The Poisoned Island (2 page)

He came upon the hilltop clearing suddenly, emerging from the green just as she stopped singing and the birds, one by one, ceased their accompaniment. He picked up his pace now, some new urgency coming over him, but she stopped, finally and completely, her glorious back to him.

There was a crackling wooden sound then, and the ground around her came to life. Tendrils of green burst upwards and wrapped themselves around her feet, her calves, her thighs. Her hair burst open with green light and fire, and her back began to elongate and spread itself up towards the fresh sunlight. Her fingers twisted into twigs which curled out
from the branches of her arms. Shiny ovate leaves appeared all around these branches and twigs and then, with a final crunch of wood and bark, her shape disappeared within the new yet ancient body of a small, elegant tree, perhaps fifteen feet high, its canopy a neat, shining triangle which caught the brilliant sun and reflected it in a symphony of green, her legs fused into a single straight trunk.

He woke up beside that Pacific waterfall. Only Tahiti Nui, its gods, and the sun remained to watch him as he stood and dressed. The princess was gone.

A nondescript ship containing wonders arrives at the mouth of the Thames estuary on a dull June morning in 1812. England is not looking her best to welcome the ship home. The estuary is certainly capable of splendor, if the time of day is right and the sunlight hits the damp air at the correct angle to split itself. An artist might perform miracles at such times. If the Navy was mustering on the Nore, well, then such an artist might even see something transcendent.

Not today, though. Today, the edges of Kent and Essex are indistinct things, and though the day is warm the air is heavy and damp. An artist wishing to paint today would need bring only browns and greys and an air of disappointment.

The new arrival is called the
Solander
. She takes her name from the Swedish botanist Daniel Solander, who charmed London in the last century with tales of his great voyage to Otaheite. Solander’s loyal friend Joseph Banks had given the ship her name and had sent her away to follow the same track
he and Solander and their captain James Cook had sailed, back in the mists of legend.

Given her distinguished name, the
Solander
’s wonders are of an appropriately botanical kind. Hundreds and hundreds of plants from the paradise island of Otaheite have been planted in pots and barrels throughout the ship; her insides have been refashioned to accommodate them, and even the captain’s great cabin and his quarterdeck have had to make room for gardeners and their tools. Every spare surface and rail and cubbyhole contains some kind of South Seas plant life, either as seeds or bulbs or seedlings wrapped in linen (which must be kept constantly damp) or small plants in soil inside half barrels secured by the carpenters to ensure they are not disturbed by rough seas. The quarterdeck has itself been taken over by a kind of plant house, constructed specially for the voyage. Captain Hopkins has made one thing very clear: each plant is to be cherished as if it were a human member of the crew itself, and the expiry of any flora through negligence will be punished by the lash. Hopkins is a hard man, though not a cruel one, and his order is observed with due attention.

As for
why
the plants have been brought back to London, most of the crew could not care one way or another. They are being paid well (
very
well, truth be told), and most of them are returning with tales of the delights of Otaheite which will make their women cringe with jealousy and rage for years to come. These women may soon be cringing for rather different reasons, as the infections of Otaheite return to Europe. Most of the men on board are carrying some kind of venereal disease, the blighted fruit of dalliances with the women of Otaheite who were themselves blighted by contact with European sailors. Who carried these afflictions to the island
is still the subject of nationalist conjecture. The English say the French infected the islanders on their first visit, while the French say the reverse, nodding in a knowing fashion at the widely published accounts of Sir Joseph Banks himself, who fearlessly and scandalously described his own dalliances on the island.

The crew of the
Solander
know nothing of such historical debate. They know that Otaheite presented them with experiences which had been previously unimaginable. They know that they are beginning to itch. They know that the treatment will be unpleasant. They discuss these matters only obliquely, each man an island of secrets.

Sam Ransome is a not quite stupid seaman who is seeing the muddy and featureless estuary seascape for the last time. He carries his own Otaheite secret, as do several other men in the crew. He is up on the main yard, his slow head still full of the wonders of southern oceans, where blue-green summits had sprung up over endless horizons after the yawning weeks of waiting. Beneath those summits he had found golden beaches, blue seas, willing women, and intoxicating draughts. Otaheite had risen clearly and spectacularly from the blue Pacific, its peaks shrouded in a pearly mist which only emphasized the resolute edges of its green tree–shrouded hills. At the other end of that memory sits his immediate future: a scruffy boardinghouse room, a fat woman the wrong side of forty, and the constant threat of impressment or penury. Yet he aches for home, his hunger for it driven by an unquenchable thirst which has grown with every nautical mile.

For most of the crewmen, the remembered magic of home will be a short-lived thing; it barely lasts beyond the first night back on domestic shores. Within the week most sailors will be sniffing the air in a particular way and strolling down to
the wharves in a meaningful fashion. The truth is that home is complicated and seafaring is simple. Hard, but simple. You do what you are told, you sleep when you are allowed to, and no one (particularly no one of a
female
nature) gives you unclear instructions with unknown consequences.

Next to Sam, Bob Attlee has started whistling a merry London tune which Samuel half recognizes, while Attlee’s great friend Tommy Arnott scowls into his work, his silence encasing him like a shroud. On the
Solander
, as on all ships, there are two types of seaman: the overweight and the skinny. Each thrives on the same rations, to the consternation and puzzlement of the other type. Attlee is fat and red; his silent friend Arnott is thin but as brown as an old shoe. Sam, for his part, is comfortably padded.

Attlee winks at Sam when he sees him looking, a theatrically knowing wink which is instantly noticed by the fourth member of the main yard crew, a despicable little Geordie called, much to the delight of his shipmates, Craven. For weeks now Attlee has been torturing the Geordie with intimations of a great secret. Sam wishes, with all his heart, that Attlee would desist; each one of those jokey winks feels like a warning shot from a marine’s gun. Craven cannot help himself, and rises to the bait.

“Will ye be headed anywhere in particular when we get ashore, Sam?” he asks, his disappointed eyes hungry for information. Attlee’s mouth is carved with contempt, and Sam feels the same, toying with the idea of shoving Craven off the yard and down to the deck below.

“Away from
you
, Craven, is all,” he says, and Attlee laughs at that. Even Arnott smiles.

The banks of the river close in on the
Solander
as she makes her way upstream. Tilbury and its Fort go by on the north
shore, guarding the empty and windswept Essex marshes, where only birds keep watch. Gravesend is to the south, the Kent hills rising behind. At least a dozen ships have accompanied them into the river: laden colliers, a cutter on official River Police or Customs business, and a pair of substantial Indiamen headed slowly for the new docks.

At Woolwich the military river begins. Men in uniform look down onto the deck of the
Solander
from mighty warships, like gods gazing down on their congregation. The crew resist the temptation to shout something disrespectful up at them, lest Captain Hopkins hear them and unleash his own wrath.

The river is crowded with vessels now. They pass Galleons, and off to starboard Samuel can see the great new West and East India Docks, crammed with ships as big as cathedrals. Each of those enormous floating leviathans will only ever make three return journeys before the tide and the wind break them down. Sam’s imagination grapples with the idea that money should be so great that a machine like an Indiaman becomes itself disposable. It is a fearsome thought, the size of which is too much for Sam’s conception. His hand moves from the main yard to his side to feel for the pouch which sits there beneath his old cotton shirt. Attlee sees the movement and smirks. Craven sees it also, and files it away in some dark little place for when Opportunity presents itself.

The order comes from the officers to prepare the ship for mooring, and for the next hour the seamen on the main yard have little time to talk, their hands busy with the mindless repetition and urgency which accompanies any change in the state of an oceangoing ship. They pass the Hospital at Greenwich and then the Dockyard at Deptford, where more military vessels glower down at them. The ship’s sails come
down one by one as they approach their mooring, on the chain in the river just downstream from Rotherhithe.

It takes a couple of hours to make the
Solander
ready for a lengthy stay; the officers bark commands, and the men work harder than they have for weeks, keen to get the work finished. Samuel works as hard as anyone; this is a rarity, for Sam Ransome is a recognized expert when it comes to avoiding hard work. The pouch inside his shirt bounces against his chest, an incessant signifier of pleasures postponed. The serpent in his belly which has been his shipmate since leaving Otaheite tightens itself and hisses, desperate to be appeased.

A flurry of lighters, wherries, and barges comes alongside the ship as she is finally moored to a chain. The botanists, who have emerged from the quarterdeck plant house like moles unexpectedly surfacing into daylight, are supervising the transfer of the first tranche of plants from the ship to two waiting barges, which will carry the specimens down to Kew.

Around half the crew are discharged immediately. There is a crush of bodies as these men are given their papers and their pay. Samuel, Arnott, Attlee, and Craven are all part of the melee. Sam tries his best to remain patient, but the buzz of desire within him is growing, and he can see it in the faces of Arnott and Attlee as well. They collect their belongings from below—Sam’s in a sea chest, Arnott and Attlee’s in ancient but sturdy kit bags—and then they are ready to leave the ship. Three other men join them at the gunwale: seamen Elijah Frost and Colby Potter; and Jeremiah Critchley, the carpenter’s mate, as blond as a Viking, whose brown arms and enormous hands should be clutching an ancient hammer rather than the tattered little scroll which contains his discharge and the canvas bag which contains his pay. Around a dozen wherries have appeared round the ship, ready to take
men ashore, and the discharged crew are clambering down to them. But these six men hang back for a moment, their faces pinched with the same thirsty desire which marks Samuel. Craven attempts to join the little group, but he is shoved away by Critchley.

“Fuck off, Craven.”

The little Geordie attempts defiance.

“Fuck off yourself, Critchley. I’ve every right to go ashore with whom I choose.”

The tall man says nothing. All six of the men in the group glare at Craven with their suspicious eyes. Craven gives way, slouching off to find another wherry.

Samuel watches the Viking Critchley, the unelected leader of their clandestine group. He sees the tension in Critchley’s face, the same tension they all feel as they wait their turn for a boat to take them to shore. Finally it is their time and the six of them climb down, each with hidden pouches bouncing against their sides. The boat takes Attlee and Arnott to Rotherhithe first, on the Surrey shore, and Critchley speaks to them before they climb out. Then the wherry turns and takes the remaining four men a little upriver and across to the stairs just below the River Police Office at Wapping. For the last time in his life, Sam Ransome scrambles up onto English land. Critchley speaks to Colby and Potter and then they too disappear like the rest of the
Solander
’s secrets, botanical and medical, into the anonymous chaos of the metropolis. They have a favorite boardinghouse in Ratcliffe, while Critchley and Sam plan to seek lodgings in Wapping.

Sam and Critchley walk up Wapping Street for a while, Critchley warning Sam to keep his peace and avoid any suspicious behavior, just as he had warned the others. Then Sam leaves Critchley for good, turning up Old Gravel Lane and
away from the waterfront, the disquieting walls of the London Dock pushing him east and north. His sea chest is heavy and he is very tired, but he walks with unfamiliar swiftness, a lazy fat man hurrying to a much-postponed assignation. He turns right off the lane into a side alley and goes through the door of an ancient, nondescript boardinghouse. Inside he speaks to an equally ancient and nondescript landlady, who recognizes him but greets him with contempt anyway. He takes out some of his pay, but before handing it over he demands she fetch him something. She becomes annoyed and demurs, but he insists, holding the coins away from her, and at last she surrenders to her own need for money and goes to find an iron kettle from her kitchen. He takes it off her when she comes back, almost snatching the thing away despite its weight, and heads up the stairs.