Under the Wide and Starry Sky

Part Three

CHAPTER 59

“Aw-haw-haw!” Louis shouted above the roar of the waves. The Casco, sleek as a giant marlin, was slicing through the Paci?c waters at a furious speed, the world ahead of it a vast blue-gray where sky melded into sea. In  the next moment, though, the yacht was heeling so near the ocean’s skin that Louis feared he might topple over the bulwark. In front of him, the blue expanse had disappeared behind the starboard side of the boat. Salt water sprayed his face.

“She’s  runnin’  with  a  bone  in  her  teeth!”  he  called  out  joyously  to  Lloyd,  who  was clinging to his spectacles with one hand and a shroud with the other. “Do you know how many miles this wild vessel has covered in the past twenty-four hours? Two hundred ?ftysix!”

“Woo-hoo!” the boy called back. “That’s better than a steamer!” When the boat righted itself, they clambered below.

“I’m mortal hungry,” Louis said to Fanny. “Any dainties down here?” She padded away to the galley. Louis pulled o? his wet shirt and laughed. Above the
pallid skin protected by his trousers, he saw his arms and chest were already turning brown from a week in the sun. By God, dare he say it out loud? I feel wonderful.
The ?rst couple of days at sea, he had kept to his cabin, as had everyone in the family, including Valentine. Even Captain Otis, who acted the part of the salty sea dog, had been unable  to  come  to  meals  for  the  ?rst  two  days.  Only  Maggie  Stevenson  possessed unassailable sea legs. She ate like a sailor and strode the planks as if she’d been born on a boat. Her single concession to nausea was to pass up at breakfast red herring and mutton chops on the ?rst day. She had been on deck ever since, happily knitting Lloyd a pair of socks as the schooner raced southwest.

Fanny su?ered the worst. For three days, she was too seasick to partake of anything but sips of water and a rare ship biscuit. On the fourth day of the voyage, she shakily crept from her bunk, barefoot and dressed in one of her new holokus. What Otis and the crew thought of  her,  Louis could only  guess.  She had worn  her hair cut just above shoulder length for some time, and though he was used to it, she was the only woman he knew who wore it in that fashion. When he saw her sitting on the deck with that mop of curls shaking furiously  in  the  wind  as  she  smoked  and  stared  ?xedly  at  the  horizon  to  steady  her

stomach,  even  Louis could see  that  his wife  made  quite  an  unconventional picture.  He suspected her manner disconcerted Otis, who steered clear of her.

“He has us pegged as wealthy eccentrics,” Fanny said when they discussed the captain’s cool attitude.

“Well, any customer who can spend two thousand pounds on a six-month cruise must seem rich indeed to him,” Louis said.

“Little does he know it’s most of your inheritance.”

This morning Fanny had started the day badly with Otis by striking up a conversation with his helmsman while he was seated at the wheel, which was located in the cockpit where they all gathered. She had peppered the Russian with a dozen questions when Otis instructed her not to talk to the man while he was steering. Louis could tell the captain preferred Fanny out of sight, in her berth. He probably preferred all of them in their berths. Even Maggie had incited Otis’s ire when she walked along a narrow part of the deck too close to the rail.

“What would you do if my mother-in-law fell overboard?” Fanny asked provocatively after the captain chastised the sprightly woman.

Otis stared ahead impassively. “Note it in the log,” he said.

The voyage, so far, had been easy and was beginning to take on a rhythm. Louis was the ?rst passenger out of his berth at dawn. He helped raise the American ?ag that the vessel had come equipped with, then hoisted the Union Jack that he’d provided. As the sun rose and the smell of co?ee ?oated through the open companionway door, Louis breathed deep the salty air and blessed the sun, blessed the four pilot birds that had followed them since they left San Francisco, blessed the ?ying ?sh that glided above the blue-green waters with their ?ns outspread. If there were a ?ner way to begin a day, he couldn’t conceive it. After a while, he forced himself to go below, where he would lie in his bed and write furiously. He felt a supreme urgency to get down on paper the things he was seeing, the comments of the sailors, the laconic remarks of Otis, whom he knew he would transmute into a ?ctional character someday.

Without a cabin boy, a position Otis had failed to ?ll before departure, Valentine took on the morning job of folding up the bunks so the area could become a sitting room. Lloyd’s job was o?cial photographer, documenting the cruise with pictures that might be used in the South Seas book. Fanny was chief consultant regarding food and injuries. She remained

queasy,  but  her  seasickness  did  not  keep  the  cook  from  coming  to  her  regularly  for instructions, or the injured mate, who tumbled during a storm and had to have his head sewn up.

The doctoring kept her mind focused during some of the terrifying weather of the cruise. A  squall  would  descend  upon  the Casco  in  the  midst  of  calm  weather  and  throw  the inhabitants around like rag  dolls.  After three days of  squalls,  with  the lee rail dipping below  the  foaming  sea  and  the  wood  of  the  boat  groaning  as  if  to  break  under  the punching waves, even Louis quailed. He crawled to the berths, where the women had taken refuge, and called out, “I never should have subjected you all to this!”
Fanny stuck her greenish face out of the bed curtain. “The timber remembers it used to be an oak trunk,” she said bravely. “It wouldn’t dare split.”

When the weather calmed, she went back into the galley to teach the cook how to season his bland meat dishes. One afternoon while she was going through a storage cabinet in the pantry, she called to Louis:  “What is a sail doing in here?” Louis reached back into the corner cabinet where some pans were stacked. He tugged at the canvas, which felt heavy. When he got it out on the ?oor, he saw it was wrapped around two iron weights. Also tucked inside was a small ?ag—American. “It’s nothing,” Louis said, “just over?ow.” But he knew perfectly well what it was. Otis had packed away the necessities for a burial at sea. In that moment he understood how the captain viewed Louis’s frail self: food for the fish.
That evening, when  the dour Otis bit into the chicken  on  his plate, he looked up  in wonder. “What’s this?” he asked.

“A Mexican sauce I used to make in Monterey. It’s called salsa,” Fanny said. “A little hot, but tasty, don’t you think?”

“Yes,” he said, his eyes watering. “Yes.”

After dinner, everyone assembled for the big event of the day—the viewing of the sunset —then adjourned to the cockpit  “drawing room,” where they gathered around the table, studying the chart.

“I haven’t been to Polynesia,” Captain Otis said when they pinpointed the island of Nuka Hiva, their first destination, “but the directory says there are two distinct sharp peaks.”
“Oh,” Maggie said. “I thought you had already traveled to the Marquesas.” “I know a number of men who have,” he said.

“Did they speak of cannibals?” Valentine asked.

“Yes,” he replied, “but these were old sailors. They sailed there some time ago.” Louis didn’t say it out loud, but the directory of which the captain spoke— A Directory for the  Navigation  of the  South Seas—also made reference to the morals of
Marquesan women. Back in Saranac, when they were poring over the thick book one frigid evening, Lloyd had read aloud a paragraph to Louis and Maggie that caused them all to sit up  straight: “The  one  great  feature  which  distinguishes  these  natives  in  the  eyes  of Europeans  is  their  unbounded  licentiousness.  The  women …  appear  to  have  not  the slightest idea of chastity or delicacy.”

Sitting in his bu?alo coat by the ?re, Louis had raised his brows and said slyly,  “Nuka Hiva was Melville’s first stop on his voyage.”

“‘Their  whole  conduct,  gesture,  and  motive  appear  directed  to  one  end,’”  Lloyd  had continued reading from the directory that night back in Saranac, despite the deep sighs coming from Maggie Stevenson.  “‘Their character has been often portrayed, and must be familiar to all readers of the Paci?c voyages. It is a point, too, which ought to weigh much with the commander who would bring his ship here.’”

Maggie had changed the subject back then as she did now, by taking out a deck of cards. She teamed with the captain in a game of whist and roundly defeated the others.
Sensing that the ice was ?nally thawing between the taciturn captain and his passengers, Louis ventured an observation that he’d been wanting to explore. “I realize this is not your boat. But don’t you think the Casco is overrigged and oversparred? I wonder if a racing boat, glorious as it is, is suited for this kind of cruise.”

Louis  immediately  regretted  the  question,  as  the  captain  didn’t  answer  but  merely withdrew to his own quarters. Just when I was making headway with the man! Louis chastised himself.

Maggie Stevenson, oblivious to any turmoil, started another hand of whist. When Otis emerged from his cabin, he was carrying a bottle of brandy. “Oh, good,” Maggie cried. “I will deal you in.” Otis poured small glasses of brandy all around.

“How nice,” Maggie cooed. “May I propose a toast?” She raised her glass to the captain, the  Russian  at  the  wheel  and  another  sailor  standing  by,  Valentine,  and  her  family members one by one. “To the Cascos!”

There were smiles all around.

“Now, tell me,” Maggie said to the captain when she’d qua?ed her brandy,  “have you

ever read Treasure Island?”

Louis flinched. How like his mother to embarrass him. She asked almost everyone she  met  this  question.  Louis  waited  for  the  usual “I  liked  it”  that  people  o?ered, especially those who hadn’t read it.

Otis drew on his pipe, smiled slightly, then lifted his glass and clinked it to Maggie’s. “Yo ho ho,” the captain said.