly. The sky above them is moonless and the water around is the color of ink. If it were not for the whale ship’s lanterns and the speckled lights of the shoreline, there would be nothing to see—they would be surrounded by emptiness. Drax leans forwards and then pulls back. He feels the heaviness of the water and then its release.

When they reach the ship, Drax wakes Cavendish from his stupor. Together they pull Sumner up onto the deck, then heft him down to steerage. His cabin door is locked, and they have to fish in his waistcoat pockets to find the key. They lay him on the bunk and pull off his boots.

“This unfortunate fellow appears to be in need of a surgeon,” Cavendish says.

Drax pays no attention. He has discovered two keys in Sumner’s waistcoat pocket, and he is now wondering which lock the second one opens. He looks around the cabin, then notices a padlocked trunk sitting next to the medicine chest underneath the bed. He gets down on his haunches and prods it with his forefinger.

“What are you doing?” Cavendish asks him.

Drax shows him the second key. Cavendish sniffs and wipes a fresh smear of blood from his split lip.

“Probably nothing in there,” he says. “Just the usual shite.”

Drax pulls the trunk out, opens the padlock with the second key, and starts looking through the contents. He removes a pair of canvas trousers, a balaclava helmet, a cheaply bound copy of The Iliad. He finds a slim mahogany case and opens it up.

Cavendish whistles softly.

“Opium pipe,” he says. “My, my.”

Drax picks the pipe up, looks it over for a moment, sniffs the bowl, then puts it back.

“That’s not it,” he says.

“Not what?”

He pulls out a pair of sea boots, a watercolor box, a set of linens, a woolen vest, three flannel shirts, a shaving kit. Sumner shifts onto his side and groans. The two men stop what they are doing and look at him.

“Check the very bottom,” Cavendish says. “There might be something hidden at the very bottom.”

Drax sticks his hand in and delves about. Cavendish yawns and begins scratching at a mustard stain on the elbow of his coat.

“Anything there?” he asks.

Drax doesn’t answer. He puts his other hand deep into the trunk and pulls out a grubby, dog-eared envelope. He removes a document from the envelope and hands it across to Cavendish to read.

“Army discharge papers,” Cavendish says, then, after a moment: “Sumner’s been court-martialed, no pension, out on his ear.”

“For what?”

Cavendish shakes his head.

Drax rattles the envelope, then tips it upside down. A ring falls out. It is gold with two good-size gemstones.

“Paste,” Cavendish says. “Must be.”

A small, rectangular looking-glass with beveled edges is attached by brass corner pieces to the bulkhead wall above Sumner’s head in testament to the vanity of some previous occupant. Drax takes the ring, licks it once, then scrapes it across the surface of the glass. Cavendish watches him, then leans forwards and looks hard at the resulting line—long, gray, and undulant like a single hair plucked from the scalp of a crone. He licks his index finger and wipes away the dust so as to better gauge the true depth of the scoring. He nods. They look at each other carefully; then they look down at Sumner, who is breathing heavily through his nose and appears to be soundly asleep.