The Naiad

By Jonathan Gourlay

Hong Kong, June 1843

Captain Andrew Cheyne waits for Mr. Thomas Boyd, a reprobate, to speak. They sit in the dark and humid offices of Major Caine, a functionary in the newly acquired colonial outpost Hong Kong. Boyd missed Andrew with his musket on Ascension Island and is now taking aim by other means. Boyd has brought a grievance before the Major. 

The shot wasn’t close enough to flinch. The shot was so far off the mark that perhaps it wasn’t a shot at all but merely the intimation of a shot. No matter. The chief’s men soon had Boyd shackled and hollering. Andrew took the man from the sight of islanders. They should not be exposed to the degenerate class of white men, of which Boyd was among the worst. 

Major Caine has the air of a man who is eager to display his control of the situation, a common affliction among Englishmen. Andrew has seen the same look in the minor lairds of his native Shetland. Lairds who survey a catch of cod they did not lift a finger to procure. And yet, their countenance bespeaks their ownership of the fish, the men, the very air, and all the beasts of land and sea. 

Andrew would be such a man someday. 

As to the grievance, there is nothing Thomas Boyd could say or has ever said that is of the least significance. He is a thin and sweaty man. His mustache looks like a small rodent attempting to flee his face. 

“I am here submitting a grievance against this …,” Boyd speaks haltingly, wiping the sweat from his brow with a dirty piece of cloth, “… this unconscionable prig, Captain Andrew Cheyne. The contents of which, my charge against him that is, the contents of which shall show what the man did to me. Namely, he did abduct me from my home on Ascension Island, shackle me in heavy irons aboard his mate’s ship, the Bull, for thirty-three days, and have me transferred here to await a charge against me … should he ever decide to show up.”

Boyd becomes more animated and, well, Irish as he begins to describe his grievances. With his arms flailing about he looks to be halfway to a jig. 

Major Caine shows no emotion. 

“Now he has showed up and has stated no charge against me, which is a greater insult than the false charge he had planned for me and is therefore why I call him a young prig of no substance but pith and false piety. Watch him pray on a Sunday just to chain the innocent on a Monday.”

Caine’s office is sweltering, though Caine himself appears unperturbed by the heat. Perhaps he is calmed by the little room’s sense of order. What a man controls is what amounts to power in this world. Even if that control merely extends to his neat bookshelves, his tidy desks, his calm wooden cabinets filled with bureaucratic papers. Soon men like Caine will blanket the whole of Hong Kong in English order. All will be set right and straight.

“Calm yourself, Mr. Boyd,” says Major Caine. “We may find ourselves here on this rocky outpost but there is no need to succumb to its heat and barbarity.”

Boyd clamps his energetic hands to his legs and continues. 

“I have waited here in Hong Kong for Captain Cheyne to arrive, hoping he should arrive, hoping no wind would take him to the promised land, as I was bound to stay aboard the Bull until he got here. You ordered the irons removed, Major, for which small pleasure I thank you.” Here he dips his head toward Caine and smiles like the devil himself. “When Cheyne finally does arrive in Hong Kong, as I said, he files no charge against me and carries on about his business as if I hadn’t been kidnapped and chained at his behest and for no reason he can describe or prove.”

Boyd shifts his weight and tosses a greasy curl of hair aside.

“Therefore, I am asking you that justice should be served. My four houses on Ascension Island are now, I’m sure, ruined along with my business dealings, of which Capt. Cheyne was most jealous. It’s only right that he pays for these losses in a sum of no less than 225 pounds sterling.”

Andrew colors a bit at the sound of such an amount.

“Mr. Boyd,” says Major Caine, “you are aware of the size of the sum?”

“I am aware of my losses, sir. The calculations for this sum,” says Mr. Boyd proudly, “I have had plenty of time to consider, being chained like a lowly cur for over a month.”

Andrew will not be goaded into a display of anger by this man. Andrew is everything Boyd is not: young, clean-shaven, with a smooth yet solid face that his tutor, the reverend, said was “caught between fire and flood.” What he meant, Andrew thought, was that he appeared to others as either sullen or angry. His disposition was such that he flitted between the two. The reverend also instilled in him the idea that one cannot serve both God and mammon. As Andrew sailed the Pacific on his trading voyages, he began to think that perhaps there was some nuance in this directive that the reverend could not discern. Perhaps one should not serve God and mammon equally, but one might rank them. God is first. Wealth a close second. In Hong Kong, Sydney, and Manila, men did not seem concerned with the former but took great pains to court the latter. 

“Has he any witnesses to this alleged behavior I have been engaged in?” Andrew asks.

Boyd is silent. 

“Well, have you?” asks Major Caine.

“None at this moment,” returns Mr. Boyd. “Though all know of it! The sea and air themselves are witnesses!”

“Well, then,” Andrew says, “as to my not preferring charges against Mr. Boyd: I haven’t the time nor inclination, feeling his punishment thus far has been adequate. He has been removed from the island where he was causing mischief and that is the whole of justice in this case. I would like to be out with my new ship, for which I have just signed on as captain with the firm of Burn, Macvicar, and Company, rather than sitting in a government office with a wretch of no repute. A wastrel whose actions caused the natives of Ascension to practically beg me to remove him here to face justice. British justice.” Here he flatters the Major with a well-timed pause, insinuating the Major himself was justice personified. “The one thing all the world’s inhabitants can count on to set things right. I am ready to begin another voyage and build an honest trading post on Ascension, without the interference of this gentlemen.”

“Captain Cheyne,” says Major Caine, “It would be impossible for you to leave with the charge unsettled.”

“The firm would have me asea within the week,” Andrew says.

Andrew’s previous voyage with the firm of Dacre and Jones was a total loss. One that he barely survived. Andrew will be ruined if he does not set forth soon.

“British justice is brought to bear between British subjects. Whatever you may think of this man, Captain Cheyne, he is as British as you are. Justice is not built upon the whims of a trading captain. You are accused, Captain Cheyne, by Mr. Boyd, of not charging him with a crime.”

“Is it a crime not to accuse a man of wrongdoing?” Andrew asks.

“If I am not accused then why was my freedom stripped from me by this whelp? The Captain must answer for the insult to both my business and my dignity,” says Boyd, letting his arms fly as they may. 

Major Caine holds his hand up to quiet Boyd and says, “Whether the empire’s care must extend to a lawless island, claimed by no civilized nation, and not adhering to any known creed, I do not know. In any case, I shall render no decision at this moment. Write out your testimonies to me so that I may consider them without the distraction of your presence. There are other things I should wish to do than consider the worth of one house or four houses on a savage island far from the bounds of Christendom.”

With that Major Caine slams shut a book that he has before him on his desk. Earlier, Andrew spied that it is a ledger of fines he has given to drunken sailors, mostly in the quantity of twenty-five pence. The action signals that Andrew should remove himself from his office. 

Andrew goes to find his brig, the Joseph Peabody, and leaves Boyd behind to continue his reprobates’ way toward perdition.

* * *

Andrew considers the world of men to be connected to the world of the sea, but only tenuously. It is difficult to imagine any god walking the land but money. One sees its imprint everywhere. But on the ocean, one can sometimes catch an inchoate feeling of belonging to something wholly other than procuring goods to sell. This feeling is rare and fleeting. Yet, Andrew wonders, when he allows himself to wonder, if that is the real reason for his voyages: those few seconds where he feels he is not a trader or Shetlander or subject of the crown but is simply a small soul in an endless sea.   

It is the aroma of dying men that has caused this melancholy longing to be on the ocean. It is a scent only the gods of the land can produce. The stench comes from the Seaman’s hospital. The foul smell is of poor wretches beset by diseases of humidity and intemperance, soiling their tattered cots inside. God help them. 

There is not much in this colony at present beyond a Naval yard, the hospital, and a trading quarter they call the “central district.” This district does not appear to be central to anything but a collection of Chinese boats and empty hills. The sleepy colony only awakes upon one or two market streets and among the busy ships at harbor. The place will never be a Sydney or a Manila. There is not much to trade here. Not legally.  

Truth is that the Chinese do not value much that Andrew could bring them. They have all they need. But they will pay a fair amount for cured sea-slug. Bêche de mer, as it is called, has some medicinal or culinary interest to them. 

The rot from the hospital gives way to the pleasant smell of the fishmongers as Andrew approaches the docks. He is reminded of youth in the north of the Shetland mainland. A summer’s catch of cod and ling drying upon the rocks. Children and women salting the fish while the men haul out for another catch. Birds circling above. 

The summer sun didn’t set. The sky dimmed at night. A swollen red light on the horizon. 

To think, the same sun sets its sweltering sights upon these steep cliffs and rocky shores. 

This new colony and Shetland are much the same. Where the sky and sea and land are sparse, elemental, there is nothing but possibility. Even the Chinese sampans look a bit like Shetland sixareens. 

On Shetland, so hardened are the lairds that nary a shilling of real money ever flies from them to an honest crofter who works the land and sea. 

Here, all you need is a sign, a ship, and a bit of ready cash and you are on your way to becoming a proper gentleman trader. Though Andrew is a born bastard, not a born gentleman, he shall become one through trade. 

Andrew’s thoughts of home cease at the sight of the Joseph Peabody in the harbor. Its topmast wavers as the men pull upon the main yard tackle. The topmast is rotten, or it wouldn’t list so.

Mr. Fessenden, who procured the vessel, assured him that he had checked the soundness of the spars. Two hundred tons of American oak, he said. A coastal smuggler, sound and suitable for trade, he said. With false bottoms and hidden compartments throughout, like to a man’s soul, he said. Very poetic, that Mr. Fessenden. 

Andrew cannot sail rotten or the whole ship will be lost. Even the sturdiest oak at some point goes rotten. Like to a man’s soul, Andrew thinks.

* * *

Andrew’s former trading firm of Dacre and Jones was out of Sydney. Like all Sydney trading firms, they cared only for their own interest and did not spare a thought for anything else. As Andrew lay dying in Sydney harbor, he begged the firm to send a doctor. Instead, they told him to go sell the ship in Manila. How will he captain the ship as a dead man, he wondered? Could a price be obtained in Manila that would weigh favorably against his very life? Only the administrations of a Palauan boy saved him. The boy was well versed in sickness in the way of savages. And he was better versed in humanity than any man in Sydney.

Andrew believes that Hong Kong is home to a more humane sort of Englishman. That will make the difference between a successful journey and ruinous one. 

The office of Burn, Macvicar, and Company is set back in an open courtyard in the central district. The courtyard and offices are done in the local fashion. It is quite beautiful if not a bit riotous for senses more used to a simple diet of sea and sky. 

The office lacks a front door, so Andrew steps in. Inside, Mr. Fessenden is busy at his escritoire, which has a superfluity of drawers. It is stained black and features gold-painted scenery. The walls of the office are lined with scrolls in the local script. Large bulbous lanterns hang from the ceiling. 

Mr. Fessenden is not upset at the rotten state of the topmast. Andrew tells him that it was not he who might have set sail on a ship that would crack apart in minor squall, leaving all aboard to a lonely death upon the seas. 

Andrew has found only a Singapore poon spar available, at great expense, as a replacement. 

One would assume the expense would upset Mr. Fessenden even if the rotten mast did not. He owns one-eighth of the profits of the venture. 

“Captain Cheyne, when you have gotten your cargo of bêche-de-mer and sail back to us, you shall be awash in your earnings and no longer care about the rotten topmast. One mast against your quarter of the profits will be nothing. When those as young and straight as you set their sights on fortune, then fortune shall come. It is the old and twisted who steal fortune. You shall get it, Captain Cheyne, the proper way.”

“Mr. Fessenden, no man can say that I have acted improperly in matters of trade. Though I have not always benefited from the same propriety in others,” Andrew replies.

“Not from anyone I know, I trust.”

“No sir. I speak of my former employers in Sydney.”

“Here in Hong Kong, we are nothing if not honest.”

Mr. Fessenden takes a ledger, labeled Joseph Peabody, from one of his many drawers. He turns the ledger to show Andrew. His neat script shows the nature of the expenses already incurred by the company on behalf of the journey.

“You see Captain Cheyne, not only is the ledger right and true but we have also gotten all of the necessary stamps to ensure that officials both English and Chinese will recognize our legitimate trade.” Mr. Fessenden eyes Andrew in the manner of a curious sea bird. Andrew thinks that he must be concerned about his share in the venture. “Captain Cheyne, you are aware that opium has been known to be sold on these shores?

“I know of the effects of opium which serve to accelerate the immorality of the weak.”

“Ha! Exactly, Cheyne, the ‘immorality of the weak.’ Well, we will have none of that. You procure the bêche-de-mer and we will sell it.”

“It is a simple prospect that merely needs to be put to action,” Andrew says.

“There is more profit in opium, to be sure,” says Mr. Fessenden. 

“To be sure.”

“I have even heard tell of some firms using legitimate trade merely as some kind of ruse, like a painted lady, to cover their real intentions.”

“Such firms will not be remembered by history along with the likes of Burn, Macvicar, and Company.”

“We understand each other, Captain Cheyne. Honesty and official stamps shall pave our way forward. Which reminds me, you ought to change the name of your brig as she is a known smuggler.”

“I will think on it.”

Two locals enter the office. They are wearing the wide sleeves and skirts of the merchant class. They stand quietly. 

“I do not see the allure,” says Mr. Fessenden, “in bêche-de-mer but it is worth something here. Therefore, it must be traded.”

The sight of the expenses already incurred by the voyage in Mr. Fessenden’s book gives Andrew a moment of nerves. The ship, the new spar, plus six months wages in advance to the Indian shipping master for the use of their lascars—and Andrew not even allowed to choose such men as might look seaworthy. Six months! The enterprise has already expended $10,000 Spanish dollars before even purchasing provisions.

“You came to us highly recommended by Mr. Macvicar himself,” says Mr. Fessenden.

Andrew considers that Mr. Fessenden is sounding his depths to test his trustworthiness. He is unsure why. Has he caused an offense?  

“I am glad that I made an impression upon your master. We met in Manila last year as I was recovering from an illness.”

“Yes, he described you as god-fearing and upright,” says Mr. Fessenden.

“I hope that I have not disappointed you.”

“Disappointed? Oh, no, no you are exactly the man Macvicar described.”

“I will go to the ship and see to the removal of the rotten spar.”

“Just one more thing, Captain Cheyne. You see, I’ve received a note from Major Caine saying that you are not to set sail until a charge against you is settled. I hope it is nothing serious?”

That Boyd could prevent Andrew from successful business on Ascension Island by his treachery and then continue his torment here has driven him nearly to the breaking point. 

“Caine has been subjected to the ravings of a lunatic, namely one Thomas Boyd, whose degenerate acts I shall not detail at this moment. When all is done, Caine will wish me ‘good sail and Godspeed’ for there is nothing in these charges. Less than nothing. They involve an act of generosity on my part. I chose not to charge the man for crimes he is guilty of, which caused him great offense.”

“I understand,” says Mr. Fessenden, “I was only hoping it wasn’t to do with opium.”

Andrew does not deign to respond to Mr. Fessenden.

“Behind you is Mr. Duus and his associate. They will negotiate for your provisions and trade goods. Mr. Duus gets our goods for cheap. He is more persuasive, I dare say, than you or I could be with a Hong Kong merchant.”

The two men bow to Andrew. He attempts to return the bow, but the motion is awkward in a Shetlander. Shetlanders prefer to keep their spines straight in all instances.

* * *

Andrew writes a true accounting of Mr. Boyd’s crimes upon Ascension Island to Major Caine. He details his intervention on behalf of the natives. In truth, Andrew writes, there are more of Boyd’s ilk upon that mild and gentle island. A group of Europeans forms there like sea scum on choppy waters. These convicts and deserters are guilty of every species of immoral act. Their presence raises an animosity in the natives that is well-earned and, Andrew fears, will lower Europeans in their estimation. Among this group of vagabonds, Boyd is instigator and leader. Boyd’s scheme is to use his influence with the lawless white men to create a barrier between honest traders like Captain Cheyne and the peaceful natives. Passing traders and whalers, hoping only to trade and re-provision their ships, must first deal with Boyd and his group. Ships shall avoid the island all together when they learn that they will be fleeced of half their goods and a fair amount of cash by these unprincipled middlemen. The natives will not find moral improvement so long as they are left in the company of degraded white men who would not be welcome in civilized society. 

Andrew might have mentioned to Caine some accounting of Boyd’s relations with women and his tendency to dipsomania. But he wanted Caine to understand that the offenses of this man were beyond the ordinary wantonness present in a certain class of sailor for they interfered with commerce.

Andrew did not, however, neglect to mention the offense of Boyd’s siren call to ships in harbor, encouraging the lascars and Manila men to jump ship and join him ashore where, he claimed, the grog flows freely, and they would be most welcome. Andrew lost his useful Palauan boy to Boyd’s false promises. 

Boyd had the audacity to come upon the deck of Andrew’s boat and demand this boy’s shoes, left behind when he jumped ship. 

Mr. Duus will finish his provisioning and soon Andrew will leave. Andrew must leave soon, or he will never leave. The debts from the last voyage must be paid by the profits from the present one. Let Caine worry about what to do with Boyd. 

* * *

Caine sends Andrew a note:

“My most esteemed Captain Cheyne: why do you not accuse the man? He appears to be guilty of something but what can one be guilty of if it is never named? There are names for everything upon this Earth, thanks to Adam, including the names of sins innumerable, for which we have laws one can consult as to proper punishments. I am asked either to condone your punishment of Boyd, who is blameless in the eyes of the law so long as he is never blamed, or to fine you into debtor’s prison over his imaginary business on a distant island that has not yet had so much as a single missionary set foot upon it. Therefore, I offer you this choice: either leave this colony together with Boyd, ferry him back to Ascension, and pay him fifty Spanish dollars or charge Boyd with a crime. If you prefer charges against Mr. Boyd, you will both stay here until such time as a trial can be convened and justice brought upon the matter. This would be a matter of many months.”

* * *

Captain Cheyne is at sea five days later. Boyd is aboard. A new spar was fashioned. The Joseph Peabody was fitted with trade goods, provisions, and armaments. 

The first day of the voyage Andrew musters the ship’s company for tacking and wearing. 

The airs are light and fine. 

The entire company is busy with work. The tradesmen fit the gun ports. The blacksmith and carpenters fashion the hinges. The sepoys clean the small arms. The carpenters make cartouche boxes for ammunition. The sailmaker finds steady occupation patching old sails. Andrew puts the men in divisions and exercises them at the great guns and the small arms. 

There is never an hour of rest upon a ship when work can be done, save for the Sabbath. Such rest creates restlessness which leads to illness. 

Andrew learned from Mr. Fessenden that Major Caine has Irish blood, which may account for his light treatment of Boyd. 

Whatever the case, the business is done. He is at sea with the scoundrel. Boyd is keeping himself scarce below decks and is of no use to the voyage whatever. 

This is the way of business. All business carries a cost, or it reaps no profit. In this case, the cost is to delay justice for the sake of profit. Few gentlemen were ever forged without some contact with the flames of injustice. 

Mr. Fessenden lent Andrew the fifty dollars to speed the journey. Fessenden said that as the trading journey was registered and in proper, legitimate order, then it was right that Andrew should be made proper and legitimate too. 

Mr. Thomas Boyd approaches Andrew on deck in the waning of the day. 

Though he has been forbidden access to the rum, Boyd appears to be well into a debauch. 

“Captain, I should not be speaking to you but as I am attached to this voyage, I feel it in my best interest to help where I may.”

“I am busy fixing our position. I have no business with base criminals,” Andrew replies. 

“You may insult me as you like. Insults don’t make me guilty of a crime. I been insulted enough in this life. Adding a few more to the number don’t make a difference.”

“God will judge more fairly than Major Caine,” Andrew tells him. “For the time being, if I should spy you planning any sort of treachery, I will reunite you with your shackles for the rest of the voyage.”

Andrew has some pity on the lost soul that is Thomas Boyd, ruled as he is by passions which he cannot control. He may raise Boyd up to be a better man by example. Perhaps, if Boyd focuses upon the Lord and his own sins, he will come around. 

“It’s not treachery I’m planning. Only to tell you what the lascars have informed me, as I am boarding with them below. Namely, they say that they have never been to sea. I ask them, as a kind of test, to name a single rope upon this brig. None could name a halyard nor a down sail. In short, they don’t know one end of this vessel from the other, have no skills useful in a sailor that I can discern, and look sickly, though we have barely been at sea for a week.”

“The Indian master assured me they were all seaworthy men,” Andrew says.

Mr. Thomas Boyd waits, his face flush, for Andrew to fly into a tirade at the sorry state of the lascars. The man practically begs to be shackled again.

“Mr. Boyd, if you wish to be useful, go teach your bunkmates the proper names of the ropes and masts. We will be lost in the first squall without able men.”

Mr. Boyd tilts drunkenly.

“Few are as lost as you are, Captain,” he says.

“I am fixing our position as we speak,” Andrew says.

“Many was the time I knew my latitudes and longitudes and remained lost. I been chained up knowing exactly where I am and still wondering the wheres and whys of my situation. In truth, each man has to fix his own position. Those guided by the whims of other men don’t have a fixed point whereas to gain a bearing. A man don’t maintain a proper light whereby another can set a compass. That is to say, that no man ever stands still long enough—”

“That is quite enough Mr. Boyd,” Andrew says. “Major Caine did not require me to listen to you. Criminals are always designing and cunning and seldom brave. That is as true a north as I can find and that is an end to our discussion.”

“My soliloquies are unwanted, I see. Perhaps I shall try the lascars.”

Boyd totters away. 

* * *

Latitude observed is 11 degrees 33 minutes north. Longitude 129 degrees one minute east.

Gunner and sepoys are employed filling the great gun cartridges.

The gunner calls Andrew to inspect the gunpowder. He opens the keg and is greeted with a cloud of reddish dust. The gunpowder is damaged, though Mr. Duus recommended it as good. The kegs are new and labeled with a quality English brand. 

The casks of bread also offer false representations as to their worth. The top loaves are suitable, but all beneath are condemned naval stores run through with weevils. 

Andrew paid dearly for quality brandy as it is known to raise the spirits of a tired crew. The brandy is also falsely labeled. It is Manila rum, worth a paltry sum in Hong Kong and nothing like what was paid. 

“I have not a single person in whom I can place the slightest confidence,” Andrew writes in his log. 

Andrew wonders if even his own confidence is suspect? Is it possible for a man to be unaware of his own machinations? 

A captain does not have time to doubt.  

* * *

At midnight they wear ship and heave to. 

Ship’s head eastward, toward Ascension Island.

Tomorrow Andrew will rename the ship. He will instruct the carpenter to remove Joseph Peabody and re-paint her the Naiad. The idea came to him as he lay awake in his quarters contemplating the rotten stores, the rotten spar, and the rotten behavior of men. The company of Burn and Macvicar are opium smugglers, using his honest trade as cover for their illicit trade. They never cared about the state of the ship, its crew, nor its stores. Major Caine no doubt pocketed the fifty Spanish dollars owed to Boyd. A nice return for no work and the colony governor none the wiser. A better return than the paltry fines forced upon drunken sailors. Mr. Duus paid little for spoiled provisions and pocketed the difference. 

The only person who had said an honest word to him was Boyd. Andrew had gotten the islanders to destroy Boyd’s trading huts on Ascension. For this service, he paid them with several rifles and a quantity of cloth. Could he blame Boyd for firing upon him with a musket? Andrew considered his actions just. His intentions were pure. He wanted only to set up a fair trade on the island to replace the corrupt trade. 

Perhaps it is trade that corrupts the man and not the reverse. 

Andrew’s moment of reverie was brief. He dozed until dawn and woke up as sure of God’s plan for trade and profit as when he had retired to his cabin. He would turn a profit on this voyage. The wealth of sea slug on the gentle island of Ascension would bring trade to the island and trade would bring the islanders to civilization. 

Andrew remembered only one thing from that night’s visions: the Naiad. The spirit of the water made her presence known within Captain Andrew Cheyne’s mind. She was forever lodged there until his last breath, which would not come until he was murdered twenty years hence. The naiad watched as the man brought the rock down upon his head. 

She did not provide comfort. 

She was truth. Naked and beautiful. 

The ship is re-named. All traces of Joseph Peabody removed.

The goddess blesses the voyage. What was once rotten is made pure.

Andrew believed this.

Whatever else we may pretend to be, we are divine spirits upon the water.

Andrew believed this too. 

About the author

Jonathan Gourlay is the author of a memoir, Nowhere Slow, and a dissertation about 19th Century sea cucumber trading in Micronesia. He is a graduate of the University of Iowa’s Writers’ Workshop. He is on Twitter @jgourlay and keeps his button drawer at jgourlay.com. 

About the illustration

The illustration is an early painting of Hong Kong island by a Chinese artist, painting, ca. 1850. In the public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.