Strandloper

by Alan Garner

  “It’s rig-welted.”

  “Rean-wawted.”

  “It’s casted,” said Renter.

  “Rean-wawted!”

  “Rig-welted!”

  “Casted.”

  “Anyroad, it’s stuck,” said William.

  “‘Therefore is the name of it called Babel; because the Lord did there confound the language of all the earth.’” said Jeremiah. “Gentlemen, it would seem that your St Giles’s Greek has some purpose whereby you may commune without bloodletting amongst yourselves at least.”

  “Casted.”

  “Rig-welted.”

  “Give over with your mither,” said William. “I can’t hear.”

  He fingered the beam and put his ear to the wood.

  “And why should you be a-grinning like a Cheshire cat?” said Renter.

  “I’m going home,” said William. “It’s taking me. It says.”

  Jeremiah laughed. “A palpable Argo! Yet I must own that it is bound for no Aeëtes’ realm, no Colchis, this; and no dusky Medea will proffer you a Golden Fleece, Mr Buckley. To have set an oracular plank from the oak of Dedonal Zeus, on such a ship, is indicative of folly, even in Athena.”

  “Oh, you and your mollocking,” said William. “Talk like a Christian, can’t you?”

  “He’s a rum duke,” said Renter.

  William stroked the swaddledidaff against his cheek with the other hand.

  “Cush, cush. Cush-a-cush.”

  “Mr Buckley,” said Jeremiah, “are you quite well?”

  “Ay. Grand as owt.”

  “But you are not going home. This vessel is bound for New Holland, as you do know.”

  “Or Van Demon’s Land,” said Renter.

  “I’m going home; and that’s a fact.”

  “Then how, pray?” said Jeremiah.

  “Walk. I’ve been asking the Patlanders. They know.”

  “Patlanders?” said Renter. “Ar, they would, wouldn’t they just? Nigmenog, every Jack-rag of them.”

  “Eh! Pad!” William shouted.

  “What?” answered a voice from the darkness.

  “Come here!”

  “What for?”

  “Me mates don’t believe us!”

  There was a thump onto the deck, and the chink of leg irons as someone shuffled forward.

  “What is it you want?” said the man.

  “Tell me mates here how we’re getting home.”

  “On our hocks; how else?”

  “Have you perused a globe?” said Jeremiah.

  “And what’s that?” said Pad.

  “Tell ’em,” said William.

  “Well,” said Pad, “it’s good as caz. You go north from Port Jackson till you get to this river. The other side’s China, and you’ll find them that are there are blue.”

  “They are. I’ve seen a picture,” said Willam. “There’s a bridge, and a feller with a boat.”

  “China,” said Pad. “And then you turn left and straight home.”

  “There’s trees,” said William. “Two are big uns. You can’t miss ’em.”

  “How shall you know North?” said Jeremiah.

  “I’ve a compass,” said Pad.

  “But can you read it?” said Jeremiah.

  “Read it? And didn’t I make it meself?” said Pad. And he hobbled back into the dark.

  “And didn’t I tell you?” said Renter. “I’d not trust that one’s arse with a fart.”

  10

  “‘IT IS THEREFORE ordered and adjudged by this Court, that you be transported upon the seas, beyond the seas –’” William looked out through a crack in the closed dead-light. “‘– to such a place as His Majesty, by the advice of His Privy Council, shall think fit to direct and appoint, for the term of your natural life.’”

  “Your memory is good,” said Jeremiah, from beneath.

  “You don’t forget,” said William. “They put a quietness on you, do them words. ‘Upon the seas, beyond the seas.’ It’s just I never thought as how there’d be so much.”

  “Ay,” said Renter, “and a lot of it’s wet.”

  “It’ll take some getting round,” said William. “And the sky’s looking black aback of Bill’s mother’s.”

  “You’d best come on down, then,” said Renter. “The chairs are talking.”

  William crouched along the gloom of the gun deck to the companion ladder and into the dark of the orlop and its air festered with slough and staled blood. He found his hammock and hauled his chain up.

  “William?” said Jeremiah.

  “What?”

  “Suppose: now let us, for the sake of discourse, suppose that Fortune were not to smile on you. Let us suppose that New Holland were to be your domicile, in truth, for the rest of your natural life.”

  “But I’m going home.”

  “I said the chairs were talking. It’ll be tables next,” said Renter.

  “I’m feeling badly,” said Eggy Mo.

  “They’re doing some running aloft, by the sound of it,” said Renter.

  A chair fell over, and the tables began to slide.

  “Seun agus saor agus –”

  “Nay, Sawney!” shouted William. “Don’t you start! Else you’ll have ’em all yowking!”

  “– Le gaotha caona, caomha, coistre, cubre –”

  “Sawney! Be told!”

  “Leave him,” said Renter. “Sawney knows his boats. And if he’s praying, I think I just might try.”

  A crag of water hit the side of the ship. Sea cascaded down the companion.

  “Batten all hatches!” cried a distant voice, and the decks thudded into black.

  “Open up!” Eggy Mo screamed. “I’ll not drown! You’ll not let us! You’ll not drown us! Open up!”

  “And is it you’ll be teaching iron to swim?” shouted Pad.

  Eggy Mo was sick into his hammock, coughing and weeping. “I want me Mam.”

  “And don’t we all?” said Pad.

  Another sea swept the ship, and water dripped and trickled from the gun deck above. Crying began, both women and men, and the sound of retching. Shouts went up.

  William put out his manacled hands in the darkness, balancing the hammock, until he reached Eggy Mo. Tender, so as not to capsize himself, he worked his way to Eggy’s hand, which gripped his in spasm.

  “Come here, youth,” said William, “and I’ll tell thee a tale.”

  “Will you?” said Eggy Mo.

  “Once upon a time,” said William, “though it weren’t in my time, and it weren’t in your time, and it weren’t in anybody else’s time, Jack and his mother were living on a common –”

  “Where is me Mam?” said Eggy Mo.

  “She’ll be here presently,” said William. “Anyroad, they were living on this common in a tumbledown house of sorts, with nobbut a white cow to keep them.”

  “Wasn’t it a brown un?” said Eggy Mo.

  “No. I’m telling you. It were white.”

  “Ay, white,” said Renter.

  People were blundering about in the wallow and dark, their chains splashing in the water that was gathering on the deck as they tried to find the ladder. Table and chairs were knocked over, and the cries of those who had fallen and could not get to their feet became panic.

  “Stay in your hammocks!” shouted William. “You’ll be all right! Anyroad, ‘Oh,’ says the man, ‘I’ll give you more than you’ll get at the market. If you’ll sell me your white cow, I’ll give you five beans.’”

  “Three,” said Renter.

  “No, they were never,” said William.

  “Three.”

  “Oh no they were not! I know how many beans make five!”

  “‘Infandum, regina, iubes renovare dolorem.’”said Jeremiah.

  “You what?” William nearly lost his balance. “What are you at?”

  “Assimilating the disgorgement and crepitation of others while en route for the Antipodes at His Majesty’s Pleasure,” said Jeremiah, “and assayin
g to improve on the Bedlam about me. Cows and beans, my dear fellow, cows and beans? When we may founder? Cows and beans!”

  “What was it you said?”

  “Words that appeared to be appropriate to our situation: no more.”

  “What’s it mean?”

  “‘O queen, you bid me relate unspeakable distress.’”

  “Is there any more?”

  “Much, much more.”

  “What’s it about?”

  “It concerns a man who sails from home to find a foreign land.”

  “Let’s hear it.”

  “It is over long,” said Jeremiah, “and I find it somewhat tedious.”

  “Learn me!” said William. “You must learn me that whateveritis!”

  “Teach Latin? Amongst this canting crew? But why not?” said Jeremiah. “And an acquaintance with the language, in particular with an ability to read the first verse of the Fifty-first Psalm, whence its vulgar sobriquet of ‘Neck Verse’, brings with it the singular advantage of escaping the full rigours of those offences that are held to be capital, as I have good cause to know. Yes, you shall learn your Latin, William. There are worse things to be done with fourteen years.”

  “No,” said William. “You must do it in a sixmonth. I’m going home.”

  “Then you may as well remain with cows and beans. Cows and beans, William, cows and beans.”

  The ship pitched under the seas, and the cries in the dark spread along the deck, swearing, pleading, praying and wordless. Only the Irish kept calm, with an unbroken jig of spoons and mouth music. William comforted Eggy Mo.

  “– No sooner done than in come the giant, and a great hairy chap he were, by all accounts.”

  “And what does he say?” said Eggy Mo.

  “He says:

  ‘Fee! Fi! Fo! Fum!

  I smell the blood of an Englishman!

  Be he alive, or be he dead,

  I’ll grind his bones to make my bread!’”

  “By all the Saints!” shouted Pad. “He’d be the great one for a political organisation!”

  The hatch was thrown open and there was a rushing of feet on the ladders, and an escort of sailors carrying torches, and of marines with bayonets fixed, pushed the crowd to the sides, leaving a passage clear. Along the gangway came a lieutenant, and with him the chaplain, holding a lantern. The clothes of them all trailed water.

  “Aha,” said Renter. “Here comes Bobby Knoppy.”

  “Is all well, Mr Erbin?” said the chaplain to Jeremiah.

  “By no means, Mr Knopwood,” said Jeremiah. “The people fear for their lives. They are persuaded that the ship will sink.”

  The check that the sudden occupation had brought became panic again, and the marines had to use the butts of their flintlocks in the closed space.

  “Silence!” ordered the lieutenant. “Silence!” His voice cracked.

  “He says hush up!” shouted William.

  The noise and the groaning subsided. The Irish continued a muted music. They were sitting on their tables, their weight keeping them steady.

  “Hush up, Pad,” said William.

  “Diddle-i-di-di-di, di-diddle-i-diddle-i-diddle-i-di,” Pad sang, smiling.

  “Listen to the parson!” said William.

  The deck was silent for a moment. In the light, those who had fallen were helped to stand.

  The chaplain looked William in the eye. William held his gaze.

  “Name?” said the lieutenant.

  “William Buckley.”

  “Say ‘sir’ to the chaplain.”

  “Me grandad always told me as ‘sir’ was a poor word for a fool,” said William.

  The chaplain laughed. “Why is this man double ironed, Mr Johnson?” he said.

  “I don’t know, sir,” said the lieutenant.

  “Then do me the honour of discovering the cause.”

  “Yes, sir. Sergeant!”

  “Sir!”

  “Take charge.”

  “Sir!”

  The lieutenant ran up the ladder.

  “Your grandsire’s wisdom,” said the chaplain to William, “will, I fear, strain my composure on the voyage.” He turned to face the prison deck. “Now! If you heathen, lero lero bullen a-la Teigues will cease from your papist pratings for a moment, I have news for you all. There is a storm, but I have been in worse. And the ship is of His Majesty’s line, and not one of your transports that should never lose sight of the Thames.”

  “But is it the storm that knows it? Sir?” said Pad. “And it’s not you, like a rat in a trap. Sir.”

  “It is my intention to be with you till the storm abate,” said the chaplain. “And, if you will give us leave to say a prayer in peace, I shall offer you and your fellows what succour I may or that you will allow.”

  “You’re on. Sir.” said Pad.

  The lieutenant came back down the ladder and spoke in the chaplain’s ear.

  “Indeed?” said the chaplain, and looked again at William. “The lieutenant has it from the Captain, Buckley, that, although you be charged with no offence other than that that brought you here, there is a note in the Captain’s Orders from the highest office of the Admiralty that you be confined in double irons for the duration of this voyage. Tell me: how may the matter stand thus?”

  “That devil wants me dead,” said William.

  “I recognise no authority,” said the chaplain, “other than God Almighty, and through His servant George our King, and His Archbishop. Mr Johnson. Have removed all but the leg irons. On the instant.”

  “Yes, sir,” said the lieutenant. “Sergeant, have this man taken up and unmanacle him.”

  “No,” said William. “Thee hold thy water. He thinks as I can’t do it. I’ll bloody show him. Leave them irons be.”

  “Pride, William,” said Jeremiah. “‘The mouth of the foolish is a rod of pride.’”

  “No,” said William. “It’s him or me.”

  “Who?”

  “Never you mind. I know. Leave them slangs.”

  “I cannot command you,” said the chaplain.

  “No, you can’t,” said William.

  “Mr Knopwood,” said Jeremiah, “is the ship equipped with slates and pencils that we may use?”

  “You have but to ask,” said the chaplain. “And now let us proceed, if we may. Mr Johnson. Do me the honour of going to my cabin and bringing me the bottle of brandy wine that you will find there. And then I should be gratified if you and your men were to retire.”

  “Sir, I may not leave you among the convicts without a guard!”

  “To supplicate our Father with flintlock and steel would be a blasphemy, sir,” said the chaplain. “Let us not dispute.”

  “But your life –”

  “Is in God’s hands. And I would have the brandy in mine.”

  The lieutenant saluted, returned with the bottle, and withdrew his men. The chaplain stood alone in the pool of lantern light, in the stench and the darkness, feet apart against the roll of the ship, head bent under the beams.

  “Let us go to our hammocks, and address ourselves to that Power that rules the heavens, the seas and the dry land.”

  There was shrieking and spewing and the rattle of chains, but at last even the Irish settled.

  The chaplain began to pray.

  “Thou, O Lord, that stillest the raging of the sea, hear, hear us, and save us that we perish not.”

  “I chases ’em.”

  “O blessed Saviour, that didst save thy disciples ready to perish in a storm, hear us, and save us, we beseech Thee.

  “Lord, have mercy upon us.”

  “I flaps my apron at ’em.”

  “Christ, have mercy upon us.”

  “But they sees me coming.”

  “Lord, have mercy upon us.

  “O Lord, hear us.”

  “They sees my apron.”

  “O Christ, hear us.”

  “God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Ghost, have mercy upon us, save us n
ow and evermore. Amen.”

  The lantern swung shadows at the blessing.

  “But I’ll get ’em, one day.”

  “Amen.”

  The chaplain went to the hammock and looked in.

  “What is wrong with this man?”

  “It’s lag fever, sir. He means no harm.”

  “He was rocked in a stone kitchen, sir.”

  The chaplain uncorked the bottle and wetted the lips with brandy.

  “Here, my lad. This’ll bring back your dossity.”

  “But I’ll get ’em, one day.”

  The chaplain went from hammock to hammock, giving comfort and prayer, ignoring the curses, until he came to the Irish. Only Pad now sat on a table. The rest had gone to their hammocks and were lying with their faces turned away. The chaplain sat on the table, across from Pad, with the lantern and the brandy bottle between them.

  “Now, McAllenan, is there anything a Protestant bug can do to help a heathen Teigue?”

  “You have me name, sir!”

  “I have more than your name. I have your character.”

  “Well, well, sir. There’s a thing.”

  “What can I do for you? Will you pray with me?”

  Pad rummaged in his hammock and brought out a lump of bread and a lump of cheese, both dusted green with mould. He put them on the table.

  “If it’s not too much trouble, sir, you can flick us some pannam and caz.”

  The chaplain took a penknife from his pocket and cut a slice from each lump. He gave the bread to Pad.

  “The Body of our Lord Jesus Christ, which was given for thee, preserve thy body and soul unto everlasting life.”

  Pad looked at the bread.

  “Body of ballocks. Eat it yourself.” He bit into the cheese.

  The chaplain took the bread and ate it, and then cut another piece and gave it wordlessly. Pad swallowed the bread. His face was innocent as a child’s.

  The chaplain pushed the brandy forward.

  “The Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

  The chaplain was silent.

  Pad looked at the bottle, and up again at the chaplain. The chaplain said nothing. Pad laughed, and uncorked the bottle. The chaplain waited. “Slàinte mhaith!” said Pad, tossed back his head and upended the bottle. He gulped several times, set the bottle down and breathed deeply. “Unto everlasting life,” said the chaplain, and did the same. He put the cork back.