by Cylin Busby
“And how do you propose we stay in the shipping lane now, with no compass?” Sean asked.
“When the stars are out, I know my way, as does the captain. We’ll steer her right. By day, let the waves take us, and by night we’ll find our way,” Moses offered.
I lay beside the captain, my stomach rolling with the waves that lapped at the boat, and closed my eyes. I felt a drop on my back, but thought nothing of it—a stray wave or bit of splash. Then a second drop, and two more.
“What’s this?” Moses looked up at the gray sky. “Rain, is it?”
Chippy quickly slipped off his boots and put them up on a bench in the boat. “Do the same, mates; we’ll need the drink.”
Sean took off his shoes and removed the captain’s as well, lining them up along the bottom of the boat to catch rainwater. Moses put his hat off his head and turned it upright. The sprinkles increased, making me thoroughly unhappy and damp, so I curled up beneath a bench as best I could, out of the angle of the driving rain.
“Some ship’s cat we’ve got here,” Chippy said harshly. “White paws and can’t even warn of weather. Mrs. Tibbs would’ve been all over us with rain coming.” He stripped off his shirt and held it over his head, hunching under it, blocking some of the drops.
Moses looked down at me, rain running off his bald head, and gave me a weak smile, but I could tell that even he was disappointed with how I had performed. I remembered my sick stomach of the morning, what I had thought was hunger, my queasy ache. It hadn’t just been hunger—that had been the feeling! The warning that the weather was about to change—what I’d felt the first day aboard the Melissa Rae, before the storm that took my mother. I had known it but had not recognized the signs. I resolved then, as I curled into a tight ball in the damp bottom of the boat, that I would never again dismiss my intuition. It was my job to share this knowledge with the sailors, who did not possess my skills.
I drifted off to sleep as best I could in the gentle summer rain, and woke to darkness. Before I opened my eyes, I heard one of the men moaning, or snoring, a long low note. As I stretched and left Moses’s side, I could tell that the air smelled clean and crisp, not heavy, as it had been since we’d left the Melissa Rae. The stars weren’t quite out, but I could see, against the dark sky, puffy white clouds drifting by. A breeze! I felt it on my wet nose as I peeked over the edge of the boat. Finally the doldrums had lifted and we were in motion.
Then I heard again the sound that had woken me from my sleep—a deep, low moan. But when I looked around at the men, I saw that they were all soundly asleep. With no stars to study, they must have resigned themselves to shut-eye until the skies cleared. Even the captain seemed to be resting peacefully. Was the sound coming from the sea itself? It came again, rumbling up through the water, now a higher note at the end. I felt myself shaking. Who—or what—was below our boat? A light splash in the distance attracted my eyes, and I saw, faintly, something slick and black come up from the water, then slide back below the surface. It was shaped like a fish’s tail but about the size of our whole boat…and looked like it was only a small part of whatever creature it was attached to.
I ran to Chippy—the largest and strongest man on our boat. He slept with his back to the stern, his shirt over him as a makeshift blanket. I hesitated. Should I wake him? Then the moan came again, shorter this time…but closer, too. I remembered how disappointed the men had been that I’d not warned them about the rain. I would never make that mistake again. I leapt onto Chippy’s chest and startled him from sleep.
“What’s this?” he yelled, swatting at me as he rolled over, curling into the angle of the stern. But I came back around, licking his nose and pawing his cheek beneath his eye patch. He brushed me away, as if I were a roach crawling over his face, but I saw his eye open a crack, so I let out a soft mew. “All right, then,” he said, taking me into his arms and placing me on his chest. I kneaded his shirt, wanting him to fully wake, and then the sound did it for me: a long, low tone rippled up through the sea—it was unmistakable. I stood at attention, my ears perked, and held my breath.
But Chippy only let out a light laugh. “Your first time hearing a whale’s song, Tibbs? They are mighty creatures but wouldn’t take any notice of a little scrub like you. You’ve nothing to fear.”
He ran his hand over my back and nestled down into the bottom of the boat, returning to sleep. But I continued to pace on his chest, worried over the sound. Whales? What type of creatures were these? How could a sea animal have such an enormous tail—why, it must be bigger than the Melissa Rae from end to end! The sound came again, followed by a splash, and I saw a large, dark shape with a stripe of white leave the water—not the whole of it, just a fraction—then roll back into the deep without a sound. The motion of its wake rocked the boat to and fro on gentle waves. I dug my claws into Chippy’s shirt, and down into his skin, holding on tight for whatever might come next.
“Come on now, Tibbs,” Chippy murmured, rolling over. “Let them sing you to sleep—the lullaby of the sea.” He petted me gently then as I curled against him, trying to put the shape and size of the moaning sea monster out of my head. After a moment or two of silence, the big man whispered to me: “Whales used to put your mum out of sorts, too; she was never fond. Must be something that runs in the family.”
With that I was content to return to sleep, in the crook of Chippy’s strong arm. I was glad to hear that my mother had reacted in the same way to these moaning sea giants; they were obviously dangerous creatures, whether or not the sailors recognized that. I had done my job to wake and warn Chippy—if he chose to ignore my notice, so be it.
The days began to pass in a uniform fashion, just as they had aboard the Melissa Rae, but now with decidedly less food to eat and water to drink. The winds were good, from the west, and the weather fine. If we’d been aboard a vessel with sails, our travel would have been smooth. As it was, we were an angry, dirty lot in a longboat, trying to pass the time until we were rescued. During the sunny hours I could always find a place beside the captain to nap in warmth. At night I traveled around the boat, curling into the backs of knees where I could find them.
Once a day Moses would share his poached stores with us—half a stick of jerky for each man, the captain’s ground into a fine paste that was fed to him with a bit of rainwater. The boots and hats were almost empty now, and the men looked to the clear and cloudless sky, wanting weather that would bring us more drink. My nose became dry and hard, and I saw the same effect on the men’s lips, noses, and eyelids. Sean’s lips beneath his bushy beard were white and cracked, and Moses’s bald head had taken to peeling off flakes of skin in the baking sun.
The men tried their best to rest during the daylight hours, covered as well as they could be in their shirts and hats against the sun’s rays. They needed their strength for the evening, to wake and watch the stars to chart our path and keep our little boat on the route of discovery—and the passage of other trade ships like the Melissa Rae. But none had yet come through. “A matter of time, boys, a matter of time,” Chippy said.
During long spells of nothingness, Sean would put his head under his shirt and talk to someone—himself, I suppose—about the state of things. When he came out from under the shirt, he seemed himself again, so I did not question his antics, but I knew that Chippy and Moses found this behavior quite odd.
To entertain the men, sometimes Moses would flex the muscles of his arms and make the ladies who were tattooed there do a dance. I especially liked the drawing of the mermaid, as she was half lady and half fish, and when Moses made a fist just so, her tail seemed to move! I longed to dig my claws in to catch this flipping fin, but I knew it was the skin of my mate, so I held my sharps back and merely batted at her with a soft paw. I could have watched that beautiful mermaid dance forever. If Sean got into one of his dark moods, Moses would show him the dancing girls, and it never failed to make him laugh.
When the captain did awake, which was rarely, he murmured to
the men about the position of the night sky, what to look for, what to avoid, and how to steer our boat into the path of ships that we hoped would come soon. The sailors also knew the sky, and I trusted that they had put us on the right course. Maybe Chippy was right—it was just a waiting game.
I longed for the feeling of a storm in my gut, any sign that rain was coming, as I knew the sailors, my mates, needed more water to drink. Though the sea surrounded us, the water was not fit for man or beast, as I found when I lapped some up from the bottom of the boat. “Jacob, leave that!” Moses hollered at me. “The salt will make you sick, and you’ll heave up what you do have in your belly.” The water was so satisfying, I found his words hard to believe, but I obeyed. I took my small sips of water from Moses’s hands, at midday, and tried to savor them.
The captain’s health remained the same, though we were now more than seven days out. He looked hardy, his face lined and tan and his hair lightened from the relentless sun, but I knew that inside, his body was fighting a hard battle. At night he sometimes talked in his sleep, calling for someone named Catherine and giving orders to raise sails, swab decks. When he did this, I would curl up beside his ear and purr there, as this seemed to give him some measure of comfort.
I heard the men talk when the captain was not awake, debating his judgment, though they were loath to doubt him. Moses believed the stars should take us in another direction altogether, but they obeyed the captain, even in his febrile state, and steered our boat as he commanded.
What happened on the morning of the tenth day at sea I will recount here in as little detail as possible, as it is still a matter that brings me much sadness. It began when Chippy asked that Moses give them each their ration a bit early, as he felt he would not be able to rouse later to collect it. “My insides are eating themselves,” he grumbled, taking the bit of meat from Moses. It was now just a quarter of a stick of jerky, and I noted that the men would chew this, bite after bite, and make it last for upward of an hour. Our hardtack biscuits had been exhausted three days prior.
Sean waved off the bit of meat, and I saw then, to my great surprise, that there were tears on his face. Then he started to cry, but not as I had seen men cry before. This was sobbing and sobbing, his messy head in his hands. He clawed at his own face, making red marks on his cheeks. I was so startled that I dove under the bench where Chippy was sitting. This was not the Sean that I knew.
“Here, man, have a bite of this.” Moses tried again with the jerky, holding it out in his hand. But Sean shook his head. He wiped the back of his hand across his face and looked up at the men, suddenly smiling a huge, terrifying smile, his dry lips split and bleeding lines down into his teeth.
“I’m in the mind for fish, what of you lads?” he finally said. The men had tried, and failed, to catch any sea life, as they had neither bait nor hooks. And as Chippy had quickly pointed out, the types of fish that they could bring aboard were found only close to land. “Out here, ’tis whales and sharks and blues, others that we couldn’t hope to wrestle onto the deck of this little boat,” he explained. But just the talk of sea life made my mouth water with the idea of salty fish-head soup, and I felt as if I would give my own tail for just one bite.
Before any of the men could react, Sean had stripped off his shirt, revealing his badly burned shoulders beneath, and removed his boots and trousers, leaving nothing but his underdrawers intact. I could tell from the sparkle in his eye that he was deadly serious about the task at hand, but something seemed off. Even his voice was not that of the Sean I had come to know.
“You’re not well,” Moses said calmly, moving to sit beside Sean in the boat. “Let’s have a talk about it.” He put his arm around Sean’s shoulders, but Sean quickly brushed him off, his face taking on a sour look.
“You have a nerve to tell me how I’m feeling,” Sean spat out, his face mean, growling. “Hiding meats from the rest of us. I’ve heard your teeth at night—how much do you have hidden away in there?” He pulled at Moses’s shirt, tearing it open, until Chippy moved forward and grabbed his arm, rocking the boat hard enough to nearly upset us all.
“Sean, think on your words!” Chippy barked.
“This one’s hiding meat—he’s eating it at night, undercover, and not sharing it with us!” As Sean spoke, his voice was high, sounding almost like Melissa’s. “He has butter! And biscuits! Molasses!”
“It’s not true,” Moses said quickly, raising his hands. “You’ve seen all I brought aboard. I’ve no interest in cheating anyone or hiding anything. You must believe me.”
“I’ll ’ave a look into your greatcoat,” Chippy warned him, moving to the stern to take up Moses’s torn and ratty coat. He had tried to figure a sail with it but had finally given up, leaving the coat as a blanket and sun cover, the pockets storage for our rations.
Moses nodded, watching as Chippy searched the pockets. He came out with two half sticks of jerky and some crumbs of biscuit, along with the leather pouch that contained the end of our water. As the crumbs tumbled to the wooden bottom of the boat, I raced over and put them on my tongue, though they were too small even to taste. “All is as it should be—look, Sean,” Chippy implored, showing the pockets turned out. “You’ve gone right mad from the sun and need a rest, some drink.”
But Sean was not satisfied with Chippy’s reveal, nor Moses’s claims of innocence. In one swift motion he pulled away from the men and was over the side of the boat, splashing into the water. “I’ll catch us a fish!” he yelled back at the men, swimming out from the boat. “That’s it! That’s the way!”
I put my paws up to the side of the still-rocking boat and looked out at Sean as he swam toward the horizon in clean strokes. I meowed for him, calling him back. Moses and Chippy also took up calling him: “Sean! Sean! Come on, man. Let’s have a drink and a talk; it’s not as bad as all that!”
“Your siren is waiting here!” Moses called over the side, pointing to the mermaid on his arm as Sean’s form grew smaller in the water. “All is not lost, come! Turn about! I’ll make the girls dance a special jig, for you alone!”
Sean stopped for a moment and looked back at the men as if he was confused as to who they even were, or how they knew his name. His hair and beard were wet, but he was too far out for me to see his eyes, to know what might have been going through his mind. Moses took in a deep breath, hoping for the best, but it was not to be. Sean returned to his swimming, off into the distance, as the men called after him.
After a moment Moses stopped calling Sean’s name and picked up the oars, ready to row. He had gone only a few paces before Chippy grabbed his arm, shaking his head. “He’s gone altogether; don’t you add to it,” he said gruffly.
Moses paused, looking out at his friend in the waves, then dropped the oars, putting his head into his hands. As we watched, Sean’s form moved out toward the horizon, becoming just a head above the waves, then a spot, then nothing. As evening fell, not one among us uttered a sound, looking out to the place where we had last seen our friend, watching the waves as if he might return.
Death at sea is a strange thing, a sudden thing. A ship on the waves is not a proper place for mourning, though Moses and Chippy did engage in a prayer over clasped hands before turning in for some shut-eye. They would be awake again in the pitch-black, well before dawn, to study the stars and steer our vessel. “There, but for the grace of God, we will follow,” Moses said quietly as he curled into himself on one end of the boat.
The leather pouch that held our water was almost empty. And with two half sticks of jerky left, it did seem as though perhaps Sean had the right idea. End with dignity, with waves crashing over your head, or end as a pile of bones in the bottom of this longboat, food for gulls—those were the choices before us.
That night, a restless sleep came only after a long battle. I could not find comfort in my usual spots by the captain’s side nor behind my mates’ knees. I woke looking for Sean, thinking that perhaps the events of the day had not been real.
But as I counted the dark shapes curled in our boat, it was clear that our number was now reduced from four men to only three. My dreams were full up with visions of my mother and Sean, under the waves, struggling to get up, sea creatures, big as I’d ever seen, chasing them down. When I woke in the dark, it was to thoughts of Sean, his bushy red beard, how he’d put me into his greatcoat pocket on that loading-to day, showing me such kindness—how far away that all seemed now! I longed for the cool, dark hold of the Melissa Rae, the smell of gunpowder. My soft calico cloth behind the stove, now lost forever.
Sleep would not return, and so I looked over the side, to the moonlit water around us. I stared hard into the horizon, wondering if a miracle might occur and I would see Sean’s red hair bobbing on the waves, coming back to us. But it was not to be. I padded over to the other side of the boat, pausing on the captain’s chest to be sure of his steady breath.
As I looked out over the sea, I saw, in the distance, white waves cresting and falling. Cresting and falling. I watched their rhythm for a moment or two, soothed by the simple ebb and flow, before a ripple of shock traveled up my paws and down my spine. Waves, cresting white! That meant one thing: they were striking something. There was something out there!
I leapt over the captain’s sleeping form and jumped onto Moses’s back. I tried to meow at his ear, but found that my sun-parched throat could make nothing more than a tiny mew. So I scratched, lightly, my paws moving down his back. He murmured something and made to roll over on me, so I jumped down and hurried to the other side of the longboat, where Chippy was asleep with his mouth hanging open, his arms at his sides. I crawled up his chest and put my nose to his face, licking him roughly.
“Get off!” He brushed me away with one motion. “I told you, cat, it’s just the whales!”
I returned to Moses now, full of urgency. The men needed to see what I had seen, before it was too late. I crawled up Moses’s sleeping form, clawing as I went.
