Robber Crabs Page 7

up Wiki Coffin.”

  Startled, Noyes echoed, “Wiki Coffin? Not the son of Captain William Coffin?”

  “The famous Captain William Coffin of Salem,” Rochester agreed. “You know him?”

  “Quite well,” said Noyes, still amazed. Captain William Coffin had made a fortune as a privateer in the 1812 war against the British, and then had gone into the China trade, carrying Yankee silver to Canton and returning with fabulous cargoes of tortoiseshell, lacquer wood, silks, and tea. At some stage in this dashing career he had fathered a son in the Bay of Islands, New Zealand — not that anyone in Salem had known about it until Coffin had carried the half-Maori boy home to his middle-aged, childless wife. The rightful Mrs. Coffin, understandably, had been scandalized and mortified. Naturally, too, the gossip had run hot and heavy. At the time, Noyes had had the impression that all New England was talking about it.

  But that had been minor, compared to the scandal Wiki himself had caused four years later, when he and his father were visiting Noyes’s village. Wiki, by then a broad-shouldered young man of sixteen with warm brown skin, hazel eyes that glinted blue in certain lights, and an infectious humor that creased up his face when he grinned, was handsome enough to catch any girl’s eye — and he had caught the eye of a headstrong lass who happened to be the fiancée of one of Stonington’s most prominent merchants. And instead of being discreet, they had flaunted their affair.

  Noyes, like every other red-blooded male, had been outwardly outraged and inwardly envious. As for Captain Coffin, he’d been so furious with Wiki that the next time he sailed off to the Orient he had left the boy behind. The last Noyes had heard, Mrs. Coffin had packed Wiki off to a missionary college in remotest New Hampshire to learn better manners, and, incidentally, how to convert his savage brethren.

  That had been eight years ago. Noyes wondered what had happened in the meantime. He said, “What the devil is a lad like Wiki Coffin doing on the exploring expedition?”

  “He’s our linguister. In fact,” added Rochester broodingly, “he was berthed on the Swallow until just over a week ago, when Captain Wilkes shifted him from my brig to the Peacock.”

  Rochester’s tone was unmistakably resentful, but Noyes ignored this, exclaiming, “Your what?”

  “Linguister. And will probably act as our pilot, too, once we get into the tropics. He knows the islands well, including their languages. Speaks Portuguese and Spanish, too, so serves as our translator. He berths with the scientifics,” Rochester concluded, while the man in the head of the boat hooked on to a line dangling down the side of the Peacock. “So I should find him in the wardroom, eating supper. Wait here,” he instructed. “I’ll be a minute, no more.”

  And with that, Rochester sprang up the ladder, which was only five cleats high, the Peacock being a flush-decked corvette with just four feet of freeboard. Studying the ship as the young officer disappeared, Noyes thought she was a fine-looking craft, built like a greyhound and obviously a racer, but guaranteed to be uncomfortably wet. A hell of a ship to take into the Antarctic, he thought, then wondered why Wiki Coffin was being summoned to hear the report of the murder.

  Rochester, meantime, cast a casual salute in the direction of the squad lined up to pipe him on board before striding aft towards the afterhouse built across the poop. The door to Captain Hudson’s quarters was in the front of this house, but he had no intention of wasting time by paying his respects. Captain Wilkes had expressed the wish that every officer should regard every ship of the fleet as his home, and Rochester was happy to comply.

  Without hesitation, he opened a door on the starboard side of the helm, which led down a winding companionway. The bottom of the stairs was close to the foot of the mizzenmast, which thrust up through the deck at this spot, hiding the officers’ wardroom, which lay between the mast and the stern. It was very dark, the berth deck being below water level, and George paused for his sight to adjust.

  He was standing next to the pantry, which was tucked into the curve of the stairs, and could hear voices raised in a quarrel. He had already heard gossip that the morale of the officers of the Peacock wasn’t good, and it sounded as if the scientifics were unhappy, too. Making a deliberate commotion, he strode around the mast into the officers’ wardroom.

  He found himself in a gloomy place, very different from the cozy messroom on his own little brig Swallow. There was no skylight, as the after house was built over the deck above, so the wardroom was dimly lit with smoky lamps. Measuring twenty feet long, it was like a corridor in a hotel, lined on both sides by doors that led to staterooms. Hats, swords, and guns hung from hooks between the doors. The only furnishing was a long table running down the length of the room, with revolving chairs screwed to the floor on either side, and an unsecured armchair at the sternward end.

  Three officers and three scientifics sat about this table with pens in their hands, staring at him. The man in the armchair at the privileged sternward end of the table was the first lieutenant of the Peacock, Samuel Lee. Though only about twenty-five, he looked much older, with deep lines bordering his mouth, and bristling eyebrows.

  He didn’t smile — and George knew exactly why. Like many of the expedition officers, he resented the fact that George had the command of a ship, while he did not. Instead, he asked abruptly, “Come for our letters?”

  “We’ll be delayed a while yet. They’re reporting a murder.”

  The six men looked at each other, their expressions startled.

  “I’m carrying the master to the Vin, so he can make his report to Captain Wilkes, and called for Mr. Coffin. Where is he?”

  All the faces went blank. No one answered, or even moved. In the odd little hiatus the noises of the ship seemed unnaturally loud. Then one of the scientifics shifted in his chair — a handsome, middle-aged man with a leonine head of russet hair. Still without expression, he jerked his head towards the pantry.

  Feeling puzzled, Rochester turned and threw open the door. Inside, Wiki Coffin was perched on a bench next to a black man in a steward’s apron. Both were holding dinner plates, and there were mugs of coffee on a sideboard within reach. The steward looked confused, while Wiki’s face creased up with pleasure.

  Rochester’s own smile vanished. “Wiki, what the devil are you doing in here?”

  Wiki winced. He’d hoped George would never find out. Eight days ago, after he’d been peremptorily reassigned from his berth on the Swallow to the wardroom of the Peacock, he had found that he wasn’t welcome in these high and mighty quarters. In various ways, the rightful occupants had let him know that they preferred not to share the table with a half-breed, and that the place for him to mess was the pantry.

  “Does Captain Hudson know you’re eating your meals with the steward?”

  Wiki shook his head. He’d seen no reason to make a fuss. No one had asked the steward how he felt about sharing his food with someone who was rumored to be a cannibal, but he’d made the intruder welcome — and the food was better, too. The wardroom steward prepared treats from the officers’ private stores — luxuries like tongues, jellied eels, tinned cake, dried fruit, and smoked hams — and he and his companion were the first to taste the results.

  “Well, you have to come with me to the Vin. There’s been a murder.”

  “On the Swallow?” Wiki said, alarmed.

  George shook his head. “A sealer we’ve just spoken told me about it. We’re off to see Wilkes so the Betsey’s master can report it.”

  Wiki followed George up the winding stairway to the deck. He headed for the amidships gangway, but halted when he heard his name called. Turning, he saw a man completely clothed in sealskin, with something familiar about him...

  The man came close, and memory clicked. Wiki said, “Captain Noyes!”

  “You ain’t changed a bit, neither,” Noyes grunted. Then he lowered his voice. “Tell me about those coves who are taking such a deep interest in my schooner.”

  He jerked his chin at seven men on the fore
castle deck. They stood out from the seamen around them, because they were heavily bearded, in defiance of Captain Wilkes’s orders that everyone in the expedition should be clean-shaven. There certainly was an odd intensity about the way they stared at the Betsey, Wiki thought, and had a good look at the schooner himself. The reason for their fixed interest was immediately obvious. She was lying low in the water, obviously deep-laden with a valuable cargo of pelts, which made it easy to identify their expressions — blatant greed and envy.

  “They’re sealers we rescued from their sinking schooner, back in October,” he said. “They know you’ve done well, and are jealous of your luck.”

  Noyes nodded without surprise. “They joined the expedition?”

  “Aye — and wish they hadn’t.” Captain Wilkes, anxious to take advantage of their knowledge of the southern ocean, had talked them into signing up, but the seven sealers had since regretted it. When the squadron had been lying off Patagonia, surveying the shoals of the Rio Negro, they’d done their damnedest to run away, but had been retaken and flogged. Wiki had been reliably informed that they blamed him for their recapture, and that it would be a good idea to make sure that he didn’t find himself alone in their company — advice that he’d heeded.

  “Watch out they don’t stow away on board of