‘Aye, we want to talk to you,’ repeated Ross, solemnly. ‘Have a wee tot of rum.’
‘It’s like this,’ went on Derrick’s uncle. ‘When you joined us in Wang Pu after …’He paused. He didn’t like to say ‘after your mother and father died’, and while he was seeking for a better phrase he thought of that sudden death far away in Chang-An, and of those two kind, gentle missionaries who had been Derrick’s parents. He coughed and went on, ‘… after the funeral, we had no time to make any arrangements, so we took you along on the Wanderer while we considered what ought to be done with you. That is quite a time ago now, and so far we’ve done precious little about it. But we have come to the conclusion that you ought to go to school. The only question is where, the States or England.’
‘Or Scotland,’ put in Ross.
‘Or Scotland. But wherever it is (and I had thought of Ireland too) a school it must be.’
‘Just so,’ said Ross. ‘A school first, and then the university, to be bred up to one of the learned professions.’
‘Exactly,’ said Sullivan. ‘Knocking about the China Seas with a lot of rough-neck sailors is not the thing for a boy who ought to be hard at his books, not at all, at all.’
‘But, Uncle,’ cried Derrick, ‘I’ve had all the education I want, and I want to be a sailor. Can’t I just stay on the Wanderer with you and Mr Ross? It’s much better than school for a sailor. I’m learning to navigate, and I can splice a rope as well as Olaf.’
‘No, my boy,’ said his uncle, firmly. ‘It won’t do at all. I don’t say that you aren’t very useful – you’ve got all the makings of a sailor – but it won’t do. There are hundreds of reasons. To begin with, you’ll have to train in steam to get anywhere nowadays: I doubt whether you would ever get a mate’s ticket with this kind of training. And, besides, you have got to be properly educated. Your English cousin on your father’s side thinks just the same.’
‘Just so,’ said Ross. ‘Get a good grounding in the classics, mathematics and geography, and then you’ll be ready for sea training.’
‘But, sir, didn’t you say that you ran away to sea when you were younger than I am? And everyone knows that you are the best master mariner in the Yellow Sea.’
‘Weel, lad, that’s as may be. Humph. But that’s another case altogether. Days were different then. And let me tell you this, when I was a wee laddie I was a great headstrong fule: I did not know the wisdom of my elders. But when I had been first mate of the Indus just three years, I saved my pay and I went to Saint Andrew’s. I realised that my elders were not so stupid as I had thought when I could walk under a table without bending my head, and so I took my degree.’
‘Couldn’t I do the same, sir? Look, Uncle Terry, just let me stay aboard the Wanderer until I’m old enough to go to college, and I promise you I’ll –’
‘No, no, my poor boy. School it must be, so pipe down and make up your mind to it. You must go and learn how to parse, and the Kings of Israel, and how many beans make five. Besides, the matter is not entirely in my hands – there’s your English cousin, and he has a big say in the affair.’
‘That would be Professor Ayrton, I suppose,’ said Derrick, gloomily. ‘My father often talked about him. He was coming out to see us this year.’
‘Yes, that’s the one. He’s a great authority on oriental archaeology, a very learned man, and I don’t suppose that you will be able to escape the advantages of a liberal education with him on your track. We shall be seeing him a few days after we reach Tchao-King, and we’ll have another talk about it then. Now cut along and give Li Han a hand at checking over the stores.’
Derrick left the saloon with a heavy heart and made his way to the galley. The idea of being a schoolboy again after the freedom of the schooner was not a pleasant one.
In the saloon Sullivan leaned back and lit his pipe. ‘I sympathise with the boy,’ he said. ‘I’d feel just the same myself in his place. And there’s a lot in early training: nothing like it for a deep-sea sailor. Still, I suppose he must be educated.’
‘Aye,’ said Ross, ‘though I don’t know anything to beat an apprenticeship under sail to make a sailorman. But this Professor Ayrton probably will not see eye to eye with us there.’
Derrick found Li Han counting piles of bags and tins, trying to make them tally with the total in the store-book.
‘They want to send me to school, Li Han,’ said Derrick, sitting on a tea-chest.
‘Thirty-nine piculs of rice: exactitude only approximate,’ said the Chinese cook. ‘Do they? Very proper too. Thereby you will have inestimable privilege of becoming first-chop scholar.’
‘I don’t want to be a first-chop scholar. A master mariner is good enough for me.’
‘You are talking jestily. Who wishes to be a meagre sailorman if he can be a learned and enter the government service? Why, in time you might be an official and never do anything for remainder of earthly existence. You could grow long fingernails, and become obese and dignified.’
‘I don’t want to be obese and dignified. I’d rather be a meagre sailorman.’
‘Ah, but think of the excessive perils and discomforts of seafaring life. Very often sea is unnecessarily agitated by heavenly blasts, and seafaring persons are plunged beneath surface. It is much better to be the meanest official with firm chair under seat. And maritime persons enjoy no prestige, no face, while government officials are very dignified. You should go to school with rejoicement, labour with unremitting zeal, and become pensionable civil servant. Please excuse.’ He stowed away the chest on which Derrick had been sitting, and went on, ‘Observe the classics: in the Shih King it says, “It is the business of scribes and scholars to correct the government of the people.” You pursue ancient advisement, and correct the government. What face! What daily bribes! What squeeze!’
‘Yes, there’s glory for you,’ said Derrick. ‘But as for me, I’d rather be master of a schooner like the Wanderer.’
‘You like some lichees now?’ asked Li Han. ‘Just one or two?’
‘As many as you like, Li Han. There won’t be any at school, I dare say.’
Li Han piled the fruit on a plate. ‘Exceedingly peculiar thing,’ he said, ‘I run after learning all the time, chasing it in adverse circumstance, and you run away from it when it comes on a tray.’ He lit a cigarette. ‘This morning I reach the letter S in my dictionary.’
‘Gee, Li Han,’ said Derrick, finishing the lichees, ‘you thought it would take you another week to work through R, didn’t you? At this rate you’ll come to Z and the abbreviations before the end of the year. That’s swell. Is there anything I can do to help, apart from eating the lichees? Because if not, I think I’ll vamoose.’
‘Vamoose?’
‘I shall move my person with distinguished agility from this place to another,’ explained Derrick, slipping into the Chinese that he had learned before ever he spoke English.
‘Vamoose – to skip away. Thank you. Will make instantaneous note – colloquial knowledge of English most valuable.’
Derrick came on deck and stood watching the Wanderer’s wake for some time. The wind had dropped with the sun, and in the calmer sea he could see the schooner’s trail stretching far behind her. He looked down, and there, sure enough, was the great dark, torpedo-shaped form of the tiger-shark that had been following since the ship left port. Li Han came up with a bucket of rubbish: he threw it over the side, and at once Derrick saw the little pilot-fish dart forward and follow a lump of spoiled salt pork as it sank. The shark shot out from the shadow of the schooner, and Derrick saw the white gleam of its belly as it turned; there was a swirl in the water, and it was gone.