Sea of Poppies

Once they set sail, the sea becomes rougher than the migrants are used to, and many grow extremely sick. One man drowns in his own vomit; the other migrants are so sick that they are unable to do anything about it, and in fact they don’t even notice for most of the day. Deeti, too, spends several days so ill she is unable to move; once she begins to recover, she cares for others, as well, and as Sarju lays in Deeti’s lap, she realizes that Deeti is pregnant.

Zachary’s favorite time of day is midday, when Chillingworth appears unfailingly on deck; not only does Zachary get the opportunity to practice his navigational skills, but he is able to adjust his watch: “the moving of the minute hand was evidence, too, that despite the unchanging horizon ahead, the schooner was steadily altering her place in the universe of time and space” (398). As he does so one day, Chillingworth takes notice of the watch and asks if he can take a look. Zachary enthusiastically accedes. However, when Chillingworth notices the name in the inscription, his countenance changes, and he asks how Zachary came about the watch.

Crowle had expressed jealousy, so in order to protect Serang Ali, as Crowle is in earshot, he initially lies and tells Chillingworth that he picked it up at a pawnshop somewhere. Adam Danby, as it turns out, was known as the White Ladrone, and he was a pirate in the South China Sea. After being shipwrecked, Danby had joined a pirate crew that came across him, married one of their women, and began running a ruse with them in which he’d get dressed up, join a ship as a mate, hire his pirates as lascars, then take over once they reached sea. He was eventually captured and killed, but some of the other pirates got away. Chillingworth assumes that it was one of the pirates who had pawned the watch; he asks Zachary if he might remember the pawn shop and encourages him to report it to the authorities in Port Louis.

Although most of the migrants begin to recover from seasickness, a few continue to deteriorate and then die. Initially, the bodies continue to be tossed overboard without ceremony because the others are too weak to protest; however, once Deeti is relatively well again, when the next person dies, Deeti stands up to the guards and argues for them to let the migrants take care of their dead. Bhyro Singh, from afar, allows it; the others view this as a victory, but Kalua hears that Bhyro begins asking about her and believes that Deeti’s actions may bring trouble to them.

While performing their duties, Mamdoo-tindal sees Jodu and Munia glancing at one another. Mamdoo chastises Jodu harshly, which confuses Jodu. “Can’t you see?” Mamdoo asks, “You’re a lascar and she’s a coolie; you’re a Muslim and she’s not. There’s nothing for you in this: nothing but a whipping. Do you understand?” (406). Jodu, however, does not.

In their cell one night, Ah Fatt continues to tell Neel about his life back home. His father wanted him to be like an Englishman and learn to do all the things English men do, “[b]ut in Guangzhou, there is no hunting and there is no garden for cricket. And rowing is done by servant. So he makes to learn boxing” (408). Ah Fatt grew up on a kitchen-boat with his mother and grandmother, a gift from Ah Fatt’s father; his father had wanted to buy them something nicer, but Ah Fatt’s mother didn’t understand the use of a boat that couldn’t make them money, as well. His father “was an indulgent and ambitious father, who had every intention of providing his only son with the wherewithal to set himself up as a gentleman of good standing” (409). He taught him to read and write in both Chinese and English, and procured a tutor for him. One day, he bought him a book that he believed was about Europe and America; however, it was about India. Ah Fatt wanted desperately from then on to visit his father’s homeland, but due to his father’s station that was the one thing he couldn’t do for him.

One day, toward the end of Zachary’s watch, Crowle angrily points out a problem with the ship’s jib, which requires climbing out over the sea to fix. Zachary prepares to climb out to fix it, but Crowle instead tells Jodu to do it. Zachary tries to argue that Jodu isn’t experienced enough to do it, but Crowle insists. The Ibis is currently navigating rough waters, making the process extremely difficult and dangerous, and Jodu is forced to hang on for his life as the jib bobs up and down, and passes through the water ahead of the ship. Zachary finally tells Crowle off and climbs out to help, and rescue, Jodu. As Jodu and Zachary tumble back onto the deck, Jodu tumbles at the feet of Paulette, and she is unable to stop herself from saying his name, which gives her away. Whispering in passing, he promises to keep her secret if she puts in a word with Munia for him; Paulette tries to warn against this, but Jodu has already left. 

The other migrants take to looking up to Deeti more and more, calling her Bhauji, something Deeti doesn’t push back against. Kalua tells her one day that someone needs her advice in a matter: Ecka Nack wishes to set up house with Heeru in Mauritius. This is difficult, both because of the different statuses of Ecka and Heeru—Heeru is a plainswoman, whereas Ecka is from the hills, and therefore considered to be of lower status—and because Heeru is still technically married, though her husband abandoned her. “Surely,” Deeti thinks, “all the old ties were immaterial now that the sea had washed away their past?” (419). Deeti is momentarily angry that such a decision is being thrust upon her, but it also occurs to her that Ecka is “trying to do what was right and honourable” (419). She decides, ultimately, that Heeru will have to decide for herself. When she takes the proposal to Heeru later, Heeru accepts, grateful that she won’t have to be alone on Mauritius.

Zachary continues to think about Adam Danby and Serang Ali. He believes that Ali has secretly been training Zachary to replace Danby. Unsure what to do, he decides to meet with Chillingworth in person and explain the situation. At first, Chillingworth believes he’s there to complain about Crowle, which Chillingworth dismisses.

Zachary is about to tell him what he is really there for, but he notices a pipe that Chillingworth has left out and realizes that Chillingworth has been smoking opium. Chillingworth explains his opium use, arguing that “They are fools, sir, who imagine that everyone who touches a pipe is condemned instantly to wither away in a smoke-filled den” (424). He tells Zachary that the most miraculous part of opium is that it kills one’s desires: “It calms the unceasing torment of the flesh that pursues us across the seas, drives us to sin against Nature” (424). He offers the pipe to Zachary, who accepts; later, under the influence of the drug, he determines that he’ll need to confront Serang Ali on his own.

Baboo Nob Kissin comes across Paulette as she is washing Zachary’s clothing; Nob Kissin remarks on the oddity of the fact that Zachary’s clothes appear to be so old. Paulette dismisses the possibility that Zachary has undergone the kind of change Nob Kissin is suggesting; however, when he shows her the original crew manifest from the Ibis, she sees the notation “black” by his name, and she realizes “how miraculously wrong she had been in some of her judgements of him,” further understanding much more about Zachary’s own ideas and actions (430). She resolves to reveal her secret to him, realizing that she is in love with him.

Shortly after midnight on his watch, Zachary finds Serang Ali alone and decides to take the moment to confront him about the watch. When he accuses Ali of trying to breed Zachary to replace Ali, however, Ali tells him that people get Danby wrong, and that Danby was in fact his son-in-law. “When I look-see Malum Zikri,” Ali tells him, “my eyes hab done see Malum Aadam. Both two same-same for me. Zikri Malum like son also” (432). It confuses Zachary as to why Ali would turn his son to crime, but Ali argues that smuggling opium and running a slave ship are no better than piracy, and that he has no ill wishes for Zachary—he only wants him to do well for himself, now that Danby no longer can.

Zachary decides not to turn Ali in, but only if Ali promises to disappear once they get to Port Louis. Ali agrees, and Zachary gives him the watch back. Ali points out east, toward Singapore, and asks that Zachary turn his back one night so that Ali can take a little food and water, and take one of the longboats to Singapore instead of waiting for Port Louis. Zachary declines and threatens to turn him in to Chillingworth if Ali tries to do anything on his own.

Though most of the migrants have, at this point, recovered from illness, Sarju, the midwife, continues to decline in health. Recognizing that she’s going to die soon, Sarju calls Deeti close when the others aren’t around and gives Deeti valuable seeds with which she can earn money. In exchange, she asks only that Deeti enshrine her as well.

Late one night, while drinking, Crowle and Bhyro Singh call for Neel and Ah Fatt to be brought above deck. Crowle has bet Bhyro that he can make one of the convicts urinate on the other. After several rounds of convincing, Neel steadfastly refuses to urinate on Ah Fatt, and so Crowle turns to Ah Fatt, instead. Crowle forces Ah Fatt to explain his crime, which was to beat Christians at a mission house half to death in order to rob them for money for opium. At this, Crowle pulls out “a paper-wrapped ball of black gum, no larger than a thumbnail” (445), promising it to him in exchange for urinating on Neel. Ah Fatt tries to resist, but in the end is unable to do so. When his reward is given to him, however, the supposed opium ball turns out to be excrement.