Wild Geese

by Caroline Pignat

  “Sit, sit,” Fergal urges, and I hop on a nearby barrel as he takes a closer look. “Ach, ’tis deep. It got you good. That needs to be cleaned proper. Stay here while I get my bandages.”

  We both know the dangers of dirty rats. Horrible creatures. God knows what filth is on its nails.

  Fergal’s footsteps thump up the stairs, leaving me alone on the barrel listening to the creak and groan of the ship, a sound as familiar to me now as my own heartbeat. Something moves in the corner. Something big.

  What sized rat could make that sound?

  “Achoo!”

  That’s no rat.

  I hobble around to the barrels in the farthest corner. It came from here. A coiled rope hangs over the lid of one barrel, spilling on the floor. Even I know no sailor would ever leave a rope like that, not on Smythe’s watch. And the lid itself isn’t on straight. Surely Fergal would not have left it like that. I slide the lid to the side, half-fearing I’ll come face to face with a dog-sized, hungry rat inside. Only it isn’t a rat. It’s a boy about my age, sitting cross-legged in the bottom of the barrel.

  “Please … don’t tell,” he whispers. The whites of his eyes shine from the darkness like two moons.

  “Why are you in here?” I ask, though the answer’s clear enough. The boy’s a stowaway. I glance over my shoulder. Fergal will be back any second. After seeing how he handled the rat, I can only imagine what he’d do to this lad. “Who are you?”

  He can tell by my clothes, I’m no sailor. But I can turn him in just the same. He considers for a moment and then whispers, “I’m Billy.”

  “Do you know what they do to stowaways, Billy?”

  His trembling tells me he has some idea.

  “Please … I’ll do anything you want. Just promise me you won’t turn me in.”

  I stand, lid in hand, wondering what they might do to the one stowing a stowaway. Fergal’s footsteps knock the stairs.

  “All right, I promise. I won’t tell a soul.”

  He smiles in relief as I close the lid. After piling the rope on top, I manage to hobble back to my barrel just as Fergal enters with a bucket of water and a bandage.

  “Here we go,” he says, taking my foot in hand. He washes it well and binds it tight.

  Fergal has a good heart, I know that, but I also know how he is about rationing food. I look over his shoulder at the bloody footprints leading to and from Billy’s barrel. Some help I am. Why don’t I just put a sign over it saying stowaway?

  What if they find him? What would they do to him? How did he even get in here? My mind skips like a stone. ’Tis a water barrel; did he empty it? Will one less barrel of water or one more hungry mouth really make all that difference?

  Yes. I think. Yes, it will. The truth sinks and settles in the bottom of my stomach.

  “Here are the traps,” Mick says, entering the storeroom with some wild-looking contraptions. Fergal tells him to set them in the corners.

  “I thought rats were good at hiding,” Mick says.

  “Aye,” Fergal says. “He can run, he can hide, but he can be sure I’ll find him in the end. Ye hear that, wee beastie? A rat on my ship is as good as dead!”

  CHAPTER TEN

  The rough weather meant another long stint in the hold. Though ’tis only three or four of Murph’s notches, it seems like ages since I’ve seen the sky. Captain MacDonald said it was for our safety. One can tell he hasn’t been down in the hold for a visit. But eventually, the rough seas let up and we are let out.

  “A nasty bit of a cold,” Murph says, as he blows his nose and hobbles to our small cook fire on deck. “Nothing a bit of fresh air won’t fix.”

  Several folk are suffering from one illness or another. Some are sick from the rocking of the ship; others have colds from the hold’s damp and night’s chill. I daresay there’s lice and fleas in every berth by now. Mrs. Ryan grunts as she sits on deck beside Brigid, who pours her a cup of tea.

  Despite the chance to be on deck, even for a short while before the coming storm, Brian Delaney takes two extra helpings back into the hold. None of us speak about his mother or Pat and Danny, his youngest boys. They fell ill a few days back and aren’t even able to make it up the stairs. None of us wants to say the unspeakable. That they might have the fever. That it might be lurking in the hold. That we might be next. So we talk of weather, trying to ignore the fear gnawing at our empty bellies.

  “She’s close now,” Murph says, nodding to the back ship behind us. “Only a day or two away, at most.”

  He’s trying to change the subject. To give us hope. But somehow, I don’t feel any better.

  “Kenny, lad,” Fergal calls from where he is carefully measuring cups of oats as Mick doles cups of water. I join them and he hands me the key. “Fetch the sack of rice from the storeroom. This last barrel of oats is near done.”

  My eyes widen at the words “last barrel.”

  “Don’t worry, we’ve rice and wheat flour, yet. I can work miracles, just you see,” he winks at me.

  I didn’t tell anyone about Billy. A promise is a promise. Besides, I’m a runaway criminal, a girl bearing a dead boy’s name. Who am I to judge Billy? Surely that’s the pot calling the kettle black. At any rate, the fewer who know about him the better. I haven’t been to the storeroom since I found him there, but Billy survived this long on his own. At least he has food. Our food. I pray he isn’t taking much. Fergal may be able to work miracles, but even the Lord Jesus Christ himself needed two fish and five loaves to get started.

  I unlock the storeroom door and light the lantern. “Billy,” I whisper. “It’s me, Ki- Kenny.”

  Nothing.

  “Billy?” I whisper a bit louder, but there is no reply. Careful not to tread on any rat traps, I find Billy’s barrel and lift the lid, afraid I might find a corpse in the bottom. But it’s empty.

  Thank God.

  Relief washes over me. He’s not dead. Just gone.

  But relief soon gives way to panic. Gone? Gone where? Has he been found?

  Fergal’s stories run through my mind, stories of stowaways getting whipped, or worse, keelhauled, tied with a rope and dragged underwater from one side of the ship to the other. I shudder.

  “Billy!” I whisper more forcefully. “Come out!”

  “Looking for someone?” The voice cuts the air like a clap of thunder, making me jump. It isn’t Billy’s, that’s for sure. But I know the voice. I’d trained myself these past few weeks to bolt at its sound—only, down here there is nowhere to run. I turn to find Coyle blocking the exit like a thick-planked door.

  “No.” My mind races. “I was just—just checking the barrels.”

  “Then who’s Billy?” Coyle raises his eyebrow and looks around.

  Visions of keelhauling flash before my eyes. I can almost feel the rope around my wrists, the burn of the seawater in my lungs. “Oh, Billy? Billy’s a rat. Just a rat I named.”

  Coyle enters the room and swipes an apple from the Cunninghams’ stores. He walks past me, searching behind the barrels. Finding nothing, he sits on one and eats the apple.

  “Why are you down here?” Coyle asks, suspicious.

  “Fergal sent me for rice.” My eyes dart around for the bag and I grab it. I pray to God Billy has the sense to stay hidden, wherever he is. I head for the doorway but Coyle jumps into my path.

  “I have to go, Coyle,” I say. “Fergal’s waiting and there’s a storm coming.”

  Thunder rumbles overhead.

  “Oh, there’s a storm coming all right, O’Fool.” Coyle steps forward and crunches into his apple, juice from it splattering on my cheek. “I’ve had nothing but troubles since you and your idiot brother set foot on this ship. You O’Fools are bad luck.” He nods with his realization and tosses the apple core. “Bad luck through and through. We can’t have that. Not on a ship. Sailors can’t abide any kind of bad luck.”

  I step back. “L-leave me alone, Coyle.”

  “Leave me alone, Coyle,” he mimics.
“Christ, you sound like a whiny girl.”

  Panic ripples through me as I consider what might happen if he found out I was a girl.

  “I have to bring the rice ...” I clutch it to my chest, “... the storm ...”

  Coyle’s eyes light up. “Oh, accidents happen all the time in a storm. A clumsy passenger might fall overboard. Nobody’d suspect a thing. And even if they did, Smythe would probably thank me.”

  He flicks his wrist and, with a click, the knife’s blade catches the lantern’s light.

  He’s going to kill me. Gut me like a fish and toss me into the sea.

  With a groan, the ship tilts, sending me back against the barrels. But Coyle is as steady as ever. He jabs toward my side and I turn, protecting myself with the rice bag. Coyle’s blade slashes, spilling rice from the bag’s gaping wound, leaving me with nothing but a tattered sack and an empty prayer.

  God help me!

  A movement just over Coyle’s shoulder catches my eye.

  “Billy!” I blurt, knowing he’ll be next. The fool is standing atop a barrel, holding a crate overhead.

  Coyle turns slightly to catch a glimpse and, instead, catches a crate to the head. It smashes over him and he falls like a sack of flour, setting off a rat trap as he tumbles to the floor.

  “Sweet mother in heaven! What have you done?” I say, near breathless.

  “You’re welcome.” Billy smiles, hopping off the barrel to admire his work. Coyle lies in a heap among the rice and splinters. His right hand is caught in a rat trap and blood trickles from a cut over his brow.

  “Cor, he’s a big’un, ain’t he?” Billy brags, as though he’s just landed himself a cod.

  “Big? He’s a bloody ape!” I run my hand through my hair, taking in the mess at my feet. “Jaysus, I’m in for it now.”

  Crate bits slide along the floor as the ship rocks. Picking up a stick, Billy pokes Coyle. “Do you think he’s dead?”

  A red stain spreads on Coyle’s shirt from his dripping brow.

  I lean in. “He’s breathing.” I didn’t know if this was good or bad news. “He’ll have a sore head and worse temper when he wakes. Did he see you?”

  “I don’t think so. I’m not sure; he may have.” Billy shrugs.

  “Where’s that rice, Kenny?” Fergal’s voice calls from up the stairs. “The storm is close upon us.”

  “Tell him there’s been an accident. Tell him a stack of crates shifted and fell on Coyle,” Billy whispers.

  Coyle groans.

  “But what about you?” I ask.

  “Me?” He puffs up his chest. “Billy Farrell can take care of himself.”

  I look toward the stairs, unsure. But when I turn back, he is gone.

  “Did you hear me, lad?” Fergal stomps down the stairs.

  “Fergal! Come quick, there’s been an accident!” I call as the old man rounds the corner and takes in the scene: the smashed wood, the rice, and the body sprawled in the midst of it all. “A crate fell on him.”

  “A crate, eh?” Fergal picks up the slashed bag. “You don’t say.”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  The knife. The slashed rice bag. Coyle’s run-ins with Mick. Fergal is no fool. He knows what happened well enough. I can tell he’s wondering how a spit of a “lad” like me could take down someone like Coyle. I’m not giving him any answers but I am grateful that he doesn’t ask too many questions.

  “I knew you had it in you,” Fergal says, bandaging the still unconscious Coyle’s head. “I told Mick you could fend for yourself. You do a better job of it than Mick, at any rate. Hasn’t he the shiner to prove it?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Coyle is forever goading Mick. Mick usually ignores his tauntings, but when Coyle threatened he’d hurt you, well, that was it. That was when Mick fought back. Or tried to. Coyle near killed him with that one punch.”

  “The idiot!” I say, cursing Mick under my breath. “He should know better.”

  Fergal slowly opens the rat trap from Coyle’s hand. I could tell by the look, the three fingers were snapped.

  “You can’t blame a lad for protecting his own,” he says.

  “I am not his own,” I blurt, forgetting Fergal saw us as brothers. “I mean, I’m my own person.” I pull on Coyle’s broken fingers, straightening them for Fergal to splint. He takes a bit of stick from the broken crate and binds the three together against it. Part of me wants to set them crooked.

  “Right you are,” Fergal answers. “And Coyle here won’t be punching much with this mangled hand. Still, would you talk to your brother, Kenny? Before he gets himself killed?”

  “Oh, I’ll talk to him,” I say.

  Two sailors carry Coyle to his hammock. Fergal says he might suffer from memory loss. I hope he does. Maybe he will forget about picking on Mick and me, not to mention forget about seeing Billy Farrell. If Coyle remembers Billy, Billy’s days on this ship are numbered.

  A sailor stands at the far side of the aft deck, waving a flag in each hand, his stiff arms moving like the hands on a clock.

  “What’s he doing?” I ask.

  “Signaling the Wandsworth,” Fergal says. “Probably asking if they’ve a yard pole for our repairs.”

  The Wandsworth isn’t far behind us now. I can almost see the face of the sailor waving signal flags in reply from its prow.

  “You’d best be heading to the hold now,” Fergal says, glancing up at the darkened sky as we reach the deck. “Storm’s coming.” I’m surprised he let me off easy, considering the state of the storage room. “And … Kenny?”

  I turn.

  “Ye may get your sorry self back here after the storm. That storage room isn’t going to tidy itself.”

  “Yessir.”

  The storm hits hard but we are ready this time. We learned our lesson from the first one. Everything is tied down or safely stowed as we ride the churning sea, climbing peaks and crests as high as any mountain before the terrible fall into the valley on the other side. Each drop punches my gut. Each twist spins my brain. Wave after wave. Joe and I lie in our berth, side by side in the unlit hold, bumped and tossed by the pitching and rolling of the ship. Thunder claps and whining timbers drown out the sounds of passengers crying, praying, or being sick into buckets.

  “Kenny,” Joe whispers in the dark beside me. “I’m afraid. I don’t want to die.”

  “Don’t think about it, Joe,” I say. For that was what Da used to tell me when I’d have my awful nightmares back home. “Use your imagination and think of something else.”

  That advice got me through so much this long year as I lived through those very nightmares.

  “Close your eyes,” I continue, “and think of lying on the hillside with the sun on your face.”

  The ship lurches and we bounce in our berth. A woman screams.

  “Jaysus, I can’t!” Joe says in a panic. “As much as my mind is telling me, my body doesn’t believe it. No hillside feels like this!”

  “A wagon, then,” I say, for our berth boards do feel like a wagon bed beneath us. “We’re in the back of the wagon watching the clouds. Da is taking us into town.” I speak quickly to calm him. To calm myself. “Today’s the May Day Fair. There’s Ned Nowlan, leading his sheep. Howiya Ned! And there’s Will Hyland, carrying the basket of wool. He’ll be playing his bodhran at the dance tonight. Can’t you just smell the apple blossoms?”

  The ship pitches again.

  “’Tis a right bumpy road,” Joe says. “I’m bounced around back here like a load of loose logs. Does he always take this way?”

  I smile. “Ah, but this way has the best view. Can you see it?”

  I feel him relax beside me.

  “I can,” he says.

  “Describe it, Joe.”

  And so he does. In the middle of a wide ocean, at the height of the storm, in the bottom of a boat over depths beneath us, we escape, Joe and I, to a winding road on the way to the fair with my Da.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

&nbs
p; Hours later, the seas calm. There are a few injuries, but nothing compared to the first storm we weathered. The captain allows us back on deck and the crowd lines up at the steps, eager to be free from the smelly hold. I hang back to help Murph up the stairs once everyone’s gone. Everyone but the Delaneys.

  “Can you bring me up to see how Brian’s faring?” Murph asks. I’m in no rush to clean the storage room. Knowing Fergal, he’ll have me picking up that rice, grain by bloody grain.

  Murph leans on my shoulder and I bear the weight, sparing his bad leg as we wander up the stuffy hold past the emptied berths.

  “Did you know they carry lumber on the trip back?” Murph says. “My brother’s a shantyman. He cuts the trees they float down the river to Quebec. Them berths come out and this whole hold is loaded with logs.” He waves his free arm, taking in the length of the ship. “Imagine that, Kenny. A fleet of forests crossing the ocean, headed for England.”

  I can well imagine, but it pains me to think on it.

  “My village is Killanamore,” I say. “Do you know what that means?”

  “Coill Anam Mór,” he says, easily slipping into Gaelic. “Forest of great soul.”

  I nod.

  “Had you a great forest there, then?”

  I laugh. “If you call a few scrubs and groves a forest. I asked Da about that once and he told me that long, long ago the hills were thick with woods. The woods of myth and legend.”

  “Home of the Fianna,” Murph says, with a smile. “Those are my favorite tales, too.”

  “Da once said that the English had come and stripped our forests of wood. Taken what they wanted. Being only little when he told me, I said they should have asked us first.”

  “What do you think now?” he asks.

  “Now I know. There is no asking, only taking. The rich can clear wherever they want of wood. Or people.” My eyes travel the span of the hold, the row upon row of empty berths. I can imagine the great Canadian logs filling the length and width of this ship’s belly. “And here we are … shipped in the very same hold. We have no more say than those stripped logs.” I pause. “Come to think of it, the logs are probably worth more to them.”