Sea of Two Suns

by Nicholas McAuliff

  “Is that so captain?” said Nukilik. “Remind me in that case as well.”

  The pirate scoffed and grasped the dead piglet by the legs and scaled the ladder above deck, shortly after which a plop was heard in the sea.

  XIX

  Wobbling lamp light illuminated lined and weathered faces in the forecastle. The smell of beans and pepper and oil permeated with the odor of brine and wet wood. From the Captain’s quarters, muffled voices were heard rising and falling.

  Isaac, Francisco and Jerimiah sat together atop two sea chests, enveloped by swinging hammocks.

  “How does the rum treat you, writer?” asked Jerimiah. His gap-toothed smile radiated in the candlelight, his blood thinned by sweet rum and water.

  “Eh,” grunted Isaac. “Gin is my choice. “Dark liquors, I do partake sometimes,” he said, tilting the tiny glass left and right. “Mainly when I have no choice. But rum has always been too sweet for my liking. Still, on the sea it’s like honey on the tongue!”

  “That it is!” said Jerimiah, taking another shot. “Isaac I thank you for forgoing most of your ration. As we discussed some of my silver is yours assuming we live.”

  “Think not of it,” replied Isaac, setting down his empty glass.

  “After a while,” groaned Francisco, “it all tastes the same.”

  “Didn’t think whalers would be picky!” said Jerimiah, his fragile hand holding onto the glass as it shook.

  Isaac eyed the hand: blue of veins and knuckles, fingers fat from years of hauling rope and riggings and chains. It shook still as he took another sip, but never did the glass slip from the old man’s fingers.

  “Who has next watch?” asked the old Brit.

  “Me,” said Francisco.

  “You make sure you keep Herb’s elephant gun across your back,” Jerimiah said. “Inuit can throw a harpoon like no one else.”

  “Aye,” said Francisco.

  “Now we were discussing whaling,” said the old man.

  “Once I was drunk when we spotted a Sperm Whale,” said Francisco. “A Sperm Whale, of all. Could not have been a Right Whale nor a Minke. Of course the ship came alive then. The fire from the tryworks sent knives through my brain. Day and night we worked, then the next day. There is no worse fate than rendering a whale while drunk, gentlemen,” said the Mexican as he held up his glass.

  “I sometimes thought to be a whaleman,” replied Jerimiah.

  “Once we shot dead a baby Sperm Whale off Galapagos! But the sharks were at it straight away. The Queen’s Frigate, regal as she was, didn’t stand well to render whales to oil, I fear.”

  “I am not sure the Queen’s Frigate could butcher such a beast,” said Francisco.

  Jerimiah laughed. “We hung down from the bulwarks and cut as much as we could, enough for the crew to eat steaks! Be it mostly blubber with specks of meat underneath. I did not mind the taste, fried in the little pig fat we had left. Never understood why men were object to it.”

  “Spend two summers and winters at sea hunting whales,” said Francisco. “You would rather eat sawdust.”

  Moments passed as the men drank in silence.

  The sound of the hunter’s booming voice came from the bow. A cry from the last goat, a slam, the captain’s scream, Julius crying.

  “Don’t mind them,” said Francisco. “Such is a normal night for the captain,” he said. All the men’s necks were craned toward the captain’s quarters.

  The surgeon came stumbling into the forecastle, leaning on his cane more than he had thus far, as if he were leaning two hundred and fifty pounds unto it though it held. As he did he swigged from a flask. “Good evening men,” he slurred. “I would partake in seconds of chow, if there be any left.”

  “Why are you asking us?” exclaimed Jerimiah. “Not our lot to grant double rations, ask the captain.”

  Francisco sneered. “Lukas!” he said. “Nine years and don’t tell me tonight you have lost your will.”

  The surgeon said nothing. A lumbering frame standing tall with flask in hand, red eyed he took another sip.

  Jerimiah let out a silent hissing laugh.

  “Enough, Francisco,” Lukas said, as if masquerading to regain his composure. “All others can drink about me. Do not tell me I cannot have a drink.”

  Francisco shook his head. “Not about the others. You as surgeon are not to drink during sail, not ever.”

  Behind Lukas a silhouette emerged. “Can’t have him inebriated as so,” said the captain. “I won’t fault a man for drink but the damned surgeon must be the most sober of all. That’s a surgeon’s duty on a whaleship!”

  “Damn you!” came a growl from Lukas.

  The captain wrapped his arms around the surgeon from behind and made for the flask.

  Without words Francisco was there.

  Lukas’s eyes welled, face rosy and bloated like an upset child.

  “Lukas!” shouted Francisco, trying to wrench the flask from the surgeon’s hands.

  “Did the Lord not rest on the seventh day?” Lukas shouted. “Did he not!”

  Finally the flask was wrenched from the surgeon’s hands and rum flew sidelong, spraying Isaac and Jerimiah and spraying the lantern so that amber rays cast blotchy distorted patterns on the bulkheads.

  The captain dragged the surgeon backward into darkness.

  “The Lord rested,” Lukas sobbed.

  “I know,” came a faint voice from the captain’s quarters.

  “Not as angry as usual,” said Isaac.

  “The captain?” replied Francisco.

  “No, Francisco,” said Isaac. “Julius. Aye the damned captain!”

  “Too much of that,” replied Francisco as he thrust a finger towards Jerimiah’s half-filled glass. “He abstains from drink one night a week, the captain does. Thinking himself in control and reserved and humble always, on that day. Take note. You will see him on Sundays calmer than usual and proud of himself.”

  “Oh, that’s just him,” replied Jerimiah.

  “You’ve sailed together?” asked Isaac.

  The Mexican laughed.

  “Aye. Me and your Mexican here,” said Jerimiah.

  “Sailed together is one way to put it,” said Francisco. He closed his eyes and emptied his glass.

  “I don’t take your meaning,” said the writer.

  “For a writer,” said the Mexican, “you are oft slow at reading things. The room, for example.”

  Jerimiah shook his head. “That’s ok, that’s ok. All of us unleased cannon upon his tiny schooner, myself included. Yet still he boarded us. He was like a ghost sailing through the black, but the moon was high.”

  “He always eats with us,” said Isaac. “I had thought captains dined only with their officers.”

  He’s not an officer,” said Francisco. “But alas, it is his one virtue, humility that is.”

  “Not sure I would describe him as humble,” said Jerimiah taking a swig.

  “If the pirate had golden teeth, they’d have been removed by now and sold for rum,” said Francisco. “But he can see the world of men for what it is.”

  “Be that as it may,” said Jerimiah. “I saw he, and Julius, who bounced about in glee. You know, the way that he does. Under the moonlight they sailed unhindered by black powder or fireworks. Everything we had, we went at them. But they boarded us, ran through our captain with a rapier stolen from some French vessel. Then he pointed the rapier at my throat and said: ‘sail with me.’”

  “And look what became!” said Francisco. “To the frozen seas, gentlemen,” he said, and all raised their cups and glasses. Another boom from the bow, another shout. A door slammed, heavy steps thudded above, and soon the hunter staggered below deck too.

  “What before that, Jerimiah?” asked Isaac.

  “Oh, I was with the Queen’s Navy from the time I was but fourteen,” said the old man.

  Francisco took a drag from his corncob pipe before handing it to Jerimiah.

  “Shouldn’t smoke be
low deck,” said the old man as he too took a drag.

  “Against Napoleon?” asked Isaac.

  “For a time,” said Jerimiah. “The tail end of that mad Frenchie’s war.”

  “What brought you to the sea?”

  “Never did have a father. Mother had died, brother had died. The tuberculosis took them, aye. But fourteen summers I saw on the stony shore off London Port. Then the press gang grabbed me by both arms and dragged me to sea, then only the blue occupies my thoughts. The frozen seas though, never change. Not in all these years.”

  “A noble course, after all,” said Isaac.

  “But we never found the passage,” said Jerimiah, and his eyes welled suddenly. “We were fools, Francisco. You were right about that. Damned fools.”

  “No,” said the Mexican, and he quickly clasped a hand atop the old man’s shoulder.

  “We never found anything Francisco,” Jerimiah said in a garbled voice. “Eleven years, three voyages. My life,” he whispered.

  “No, Brother, whispered Francisco, his sun-burned hand now clasped around the back of the old man’s neck.

  “Fools,” Jerimiah said again.

  “You partook a great journey,” Isaac said. “One that would connect the east and west, one day.”

  “You are no fool,” said the Mexican. Jerimiah cried and rocked as did the ship. “No fool,” Francisco whispered.

  Isaac rose and sighed and retired to a far hammock and Francisco pushed his finger into the cherried pipe until all was black save for the little lingering starlight casting a white speck down unto the sea chest where Jerimiah still sat.

  Julius stared down at the blackened sea. His eyes reflected the same black. “Watch,” he whispered. “It is my watch!”

  He laughed and stared back down at the waters. They were like a soft ebony blanket. He looked up and saw the same image above and his vision swirled. The moon rippled in the water.

  “Smoke, ice or fire!” he whispered.

  He walked aft to stern, stern to aft as the moon sank lower in the sky. “Smoke, ice, or fire!” he whispered again. Then the ship stopped, though the winds were steady.

  Julius looked at the sails, which still swayed in the gentle gust. “Stopped,” he said. “Sail!” he whispered. “We need to sail!”

  The ship sank down into the waters, slow and steady, almost spilling the sea over the bulkheads. But it was quiet and precise, no water flooded through the deck, nor into the galley or forecastle or captain’s quarters. Then it rose back up like a bobber, and a harpoon fell onto the deck from the gunwale.

  Julius put his hands on his head and groaned. “Don’t want to wake up brother,” he whispered. “Don’t want to wake up!”

  The man skirted atop the entire deck. “Smoke, ice, or fire!” he whispered.

  He surveyed the ship, but there was none of those three things to be found. The helm was set on course, so far as he could understand.

  Brother will be up to check on me, he thought.

  He tiptoed through the forecastle, where all slumbered silently, save for the hunter who snored loudly. From a swivel about the ladder he took the lantern.

  Back above deck.

  Again the ship stopped. Julius leaned down over the dark and hung the lantern there and swung it two handed playfully. The moon and lantern reflected and rippled in the black sea. No icy rocks to stave the ship, no smoke, ice or fire. But the oddities of the ship’s motion were not lost to the childlike man.

  He dropped the lantern into the sea with a loud gasp. Like a shoal of baitfish it glittered as it sank. Somehow the thing still beamed as it fell into the depths.

  Julius stared at the nothingness and thought it better to ignore the events, for as much as he understood, he knew the hull was in no seeming danger.

  He let himself be mesmerized by the light in the black waters, so long as there was no smoke, ice, or fire he thought. Brother had said it was ok to look at the waters, so long as there was no smoke, ice or fire.

  He smiled and laughed as the boat seemed to sink again, methodically but not as deep, and he kept his gaze fixed at the sheet of black silk.

  “The eye!” Julius shrieked.

  “What the fuck is wrong with him?” barked the captain.

  All the crew stood in the galley, wide eyed and donning white linens and bare feet.

  The surgeon held fast a lantern which swayed with the waves. “He has no swelling about his head. He ain’t hurt. What happened son?”

  “Julius,” said the captain. “Look at me. Did you drink again from the sea? Did you drink water from the sea?”

  Julius writhed about the table and screamed in response.

  “Don’t think so, captain,” said the surgeon. “Even a child would be screaming for water now, were that the case. I’ve seen men jump overboard for a drink of seawater after that very same seawater-”

  “Did he get into the fucking spirits!” barked the captain.

  Swaying lantern light showed Francisco’s lined face. “What did he say, the eye?” he asked in a sleepy tone.

  “Aye,” said Isaac. “Or eye, I should say.”

  The captain glared at the writer hatefully. “Shut your mouth or I will,” he said.

  “Won’t be up all night for this drivel,” said the hunter. And he retreated to the forecastle.

  “The eye!” Julius screamed again.

  “Shut up!” screamed Herb. And quick as lightning the captain was in the forecastle. He and the hunter screamed briefly and a hatch slammed before the pirate captain was back in the galley.

  “Lukas you fix what this is,” the captain growled.

  And Julius cried wildly, still writhing on the board.

  “God damnit,” said the surgeon, “hold ‘em down.”

  The writer pressed down on the man’s shoulders, joined by Francisco and Jerimiah, who grasped Julius’s legs.

  The surgeon hovered the lantern toward his eyes. “Does your eye hurt, son?” he said. “Where does it hurt?”

  Julius screamed again, and the surgeon shook his head.

  “Give him…give him a whiskey,” said the captain.

  And Francisco filled a silver cup half full of whiskey from the galley shelf. He mixed it with fresh water and cupped it to Julius’s lips.

  All cleared save for the brothers.

  The candles seemed to echo the mood of the crew as they all sat cramped in the captain’s quarters. Two days had passed without incident on watch. The routine seemed to blend the days together and only noticeable was the slightly sharpening cold though it wasn’t close to the cold that ought be plaguing the north now.

  Some sat around the table, Herb and Francisco on a bench near the hatch, Julius on the floor atop a mound of furs. On the main table were steaming strips of goat meat atop a flat trencher, and near was a fine dish atop of which sat tiny shriveled black berries and a heap of whole skinless dried potatoes topped with pepper and oil.

  “I must say surgeon you are a man of many trades,” blurted Francisco as he forked the meat onto his plate.

  “I am,” Lukas replied.

  “A cook and a surgeon!” said Jerimiah happily.

  “Learned to cook meals of all sorts when my wife walked out the door and just never came back,” Lukas said while preparing the chow.

  “Cannot blame your wife for that,” said Francisco raising his glass.

  A choking laugh burst from the captain and he stuffed a forkful of steaming meat into his mouth and blew out rapidly.

  On the carpenter’s workbench the surgeon squeezed lemons into freshwater cups and handed them back to Simon who placed them in front of the men. “And my helper here,” said the surgeon fondly.

  Francisco laughed. “Well as a greener I would expect you to take on many roles Simon,” he said and patted the young man on the back.

  “Now you men drink down this lemon water,” said the surgeon. “I do not care the taste.”

  “Aye captain,” said Francisco.

  “Hoy
!” shouted the pirate.

  “Hoy!” Julius yelled through a mouthful of food. “Hoy hoy!”

  The captain sat at the head of the small table and soon all sat around him, lastly the surgeon Lukas, leaning his bulls-head cane onto the bulkhead.

  “If I may,” said Lukas raising his cup.

  “Jesus Christ,” snarled the captain.

  “We pray and offer thanksgiving for this meal and for our safe passage to our destination,” Lukas said and all bowed their heads except the captain. “And through Christ may we redeem ourselves and be washed of our sins as these waters wash our bodies daily, Amen.”

  “Amen,” came a unified grunt from the crew. And for a long space all was quiet save for the chewing of food.

  Soon the lamplight glowed less brightly.

  Julius slept soundly in the corner as a dog might when in comfortable surroundings. The dog itself slept almost on top of the man too.

  “Right,” said Jerimiah. “I need the privy. Then I need sleep,” said the old man as he rose and departed the gathering.

  The captain stood and from the cabinet produced a smaller bottle and he poured it into the men’s empty glasses as he circled the table.

  He tilted the bottle at Simon’s glass and as he did the young man put out his hands. “Oh captain, no, no, allow me,” he said.

  The captain grinned and calmly put out his hand to bid the man sit back down.

  “I would not have my captain-” Simon said but as he reached again the men fumbled for the bottle and that bottle dropped and spun circular and shot out its contents onto the deck.

  The captain’s face twisted and he slapped Simon in the back of the head three times and then grabbed the back of his neck and slapped his head again.

  “Maldito red!” blurted Francisco. “A fine fucking red! “Puta landsmen! Maldito fucking Vino!” shouted Francisco.

  “I am sorry!” yelled Simon burying his face in his hands.

  “Sorry!” Julius woke and screamed and the dog barked once.

  “Miska,” said Arnaaluk softly.

  “It was an accident,” said Isaac.

  But all the crew rose and silently exited the quarters until only the captain and Francisco and Simon remained.