by Carol Birch
‘Together, boys,’ Dan said.
The captain’s boat drew close.
‘Haul to, haul to,’ a voice said.
The sound of timbers striking timbers.
‘Mr Rymer!’ the captain hailed, ‘all’s well with you?’
‘All’s well!’ Dan replied.
‘What’s this coming in, do you think? Storm?’
Dan sniffed the air like a dog. ‘Coming in,’ he said.
The sound swelled in my ears and exploded. I was lying against Dan’s arm. His lips were next to my ear.
‘Good boy, Jaf,’ he said. ‘You lie down now and sleep if you can. Don’t worry about a thing. Soon be home.’
He made me and Tim lie down as if we were infants, we had to close our eyes and pretend to sleep to please him. It kept him happy. Dan was singing sleepily, pissing over the side of the boat. ‘When other lips and other hearts their tales of love shall tell …’
‘What’s happening, Dan? What’s happening?’
‘Nothing. It’s all right.’
I remembered Skip. Turned my face. ‘Skip,’ I said, ‘you still sane, boy?’
He smiled. ‘Was I ever?’
‘Here,’ said Dan, and raised me up, put water to my lips. I peered over the gunwale. I saw the captain’s boat, dark against a red background. Slumped forms there, all sleeping in a coming night. No one keeping watch. That cannot be right.
Skip gripped my arm, hard, the forearm just below the elbow, sharp on the inside.
‘Look!’
It was getting dark.
‘Nothing there.’
‘Yes, there is.’
‘I don’t know. What?’
He saw things, of that there is no doubt. His claws, below the elbow. ‘Now! Now!’ he said. ‘Now it’s turning its face this way.’
‘Get off me!’ I shook him off.
‘Shut your stupid gob,’ said Tim furiously. ‘It was you in the first place, Skip, you said it. You. What was it? You did? What?’
Skip covered his eyes.
‘You did!’
‘Boys, boys,’ said Father Dan.
The captain’s bread ran out, and the meat ran out. Boils erupted, our skin became volcanic. We waited for Wilson Pride to die. Yes, we did. We knew he’d be the next to go. That’s what we’d come to now, wishing it, hoping, as he lay there burning in his dry sweat, his blue-black tongue pushing through between his lips. Our cook, who used to make us stew and duff and barley broth, and the rice and peas of his homeland, spiced up with whatever was to hand, or just a bit of salt, a radish, a few green plucked herbs of a strange island. A little fried fish. Small fish, innards and all, heads and tails and eyes and everything. Oh, my belly, the great hollow of the world. Broth. Hot broth, savoury steam. Bright green leaves, blush-orange roots, silky leeks a-simmer, dancing gold liquid.
‘My ma,’ I said, ‘she used to make this broth. Ham bone if she could get it. Beans and peas. Turnips. Carrots.’
‘You let the dragon out,’ Tim was saying, ‘that’s what you did.’
‘Well! So?’
‘You did. You said. Let it out.’
‘Leeks,’ I said, ‘leeks are very important. You need leeks.’
Wilson doesn’t cook any more. Wilson’s gone far away. His soul’s gone a-wandering, knapsack over its shoulder. I have been trying to talk to Tim about how I have no sense in me of right and wrong any more, and how I’m stony and fire watery, turn and turn about, and how it seems I have many, many things to tell him, but can’t speak, can’t get the words off my tongue because it’s too heavy and stupid.
Silently the captain removed the hot rag from Wilson’s forehead, dipped it in the sea and pulled it out freshly cold, gave it a squeeze, shook it hard and replaced it on the dying man’s head.
Wilson was talking or rather chunnering, making no sense. His big lips had withered inwards, and his eyes, when they were not closed, stared at the sky with a look near to humour.
‘I sailed with him twice before,’ the captain said.
‘Did you so?’ Dan scratched steadily at the scurf around his neck.
‘Simon, will you shift a bit and give him more room? It’ll be over soon.’
Simon shifted, so Dag had to shift too, stiffly, wincing at his swollen legs, the colour now of cooked bacon. His face crumpled and he dry sobbed for a few seconds.
Dan called us to him like chickens. ‘Here, boys,’ he said. ‘No point in looking.’
We sat with him in the prow.
‘Look at me,’ he said. ‘Here is something we must do and it’s very important. It’s an order. You must remember all the words to “Tobacco’s But An Indian Weed”.’
‘I don’t know them!’ Tim protested.
‘Yes, you do. Think. You remember, that time by the Wapping Steps?’
‘Yes, but I can’t remember any words.’
‘You must try. Jaffy, what about you?’
‘I only know the first couple of lines.’
‘Good. You begin.’
Tobacco’s but an Indian weed,
Grows green in the morn, cut down at eve,
We are but clay …
‘Something else,’ said Tim.
We are but clay, da-da, da-da,
Think of this when you smoke tobacco.
Tim looked at Dan. ‘Go on, Clever Clogs,’ he said.
‘“The pipe that is so lily white,”’ sang Dan softly, ‘“Wherein so many take delight; It’s broken with a touch …”’
A short pause. Wilson’s high-pitched breathing filled it.
‘You, Tim,’ Dan said, giving him a shake, ‘your turn. Look at me. “It’s broken with a touch.” What comes next?’
‘“Man’s life is such …”’ Tim continued, and we three in unison:
‘“Think of this when you smoke tobacco.”’
‘Happy little souls, aren’t you?’ Gabriel, irritated.
‘Skip? You know it?’
Skip shook his head. His eyes were big and glassy.
‘Soft now, Wilson, good man, let it go,’ the captain said tonelessly.
Wilson whimpered like a small baby.
‘Look at his throat,’ Dag said.
I turned my head.
‘Jaf!’ Dan pulled my face round by the chin. ‘Next verse now, come on.’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Concentrate. You do.’
‘I don’t.’
A sound like a pumping bellows began.
‘I’ll give you a start. “The pipe that is so foul within, shows how man’s soul is …”’
Drowning. His throat squeezing. His voice forcing out from some abyss, a hollow animal bellow.
‘Hold steady,’ said the captain.
‘Look at his throat!’ Dag, panicky.
‘Tim! Continue.’
‘“Full of sin,”’ said Tim.
‘Good! Jaf!’
‘Don’t know.’
‘Try.’
I don’t remember. Something about smoke and all of us returning to dust, blah blah blah …
‘“The ashes that are left behind,”’ said Tim triumphantly, ‘“should serve to put us all in mind”.’
‘Oh yes,’ I said, joining in.
That unto dust return we must.
Think of this when you smoke tobacco!
‘Now now now, one more verse, come on, boys, think hard.’
‘Smoke,’ I said.
A horrible sound, a rattling choking vomiting sound, as if the lungs of the man were heaving themselves up his throat and out of his mouth.
‘Smoke!’ Dan snapped his fingers. ‘Skip! You!’
Skip was crying.
A breath like the scraping of a nail on slate, exhaling into silent infinity.
‘“The smoke”,’ said Dan gamely, ‘“that is so …”’
‘No!’ Tim. ‘“The smoke that doth so high …”’
‘That’s it,’ the captain said.
13
They are now
three in their boat and we are five. I counted on my fingers. We are eight. Should one of us move over to the captain’s boat? But who should go?
‘I want you boys here,’ said Dan.
That leaves Skip and Gabriel, and neither wants to go. We all sit, stupid with the problem. Anyway, someone says, too late now, soon be dark. For God’s sake, let’s just sleep on it. We’ve eaten. That too has made us stupid. So we should say the prayers now as usual, but we just lie there like bloated sacks, none of us moving.
The dark night came down and there was nothing, not a star. No one lit a lantern or spoke.
After a while: ‘Oh Lord,’ said Dan in an odd tone, defiant, almost declamatory, a peculiar smile in his voice, ‘here we are … here we are still. We are … we are …’
‘Eight,’ I said.
‘Thank you, Jaf. We are eight souls afloat. What do you say to that, hey?’
And then there was laughter, I don’t know who, me anyway, and Tim because he was next to me, trembling hard. And Dan, but I don’t know who else. A few. The covering dark gave the feeling of giggling under blankets. When we stopped there was only the gentle sound of lapping waves, soothing. I yawned. Saliva ran again, bitter as lemon. Strips of meat hung in the darkness, salting steadily, drying out.
Some time later: ‘Goddamn it!’ cried a voice, Jehovah summoning fire and brimstone. It was Gabriel, lurching as if to stand up, making the boat pitch.
‘Sit down!’ we all growled.
He flopped heavily down again, roaring in a cracked voice: ‘God! God! What fucking God? God’s evil. That’s what it is. God’s evil and the devil’s won. That’s what it is!’
‘Don’t talk about the devil!’ begged Skip.
‘Calm down,’ said Dan.
‘How? Calm down?’ Gabriel laughed, a humourless bark. ‘Are you mad?’
‘I may be,’ Dan said. ‘Calm down anyway.’
‘Quite simply,’ said another disembodied voice, very steady, the captain probably, though it didn’t sound like him, ‘it’s possible all of us will die.’
A hand crept into mine.
‘I don’t want to die!’ Someone whining, I still don’t know who. Simon, I think, though again it sounded nothing like him and it was so long since he’d spoken that I’d almost forgotten him. Someone else started crying, a fierce ragged sound.
There was a lurch. ‘Goddamn you, Skip,’ Gabriel said, ‘this is all your fault.’
‘I know, I know.’ Skip’s voice, suddenly close by my ear, so close it made the small hairs there quiver, a pale whisper of a voice. ‘Sorry. Sorry.’
‘We should chuck you over.’ Dag’s voice, teeth chattering, hiccuping.
‘That’s enough now,’ Dan said.
‘Chuck him over!’ Gabriel with a grin in his voice.
‘Chuck him over!’ Simon joined in.
‘Chuck him over! Chuck him over!’ Tim now too, and I was about to join in when Dan’s stern voice cut through.
‘Remember I have a pistol,’ it said. ‘The first person to lay hands in anger on any one of us gets first bullet.’
Silence. Then Captain Proctor spoke. ‘I too have a pistol,’ he said.
Silence.
‘I too have a pistol,’ he repeated thoughtfully, then: ‘Mr Rymer, enlighten me please. Am I not still captain of this – this …’
‘You are indeed.’
‘If there’s any shooting to be done, I decide.’
‘Of course. I didn’t mean …’
‘You fools!’ said Gabriel with a depth of scorn. ‘What does it matter?’
No one spoke for a few minutes.
The waves were small and even, singing like a lullaby, up and down, up and down, lullullullullulluluuu for ever and ever and …
‘You think I’m a fool!’ the captain gritted out. ‘I am not a fool!’
‘No one thinks you’re a fool,’ said Dan.
Skip screamed, a long horrible madman’s shriek that pierced my head, and the captain yelled: ‘Shut him up, for God’s sake!’
‘Skip,’ said Dan, ‘come here.’
Then all hell broke loose, terror skipping from one to another, leaping between us, settling and enveloping us all, a suffocating cloud. I heard a whimpering very close to my ear. Then it was all around and I was in it and of it and falling horribly through it, a weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth.
‘Enough!’ A pistol shot.
Silence.
The captain spoke. ‘We are not animals,’ he wheezed. ‘Not one more sound or the next bullet finds more than empty air.’
A few moments of staggered breathing and snuffling and sighing faded away into nothing.
‘Now,’ the captain said, ‘settle down, everyone, and go to sleep. Mr Rymer, keep that boy under control.’
‘Come here to me, Skip,’ said Dan softly, sounding very tired.
‘Have him,’ Gabriel said sulkily, ‘I can’t sleep for him.’
‘Sleep?’ said Tim. ‘You sleep?’
Then we were all laughing again.
Skip trod on me in the darkness.
‘Fuck you,’ I said.
‘Sorry,’ said Skip.
‘You think I’m a fool,’ the captain said tightly. ‘I am still in command of this enterprise. I must consider the welfare of us all.’
Skip flopped down somewhere. The boat quivered.
‘For God’s sake, sleep,’ said Dan.
The silent length of night with no moon or stars. The sound of Dag’s snoring. Tim’s hand loose in mine, and me thinking about Ma.
‘Ma,’ I said.
‘Yes. Shh,’ said Dan. ‘You’ll see your ma again.’
Death was close. Sitting next to me. It hurt, if the others were anything to go by. And if them, why not me? How do you get there? Death, I mean, wherever it was the wild thing dropped you: you, breath-stopped, amazed. Will I fall there or drift? When would be the moment of knowing? What sound? What sight? The sky, dark or light? The side of the boat? Would I go hard or easy? What grief. More than anything else, what grief to leave the world.
I must have fallen asleep. Ishbel and me, same as ever, walking along the Highway. Everything clear and bright. She wore a white dress like a ballet dancer’s, and was unpainted, as if she’d just got up. Then I was in our old house in Watney Street, our room with the curtain across and old Silky and Mari-Lou snoring on the other side of it. Then back on the sea once more, the lullullullullullull of the waves, the sound of Skip snoring. Someone was poking me.
‘We didn’t give him a send-off!’
‘What?’
Tim’s voice. ‘We didn’t give him a send-off!’ His angry claw tight on my arm. It would leave a bruise.
‘What?’
‘It’s wrong! It’s wrong!’
‘Who? What?’
‘Poor Wilson,’ he said. ‘You should always give a man a send-off.’
‘Ah!’
‘That’s us damned!’
Towards dawn someone in the other boat commenced praying in a deep belly voice: ‘Plea-ea-ease. Plea-ease! Pleaseplease! Plea-ea-ease oh please. Please please. Plea-ea-ea-plea-ease! Aaah! Plea-ea-ea-ease!’
‘Shut up!’ Another voice, weary.
Dan gave a long guttural sigh. He put a hand over my ear, a great flap to keep out sound. His belly was under my other ear going up and down, weird little creakings in it.
‘I cannot do this,’ I whispered. ‘I don’t want to die.’
‘Take no notice,’ he said. ‘Go to sleep.’
When I slept I dreamed of groaning tables and feasts of plenty, and woke adrool to see Dan with his head tilted back, storm-battered face talking to the sky. ‘Well, well,’ he said, a low sing-song, ‘my sore runs in the night and ceases not, indeed it does. Oh indeedy.’ His tongue, swollen and grey like a giant tick, flipped uselessly over his lips. ‘I breathe therefore I am. Thinking doesn’t come into it.’ He sucked a little blood from his arm, a meditative look on his face. Caught my eye and cracked a v-sha
ped smile. His brows had dropped and grown fierce and hairy.
‘You know you used to say, Don’t worry, I’ve been in worse than this?’ I said. ‘Well, you can’t now, can you? Not any more. You haven’t been in worse than this, have you?’
Dan thought for a moment. ‘No,’ he said, ‘that’s true. But don’t worry.’
Dag was half sitting up, propped against the gunwale, talking in his own language, a constant mumble pierced occasionally by a throaty yell like a boy hailing his dog.
‘Look what’s happening.’ Sharp and cracked, the voice of Simon, rarely heard these days. ‘Oh no!’ He moved backwards.
The captain wrung out a filthy rag. ‘Won’t be long now,’ he murmured.
‘What is it?’
Dag was sweating blood. His jutty face and swollen neck, sun-blackened, oozed a fine rose-tinted dew.
‘Here, Simon.’
The captain handed Simon the rag and he wiped Dag’s face. The rag came away stained.
‘Give him a drink,’ the captain said, ‘wet his lips at least.’
Dag’s blue eyes opened wide.
‘God!’ cried Gabriel. ‘God! He knows! He knows!’
‘Ssh!’
They trickled water on his lips, poured it through his jaws. His tongue shot out. ‘Mama,’ he croaked. ‘Mama …’ then a torrent of words, another burst of pink sweat on his skin, a sudden horrible awareness in his eyes.
‘It’s all right,’ said Simon, wiping away with the rag, ‘it’ll be better soon.’
But Dag knew, and he gripped Simon’s wrist.
‘It’s all right,’ said Simon, ‘lie down now.’
What a day that was, the day of Dag’s dying. He wouldn’t stay down. Up and down like a jack-in-the-box. His voice came and went, sometimes silent for a whole hour at a time and you’d wonder if he’d gone, but no, then you’d hear his awful breath still scraping at the world like claws trying to hold on. Skip was going barmy too, snivelling sulkily like a big stupid kid, occasionally shouting about a thing that walked alongside us on the water, a hoofed thing like a goat and a man and a fish all at once. He said it grinned and was stalking us. Still, we were all mad in our different ways, sitting there helpless, with the sea still twinkling like eternity everywhere, with never a sail or an island or a rock or a bird even. Mid-afternoon, Dag’s voice went peculiar. Not that we’d understood anything he was saying, but there’d been a human quality at least to it, but now he turned and became like the Minotaur in the myth, bellowing like an ox being dragged to slaughter. He shat himself. Then a terrible thing happened, an image that seared itself indelibly onto my eyes and into whatever I am. He was leaning up against the gunwale and Simon had just finished wiping his face. The captain was dipping the rag in the sea. Dag’s eyes were open, looking out at the world with fixed interest, as if he’d never seen it before. Next second blood gushed out from his nose, then more, a great flood from his eyes, from his mouth, from his ears. As if all the blood of him was leaving through his face.
