Gone to Drift

by Diana McCaulay

  He had never been seasick in his life, but he had only ever been to sea in an open canoe—he knew it was different below decks in a big ship, where it was airless and there was no steady horizon to look at. Gramps had taught him how to do that. When the sea heaved and threw a small boat around, when the waves fell away, leaving the boat hanging in midair for a stomach-churning moment before it crashed into the trough that followed every wave—a fisher must stare at the horizon, even when it was lost in cloud or rain, must stare at the one steady straight line in a rough world of weather and salt water.

  Lloyd sat on one of the larger stones and looked out past Lime Cay to the horizon. He knew Pedro was out there, somewhere to the south and west. He saw the much cleaner twine stretched out on the beach, anchored by stones along its length, where Dwight had left it. He turned his face to the setting sun. He was very hungry, but he was calm. Perhaps it would be a good thing to go to sea in the belly of the Surrey with an empty stomach. He would either make it, or he wouldn’t. But he was going to try.

  He heard footsteps behind him and he turned. Dwight walked into the site, carrying an old ice chest. He waved and broke into a slow jog. “Look what me find!” he said. “This better than Styrofoam, don’t it?” Lloyd got up and took it from him. It had a hole on one side, but it would float and the hole was high enough that if he swam very slowly, his bag might almost stay dry. The chest was almost perfect for the task ahead. It was a good omen.

  “Here,” Dwight said. “Some fry fish.” Lloyd clapped his friend on the shoulder. If he was sick later, he would have to cope.

  The boys sat on the beach while Lloyd ate. “Found out a whole heap,” said Dwight. “Bucked up Maas Garnet, you know him? One elder. Used to fish, but him old-old now. Anyway, now him selling coconut. Him go inside the base all the time—”

  “You don’t tell him anything?”

  “No man. Me tell him me doin a project for school. Him say them load up the boat by ’bout ten o’clock. Him say plenty confusion while boat is loadin. Him say everybody go on board by about eleven and then the boat go out by midnight.”

  “Still need a way to make them look at sumpn else.”

  “Listen me. Two of we swim over there. You wait on the starboard side—away from the dock—nobody watch that side. Then me go to the side where them is loadin up and me start shout and carry on and say me want come with them. While that going on, you climb the rope. Argument done.”

  “Them go think you mad,” Lloyd said. “Them might arrest you.”

  “Me go on like me get hold of a bottle of white rum. Me dive back into the sea. Them nah come after me.”

  It was a simple plan, but it had a chance of working. Lloyd looked into his friend’s face—his eyes were bright and he was smiling—he thought it was a game, like many they had played. “We not pickney anymore,” he warned. He wanted Dwight to know what was at stake. Dwight shrugged.

  “You think Gramps is awright?” Lloyd asked.

  Dwight stopped smiling. “I dunno man. He could be, but I dunno. Is good you go look for him.”

  “Me wrote on a paper at home that me crewin for Popeye. If my mother ask, that’s what you tell her, okay?”

  “Yeah man. Me don’t see you since Sunday. Where you want wait? Here or close to Port Royal?”

  “Here. On the beach. The security might come back. See that tree? Make us sit under it. Don’t make me fall asleep again.”

  “Awright. Memba the twine.” Lloyd unpacked the bigger plastic bag and stowed his backpack inside it, shoving it tight against the hole in the ice chest. The backpack fit perfectly. He walked along the beach, coiling the twine between palm and elbow; it still had a faint smell, but nothing came off on his hands. The boys crawled under the low branches of a sea grape tree and began their wait for nightfall.

  I was not yet thirteen when I left school. Luke and I started fishing with other fishers, sometimes making two or three trips in a day. The bed I slept in with my two brothers was far too small and I moved to a rough, heavy blanket on the floor. I was fourteen, then fifteen. All I desired was a girlfriend so I went to sea as much as I could—I would need some money to catch a girl.

  The one I really liked, Jasmine, was from Billy’s Bay and the white blouse she wore under her school tunic was starched. She wore her hair in plaits, held by elastic bands with round balls at the ends. Sometimes her head was covered with these balls because her mother had made so many plaits. They reminded me of a thin cactus that bloomed round yellow balls once a year in June. I took Jasmine’s hairstyle to be a sign of her mood—many plaits, I decided, meant she was happy. It was her way of singing in silence.

  My brothers started leaving the coast when they had earned enough money. Great Bay had become too small. In Sheldon’s Bar they drank and smoked and talked about women. They left only when the bar closed. Sometimes they spent the rest of the night under a coconut tree. In the morning, they were gone.

  We started seeing foreign fishers. They were from Nicaragua and Honduras. Their hair was black and straight and they spoke Spanish. They came for our fish. There were fights with knives and broken bottles.

  It is easy to say now that I thought about manhood, that I wondered what the life of a man should be, but I did not. Manhood was like a squall on the sea; it would come and you would not know its force until you were in it. My father fought with my brothers and the house was noisy with their angry words—Silver’s engine was dirty, the gas had not been mixed right, they had gone to the wrong place at the wrong time, no fish could possibly have been located there and then. They came back too early or too late. They wasted their earnings on drink. Their traps were poorly repaired and fish escaped. They were excuses for men. I noticed Robert and Ben were taller than my father. Taller and stronger. I no longer had that sense of peace and plenty in our house.

  The rock I lie on is called Portland Rock. Slowly told me about it on Gray Pond beach in his mad way, half in Spanish, half in English. That is where the dolphin catchers go, he said. I did not ask him to name the dolphin catchers because I knew them. Bad things go on there, he said, and I knew it was a warning. Still, I took Water Bird to Pedro and then to Portland Rock. Slowly was right. I know who caused me to be here, but I don’t know how.

  13

  The boys had no way of telling the time. Lloyd thought of being in jail in a dirty cell through nights of dark, slow hours. He would have no friend beside him. He tried to shake off his thoughts—no, sah, he would not be put in jail, even if they caught him. Nobody would bother with that. Maybe he would get a beating or be made to clean the deck.

  The sky was cloudy and Lloyd saw that when the moon rose, it would be hidden behind clouds. The sunset was an orange smear over Hellshire. The strong breeze kept off the worst of the mosquitoes and sandflies. They waited.

  Night came. Dwight fell asleep. Lloyd sat up straighter and listened to the noises in the bush. He wished a sea turtle would come up on the beach in front of him. It was early in the nesting season, but not impossible. He wished he would hear the breath of a dolphin cruising the deep water just offshore. These were signs of the sea, signs of life, of hope, because they were animals his grandfather loved. “You know sea turtle eat seaweed, Lloydie? Them is like a lawnmower, keep the seaweed short and strong,” Gramps had said, the time when they had seen a single turtle hatchling make its way to sea at Tern Cay, struggling over small heaps of sand and mangrove leaves. Lloyd had wanted to help the baby turtle, but Gramps had said no. The turtle’s journey was his journey, it could not be avoided. “I thought them eat jellyfish,” Lloyd had said, watching the baby turtle scrabbling through beach vines.

  “Different kinda turtle. Green turtle eat seaweed; hawksbill eat jellyfish.”

  Dwight stirred beside him. It was time to get up. The hours spent sitting needed to be walked out of his muscles. Lloyd wanted to spend as short a time as possible in the water. Although it was August and the night was warm, he knew he would start to shiver in the sea if h
e were there for long. He was glad he had the ice chest—he could hold on to it and it would bear him up, he would not have to tread water while he waited for Dwight to start yelling. He shook his friend awake and they drank from the spare water bottle. He was hungry again.

  It was a short walk to the fishing beach and no one noticed the boys on the poorly lit road. Port Royal was a fishing town of less than two thousand people and at night, the men drank and played dominoes on sidewalks, the women operated the bars and sold fried fish from wooden cases, and Kingston people came to Gloria’s to eat. A sound system was being set up at the bar closest to the fishing beach. If the music started up, Lloyd wondered if the sailors would hear Dwight’s cries.

  The fishing beach was empty; the boats pulled high on the beach and the one light on the dock was broken. They sat on an old utility pole behind a storage shed and Lloyd pulled off his shoes. There was a stinking pile of fish guts off to one side and his stomach clenched. He was used to the smell of fish guts; it was fear making his stomach tighten. He stuffed his shoes in the backpack and pushed his fear down. He tied the ice chest and the backpack to the belt loops in his shorts. The chest was white and easy to see, but it would not be unusual to see any kind of garbage floating on the surface of Kingston Harbour.

  “You ready?” he said. Dwight had taken off his shoes and shirt and hidden them behind the pole.

  “Yeah man. You awright?”

  “Ee-hee.”

  “I did forget to buy the white rum and drink a little, make the sailors smell it on me.”

  “Don’t really matter,” said Lloyd. “Just don’t make them hold on to you.”

  “When you think you come back?”

  “Late tomorrow.”

  “Check me, awright?”

  “Yeah man, no must?”

  They went into the warm, dirty seawater together.

  When I was seventeen, Jasmine was my girlfriend. We walked along the stony lanes of Treasure Beach together under the lignum vitae trees and looked for a private place where we could sit and hold hands and maybe kiss. We found a cave on the ridge behind Billy’s Bay, a strange place with sand on the floor and big boulders with funny raised round marks. Jasmine said it was an old Arawak cave. The elders said the Arawaks had a line of shelter caves along this ridge until a massive wave came and mashed up their caves and killed them all. She said the big wave brought the huge sand dunes of Treasure Beach and that was how Sandy Bank primary school got its name.

  In the cave with Jasmine, I thought of Hatuey, my Arawak prince—I had not thought of him for a long time. But I laughed off Jasmine’s story of the massive wave. I brought old feed sacks from Maas Donald, who kept chickens, and lined the floor of the cave. Jasmine and I would sit in the entrance, catching the sea breezes, looking out to the horizon. I was struck by the softness of her palms compared to mine. It was not long before I persuaded her to lie on the floor of the cave with me. Do you think the Arawaks made those marks, she said, pointing to the round things on the boulders. Probably, I said, although they looked more like the kind of tiny plants that grew on rocks in the sea.

  Jasmine did not like the sea. It was dangerous, she said. She hated the never-ending noise it made. She wanted to go to Kingston and as soon as she was old enough she would be gone. She did not care if she never saw Great Bay or Billy’s Bay or Frenchman’s or Calabash Bay ever again. Her mother had taken her to Kingston once and she was full of stories about how it looked—the many cars, the concrete buildings—and the movie theaters. As she chatted, I felt only her hand in mine.

  14

  The boys paddled along the dark coast. Their feet scraped against hidden things, making them jump. They felt life under the water—long strands of seaweed, small fish. It was an easy swim because behind the solid barrier of the Palisadoes strip, the Harbour was calm. Soon they saw the Surrey at anchor, the stern tied to the dock, no more than ten yards from shore. They paused at the old dock that had been covered with birds in the day. It was the last point of good cover.

  “You think them finish load already?” Dwight whispered.

  “Shh! Make us just look.”

  The boys huddled behind the low dock. The deck of the Surrey was lit and they could see sailors going about their business, coiling ropes, carrying duffel bags and carton boxes. Lloyd was suddenly sure they were about to bring up the forward anchor and loose the stern line. “Me gone,” he said. “Wait until you don’t see me, then make up plenty noise.”

  “Awright.”

  Lloyd sank into the water and began his swim. He let out the twine so the chest floated far behind him. He hated to put his head underwater, but he sank up to his eyes, coming up to breathe. He tried not to make too many ripples. He crossed to the bow of the Surrey and then he was in shadow. He breathed more easily. No one would see him here, unless they were looking for him. He rested for a minute at the prow of the ship, feeling the crusted barnacles on the hull below the water line, gathering his strength. The anchor rope was just ahead. He pulled the ice chest closer to him and wrapped the twine several times round his wrist. He waited. He thought of the big propellers under the ship. If they start up the engine now and I fall into the water, me dead, cut up for shark food, he thought. Now, Dwight. Now.

  “What the . . .” a sailor said on deck, right over his head. And Lloyd heard the muffled, scratchy sounds of beatbox, Dwight’s specialty, and he smiled into the dark. He heard footsteps above him and he imagined the sailors running to the dock side of the Surrey and he heard the shouts of the sailors as Dwight moved into his helicopter imitation. It was now or never.

  He found the anchor rope with his toes. The sea gave him up with a small struggle. Hand over hand he climbed; there was no give in the anchor rope; the Surrey must be tied fast to the dock. The rope scraped the thin flesh behind his knees. Then he was at the deck and he swung himself around to face the ship. He hung from his fingers and for a few seconds he was sure he could not hold on and he would fall into the sea. He tightened his grip on the anchor rope and, kicking to give himself momentum, he hauled himself onto the deck, his chest heaving. He lay still, head down, hoping he looked like a sack or a coiled rope, if anyone looked his way. The air was cold on his skin.

  No shouts came in his direction. Dwight’s beatbox performance continued and Lloyd raised his head. No one was on deck and the forward hatch was open. He reeled in the twine to bring his chest up. The ice chest tilted to one side and he saw the backpack was going to fall out. He pulled it up quickly; it was heavy and he thought maybe the twine would break. He could see the backpack sliding loose, and he leaned over the edge of the deck as far as he could and grabbed the bag’s handle, just as the chest fell away. He cut the twine with his pocket knife and the chest drifted off, bumping along the side of the ship.

  He threw his backpack down the hatch and peered into the anchor hold. A dim light glowed on the bulkhead below and he saw at once his stowaway plan was impossible—the deck of the hold was far beneath him, at least six feet down, and the only access was the hatch on the deck. There was no way to get to the rest of the ship. Once the anchor came up, the crew would lock the forward hatch down tight, and he would be trapped without air, covered by the anchor rope and chain, which would fall on top of him in huge heavy coils. He might even be crushed. There was no option—he had to try for the stern.

  He tiptoed along the narrow ledge of the Surrey’s starboard gunwales toward the stern, hidden behind the main cabin for half the ship’s length. He peered around the edge of the cabin—the rest of his journey to the stern would be in plain view. He saw the sailors gathered on the dock, making a circle around Dwight. Some had their backs turned to the ship, but others faced the Surrey and no matter how entertained they were by Dwight’s diversion they would certainly see him as he ran to the stern. Where would he hide? Then he saw a large inflatable dinghy stored on the deck right up against the transom and there was a small space under its bow.

  He looked over at Dwight, still
performing, and his friend got louder. The sailors laughed and then Dwight ducked through the circle of men, faking his moves as if playing a game of basketball, and ran for the end of the dock. The men shouted and followed. Lloyd saw his chance and raced for the dinghy. He jumped into the cavity that held the dinghy and slid into the space underneath it.

  It was bigger than it looked, but the deck was hard steel and he knew he would be slammed against it by the sea. There was nothing to cushion his passage, no ropes, no stores, just the hull of the dinghy above his head and the deck below. He heard a splash and the men’s shouts grew louder. He hoped Dwight had escaped.

  Lloyd heard the crew of the Surrey returning. They were laughing. “Fool-fool yout’,” someone said.

  “Ganja mad him,” said another sailor. At least the men did not seem angry. The deck quieted down. Minutes passed, and no one shouted at him. He had done it; he really was a stowaway on a Coast Guard ship, bound for the Pedro Bank. Adrenaline had banished his hunger, but he was already thirsty. He let his muscles relax. At least he was on deck, not confined in some airless hiding place below decks where he would have been seasick. He closed his eyes.

  He started when he felt the throb of the engines below. He was cramped and cold, but he had dozed. He wondered how long it would take for the Surrey to reach the point of no return—that point when even if he were found the ship would continue on its way to Pedro. At least two hours, he figured, maybe three.

  What would happen if they found him? Could it happen that he would make it to the Cays and not be allowed off the boat, not be able to talk to anyone? Maybe, if he was found, the captain would have a kind heart, but he knew it was not likely—he had not met many kind men. He listened to the footsteps and voices of the men of the sea around him and hoped they would understand why he was there, hidden under the dinghy.