missing crew members. Neither the lure of higher wages nor the perspective of only a few months’ passage had attracted any recruits. In fact, he was unsure whether the men who had remained on board might not be tempted to join their comrades. As the captain continued to seek more sailors, the bosun of the James Cook, Flig Balt, searched the taverns,7 the bars, and the inns for men to fill out their crew.
New Zealand8 is composed of North Island and South Island—called by natives Tawaï-Pounamou and Ikana-Maoui respectively—which are separated by Cook Strait.9 Dunedin is located on the southeast coast of South Island. In 1839, at the place now occupied by the city, Dumont d’Urville10 had found a few Maori huts where today one can see mansions, hotels, parks in full greenery, streets lined with trams, railways, warehouses, markets, banks, churches, schools, hospitals, bustling neighborhoods, suburbs growing without end. It is an industrial and commercial city, wealthy and luxurious, the center of many railroad lines coming in from all directions. It numbers some fifty thousand inhabitants, a lesser population than that of Auckland, the capital of North Island, but greater than that of Wellington, the seat of the government of the New Zealand colony.
Below the city, arranged like an amphitheater on a hill, the port spreads out like a vast semicircle where ships of every tonnage can enter thanks to a channel that had been dug from Port Chalmers.
Among the numerous taverns in this lower quarter, one of the noisiest and most frequented, belonged to Adam Fry, tavern keeper of the Three Magpies. This corpulent fellow, of flushed complexion, was scarcely of greater worth than the drinks from his counter and no better than his usual customers, all scoundrels and drunkards.
One evening, two customers were seated in a corner, facing their two glasses and a half-empty bottle of gin that they would probably empty to the last drop before leaving the tavern. They were seamen from the James Cook, the bosun, Flig Balt, accompanied by a sailor named Vin Mod.11
“You’re always thirsty, eh Mod?” asked Flig Balt.
“You’re always thirsty, eh Mod?” asked Flig Balt as he filled his guest’s glass.
“Always between meals, Mr. Balt,” replied the sailor. “Gin after whiskey, whiskey after gin! That doesn’t stop you from talking, listening, watching! Your eyes are all the sharper, your ears all the keener, your tongue all the looser!”
One may rest assured that, in Vin Mod’s case, these various organs functioned with a marvelous ease in the midst of the hubbub in the tavern.
A rather short fellow, this sailor, some thirty-five years old, slender, agile, muscular, with eyes like a weasel and where an alcoholic flame seemed to flicker, a cunning face you might say, intelligent yet pointed and with teeth like a rat. Perfectly capable of assisting in evil doings, just like his companion, who was well aware of this fact. They were two of a kind and could count on each other.
“We just have to get it over with,” said Flig Balt in a harsh voice, striking the table with his fist.
“We can just choose at random,” replied Vin Mod.
He pointed at the groups drinking, singing, and cursing through the vapors of alcohol and tobacco that darkened the atmosphere of the room. Just breathing this air would have led to drunkenness.
Flig Balt, some thirty-eight or thirty-nine years old, was of average size, broad shouldered, headstrong, powerfully built. One could never forget his face, even after seeing it but once: a large wart on his left cheek, eyes of a frightening hardness, eyebrows thick and frizzy, a ruddy, American-style goatee with no moustache, in short the physiognomy of a hate-filled man, jealous, vindictive. For his first voyage aboard the James Cook, he had hired on as bosun a few months before. Born in Queenstown,12 a port of the United Kingdom, his papers declared him to be Irish by birth. But he had been traveling the seas for twenty years, and no one could claim to have ever seen his family. And how many of those sailors have no other family than their shipmates, no other country than the vessel they are sailing! It seems that their nationality changes with the ship. As for his shipboard service, Flig Balt carried it out precisely, punctually; and while being only a bosun, he filled—on board ship—the duties of the second in command. As a consequence Captain Gibson believed he could rely on him as far as details were concerned, reserving for himself the command of the brig.
In truth, Flig Balt was but a wretch waiting to pull off some evil deed, goaded on by Vin Mod’s detestable influence and incontestable superiority. And perhaps he’d get a chance to carry out his criminal projects …
“I’ll tell you once more,” said Vin Mod, “that in the Three Magpies tavern, you can just pick them blindfolded. We’ll find the men that we need here, and of a mind to do business for their own profit …”
“Sure, but still,” observed Flig Balt, “you have to know just where those men come from.”
“Not really, provided they go where we want them to, Master Balt! … Given that we are recruiting them from the clientele of Adam Fry, we can trust them.”
And, indeed, the reputation of this tavern of ill repute was no longer a matter of discussion. The police could cast their nets without any risk of catching an honest person or one with whom they had not already had quarrels. Although Captain Gibson was in dire need of rounding out his crew one way or another, he would not have turned to the patrons of the Three Magpies. So Flig Balt had refrained from telling him that he would hire from that source.
The lone room, furnished with tables, benches, stools, a bar behind which stood the barkeep, shelves cluttered with decanters and bottles, was lit by two windows fitted out with iron bars, on a street leading down to the pier. One entered through a door with a heavy lock and a heavy bolt, above which hung a sign where three magpies, daubed with color, pecked away at each other—a sign worthy of the establishment. In the month of October, night arrives by eight-thirty, even at the start of the good season, at forty-five degrees of south latitude. Some metal lamps, filled with smelly oil, were burning, hanging above the bar and the tables. Those that worked were left working; the ones whose wicks were almost entirely consumed and were sputtering were left to sputter. This dim light seemed sufficient. When you drink neat, you have no need of seeing clearly. Glasses have no trouble finding their way to the mouth.
A score of sailors now occupied the benches and stools—people from every country, Americans, English, Irish, Dutch, deserters for the most part, some ready to leave for the placer mines, others just returning to squander their last nuggets. They were holding forth, singing, shouting so loudly that gunfire would not have been heard in the midst of this tumultuous, deafening din. Half of these people were drunk with that sad drunkenness that comes from the consumption of hard liquor that the gullet thoughtlessly downed and whose bitter burning was no longer felt. A few tottered to their feet, staggered, fell back. Adam Fry, with the help of the waiter, a hearty native, got them back on their feet, pulled them along, tossed them into a corner, all in a jumble. The front door grated on its hinges. A few were leaving, stumbling against the walls, banging into the signposts, floundering into the gutter. Some came in and found a place to sit on empty benches.13 They renewed acquaintances, and rough remarks were exchanged with handshakes that could break bones. Comrades met each other again after lengthy shore leaves searching through the Otago fields. There were offensive words as well, and crude stories, insults, provocations that burst out from one table to the next. The evening would probably not end without some personal scuffle, which would degenerate into a general brawl. That wouldn’t be anything very new, of course, for the owner or the customers of the Three Magpies.
Flig Balt and Vin Mod continued to observe everyone with curiosity,
