drink. Always time for another one.
We were well settled in when a man descended the short flight of steps to the cabin. None of us heard him enter. Case started up in surprise. He did not look pleased to see the newcomer.
‘Mr Tallman,’ he said. ‘What are you doing here?’
‘I do not know that it is your business, Dr Case, but your brother wanted to consult me about the voyage.’
‘Well, it is I who have chartered the ship,’ said the physician. ‘He should have told me first.’
The other shrugged. He fitted his name, if I’d heard it right (by this point my senses were none too sharp). Tallman was a tall man, and a dry, austere-looking one. His black garb might have enabled him to pass for a puritan in a poor light, except that his fingers glittered with rings and the shoes on his feet were ornamented with fine silver buckles. He had not acknowledged Jack or me, by the by.
‘You can see that Colin is not here. You must go and find him elsewhere.’
The stranger turned about without a word and went up the steps as silently as he’d come. Jack said, ‘He is a navigator, a pilot?’
‘No, no, Henry Tallman is…’
But whatever Tallman was exactly we were not to find out. Instead, Case let the sentence drift away and launched into a disquisition on sailors and their strange beliefs.
At one point I got up to go outside. Unsteady on my feet, I had to cling on to the edge of the table. I stumbled up the steps, across the deck and, since the bulwarks which prevented the mariners falling off the boat were quite low, urinated with ease over the side of the boat, managing the considerable feat of not tumbling into the river. The night was still and cold. Down the front end of the craft the embers in the brazier had almost died out and there was no sound of voices. My unease at being on board a boat had gone. But then rather than going anywhere we were moored tight against the bank. I wondered what had happened to Case’s brother and his cousin, the silent Thomasina. Then I returned to the cabin and accepted Dr Case’s offer of another glass. And another. He was a generous host, dispensing several glasses for every one he consumed himself.
I’m not sure how the rest of the evening went. Knowing that the bridge gatehouses would by now be shut, Jack and I must have accepted Case’s offer of accommodation for the night, or perhaps we simply slipped into a deep, fume-filled sleep without any offer being made. Either way, we did not leave the Argo that night.
I’ve got only a couple of other memories. One was of being half hoisted, half propped up, before being escorted down into a place that was dark and dank. The other memory was earlier, even though I was still far gone, with eyelids drooping while the candles in the great cabin guttered. The physician’s cousin Thomasina finally returned — where had she been all this time? — and the middle-aged man and the young woman embraced in a close manner that, if I’d been in my right mind, I would have said was very un-cousin-like.
All of this, the extended story of the previous evening beginning in Middle Temple with Twelfth Night and ending in a stupefied state on board the Argo, unfolded behind my tightly closed eyes in much less time than it takes to tell it here. Nevertheless, even in my mind I stretched the story out longer for fear of opening those eyes a second time and discovering what I already knew.
I had to open them eventually. To glimpse a dark, cluttered space rather than the relatively comfortable cabin where Jack and I had drunk ourselves stupid. To realize that the fumy odours I was smelling emanated not just from my brain but from stacked and roped barrels. To understand that I was lying on a heap of sails or tarpaulins. To recall, when I made a slight movement, the injury I’d foolishly incurred on the Middle Temple stage. To realize that the snoring I’d heard was not my own but that of my friend and fellow, Jack Wilson.
It was some consolation not to be alone. And to hear his voice.
‘Nick? You are awake?’
‘Yes. In God’s name, what’s happening?’
‘What’s happened, more like. We drank deep last night on the Argo. So deep I fear we never left the vessel.’
‘But the vessel has left… with us on board.’
With one accord, both of us staggered off our makeshift beds. There was a conveniently placed ladder and a hatch, which yielded to our urgent shoving. In seconds Jack and I were out on deck, swaying on our feet, dazzled by the sunlight off the water, almost overwhelmed by the buffeting air.
I suppose I’d imagined that, although we’d slipped our mooring by London Bridge, we couldn’t have gone very far. That I’d look about and see the smoke of the city chimneys and the Tower of London standing proud above a huddle of dwellings. But none of this was visible. Instead, the river stretched out on either side, broader than I’ve ever seen it. Where there was land, it had the look of marsh, although in the hazy distance I discerned low hills.
Jack seized my arm. ‘Have we been captured by pirates?’
‘If we have, they’ll get no ransom for a couple of players. In fact, I can think of one or two people who might pay for us not to be returned.’
I tried to speak lightly but, in truth, I was hardly able to grasp the reality of where we were. It was the first time I’d seen the boat, the Argo, by daylight.
It might have looked large in the dark and when attached to dry land but, out in the open water, its dimensions seemed to have shrunk. Jack Wilson and I were standing on a relatively uncluttered area of deck. To our backs was the entrance to the great cabin where we’d got so disgracefully drunk last night. The cabin was part of a larger structure at the back end — or rather to the aft — of the boat. This was balanced by another structure at the front end. Overhead, the sails clattered and banged in the tearing breeze, while the three masts supporting them groaned in their housing. The boat progressed through the water, not smoothly but as if it were hammering out its path like a smith beating out a piece of iron. From the position of the sun in the sky it was still quite early in the day.
A lad passed us and I grabbed him by the elbow and demanded to know where we were. He looked about in confusion as if the question was meaningless.
‘On the river,’ he said eventually.
‘Where are we going?’
‘France.’
He shook himself free of my grip and went off about his business.
There were a couple of older sailors only a few yards away, half hanging over the side while they fiddled with some ropes attached to the largest of the sails on the centre mast. They took no notice of us, may not even have been aware that we were there, but their posture put an idea into my head, unfortunately. I rushed to the opposite side and, clutching on to the bulwark, cast the contents of my stomach on to the waters. Angled into the wind, I only narrowly avoided receiving them back in my face. I hung there, chest heaving, eyes streaming, clinging on for dear life, terrified of the racing waters down below.
When I turned back, it was to see a half-familiar face. There was a hint of pleasure on it, pleasure at my discomfort, that is. I recognized Colin Case, brother to the doctor and captain of the Argo.
‘Even the most lubberly fellows can usually hold off until the open sea,’ he said.
‘You must put in to land at once,’ I said, aware that I was not cutting a dignified figure.
‘Why?’
‘To let us off,’ said Jack Wilson. ‘We are from the King’s Men and have work to do in London.’
‘And who will pay me for the lost time? We have a favouring wind and we are running with the tide. No, we are not going to “put in” for the King’s Men or anyone else’s men.’
‘I shall speak to your brother,’ I said. ‘He has chartered this boat.’
‘Please yourself,’ said the shipmaster, jerking his thumb in the direction of the aft cabin before tugging his hat over his ears and turning his attention to the sailors still struggling with the rope.
‘Wait a moment, Nick,’ said Jack. ‘Don’t go storming in there. Think a moment. There is something very odd about where we find ourselves.’
‘How so? I’m going to give Dr Case a piece of my mind. He is responsible for… for luring us on board and plying us with drink until we were incapable of movement.’
‘Luring us? We had no responsibility at all for our plight, I suppose. But you are right even so, Nick. It is as if Dr Case deliberately set out to get us to accompany him back to this boat and then to cause us to stay on board after hours.’
