Read Online English passengers by Matthew Kneale - Free Book Online

‘‘Why don’t we offer up the
Sincerity
for charter? Say we’ll take a few passengers away off to some faraway spot of nowhere, wherever they’d like to go. That’d get us the jink to pay the fine.’’
    ‘‘Charter?’’ I knew we were desperate, but still. There’s ships that are for taking passengers and ships that aren’t, and I knew which particular kind was the
Sincerity.
    ‘‘We wouldn’t actually need to take them anywhere,’’ Brew continued, sticking to his thought. ‘‘Once we’re free from here and have some money for the cargo we can make up some story why we can’t go after all, and give them back their pennies from our jink.’’
    It was tempting just to say no, and put a hole in his cleverness. The truth was, though, that it wasn’t such a bad idea.
The Reverend Geoffrey Wilson
J ULY 1857

    T HE FIRST SIGN that anything might be amiss was the large cart that drew outside my sister-in-law’s house, its burden concealed beneath a thick tarpaulin. I was busily engaged upon my correspondence and tooklittle notice at first, assuming it must concern one of the neighbours, but then the housemaid called me.
    ‘‘There’s somebody asking for you, Mr. Wilson.’’
    Waiting outside the door was the cart’s driver: one of those dour London types who seem to be forever at work with their mouths, whether it be chewing, spitting, smoking a pipe or all three at once. ‘‘So where’s it to go?’’ he asked, pointing to the cart.
    I was pondering a suitably discouraging reply when his assistant pulled away the tarpaulin and revealed, neatly stacked, every one of our stores for the expedition. ‘‘But this is quite wrong,’’ I told him sharply. ‘‘These belong aboard the
Caroline.
’’
    The driver was still fumbling for documents when I saw Jonah Childs drive up in his carriage. As he clambered out, I saw the dejected look upon his face, and all was soon painfully clear. ‘‘I only heard myself this morning,’’ he explained. ‘‘The Admiralty are sending her with munitions to Bombay.’’
    We had no ship! As if this were not already disaster enough, he then shocked me with more bad news.
    ‘‘Major Stanford has also been taken from us, I’m afraid. His regiment is sailing for Calcutta within the week.’’
    Only two days more and we would have been already at sea, safe from any such misfortune. I felt the greatest sympathy, naturally, for the military in this, their hour of grave crisis, and yet still I could not help but wish they had not found another vessel to requisition, and another major. Was not our venture, after its own fashion, every bit as important as their campaigns against murderous rebels? If they were attempting to defend the rule of civilization, we were endeavouring to defend the very rock upon which was built that civilization: the Scriptures themselves.
    It was a terrible blow. An expedition deprived of both leader and means of transportation was no expedition at all, but mere wishfulness. In the event I had little time to consider the problem, being faced with the practical matter of where the displaced stores were to be placed, as the cart driver was showing signs of impatience. While I had no wish to make a warehouse of my sister-in-law’s home, where I was myself a guest, they could hardly be left in the street, and so there seemed littleelse to be done. ‘‘Put them in the parlour,’’ I told him, seeing as this was the largest and least cluttered room.
    Mr. Childs had sent word of the crisis to Renshaw and Dr. Potter, and they appeared soon afterwards. I suggested we all gather in the parlour, so we might keep an eye on the two workmen. It was a sad moment. The constant arrival of our stores, which soon began to form a small mountain in the centre of the room, provided an awful pertinence to our discussion, seeming almost to taunt us with their thwarted promise: the tents, the hammocks and horse saddles, and, not least, the seemingly limitless