Casca 17: The Warrior Read online

  Casca swam around for a while in the warm water, enjoying himself immensely. Had he known seagoing was so much fun, he would have taken to it much earlier in his long life.

  Sandy dressed up as a girl, in a series of outfits borrowed from the ship's cargo. First he appeared in an elegant crinoline, then in a skirt made of sailcloth, a striped sailor's jersey stuffed with two potatoes, and a wig made from teased-out threads of rope. Chou Lui produced a box of Chinese paint colors and rouged his cheeks, blackened his eyelashes, painted shadows around his eyes, reddened his lips. With his small frame he looked and acted a very pretty little slut, playing the part thoroughly, dancing and flirting outrageously with all the crew, stripping lasciviously to a corset.

  Rangaroa flopped around on the flat sea for several more days, the sails hanging useless from the gaffs, the helmsmen striving hour after hour to maneuver the ship to catch the breath of any vagrant breeze. The whole crew, including Chou Lui, and even Casca, took turns at the helm.

  At noon each day Larsen took a sextant shot, calculated the ship's position and recorded it on the chart and in the log. Some days they made as little as ten miles, and these miles were hard won, each helmsman in turn coaxing every possible mile from the almost non-existent wind, trying to inch the ship toward where they might pick up the southeast trades.

  One night when Casca was at the helm he allowed his attention to wander. The sails fell slack as the wind shifted slightly. Casca didn't notice and failed to adjust the heading, and the sails flapped across to the other tack.

  Several seamen were on deck and they sprang to the ropes, but there was not enough wind to move the yards and they could not bring the ship back on to course. Weston motioned to Casca to put the helm over, and they swung a great arc all the way around the compass to regain their course.

  When Larsen did his noon sight they had last three miles for the day. Casca was profoundly depressed, but all the others, even Ulf, made light of it.

  "It don't really make no blamed difference," he said, "we'll make up three miles in twenty minutes when we get a good blow."

  Maybe, Casca thought, but I've still cost the ship a whole day's work.

  The next night during Weston's watch, Casca tried another trick at the helm. This time he was determined at all costs to ensure that the ship would gain some miles, and certainly not lose any.

  He kept his attention concentrated entirely on the sails, striving every moment to lay the ship into the path of even the faintest breeze, struggling to keep the canvas tilled with the very light air.

  He was vaguely aware of the movements of the sailors on the foredeck. The able seamen had been sent below to repair sail, since they were not needed on deck, and the mate and Sandy were forward of the fore cabin skylight, out of Casca's view.

  Faint sounds from this direction obtruded into Casca's awareness and he resolutely shut them out as he listened for the faint flutter of the sail that would warn him of the danger of the canvas being backwinded, repeating his error of the previous night.

  Gradually he became aware that the sounds from the foredeck were like those of a scuffle, and he called out, "You guys all right there?"

  There was no answer, and the scuffling sounds increased. He thought he heard Sandy's muffled voice. "Sandy?" he called.

  "Mind your own fuckin' business," Weston's voice came back to him, and again some faint undistinguishable noises from Sandy.

  "What's going on?" Casca demanded.

  There was no reply, but the sounds were now unmistakable. Weston and Sandy were wrestling on the deck.

  For just a moment Casca hesitated. Perhaps it was none of his business. He knew that if he left the helm for a second, the ship could lose again every mile that the crew had sweated for in the past twenty-four hours. On the other hand Sandy was a friend and the sounds were disturbing.

  He hesitated for one more instant, thinking, if nothing is really amiss how the hell will I explain the fuck-up to the crew? Then there was a muffled yelp of pain from Sandy and he dropped the helm and ran forward.

  Just beyond the skylight Weston had Sandy pinned face down on the deck, one hand clamping a length of hemp into his mouth, the other hand tugging down the boy's pants. Weston's pants were already down around his ankles, his legs a mass of thick, black hair.

  Casca yelled as he ran toward the struggling pair.

  "Fuck off, passenger," Weston grunted, and tried once more to force his entry into Sandy's struggling body.

  With the skill learned in a thousand fights, and the strength of endless centuries of physical training and hard work, Casca chopped with the heel of his hand at the mate's thick, hairy neck.

  Weston's powerful body jerked spasmodically in momentary paralysis and he released his hold on the boy. Sandy wriggled away as Casca seized the mate's thick neck in one powerful hand and smashed his face into the deck. He was repeating the movement for the third or fourth time when he heard the flutter of the sails.

  Sandy was now on his feet, crying in rage, pain, and humiliation and tugging up his trousers. Casca drove the mate's nose once more into the deck and raced aft for the helm.

  Too late.

  The sails came across to the wrong side, and the Rangaroa was heading ninety degrees away from their desired course. Sandy ran to the foresail and handed it across the deck, tugging it through the resistance of the light breeze. But the four sails on the two masts remained obstinately back-winded.

  Casca cursed. Without more men to hand across the sails, it was hopeless to try to regain the tack. But to call the crew would expose Sandy's embarrassment, and Casca knew that the boy would rather go over the side.

  To put the helm over and make the necessary full circle of the compass would also alert everybody below decks, yet every second the ship was being carried farther from its course.

  Casca was saved any further thinking about the problem by the appearance before him of Weston with a belaying pin in his hand, and the heavy pin was moving fast for Casca's head.

  He threw himself across the deck, putting the helm hard over, dodging the heavy blow, to fall sprawling by the starboard rail. The burly mate was after him, the pin upraised for another blow.

  But the blow never came. With all the power of his massive legs, Casca came up from the deck in a great rush and met Weston halfway, one powerful hand grabbing Weston's wrist. There was a sharp crack, and a hideous scream from the mate as Casca's single-handed grip broke his wrist.

  Thoroughly enraged, Casca chopped again at Weston's neck, and the mate sagged unconscious to the deck as the alerted crew came running up the companionway.

  "Get away forward," he snapped, and Sandy ran for the flapping foresail.

  Ulf was the first man to reach the deck, and he ran for the helm. "Give it to me," he shouted, and Casca was happy to oblige.

  "Get 'em over boys," Ulf shouted to the crew, and they manhandled the sails across the decks, holding them against the breeze on the port tack while Ulf gently moved the tiller about, seeking that magic spot that would fill the canvas.

  The man had been born on a fishing smack in a storm in the middle of winter off the coast of Greenland—nothing special in the lives of his mother and father, who had both similarly been born aboard their parents' fishing boats. From arctic gale to tropic doldrum there was not a wind or a sea on the planet that Ulf didn't know and couldn't master.

  One degree at a time, one second of one degree at a time, he brought the reluctant ship about, coaxing it into the wind so that the light breeze bellied the sails.

  Larsen had arrived on deck with everybody else, but was forward with the rest of the crew, handling sail like an ordinary seaman while his second mate's skill saved the precious miles of the day's sailing.

  The sails filled, the topsails came across, and Rangaroa was again moving serenely into the wind.

  Larsen came aft to where Weston lay on the deck. He guessed easily enough what had happened, and asked no embarrassing questions, but gestured to t
wo seamen. "Get this garbage below," he snapped, and they lifted the mate and carried him down the companionway.

  A little later in the night Larsen spoke to Casca. "I've had a look at Weston's arm. What did you use on him?"

  Casca grunted. "Only my hands. His arm's broken, I suppose."

  "Like it was snapped in a vise."

  "Well, he asked for it."

  "I don't doubt it. The man's a pig. I'm ashamed I made the mistake of hiring him. But his arm's a rare mess. You don't know as much about fixing as you do about breaking by any chance?"

  "Yeah, as a matter of fact, I do."

  "Well, would you have a look at it? It's beyond me. I can hack off the whole mess, of course, but I'm reluctant to take a man's hand."

  "It might be a mistake not to with this one, but I'll look at it anyway. I can use the practice."

  He went to where Weston lay in agony in the first mate's small cabin. He was now rotten drunk with the rum Larsen had provided to ease his pain. But he recognized Casca and cringed away from him, then became quarrelsome when he realized that he was not going to be harmed.

  "Shut up or I'll snap the other one off too," Casca snarled, and the burly mate became once more a pathetic, moaning bundle of pain.

  Casca gathered some small pieces of wood and some bandages. Then he got two seamen to hoist the moaning mate into a sitting position and to hold him there.

  With one swift chop of his hand Casca rendered Weston unconscious. He grabbed his hand and deftly jerked it, to straighten as well as possible the mess of smashed bones, then splinted and wrapped it securely before consciousness returned to Weston.

  "Better than a bastard like you deserves," Larsen commented as he handed the rum bottle to the awakening man. "Thank the man for your hand, you bum, I'd have taken it off."

  Weston put on a disgusting performance of grabbing the bottle, gulping rum, dribbling, crying, cringing, slobbering thanks and apologies, before slumping once more into a drunken stupor.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Light winds stayed with them all the way to Tahiti, and Casca discovered another aspect of sailing in the tropics. Broiling sun burned down relentlessly out of a cloudless, bright-blue sky. The sea was a vast, flat, shimmering mirror of silver blue. The Rangaroa wallowed along, barely making steerage way, rolling and pitching until Casca's stomach shook and he felt queasy.

  The crew grew daily more restive and querulous. The ill-natured Weston had been dismissed from duty, and the captain now stood his watch. Weston spent most of the sweltering days below in his cabin, occasionally coming on deck in the middle of the night. He ate alone and didn't speak to anyone.

  One morning he was missing, and the shark's tooth hung on Sandy's chest. Larsen, who had kept the log blank, now brought it up to date, recording Weston as lost overboard and not mentioning anything of his offense or the fight with Casca.

  One soft, moonlit night the lookout cried, "Land ho," and everybody raced onto deck.

  Far off on the horizon a shapeless blur like a low cloud could be seen against the sky. Larsen nodded happily.

  "Yeah, looks like land, for sure. Just keep your heading and call me if it moves." He went back to his bunk.

  "If it moves?" Casca queried the helmsman.

  He grinned. "These are strange waters. Things are often not what they seem. Could be a cloud, could be nothing. Your eyes can play tricks on you in these latitudes."

  Casca stayed on deck, enthralled at the mystery of the distant island. And so it proved to be, growing larger and larger as the hours passed.

  But after a little Casca began to believe his eyes were indeed playing tricks on him. The island took on the shape of a voluptuous woman lying gracefully on her back, her legs spread, knees pointing to the sky.

  He shook his head, but the vision persisted.

  Liam was now at the helm and he grinned at Casca. "What do you see?"

  "Well, I suppose it is an island, but..."

  "A promising-looking island, wouldn't you say?"

  Casca laughed. "So, it looks the same to you? I'm glad to hear it. Thought maybe I was going crazy."

  "It's Hua Wahine," the Irishman said. "In the ugly language of the barbarians across the Irish sea, those lovely words translate into 'woman's cunt'."

  "Mmm," Casca mused, "I like Hua Wahine."

  Once ashore he like the island even better. It was an island that kept its promise. The women, wahines in the local language, were plump, with wide, long thighs and shapely, short lower legs; they had lustrous black hair that reached to their waists, large dark eyes, tiny, turned-up noses, wide mouths, prognathous chins.

  The French soldiers and civil servants who controlled the island considered them ugly. The French missionaries, who were kept busy destroying their temples and trying to persuade these women to cover their breasts, considered them to be hopelessly depraved.

  At first sight Casca was not sure whether he considered them beautiful or hideous. He quickly made up his mind and found them the most delightful women he had met in his life—lovely to look at, light-hearted, fun loving, playfully amorous.

  They were welcomed into a village of thatch-roofed bamboo huts built around a wide open space entirely shaded by a single great teak tree.

  There was a great chief's house—one enormous, open room without walls. The floor was of millions of tiny white beach pebbles, and the columns that held up the great thatched roof were whole trees stripped of their bark and elaborately carved and painted. Other trees, similarly decorated, formed the roof trusses that spanned an open space as wide as a European cathedral.

  At one corner of the village there was a roofless stone temple containing a number of gigantic gods carved of stone, the biggest sculptures Casca had ever seen. But nowhere near the village, nor anywhere else that he traveled about the island, did Casca see such stones, or even stones of the size used for the temple walls. It was clear that it would take many men to lift even the smallest of these. The huge stone gods could not possibly have been moved without either horses or elephants.

  Or, perhaps, steam engines. But neither horses nor elephants, nor engines of any kind had ever been seen on the island.

  "Their ancestors built the temples," Larsen told him in reply to his questions.

  "But how?"

  "There is no explanation," Larsen replied. "Take my word for it. In a lifetime of questions and investigation you will get no closer to the secret. There is simply no explanation."

  Casca shrugged. One more unexplainable mystery meant nothing to him. He went back to enjoying the local women, the fruits that fell ripe from breadfruit and mango and papaya and coconut trees, and the fish and crabs and lobster and turtles that the ocean provided in return for only the slightest effort.

  He spent each of their three nights ashore with a different young girl. He would have been content with the first one, or the second, but it seemed that the girls themselves preferred to rotate amongst the crew.

  When they talked enthusiastically of the children that they might procreate, he found it necessary to lie to them —recalling that afternoon when, startled by the voice from the cross, he had wiped his hand across his face. A few drops of the tortured preacher's blood had run down the haft of his spear and onto his hand, and when they touched his lips his body was seized in convulsions that threw him to the ground at the foot of the cross. From that day his own blood had been poisonous, his sperm lifeless.

  He had never sired a child and knew that he never would, but he promised each girl a beautiful blue-eyed babe, and wished in his heart that it could be true.

  As the Rangaroa prepared to sail, Casca and the whole crew were unhappy to be leaving this land where music and love and laughter never stopped, but they reassured each other that they would be just as pleasantly welcomed in Fiji.

  "But surely the Fijians are cannibals?" he said.

  "That they are," was the reply, "and the hungriest, if not quite the fiercest, cannibals in the whole Pacific—and the fri
endliest, funniest bunch of fuckers on the face of the earth."

  "Eating people isn't funny," Casca said.

  "Ah," sandy answered, "for the Fijians everything is funny, even hurricanes and earthquakes. And a dead man is only a piece of meat when all is said and done, and if he ain't eaten, he'll only go rotten. There's no other meat in these parts, do you see?"

  "Then why aren't the Tahitians cannibals?" he asked. Everybody on deck laughed.

  "But of course they are," Liam told him. "You don't see it every day, and no more you will in Fiji, but all the people of the Pacific eat people."

  Casca thought of the three lovely, soft, feminine bodies that he'd held in his arms, of their gentle nature, sweet smiles, and affectionate lovemaking. It was hard to believe that these delightful creatures were greedy, bloodthirsty cannibals. He privately decided that the crew was joshing him, that it couldn't be so.

  "We're going to be in Fiji for weeks," Liam said, "so you'll be sure to see some cannibal feasts."

  Ulf broke out laughing, an event so rare that everybody looked at him.

  "You might see it sooner," he spluttered through his laughter, "lookee, here comes the new hand."

  Larsen was still ashore, seeking to hire a man to make up the crew shortage, and now he was approaching the ship, accompanied by a huge black man carrying a great, carved chest on one shoulder. Larsen was a big man, but his companion was much bigger.

  Casca had never seen a man like him. His great mop of jet-black hair was like that of some Africans, but thicker, longer, and stronger. The face had high-set cheekbones, a finely chiseled nose and chin, a wide, generously lipped mouth, and eyes set wide apart in deep sockets. Features almost like a black European, Casca thought.