by Craig Cliff
After the second day I had removed every piece of rope, cloth and metal from the section of mast that had saved my life and stashed them in my grotto. The mast itself would have made a nice wind stop if it could have been placed across the entrance but I was unable to move it by myself. I tried rigging up a system of pulleys but did not have enough rope or suitable anchor points. Through these efforts—and quite by accident—I managed to wedge one end of the mast so completely inside a crevice in the shore that it did not wash away, even in the highest of tides.
I discovered early on that I was too late for a feast of penguin eggs. The shallow indentations in the rock that passed for nests were occupied by downy chicks and their rowdy parents. That first night I made do with limpets plucked from rocks at low tide. They were cold and rubbery. After several dozen I felt as hungry as when I had begun.
The next day I had returned to the yellow-brows. At the cost of a pecked shin I was able to grasp an adult bird by the neck and dash it against the rocky floor of the colony a few times amid the strangled, high-pitched skreigh of several hundred of its neighbours. With no fire to return to, I tore into the white breast right there with the blade I had fashioned from the metal eyelet of one of the topgallant clews. The thing was more talon than knife, only two and a half inches long and curved, but it sliced through the penguin’s skin and presented the oozing, pinkish flesh. I retched this first time, covered my mouth and nose with the elbow of my free arm and, pinning the carcass by placing my boot across the broken neck, tore off more of the skin. I had soon liberated a chunk of breast meat weighing about a pound and held it, slimy and skinless, in the palm of my hand.
My hunger had grown to such proportions that the walls of my stomach felt as if they were eroding, collapsing in upon themselves, and soon my outsides would follow, caving in until I was a pile of dry rubble. But still, I hesitated. This was no bowl of oats or boiled potato. It wasn’t even a rubbery limpet or a ladle of slumgullion, viscous and suspect. But it was protein. I brought the flesh to my mouth and drove my teeth in. It was warm against my lips, surprisingly warm. My jaws, tense from the cold and out of practice, struggled to push my teeth through the meat. I was forced to gnaw and twist the breast in order to liberate a piece that might fit in my mouth. The taste. My thoughts were shot through with images of fish guts and castor oil. After swallowing three mouthfuls, a heroic amount in my estimation, I took the remaining portion and the flayed carcass down to the water line. I battered the cutlet flat against a rock with the heel of my boot and left it there to dry in the sun. The carcass I wedged between two rocks beneath the water line in the hope the salt water might improve the taste. When I returned at dusk the escallop of penguin was lousy with flies, the carcass nowhere to be seen, and I made do with more limpets and a few wee mussels.
I was now three-quarters of the way up the yellow-brow colony, on my way to the ridge and whatever lay beyond, but I had to rest. I hunched over, hands on knees, head slung down, waiting for my breath to return. I felt a peck on the back of my head, rose and saw a smaller adult on its nest, the black feathers between its yellow brows standing erect, its flippers extended and chest jutting forward in a sign of aggression.
‘Good day,’ I said, doffing an imaginary hat. ‘I hope you dinnae mind me stopping by unannounced.’
The penguin pressed its flippers hard against its sides. With its shut-tight beak and its round red eyes fixed upon me, the creature appeared to be seething. The white feathers of its lower belly began to ruffle. It rose slightly to reveal the tips of its pink feet and the twisting head of a soft black chick. I had learnt by this time that the chicks were more appetising than their stouter, tougher parents, though the layer of fat between the skin and flesh on the adults proved tasty enough. If only I had a slice of bread to spread it across! Even a ship’s biscuit. Such farinaceous cravings were another constant of island life.
The chick edged out from beneath its parent, presenting itself for the snatching. It cheeped once and looked at me with its black eyes, smooth and wee as apple pips.
‘Och, you’d make a meagre mouthful, you would. Eat up. I might come back.’
I set off again, though my breath had not returned in full.
Each day on the island I had placed a new notch in the mast with my clew talon, vowing that the next day would be the one I cleared the ridge behind the colony and truly surveyed my situation. But for all the lack on my beach there was no shortage of excuses. I didn’t have the strength. The fog was too thick for exploration. I would catch my death in the icy rain.
There were fourteen notches on the mast as I staggered through the last nesting bowls, all of them deserted. Presumably these belonged to the last penguins to arrive, the juveniles and grandparents, the ones that had already returned to the sea to fatten up for next season or to die. The morning was overcast and the habitual westerly wind blew, though with diminished intent. I was warm enough, wearing Tim’s vest and shirt beneath my own. I’d left Tim’s trousers and waistcoat back in my grotto so that I might have something dry to put on if the weather turned.
‘Keep gangin’,’ I told myself as I passed an untouched crown of tussock, which marked the farthest I had ventured since my arrival on the island. I had not allowed myself to consider what I might find over the ridge. No sight would be without its pangs. If there was any sign of human habitation, even a tiny, unoccupied shack, I was a fool for lingering so long on the foreshore. If there was nothing but a stretch of windswept tussock, I would most likely die there, surrounded by limpet shells and penguin skins.
The wind picked up and pushed against my back. An albatross swept overhead, its wings still and broad as a topsail yard. I turned to see it corkscrew out across the white-capped water and dissolve into the distance.
A few more laboured steps and I was in waist-high tussock, the ridgeline still twenty or thirty yards up the slope. The ground was hard and dry beneath my boots, despite it having rained or worse every day I had been on the island. The sound of the yellow-brows back down the slope carried on the wind. My boots, Tim’s boots, felt as if they were lined with lead. I stopped once more to catch my breath and saw an emerald flash in the tussock ahead, followed by another flash close behind. A small parrot? This far south? I scanned the clumps of tussock and soon spotted the brighter green of the bird against the dull blades. The colour seemed fresh from my father’s palette, the green of Caesar’s laurel or a valkyrie’s eye. I felt my excitement grow at the prospect of what lay beyond the ridge. A few yards further I saw another parrot—or were they parakeets?—dashing from my left, though this bird appeared to have a splash of red atop its head. I thought of the gull’s head cloaked in Tim’s blood and my imagined sanctuary beyond the ridge was exchanged for a hellish Eden with carnivorous polychrome parrots and shiny, poisonous fruit. I shook my head and continued on, almost in a rush, clutching my sailcloth bag in one hand and dragging it through the tussock and sedges.
The wind was fierce now, pushing me on until I stumbled and fell face first into the tussock. I rolled onto my back and let the wind rush over me, pinning me down as if it were the lid on a coffin. A light grey opening broke through a cleft in the clouds and disappeared just as swiftly. I rolled back onto my stomach and lifted my torso. I was nearly there. The crest just a few feet away.
I hauled myself forward on my hands and knees and caught my first glimpse of the other side. There was nothing there. The land dropped away swiftly after the ridge, terminating in high cliffs that ran the entire length of the island. I turned and looked back down the much gentler slope I had ascended but could not quite see the rocky beach that had been my home these past two weeks. From the crest it appeared that I had found the only shelter the island offered. That I was stranded in the Southern Ocean on a slab of rock that resembled a wedge of lemon lying on one side. I looked over the eastern edge, the steep rind of the island, and out across the endless ocean. To the north, at the tip of my island, there was another smaller island that might
have been the size of an upturned ship’s hull. I might be able to make it across the gap between the islands, but what chance would I have there? To the south, I saw nothing at first with the wind blowing in my eyes and the late morning fog rolling in. But were those breakers I saw? And a black mass like a giant limpet on the surface of the water? An island? Yes, I became more certain by the moment. An island, much larger than the one on which I stood. I thought of all the things it might hold, chief among these wood. Besides the tussock, the sedges and the moss, I had seen no other plants on my island—no trees, no woody shrubs, nothing to fuel a fire if I managed to light one, nothing to carve if I was to spend the rest of eternity marooned here, nothing but what had washed ashore with me. This meagre haul was all I had to fashion a raft that might ferry me across the mile or so of rough, frigid water to this bigger island.
I shut my eyes, felt the tingle of tiny mist particles hurtling into my eyelids and wished the temptation would disappear.
A Sailor’s Life
Contrary to the jovial, gibing atmosphere I had experienced among the crew that first morning as they helped to mount Vengeance to the bow, I found myself ignored or worse by my fellow sailors once at sea. I was ‘Slimy’, ‘Polly’ or ‘Porter’s Parrot’ to the men before the mast. When they sidled past me in the narrow passageways I was treated to a sneer or a malicious, unsettling wink. At first this resentment puzzled me, as did so much of shipboard life, but in time I understood. I was untrained in the ways of the sea and yet Porter had enlisted me as an officer, circumventing the usual order of things. Some men had to take on extra duties while I was taught the ropes, none more so than Meiklejohn, the bosun. He never said a word to me or acknowledged my presence, but took great pleasure in shaking off his oilskins beside my bunk whenever he came in from a rainy watch. The other men spoke behind their hands as I entered the galley to receive my portion. My inexperience was no trifling matter for the crew: it could one day put their lives in danger.
During fine weather, I was called at daylight and worked at my trade until the sun set. Every day I was to pay the ship and its boats a full inspection and carry out any necessary repairs. During the first fortnight I relied on Porter to instruct me in what to look for, how the various booms and winches worked and how repairs might be made to ensure a seaworthy, watertight vessel. I was also expected to take frequent readings of the ship’s draught and report to Captain Bock if the results were of concern. Should a leak spring over the stores or the sail room, it was up to me to stop it. When the weather allowed, I spent my free time above decks, fashioning plugs for such eventualities.
As carpenter, I was stationed with the larboard watch but was not expected to handle the light sails or go above the topsail yards unless repairs were needed. When all hands were called, however, I had to pull and haul about the decks with the other sailors and, if necessary, reef and furl aloft. The call to go up into the rigging invariably came in foul weather or when the Agathos was carrying a heavy press of sail. The head for heights my father had instilled in the drydock was found wanting that first time Porter took me up the modest distance to the main top. The added motion of the waves set the mast oscillating like an inverted pendulum. Keeping your balance was difficult enough without having to handle the sheets or carry out repairs.
‘It’s the world that’s moving,’ Porter shouted from his side of the mast, this first time aloft, ‘not the ship.’
‘That’s daft,’ I said, clinging to the shrouds that led further up the mast.
‘It mightn’t be true, but it helps.’
I looked down and saw that I’d been swung out over the water—to fall at such a moment would mean certain death—before being pulled back and pushed beyond the vertical once more, so that Porter was dangled over the eager waves. The mate swung one leg out over the water and maintained his puckish grin.
I considered the ridiculous proposition that the ship was a fixed point beneath which the Earth was moving and remembered the hawker who was sometimes on the Princes Pier with his trained seal. The way the seal balanced its colourful ball on its nose. Was it the seal’s nose balancing the ball or was the ball balancing the seal’s nose and, by extension, the entire seal, the entire world?
‘See?’ shouted Porter.
I raised one hand, palm up, to question what he meant.
‘It helps.’ Despite Porter’s comfort above the mainyard, I thought the effort to hang on made his winning smile appear more of a grimace. ‘You wouldn’t have been game to loosen a hand a minute ago.’
I looked down at my palm and we both began to laugh, though the sound was drowned out by the whipping sails and creaking deck.
From that moment on there was always a touch of the absurd in my relationship with the ship and with the sea. A flight of fancy about the Earth pivoting at the ship’s centreline could improve your balance. The thick-skinned and foul-mouthed sailors showed no fear racing up a ratline or untangling a rope and yet they filled their days with superstitions to appease the waves. Ibanez, the Spaniard, would cross himself each time he ascended the companionway and always took the last step facing backwards. Young Tim kept a pocket watch that had stopped at half past four hard against his chest at all times. The sailor’s calendar was a mess of inauspicious dates when journeys could not be commenced and certain words or phrases (‘good luck’, ‘drowned’) could set the crew against you.
I took my meals in the same mess as the men in the fo’c’sle. The first few days after leaving the Clyde, we were treated to fish stew and fresh bread, which the sailors called soft tommy and took great relish in. When I asked about the origins of the name the other men grunted and looked away. After a time, Boag said in a hoarse voice, ‘If you don’t want your tommy, Slimy, there’re plenty of takers. It’ll be hard biscuits till doomsday soon enough.’
I looked down at my half-eaten crust of bread. My stomach was still not used to such food and in such proportions as the sailors greedily inhaled. I shrugged and offered the crust to Boag, who snatched it as a toad might snatch a fly. The other men seemed stricken with stomach pains at the sight of Boag’s increased portion. Mantzaris, the sail maker, bit the handle of his wooden spoon. Dhalla cracked his knuckles. Kulke bared his teeth. I decided to divide my bread among the men evenly at the next meal, but it just so happened that we had seen the last of the soft tommy.
On receiving my first hard biscuit that evening, I laboured to break it with my hands to divide among the men, but it might as well have been teak. I tried placing it between my molars but only ground a few unsatisfying crumbs from the edge. I looked up to see the men sneering as they soaked their biscuits in the day-old fish stew. After a time they each brought their biscuits to their mouths and scraped off the softened layers with their haphazard teeth. Defeated, I could only dunk my own biscuit and work away at its sawdusty substance until I was alone outside the galley and could toss my half-gnawed biscuit overboard.
Thereafter the barrels and tins of salted beef and pork and pickled vegetables were opened and the contents fashioned by the cook into burgoo or slumgullion. The only difference between the two that I could detect was the speed at which the stew slid from my spoon.
It was a rough, dangerous and confusing life those first few weeks at sea, but I found wee pleasures where I could. My chief diversion was keeping my tools and the ship’s axes sharp. I used the same mixture of crocus powder and tallow to treat my strops as I had done in the workshop of Doig & Son. After spending time in the rigging or being shunned by the crew, I would retreat to the stores. The smell never failed to transport me to more tranquil times.
The friendship I hoped would develop with Basil Porter never did. I expect he was disappointed by how few of my skills as a figurehead carver were of use as ship’s carpenter and came to begrudge me the time he spent teaching and reteaching me basic tasks and pieces of ship’s etiquette. He had shown his inexperience as first mate in enlisting me as carpenter, throwing out the harmony of the ship, and I gather
ed he was paying the price in his dealings with Captain Bock. Equally, his estimation in my eyes slowly diminished. I had been drawn to him when the Agathos was still in dock because he spoke of the very things I thirsted for: change, adventure, self-determinism. But I soon learnt that Porter was little more than a salesman: he had the talent of knowing what to say to people and, when this failed, the sound of his own voice was enough to sustain him.
‘You think you’ve seen the sun?’ he said one afternoon when his monologue drifted to his Australian homeland while I repaired a chicken coop that had been damaged in a passing squall. ‘You haven’t seen the sun unless you’ve seen it rising red and round over the earth back home, its light running over the backs of dusty sheep and rusting iron. The black cockatoos squawking in the marri trees. An emu patrolling the perimeter.’ He placed both of his hands on the gunwale and leant out over the sea. I could’ve used another pair of hands to hold down the new wire mesh for the coop but Porter was on the other side of the planet. ‘As far as I know, both my parents are still alive and kicking, though news to the contrary would struggle to find me.’
As the days passed, I needed to be shadowed by Porter less and less and was eventually left to my own devices. I now reported to Captain Bock, but he was seldom on deck. He preferred to spend his time with the paying passengers. The Agathos began to feel like the narrow, winding closes back home: the men stared at me as the children of the closes did, as if I were a ghost. But I was no longer the same child who stuck to the main thoroughfares.
