The Road to Samarcand. Patrick O’Brian

shall be great budlets.’ He turned to Derrick. ‘I have been learning some Americanisms,’ he said, ‘to make you feel at home.’

      Derrick burst into a wild laugh that he tried to disguise as a cough. ‘Uncle Terry has been laying for me with a rope’s end if I said so much as okay,’ he said, wiping his eyes when he could speak again. ‘Gee, sir, I certainly never thought I should hear you call Chang a swell guy.’

      ‘Swollen, my dear boy. Swollen, or perhaps swelled. In the adjectival use we must employ the past participle, must we not?’

      ‘Yet it seems to me that I have heard the expression swell guy,’ observed Ross.

      ‘Have you indeed? Perhaps it was some local variant – an elision of the terminal -ed? But I am persuaded that the general usage is swollen. I cannot cite the text of my authority at the moment, but I flatter myself that on this question I am an unusually hep cat. There were several American novels in the boat, and on the way over I perused them diligently: there was an American, a most respectable scholar from Harvard, who assured me that I had a greater command of these idioms than he had himself – indeed, that he had never even heard of some of them. It is a fascinating spectacle, don’t you think, Captain Sullivan, this development of a new language? I am no enemy to neologisms, and although I am no philologist it gives me a feeling of intense excitement to see an old language renewed and enriched by countless striking and even poetic expressions. There was an elderly gentlewoman on the boat, from some provincial town in the States – I believe it was Chicago – who referred to the Atlantic, which she had recently traversed, as “the herring-pond”. I was so moved by the noble simplicity of her remark that I noted it down in my diary that evening.’

      ‘Well, Professor, I must say that it had never struck me quite that way. But you wouldn’t have him chewing gum and addressing you as “Hi, Prof,” surely?’

      ‘Were the young man to address me as Prof, he would speedily learn the difference between liberty and licence,’ said Professor Ayrton. ‘But as for chewing-gum, for my part I find it a great help to meditation – I almost said to rumination – and an excellent substitute for nicotine. Allow me to offer you a piece.’

      The Professor was a very agreeable relative to find after such dismal forebodings, and Derrick liked him very much; but he was adamant on the need for school. He thoroughly sympathised with Derrick’s longing to go to sea, and he entirely approved of the Wanderer, which he visited for dinner the next day – a dinner that an emperor might have admired, so hard had Li Han and three imported cook-boys laboured in the galley – but although he said nothing definite for quite a long time, Derrick felt sure that he had made up his mind. The Professor was closeted with Ross and Sullivan for days on end, and Derrick began to hope against hope that these long, unusual absences might mean that his uncle was putting up a lively opposition.

      But in the end Derrick was summoned to the presence, and Professor Ayrton addressed him in these words: ‘My boy, we have been discussing your future, and your uncle, Mr Ross and I have all come to the same conclusion. We are all agreed that school is necessary.’ Sullivan nodded, and the Professor continued, ‘We feel that although for training in seamanship the Wanderer could hardly be improved upon, yet nevertheless you should not be loosed upon the world without a firm grounding of more general instruction. You may not suppose that a helmsman would steer any the better for being able to decline gubernator, but you are young, and absurd as it may seem to you now, you will find in time that such is the case.’

      Derrick did his best to smile, for he knew that the Professor meant this as a joke to take away the sting of his decision.

      ‘You will always be able to come back to the Wanderer when it is all over,’ said Sullivan.

      ‘Aye,’ said Ross, in a comforting tone, ‘you’ll come back with a dozen new-fangled modern ways of sinking a ship, and we’ll have them out of you with a rope’s end in a week.’

      ‘Furthermore,’ said the Professor, ‘I intend, with your uncle’s consent, to gild the pill of education by a suggestion that may be new to you. How would you like to go to the school by way of Samarcand?’

      Chapter Three

      ‘Samarcand,’ said Derrick. ‘Do you know where it is, Olaf?’

      ‘Samarcand? That ain’t no port,’ replied Olaf. ‘But I heard of it. Samarcand, that’s where the Old Man left his fingers. It’s somewhere inland.’

      ‘Was that where it happened?’ asked Derrick. His uncle lacked two fingers of his left hand, and Derrick had never been able to get him to say how it had come about. ‘How did he come to lose them, Olaf?’

      ‘Oh, Ay don’t know,’ said Olaf, evasively. ‘Didn’t he tell you?’

      ‘No. I asked him, but getting a yarn out of Uncle Terry is like trying to open an oyster with a bent pin. Were you there, or did he tell you about it?’

      ‘No. Ay hear about it some place or other. And don’t you let on, eh? Or the Old Man would break my neck.’

      ‘Samarcand?’ said Li Han. ‘It is beyond utmost limits of Sinkiang, in the barbarous regions. Why you ask, please?’

      ‘I’m going there.’

      ‘In company of learned Professor?’

      ‘Yes.’

      ‘What felicity,’ said Li Han. ‘In pursuit of learning would traverse the Outer Wastes with singing heart.’

      ‘I’ll be pursuing learning, all right. Samarcand is the first stop on the way to school, and the Professor said that he would initiate me into the delights of Greek during the long, peaceful days between here and there. And Mr Ross will go on teaching me trigonometry and navigation.’ But in spite of these drawbacks, Derrick was boiling with excitement at the thought of the expedition.

      ‘Mr Ross going too?’ asked Li Han.

      ‘Yes, and my uncle.’

      ‘What felicity,’ repeated Li Han, in a thoughtful tone.

      ‘Then they lay up the Wanderer, eh?’ said Olaf. ‘Maybe Ay better ship with Knut Lavrenssen in the Varanger. She ban laying at Pei-Ho.’ He spoke regretfully.

      ‘Why don’t you come too?’ suggested Derrick. ‘Men have to be fed, even in barbarian regions, Li Han.’

      Li Han smiled, bowed, and rubbed his hands. ‘Wretched sea-cook too humble to ask,’ he said, ‘but would voluntarily dispense with wages for privilege of accompanying worthy philosopher – and juvenile seafaring friend,’ he added, bowing to Derrick.

      ‘I’ll ask for you,’ said Derrick.

      Li Han grinned and bowed repeatedly. ‘Suggest wily approach,’ he said, in an agitated voice that betrayed his extreme eagerness. ‘Perhaps gifts of red silk, piece of first-chop jade? Sumptuous repast for learned Professor, and question popped with dish of rice-birds? Will devote entire savings to purchase of same.’

      ‘What could Ay do?’ asked Olaf, disconsolately. ‘Ay ban no good by land.’

      ‘You can ride horses and camels, can’t you?’

      ‘Horses, eh?’ Olaf scratched his head. ‘They steer by a tiller to the head-piece for’ard, ain’t it? But camels, no. Ay reckon camels is out. Ay had a camel once, with a hump.’

      ‘You had a camel, Olaf?’

      ‘Sure Ay had a camel. One camel with one hump. A hump like that …’ he sketched a mountain in the air with his finger.

      ‘How did you come by it?’

      ‘Well, it was peculiar, see? We was in Port Said – Ay was shipped aboard a Panamanian tanker then – and Ay went ashore to get me a drink. Ay was thirsty, because it was hot, see? Ay reckon