MUTINY

The Dying Quaildidn't have much in the way of a passenger list, but on the other handThe Dying Quail wasn't all that much of a ship, so things kind of worked out even. I had heard that shipboard romances could be really memorable occurrences, but the only person who I could find on deck at night was a wrinkled old dermatologist from Korea who spent the better part of a week trying to convince me that contrary to popular belief the earth was really flat, or at the very least built along the lines of a gently pitched roof.

The food was okay if you liked tuna. It was absolutely terrible if you didn't. I didn't, and by the third or fourth day out of port, I don't think anybody else did either.

There was an elderly English couple who had just bought a cattle farm in the Transvaal area and spent most of their time fighting about whether to butcher them all on the spot or maybe get a little milk from them first. There was a scrawny blond Swede who never left his cabin except to eat tuna and then get rid of it over the side of the boat. There was a trio of German girls, round and firm and much too fully packed, who didn't speak a word of any civilized tongue and spent all their time taking pictures, not that the water off the Ivory Coast looked all that different from the water next to Liberia. There were a couple of East Indian men who would strip off all their clothes every morning, sit in the blazing sun all day with their legs crossed kind of painful-like, tell everybody not to eat hamburgers, and then go back to their rooms as soon as it was dark. We had a down-on-his-luck actor from Canada who kept reciting the more obscure soliloquies fromTroilus and Cressida , and a writer from Paraguay who drank in most of his local color from a bottle of Scotch. And, finally, we had a stunningly beautiful belly dancer from Greece who apologized for distracting us but explained that she had to sunbathe in the nude because her audiences didn't like to see different shadings where various straps had been. Watching her body get an even tan was about as quick-moving a spectator sport as watching paint dry, but it did hold certain advantages over paint-watching when viewed in all of its many aspects, and it provided me with just about my only form of diversion during the first week of the voyage. The captain and the crew were nominally British, but I don't think more than half of them had ever gotten to within five hundred miles of London or Liverpool. The rest were swarthy, unwashed seamen who swore in Slavic tongues and spent a lot of time glaring sullenly at the passengers, who either ignored them or lectured them on the evils of eating beef. The captain himself was a jovial, balding little man with a red mustache, white knee-length shorts, a huge belly, and a driving urge for perfection that caused him to tell a joke thirty or forty times until he got it right.

It was on our eighth day out of Algiers that the captain, whose name was Roberts, announced that he was sick and tired of talking to the crew and would be interested in picking up the gauntlet of any passenger who might care to challenge him to a game or two of chance. Well, the Indians probably couldn't have uncrossed their legs even if they'd wanted to, and the belly dancer was busy soaking up the sun, and the writer was too drunk, and the German girls couldn't understand him, and most of the other passengers were otherwise occupied, which meant that a few minutes later Captain Roberts and I were sitting across a table from one another,mano a mano , preparing for a little contest of skill involving a small stack of colorful pasteboards.

The Good Lord must have had His attention diverted elsewhere—probably He was making sure that the belly dancer got tan everywhere she wanted to, for which I couldn't blame Him none—because He wasn't breathing hard over my shoulder. I lost almost three thousand pounds, the only saving grace being that the money itself probably wasn't worth a whole lot more than the cards. Captain Roberts didn't seem to notice the difference in the notes, though, or else he may have decided that it was simply a normal variation, because he pocketed the money and announced to passengers and crew alike that he was now at peace with the world and would be breaking out a case of his second-finest drinking stuff for dinner at no extra cost, or at most a very nominal one. I think it would be a fair assessment to say that we all enjoyed the evening meal. Everyone partook heavily of the captain's liquor, it being the only alternative to eating still more tuna. After the last bottle was drained, and the belly dancer had gone off with the actor, and the three German girls were getting kind of chummy with the crew, and the writer and the Korean dermatologist were coming close to blows about whether the world was flat or merely slanted, those of us who remained finally bade each other a fond goodnight and went off to our various cabins.

I woke up with a start a couple of hours later when I heard a scream and a splash in quick succession. It took me just a minute to climb into my duds and get out on deck, where I found a couple of the English crewmen looking over the side of the boat.

“Good evening, brothers,” I said. “Either of you two hear something sort of unusual in the last couple of minutes?”

“Can't say as to how we have, sir,” said one of them.

"Help!” cried a voice that seemed to be coming from a considerable distance away.

“There it is again!” I said. “Yousure you don't hear something strange?”

“That's just Captain Roberts hollering for help, sir,” said the second crewman soothingly. “Nothing peculiar about that at all, seeing as how we dumped him overboard and left him in our wake.”

“Do you fellows have any special reason for what, on the surface of it, seems an act sadly lacking in Christian charity?” I asked them.

“Reason enough!” snapped the first crewman. “We all got together for a little game of cards after the party broke up, and he wound up the big loser.”

“So?” I asked.

“The blighter paid us off with bogus money!” said the crewman.

“No!” I exclaimed. “And he seemed like such a nice, friendly fellow when I played with him this afternoon.”

“Did you win or lose, sir?”

“Oh, I won a couple of thousand pounds,” I said, pulling out the last of Von Horst's money and handing it over to them. “Is it any good?”

“Maybe for lighting cigars with,” said one of them disgustedly. “Certainly not for spending. I'm sorry to be the one to tell you, sir.”

“Dangblast it!” I swore bitterly. “And he appeared to be such a decent, Christian sort of man, if you know what I mean. Seems a shame to drown him.”

“Oh, he isn't going to drown, sir,” said one of the crewmen.

“He ain't?” I said, startled. “Why the hell not?”

“We tossed him a couple of life preservers, and we're only a mile off the coast. He'll make it ashore, all right.”

“But he definitely won't be coming back aboard ship?” I asked.

“No, sir.”

“Serves you right, you scoundrel!” I cried, shaking my fist over the side of the ship. “That'll teach you to cheat a man of God!”

“Being as how you're a man of God and all, sir,” said one of the crewmen, “I wonder if you could help us with a slight moral dilemma in which we find ourselves.”

“Certainly, my good man,” I said. “What seems to be the problem?”

“While we don't feel particularly mutinous,” he began, “what we donecould be misconstrued as mutiny by certain admiralty courts and various other powers of the high seas.”

“And you'd like me to testify on your behalf, is that it?” I asked.

“Oh, no, sir,” said the other. “We wouldn't dream of imposing upon you like that.”

“What exactly do you want me to do, then?” I asked.

“Well, sir,” said the first crewman, “it would go very hard with us, very hard indeed, sir, if it looked like we tossed old Captain Roberts overboard so that we could wrest control of the ship from him, to seize power as it were.”

“Yeah, I can see where that might put a little crimp or two in your defense,” I agreed.

“So we was wondering, sir, if you'd be good enough to take over as captain until we get to the Cape?”

“Me?” I exclaimed.

“Not to worry, sir,” he said. “We'll run the ship for you, and do the navigation, and feed the customers (provided they like tuna) and keep the decks scrubbed down, and make sure everything is ship-shape. But what with you being a man of God and all, it won't go so hard on us when Captain Roberts finally reaches civilization and institutes legal action against us.”

“Which he may never do,” added the other. “It being such a dark and moonless night, he could hardly be sure who it was that pushed him overboard. Or he could die of pneumonia, or of being et by sharks, or any one of a number of similar tragedies could befall him, sir.”

“Sad,” agreed the first crewman, nodding his head.

“Indeed,” said the second.

“I'll do it!” I said at last. “After all, while I been captain of my own soul on its long and heartrending journey through life, I ain't never been captain of a ship before. I might just learn something.”

“Also,” noted the first crewman, “the captain gets to eat steak.”

“That little fact ain't exactly escaped my attention,” I said with a smile. “Well, as long as I got you two to thank, I guess you'll be serving as my executive officers. What are your names?”

“Call me Ishmael,” said the first. “Ishmael Bledsoe.”

“And I'm Luthor Christian.” replied the second.

“Fine,” I said. “And you can call me Captain Jones.”

“We'll be happy to, Captain Jones, sir,” said Ishmael. “But there may be some amongst our crew—the rowdier elements, you understand—who may not be so inclined.”

“We'll incline ’em against the mainmast for a few days,” I said. “That ought to assuage their doubts.”

“I regret to point out that we don't have a mainmast, Captain Jones,” said Luthor apologetically.

“Some of them,” continued lshmael, “might even wonder what right we had to throw Captain Roberts overboard, them not being acquainted with the concept of personal honor and paying one's debts with legal tender and other such rarefied philosophic points.”

“No problem at all,” I said after a moment's thought. “Mr. Christian?”

“Yes, sir?”

“Give the signal to abandon ship,” I said.

“You're the captain,” he shrugged, and went off to the bridge. A moment later a loud, raucous siren had awakened everyone on board.

“Why don't you go make sure everyone has a life preserver?” I suggested to Ishmael. “And, in keeping with our personal code of honor, we three will go down with the ship.”

He started passing out a batch of little white inner tubes, and within ten minutes everyone except Ishmael, Luthor, and me was in the water.

I picked up a megaphone and held it just in front of my lips.

“Good evening!” I called out. “This is your new captain, Lucifer Jones, speaking. I just want you all to know that this has been one of the better abandon-ship drills that it has ever been my privilege to witness.”

I waited for the screams of outrage to die down a little, and then continued.

“I am afraid that poor Captain Roberts found it necessary to abrogate his command. His last wish was that I take over and make sure thatThe Dying Quail completed its voyage in perfect safety. He felt that, as a man of God, I was unquestionably the best qualified among all of us to deal with such problems as might arise. Those of you who share his opinion will be allowed back on board; the rest of you are advised not to splash too violently, as that constitutes just the kind of motion that attracts sharks.”

A couple of sharks providentially appeared just then, and within less than three minutes everyone was back on board and I was unanimously acknowledged as the one and only lawful captain, by grace of God and His denizens of the deep.

Well, things went pretty smoothly for the next couple of days, much to my surprise. Nobody seemed to care who was captain as long as they all got to where they were going, and when they heard about how Captain Roberts had reneged on his debts of honor, they actually gave Ishmael and Luthor a standing ovation.

We passed Nigeria and Cameroon without any untoward incidents. Then one morning I strolled out on deck at about noon, having arisen early, and got the shock of my life. Usually we traveled about a mile off the coast to avoid reefs and other menaces to navigation, but now there was a forest about sixty yards off to the left—and as if that weren't enough, there was another one half a mile away on the right.

“Mr. Christian!” I bellowed.

“Sir?” said Luthor, arriving a few seconds later.

“Mr. Christian,” I said, “unless the ocean has gotten an awful lot narrower or the ship has gotten an awful lot wider, I am forced to the conclusion that we are no longer on course.”

“You noticed, sir,” said Luthor noncommittally.

“Of course I noticed!” I yelled. “Little things like losing the Atlantic Ocean don't easily escape my attention. Now where the hell are we?”

“I should have thought that would be obvious, Captain Jones,” replied Luthor. “We're on the Congo River.”

“What the hell are we doing here?” I persisted.

“Some of our crew members threatened to go on a sit-down strike if they had to keep eating tuna,” said Luthor. “Mostly the Slavs, sir; very few of the blueblooded Englishmen.”

“Is that all?” I said, relieved. “Just flog ’em and let's get back on course.”

“My very thought,” said Luthor. “But we do have one little problem, sir.”

“Don't worry about legalities, my good man,” I said. “A captain's word is law onboard ship.”

“That goes without saying,” agreed Luthor.

“Oh? Then what's the problem?” I asked him.

“There are a lot more of them than there are of us, and they're bigger.”

“Yeah, I can see where that does pose a bit of a problem,” I agreed.

“Also, no one who's been eating the tuna right along is in any condition for so strenuous an activity as flogging people, even if the crewmen would stand still for it.”

“That being the case, Mr. Christian,” I said, “it is my firm conclusion that we should seek out a river and put the ship into it.”

“We've done that, sir,” he said.

“Good!” I said. “Next, equip a party of Slavic crewmen and send them out to hunt up some meat.”

“They're doing that right now, sir,” he said.

I couldn't think of any more executive orders, so I dismissed him and took a couple of minutes to examine our surroundings. We had veered a bit closer to the shore, and I could see that it was all covered by trees and vines. It looked hot and full of bugs, and I sure didn't envy the poor men who had to go hunting in there. Everything looked green and damp, which kind of matched the color and texture of the hundred or so crocodiles that were milling around casting hungry glances up toward the boat. Every now and then they'd swim a little too close to a hippo, which sort of reminded me of the Dutchman except that it didn't wear a soiled white suit, and the hippo would just bite one of the crocs in half. It didn't seem to bother the crocodile's friends and relations none, but I noticed that whenever this happened they all kind of moved downstream a little.

Anyway, I got a little tired of looking at all these reptiles and river horses after a while, so I took out Captain Roberts's fishing rod and decided to bag a couple of trout or whatever, but all I kept hooking was crocodiles, so I finally gave it up and went back to my cabin to wait for the hunting party to return, which they did toward late afternoon, and on the run.

I burst out of my door as soon as I heard the rifle shots. Ten crew members were racing forThe Dying Quail as fast as their lifeboat could go, and behind them, in hot pursuit, were half a dozen war canoes filled with black savages who were waving spears and shooting arrows in their wake. Ishmael raced to the bridge and saluted.

“What do you want us to do, Captain Jones, sir?” he said.

“I haven't made up my mind yet,” I said, squinting at the lifeboat. “Can you see if they actually caught any meat?”

“Too hard to tell from here,” said Ishmael.

“Well, I suppose it's our duty to protect ’em,” I said. “Fire a broadside at the canoes.”

“I'm afraid that's quite impossible, sir,” said Ishmael.

“What the hell's the good of being captain if I can't fire a broadside into an enemy every now and then as the mood takes me?” I said, ducking as a couple of arrows flew overhead.

“First of all, we're facing the wrong way to fire a broadside,” said Ishmael.

“Then turn us around!” I commanded.

“And second of all,” he continued, unperturbed, “we don't have any weapons.”

“Why the hell not?” I demanded.

“This is a passenger ship, not a destroyer,” he replied, ducking another arrow. “There were only four rifles on board, and all of them are with the hunting party.”

“Well, just whathave we got?” I asked, sidestepping a colorful spear that just missed beheading me.

“There's a rather wicked-looking butcher's knife in the kitchen,” he suggested. “And I've heard the actor bragging about his skill at fisticuffs.”

“And that's our total offensive and defensive weaponry?” I asked. He nodded.

“Then wait until our party is back on the ship and let's get make tracks out of here,” I said. The hunting party was on deck within thirty seconds, and Ishmael gave the order to turn the ship 180

degrees and then proceed at full speed. The natives increased the intensity of their attack, and began making very rude sounds when they saw we were hightailing it for the open sea.

“Shoal ahead, sir!” cried Luthor.

Ishmael stood at the wheel, which had about a dozen arrows embedded in it, and steered.

“Shoal to starborad, sir!” cried Luthor.

Ishmael ducked a spear and two more arrows and kept steering. Suddenly there was a terrible crunching sound.

“Shoal beneath, sir!” said Luthor.

“I don't suppose we're prepared to repel boarders?” I asked as Ishmael tried to steer the ship and found out that the wheel wouldn't move.

“We're mostly a pleasure ship, sir,” he said sadly.

“Maybe if we threw some beads at them, or offered them the belly dancer...”

“Millions for defense, but not one cent for tribute!” I bellowed, mostly because beads hadn't accomplished all that much good with the last few tribes I had encountered, and I had other plans in mind for the belly dancer.

“Oh, very well said, sir!” cried Ishmael. “Words to die for!”

“Who said anything about dying?” I replied. “Have we at least got a flare gun aboard, so we can see them better?”

He walked to a nearby cabinet and pulled one out. I took it from him and fired it, illuminating the sky with red-gold streaks of light. Suddenly all the savages started screaming in terror, and a minute later they were prostrating themselves in their boats, a difficult feat of balance even if there hadn't been a couple hundred crocodiles in the water.

“I think the flares have convinced them we're some kind of gods, sir,” said Ishmael.

“We?” I repeated. “I don't recollect anyone else firing the flares.”

“I think the flares have convinced them that you're some kind of god, sir,” amended Ishmael.

“I think you may have something there,” I said. “Why don't you and Luthor figure out how to get us off this damned shoal while they're busy worshiping me?”

He and Luthor hopped to it, and after about an hour of rocking and lurching, I heard another crunch and suddenly we were moving through the water again. The cheer let out by the crew and passengers was drowned out by the cheer from the savages, who began paddling along in our wake. They were still following us when we hit the ocean and turned left. From time to time one of them would spear a fish and throw it onto our deck as a small tribute, but for the most part they were content to worship me from afar.

The hunting party hadn't managed to bring back any fresh meat. In fact, their first shot had winged one of the natives and precipitated the whole affair of the previous evening. It didn't matter much anyhow; they were so bitten up by bugs that they probably wouldn't have had much stomach for good red meat any time before we hit the Cape.

I posted a new Ship's Regulation to the effect that sunbathing was now allowed only on the captain's private deck. Unfortunately, the belly dancer decided that she was tan enough, and I kept stumbling over the two East Indians every time I went into and out of my cabin until I rescinded the order a couple of days later.

We had no more serious problems until we were almost south of Portuguese West Africa, at which point our Korean dermatologist borrowed one of the rifles, lashed himself to the wheel, and explained that while he had nothing against us personally, we nonetheless had to turn the ship around before we sailed over the edge of the world.

I signaled Luthor and Ishmael to leave me alone on the bridge with him, and the two of us got to talking about one thing and another, and had a friendly little drink to pass the time of day, and I finally convinced him that the edge of the world was somewhere around Brussels, and actually we were going uphill and toward safety. He was one very happy Korean for the rest of the trip, and hardly bothered anyone at all, except for our drunken writer, who was convinced that the edge of the world was more in the neighborhood of Lincoln, Nebraska.

One day, when we had gotten to within a couple of hundred miles of the Cape, the savages who were still behind us and still tossing us an occasional fish or eel began screaming at the tops of their lungs.

“What's the problem now?” I said, coming out of my cabin, where I had been thinking of ways to convince the belly dancer that her tan was fading.

“Whales off the starboard bow, sir,” said Luthor.

I looked, and sure enough, there were about twenty of the beasts making toward the ship, flopping and splashing and spraying up huge geysers of water from the tops of their noses, and otherwise looking very ominous.

“Does this kind of thing happen very often, Mr. Christian?” I asked him, looking about for the nearest life preserver.

“Well, that all depends, Captain Jones, sir,” he said.

“On what?” I asked.

“On whether we're in port or not, sir,” he replied.

“We're on the high seas!” I pointed out to him.

“Well, that does make it more likely, sir,” he agreed.

“What do you do when they attack the ship?” I asked.

“Personally, I close my eyes very tightly and pray that they'll go away,” said Luthor with obvious sincerity.

“I suppose rifle bullets would just enrage them?” I asked.

“I really have no idea,” said Luthor. “You can certainly try rifle bullets if you wish. Personally, I think I'm going to go below and grab a little nap.” He raced off before I could order him to remain on duty. The whales got to within two hundred yards, and our faithful natives suddenly unconverted and headed back toward the mouth of the Congo River, some two thousand miles north of us. The whales ignored them and drew even closer.

“They look hungry,” said Ishmael, who had suddenly appeared at my side.

“You ever seen a whale that didn't?” I asked out of curiosity.

“Once,” he admitted. “Of course, it was dead.”

“Of course,” I said. One of the whales got to within about twenty yards and I threw a sextant at it. It bounced off its nose without causing any injury that I could see.

“Do whales eat people?” I asked.

“I imagine whales eat pretty much what they want to,” said Ishmael, drawing closer as if for comfort.

“I mean, maybe they'll go away and leave us alone,” I said hopefully.

“Maybe,” he said doubtfully.

“And maybe,” I said, struck by a sudden flash of inspiration, “they're just here to beg at the table.”

“What are you talking about, Captain Jones?” said Ishmael.

“Go down to the kitchen and bring up some of our tuna,” I said urgently. “Maybe if we give ’em some scraps they'll leave us alone.”

He shrugged, raced down to the kitchen, and came up with a couple of kegs of tuna, one under each arm. We waited until two of the whales were so close we could have reached out and touched them, then threw the tuna into their gaping mouths.

Then we stood back to see if we had guessed right—and the strangest thing happened. Their eyes went wide and began watering, one of them started coughing and heaving, and the other just rolled right on its back, belly-up, which certainly agreed with my own assessment of the tuna in the first place. The other whales took one look at their companions, then left as soon as Ishmael got some more tuna and began throwing it at them.

Not too much happened after that, at least so far as whales and savages were concerned. Ishmael told me that the Slavs were getting ready to take over the ship if we didn't start feeding them meat, but I figured that we were only a few days out of port and there wasn't much sense stopping to find a source of meat this close to the end of our little voyage.

Then, when we were just one day out of Cape Horn, the belly dancer approached me and asked if, in my dual capacity as captain ofThe Dying Quail and a man of the cloth, I could perform marriages onboard the ship.

There was a little confusion just then, since I began explaining that I could consummate marriages with the best of them, but we finally got things straightened out, and that evening after dinner I pronounced her and the actor man and wife, the sentences to run concurrently.

“That was very well done, sir,” said Luthor, stopping by my table after the ceremony.

“Oh, indeed it was, sir,” agreed Ishmael, joining him.

“Well, thank you very much, brothers,” I said. “Always happy to oblige young love in bloom.”

“We were rather hoping you'd feel that way about it, sir,” said Luthor.

“I'm not sure I follow you,” I said.

“You may not have noticed it, sir,” said Ishmael, “but young love has been blooming all over the whole ruddy boat.”

“Another marriage?” I said. “Bring ’em up here in front of me and I'll have ’em hitched in no time.”

“Well, this one is a bit irregular,” said Ishmael, leaning over and whispering in my ear. I agreed as how it was a mite out of the ordinary, but once we got to haggling in earnest I found that fifty pounds was more than enough to assuage my conscience and eliminate any hint of irregularity, and an hour after the first ceremony, I married the three German girls to Ishmael, Luthor, and three of their shipmates.

The man on watch called out that Cape Horn was within sight, and yet another couple decided that if they were ever going to get married, they would probably find less social opposition here than elsewhere. Fifty more pounds changed hands, and a few moments later I joined Kim Li Sang, the Korean dermatologist, to Eduardo Duarte, the Paraguayan writer.

I made sure that there were no more weddings in the near offing, then called Ishmael and Luthor up from their rather crowded bridal bower. Luthor had a black eye, and Ishmael was missing a tooth.

“What the hell happened?” I asked.

“We had our first lovers’ tiff,” said Ishmael, spitting a little blood over the railing.

“You ought to see the other six!” added Luthor.

“Later, perhaps,” I said. “I've called you here for something a little more important.”

“And what might that be, sir?” asked Luthor.

“Do the Slavs still want to take over the ship?”

“Indeed they do, sir,” said Ishmael.

“Good,” I said. “Why don't you give me just enough time to move my gear out of Captain Roberts's quarters, and then tell them the ship is all theirs.”

When the ship docked the next morning, there was a welcoming committee waiting for us, led by Captain Roberts himself. Evidently he had been fished out of the ocean by a passing cargo ship, which, not bothering to explore the Congo River and its environs, had beaten us to the Cape by almost a full day. The Slavs, who by this time had moved lock, stock, and barrel into the captain's quarters, were jailed as mutineers pending the outcome of an admiralty inquiry, while Ishmael Bledsoe and Luthor Christian were given citations of commendation for gettingThe Dying Quail into port only a day late, and were exonerated of all wrongdoing not directly connected with their wedding. The last I saw of them, they were sneaking off to parts unknown with the rest of their newly-made little family just as a Slavic translator arrived on the scene.

As for me, I had one hundred crisp British pounds in my pocket, and having had my fill of the sea, I set off once again in search of the fortune that would finally result in the building of the Tabernacle of Saint Luke.