The New World (30 page)

All this ended when the land ended, or rather sank into a shoal of mud-humps that seemed to race toward us under the water. These seemed likely to stop our journey almost as soon as it had begun, which the captain evidently feared as well, ordering me to stop my idling and move forward and stand in the prow of the
Mungo
where I could keep a lookout. I would like to say I did this efficiently, but when it came to it, and I shielded my eyes and set to work, so many obstacles appeared to me that I found myself shouting almost continuously that we should turn to port, or to starboard, or to port again, and was soon told to quieten down, and only call out if I saw any dangers that were really and truly about to sink us.

After this I allowed myself another spell of thinking, for the mouth of the Mississippi is an extraordinary sight. And also, I decided, a sight of extraordinary melancholy. A colossal mass of water spreading to the distant horizon, in which every slop, twist, pulse, ripple and surge is stained with mud the current has carried from inland. Here and there, bringing the only variety to the scene, were examples of the ruins the captain had spoken about—the masts of ships that had foundered, and were now poking above the water, all decorated with weeds and barnacles and seagulls perching on their topmost points. In the whole of my life at sea, I had never seen so many signs of destruction, gathered so closely together. When I had counted more than a dozen of them, and warned the captain about each in turn, I began to think that ruin and wreckage were all that any of us can expect in life.

Then we were through these disasters, slicing the foaming ridge of the bar and reaching the open sea, where mud-stains sank away and the water stretched blue to the horizon. Breeze blew off the land to our port side with a sugary fragrance. Our mates hung out all our sails and the
Mungo
leaped forward as I knew she would. Birds that a moment before had seemed like spirits of the damned now skimmed around us like angels. The whole atmosphere, in fact, was so suddenly freshened and woken, I felt I had also quickened in myself, and was regaining time I had spent in the country behind me.

I was thinking ahead as well. Captain Yalland had told us when we left New Orleans that our journey would take us straight into the bay—somewhat above the course we had followed in the
Nightingale
when traveling in the opposite direction—then round the tip of Florida before turning north until we reached the harbor of New York. And this was indeed our route, but with two diversions I must briefly describe. One was a stop on Booby Island, for no better reason than to amuse ourselves by observing the many thousands of birds for which the island is named, and also the alligators that swim around them in sullen rage, watching in case a bird falls asleep, or dives straight into their jaws, in which case it is gobbled down with a prodigious thrashing of wings.

Our second stopping-place was the Tortugas, where we were told we would buy some turtles; it was easy work we heard, which involved bringing them on board, turning them upside down, and stacking them as easily as if they were gigantic bowls. In this way, we would guarantee a supply of fresh meat for the rest of our voyage.

When we reached the appointed spot, and I expected to be sent ashore to capture some of these creatures, I found there was no need. The turtles came to us, not of their own accord, but brought in canoes and other sorts of small craft by the Indians who also live on the islands, and make their pittance by selling the turtles to sailors as they pass by.

It was a curious operation, at once delicate and sad. Delicate because the dry slopes of the islands, which rise very steeply from the deep water of the bay, and are sprinkled with only small patches of grass and mangrove, first appeared as dusk began to fall, and seemed as uncertain as the hills in a dream; sad because the Indians who live there are very emaciated and pathetic. Our captain, who in other respects seemed an admirable fellow, full of good sense and good cheer, treated them with no kindness at all, shouting from his deck that their prices were too high, that he did not need their help, that they were not much better than highwaymen, and in the end flinging down a few coins without caring whether they landed in the canoes or not—whereupon a basket was filled with turtles and raised on deck.

As soon as this was done Natty and I were ordered to set more sails, which pleased us because it brought to an end our miserable exchange with the islanders. We were still clinging to the crossbeam of the mainmast as the Tortugas shrank into the sunset behind us. I am sure the captain would have preferred it if we had returned to the deck immediately, and occupied ourselves with some new practical matter. But despite the perils of our position we chose to stay aloft, and to contemplate for a moment longer the brown tusk of the mainland that was vanishing behind us.

“Will I be forgiven?” Natty asked, cutting straight to the quick of things. Like me, she had hooked her feet into the rigging and was resting against the crossbeam. The waves were so far beneath us we could not hear them breaking against the prow of our ship, but the breeze was strong—strong enough to make a purring sound in the sleeves of our shirts, and bring tears into our eyes.

“Not in general,” she went on. “Will
you
forgive me?”

This was softer than I expected, and I could not reply for a moment.

“You know the answer to that,” I told her at length.

Natty nodded toward the satchel, where it hung inside my shirt.

“You didn't begin this,” she said. “Our fathers began it.”

I turned my head and looked at our wake stretching behind us, where the water lost its whiteness and became a latticework of smaller waves. Although the sun had now almost completely set, its last light had turned the whole surface of the ocean into beaten silver, solid-seeming and apparently perfectly smooth.

“I know,” I said, as though I was talking to myself. “And yet our lives are our own.”

“So I'm not forgiven?” Natty was smiling but not in her eyes.

“I didn't say that.”

“What, then?”

“We have to forgive ourselves.”

“And how shall we do that?” Natty asked.

“By deciding we're innocent.”

“Is that what you've decided?”

“I'm still deciding.”

Natty pressed further forward, so her body hung over the crossbeam as though she had fallen from the sky. Only her own weight held her in place.

“Then I'll do the same,” she said. “We'll decide together.”

“It's what we have always done,” I said.

And there our talk ended. We did not mention Black Cloud by name, or the Painted Man; everything we said was about ourselves. Or so it seems now. At the time, as we watched the land disappear at last, I felt sure we were concentrating on everything else, our friends as well as our enemies, the country as well as its inhabitants.

I suppose it might therefore be said that we had deceived ourselves, when we climbed down onto the deck again and returned to our work, and felt lighter in our hearts. But I like to think we had only done what all men and women do. We had preferred the future to the past. We had turned our faces forward, as we now did in fact, staring along the slender deck of the
Mungo
as she raced ahead.

I have no wish to linger over our journey back to England. That belongs in a different sort of history—one that involves ships and shipping, sailors and sailing, and not one concerned above all with land.

Suffice it to say we made good time to New York, and did not suffer unduly at the hands of the weather-gods, or those men-of-war belonging to the English or the French navy, whose tussle, I was surprised to hear from Captain Yalland, had continued the whole of our long time in America, including since we left Mr. Vale, who was the last to speak to me on this subject.

And suffice it to say as well: while Natty and I lacked the expertise of our crew-mates, and their stamina in crawling across rigging, or repairing woodwork, or mending sails, or any of the thousand other tasks required of sailors everywhere, we did not acquit ourselves badly, and did not break our fingers or our heads, and arrived at our destination with enough credit for our captain to recommend us for a similar position on a different vessel, which would carry us across the Atlantic and so to our homes.

This second part of our sea-voyage has as little to do with my adventure as the first (except it was the means of bringing it to an end for the time being); for this reason I shall also treat it very briefly, saying only that the
Antigone
was more sturdily built than the
Mungo
, and our cabin was more spacious (in that it more nearly resembled a vault than a coffin), and the conditions we encountered were not nearly so easy and peaceful as those we found on our way north from Florida.

This was because an early blast of autumn arrived in New York at the same time as we did ourselves, and when we left it again the heavens decided we should have a taste of what winter would bring in due course. Although we were spared icebergs, we nevertheless had to endure a month of freezing winds, of waves like mountains, of snow in our sails, and of sickness and stumbling that made our crossing very uncomfortable. I did not quite get to the point of thinking we would be sunk a second time, and on this occasion lose our fight with Neptune, and lay our bones to rest on the bed of the Atlantic, but I most certainly did feel raged-at by the country we had left behind. America had not made us welcome, except in unexpected ways, but it seemed very unwilling to let us go. It is a contradiction I have noticed in many of the places that are dearest to me, and the people.

Be that as it may: we survived our ordeal, and when we came into the mouth of the English Channel this foretaste of winter was banished, and beautiful autumn weather settled over us. Soft breezes, calm waters, sunshine, and gulls that I thought were speaking to me in a language I recognized.

I thought this homecoming would inspire a great surge of gratitude and excitement. I believe I may even have practiced such feelings during the stormiest part of our crossing, when our safety seemed at risk. But I have to admit that when the red cliffs of Devonshire first glowed onto our horizon, bringing at the same time a delicious scent of damp earth, I did not immediately sink to my knees or believe I had found the only place I wanted to be.

On the contrary. I felt my heart fill with sadness, which I only began to understand as our progress continued toward the east, and we came to Start Point, then wafted along the coast of Dorset past Lyme and Weymouth, Lulworth and Swanage. Apparently I had lived among too many people deprived of their homes to feel easy about finding my own. I could not separate their pleasure from my sorrow.

This is the truth I most often told myself—which was in fact a sort of dissembling. For there was a second and more intimate source of my confusion, which I could not so easily admit.

I cannot describe it without hesitating even now, although I shall try.

When we had rounded the coast of Kent and come into the mouth of the Thames…

When the daylight had begun to fade…

When our captain knew we would not reach London before nightfall…

When we had hauled to and decided to spend the night at anchor in the estuary…

When Natty and I had eaten our meal, and fixed a lamp to the mast, and come to stand by the starboard rail of our ship…

When we stood in silence and heard the waves slither against the hull, and the timbers creak, and the breeze rasp through the grasses of the marsh…

When we remembered that Natty and I had been together every day since she first arrived outside the Hispaniola a little over three years before…Every day except the handful she was held prisoner by Smirke on the Island…Every day…

When we knew that tomorrow…

We shrank closer together and felt the warmth pass between us, stretching the silence for as long as we dared.

“Have you spoken to the captain?” Natty said at last.

“No,” I told her. “Spoken about what?”

“About our plans.”

“Do we have any plans?”

“You know we do.”

“Remind me what they are, then.” I turned to look at her; soon after we left the Tortugas we had both been given plain sailors' clothes to wear, and now she had also borrowed a jersey from one of our crew-mates, and the rolled-over collar hung away from her bare neck.

“Don't pretend,” she said. “You know perfectly well what we have to do.” She spoke half-smiling, to soften the force of her argument.

“I know what will happen,” I told her. “For a little while.”

“Exactly.” She nodded. “You must go and see your father. I will go and see my father—and my mother. We must tell them what we've done. They must hear our story and know we're safe.”

As Natty finished speaking, the clouds shifted above us and a gust of moonlight showed the expression on her face. She did not look as steadfast as she sounded; her eyes were slippery with tears and she was biting her lip.

My arms closed around her and she gave no resistance; she lifted one hand to wipe her eyes, then pressed it in the small of my back.

“My father,” she said, muffling her words into my shirt-front. “I'm sure my father…My father won't be there.”

In my stupidity, which came from thinking about ourselves and not our parents, I could not understand.

“But your father will forget the silver very soon,” I told her. “He'll understand we couldn't save it.” I paused for a moment, soothing her hair and feeling it spring back as soon as the weight of my hand was lifted. “Anyway,” I went on eventually. “We can show him the necklace. He can see that, and then he'll only be glad you've come home.”

“My father will be dead,” Natty said—or rather whispered, as if she was telling me a secret.

“You can't say that,” I said, which was not quite to contradict her. “You don't know that.”

“We've been away too long,” she insisted. “I feel it.”

“And your mother?”

“Oh, my mother…” Natty did not finish her sentence and did not need to.

“No,” she added with a sigh. “You must go to your father—he's the one who must see the necklace first. When you've done that, come and find me.”

This comforted me but I was still impatient. “How soon after?” I said—and immediately regretted it. I could hear the same wheedling note that I had used to her once before, when we were locked in our prison.

Natty pushed away from me then and her eyes were dry. “Jim,” she said. “There will be time.”

Time for what, I wanted to ask, and time beginning when, but I resisted. Instead, I looked down to the current flowing beneath us: the remorseless gray water; the wig of seaweed catching against the anchor chain, remaining there long enough to collect a fringe of dirty foam, then swinging loose.

As it disappeared, Natty continued in a gentler voice. “As you believe, so shall it be,” she said, and raised her hand to my face once more, stroking my cheek. In the giddiness of feeling her touch I did not perfectly understand. And still not, when she turned away without saying another word, and blew out the lamp hanging near us on the mast, and led the way below-deck.

When we reached our cabin I climbed into my bunk, the top bunk, and waited until Natty was lying on her own bed below me. Now, I thought. Now I shall ask her what she meant: “As you believe, so shall it be.” But I did not. When she called “Goodnight” I replied in kind and that was all I heard—except, for a long while afterward, the river scraping against the hull beside my head, and the waves making sudden slaps and leaps.

When I closed my eyes at last, I felt sure I would not sleep for long, and would certainly be awake with the sunrise; I thought the confusion of my feelings required it. But the moment I opened my eyes next morning I knew the
Mungo
was already under way, and Natty had left her bunk. When I scrambled on deck and found her at our usual place in the bows, I asked her why: had the captain not needed me? She told me he had decided to let me lie, as a reward for coming home at last, and had also agreed I should go ashore when we came near the Hispaniola.

“I thought I should settle this with him,” she told me, “because you were not here to ask him yourself.”

I did not rise to this bait. “Thank you,” was all I said, and turned to look away from her.

It was a gray morning with rain-clouds smudging the northern horizon, and the breeze struck coldly as it brought us upriver. For the first few miles the country would be called dull by someone who did not know it, since it was made entirely of marshes and hardly seemed a part of the earth at all. Everywhere I looked I saw only miniature soft cliffs, streaked with slime; shining mud-heaps; a ribcage of decaying timbers, wrapped in a cloak of sea-lavender.

All apparently cheerless; all apparently ugly. Yet to my eyes the greatest beauties in the world, with the most beautiful creatures living among them—the geese that craned up from their grazing to honk as we passed them by, and the godwits and sanderlings that blew away from our shadow and turned the air silver, and the curlews calling the sound of their own sad name over and over.

As we drew onward, and the traffic of other boats increased around us, the land became more solid and fertile. Here, with as much curiosity as I had felt while cruising along the Mississippi, and seeing all manner of novelties for the first time, I found cottages standing among cornfields that had recently been harvested, and hamlets with people leaving their homes for work, or standing in groups talking, or pausing with their hands on their hips to watch us pass. Where I could not see things exactly, because they were too far off, I imagined them. The dusty leaves on the elm trees fringed with soft little teeth. The plum-colored brick-rubble used to fill a hole in the surface of a lane. The knapped flints on a church tower and the clever pattern of their black-and-white facets. The blue caps worn by men in the fields, and their green and yellow waistcoats, and their boots laced with string, and the fringed bonnets on the women, and their clogs, and their long dresses stained with mud along the hems.

As each bend of the river brought us into more populous country, and the ragged shoreline lifted into pasture, and the bare mud-banks into hills covered with trees, such a feeling of tenderness swelled inside me that I struggled for breath. These were my fields, I told myself—or rather felt in the veins of my body. My fields; and my salty inlets winding between them; and my fishermen's sheds; and my bridges across my streams; and my ponies drinking from my troughs, eating my grass.

Then all that gliding ended. All that gliding, and absorbing, and praising, because Natty left my side to ask the captain for his permission to set me ashore.

I must now change the way of telling my story, for the simple reason that everything previously settled was suddenly uprooted, and everything continuous was broken. I saw the next several minutes in fragments, and could not easily join them together.

A sail was reefed. The
Mungo
slowed to a walking pace. The rowing-boat strapped at our stern was lowered into the water, with a crew-mate working the oars to keep her steady. I thanked the captain and collected my bundle from our cabin. I found my way back to the daylight. The gray daylight, and the cold air. I walked to the stern. I said goodbye to Natty.

I could not believe it was me speaking, me living and breathing. When I wrapped my arms around her she stood very still, and I felt the bones of her shoulder blades. When I bent to kiss her she turned aside so I only brushed her cheek, which the breeze had made dry and cold. I told myself to keep moving.

What could I think, in such a rush of things happening? I had no wish to think. I had no capacity, because the weight of my heart had dragged everything out of my brain. Out of my body, too, so letting my hands slide away from Natty, turning away from her, climbing over the rail of the
Mungo
, finding the rope ladder that hung there, reaching the rowing-boat, sitting in the prow with my bundle on my knees, untying the tow-rope, watching my crew-mate heave at his oars, reaching a little tumbledown jetty protruding from the shore, climbing the slippery steps, feeling them heave beneath me after my long time at sea, grasping the dry rail at the top, hearing mates on board the
Mungo
holler that my oarsman must hurry or else be left behind, seeing him set off and tether the rowing-boat and climb the rope ladder again, then watching the
Mungo
unfurl her topsail and accelerate away: so all these things were quite separate from me, perfectly foreign and incomprehensible.

Until I saw Natty standing in the stern of the ship. She was too far off already, not herself but a silhouette. And yet from the way she waved one hand above her head, and continued waving until she vanished round the next bend of the river, I told myself I knew well enough what she was feeling. If I had not done this, I could not have withstood the silence that followed, or begun to make my way.

It was an hour's walk, or perhaps half an hour. I do not remember. I remember instead the prints of gulls' feet in the mud as I jumped over gullies and creeks. I remember doubling back on myself sometimes. I remember the ground improving, and a towpath made of sandy-colored stones. I remember a church bell tolling, a dark red sound blossoming over the fields. I remember touching the satchel inside my shirt, and my father coming more and more powerfully into my mind.