“Not so.” I tried to stay strong in my protest even though my voice must have confessed that he was right.
“Cheer up. You’ve passed the first day and a half of the voyage in tranquility and you shall be better able to manage because some of your senses will remain numbed for another few days.” He gestured up to the darkness gathering in the distance. Even the ocean looked black where an awning of clouds was sweeping in ahead. “Old Ormond says we are sailing into a storm, but then this far out at sea they are forever trading one storm for another.”
“Why?”
“I cannot say. Particles of vapor attracting each other.”
“I mean: Why do you need me? Indeed, I have often felt myself no more than a nuisance when I have traveled with you. How in the world can I be of help to you in Samoa, of all places?”
He leaned forward, seemingly giving this question more studious thought than the subject of my sedation. “At the start of July, when the new laws of copyright go into effect, my time as a bookaneer reaches an end. Well, there may be an odd job here or there, but mostly it will be finished except for the lowest scum of our profession, the barnacles who can hardly even be called bookaneers. We have not discussed that fated hour much, you and I, and I should just as soon keep it that way. Except for this: I want you to write a record of my last mission.”
“A book?”
“Heavens no! I should as soon be shot for adding to the world’s bloated library. When did it occur to people to start writing books about what they like for supper? Not for posterity’s sake either, as Bill was babbling on about. I do not give a whit for any of that. I simply want to remember what it was like. For myself, I mean. When I am old and forgetful.”
“You wish me to chronicle what happens in Samoa, then? That is why I am here on this ship?”
“Not just what happens this time. My history as a bookaneer. Perhaps some ruminations on the trade.”
The proposal did not entirely surprise me. Davenport disliked talking about himself but really liked other people talking about him.
“I have always wished you would discuss more openly . . .” I began. He glanced at me with a bored frown, impatient, as usual, for my answer. “It will be my honor, Davenport.”
As our discussions went on through supper, somehow my hesitation to come on the mission—a pure hypothetical, given the fact that he had never asked—became painted as a grave error on my part, and I must have apologized three or four times for the inconvenience of his taking extreme measures. “Why, if I were you, I would have lashed my arms and legs to the mast,” I offered. Questions occurred to me at regular intervals. “Where are my notebooks?” “Do I have enough to dress myself in?” “What about my bookstall?”
One of the trunks I had helped to carry onboard, it turned out, was filled with my belongings. As for the bookstall, Davenport, who had devised his plan to bring me several weeks earlier, had arranged for a temporary overseer, a mutual acquaintance called Frank Johnson.
“Oh,” I said, “he is a reliable sort.” Johnson was a former doctor who had given up his original profession to enter the book trade and for years was a competitor to my original mentor, Stemmes. He was a good bookseller, an honest businessman, and a big, friendly man, if slightly supercilious. He often boasted that he was related to Dr. Samuel Johnson and would only admit he was not if the other person knew enough to laugh at the ridiculous assertion. When I saw him, he would address me as “brother bookseller.”
“He retired two years ago from the trade but has been terribly bored, so he will relish being surrounded by your books on a temporary basis. I made it clear I expect him to live up to your standards.”
I could not help but feel flattered that Davenport, who could not be bothered to pay his hotel bills or eat a proper meal on most days, had made elaborate arrangements on my behalf. Being an associate of Pen Davenport, you alternated between wanting to run away and not being able to resist the chance to see what might happen next.
? ? ?
IT IS NO PLEASURE CRUISE, sailing aboard a man-of-war, but the luxury steamship companies are not in the business of sailing for distant lands known for headhunters and cannibals. Frigates had better accommodations than dirty, crowded merchant vessels, at least. When the gunships had berths to spare, passengers brought extra income to defray unforeseen costs, besides breaking up the monotony for the officers. The Colossus had been called to the South Pacific to the island nations where the British government had interests to protect and oversee, including the several islands that comprised the small nation of Samoa.
To see the passengers is not so different from what you must see, Mr. Clover, in this restaurant car of the railroad: each person is trying to escape from somewhere or trying to find something they think they have lost. There were about a dozen fellow passengers onboard with us, including an Australian merchant named Lionel Hines. We dined with him at the captain’s table several times. His head and stomach were large in relation to the rest of his body, his eyes like a squirrel’s, his speaking voice loud and intense. The protruding position of his bottom jaw made his teeth seem clenched, and the shape of his mouth seemed made to vent anger. You will see I have cause for the thoroughly harsh opinion of him.
“What exactly is it you are going to do on the islands?”
He asked this question at supper with some of the officers. He was looking at me, so I opened my mouth ready to answer, but Davenport’s voice interrupted before I spoke.
“We travel on business, Mr. Hines.”