The Dead Men Stood Together

by Chris Priestley

‘Be thankful?’ said my uncle. ‘You would have hanged me without a care. And now you –’

  ‘I’m sure I can find some men to toss you overboard if you want,’ said the captain. ‘Thank your lucky stars that we are in better spirits and keep your peace.’

  The captain turned away and started giving orders. The crew jumped to their tasks with an enthusiasm that spoke of their days of boredom and belied the weakness that they all felt through lack of food and discomfort.

  Eventually it was just me and my uncle. When his eyes met mine, I could not hold his gaze and climbed gratefully when the captain ordered me to the topsails. To be up there with the sun and the wind and the white sails billowing! I felt reborn.

  XVIII

  I made no further effort to seek out my uncle. At first I felt disloyal, but very quickly I felt nothing at all. I told myself that his troubles were of his own making and there was nothing to be gained by my taking sides with him.

  Occasionally he would emerge from the hold as though stepping out of his own tomb, each time looking paler and thinner and less like the man I had known at the start of the voyage, less like a man at all.

  The disgust of the rest of the crew was so strong you could feel it in the air. But my uncle seemed not to notice. Or, if he did notice, he made sure not to show it. It was as if the crew had actually killed him and he was haunting them. He was a constant reminder of the loss of the albatross and of their own murderous rage.

  But the sun shone after so many days of grey mist. The effect of its rays on the crew was startling to see. The sullenness evaporated along with every trace of moisture in the ship.

  It had been so long since we had glimpsed the world unfiltered through the fog that it seemed newly made. Every grain of the timbers stood out in pin-sharp detail. Muted colours now gleamed. The sails hurt your eyes to look at them, they were so bright.

  The mood of the ship lifted and the breeze become a good strong wind at our backs. It slapped against the canvas of the mainsails and made the rigging creak and twang like fiddle strings as they fought to rein it in. Foam scudded on the wave crests.

  The temperature began to climb and climb with the clear air. The ice world and mist seemed quickly to be a thing of the past. The wet timbers of the ship began to steam and layers of clothing were shed one by one.

  Our pleasure at being under blue skies was not strained by the uncomfortable heat. We had only to recall the freezing cold or the creeping, whispering mist and any heat seemed bearable when it came out of clear bright skies.

  The sunshine warmed us through, right through – even to our very hearts – and for the first time in what seemed an age a song broke out and we all joined in. Whatever dangers these oceans had to offer, they might be good sailor’s dangers – dangers we knew and could battle with. Or so we hoped.

  I was singing out with gusto if not much melody when I saw my uncle emerging from the blackness of the hold into the shadow of the mainsail, and he seemed like some leftover particle of the gloom and ice we had escaped.

  One by one the men around me saw him too, and as each man saw him they stopped singing as I had done, and, as they stopped, others further off stopped too and craned their necks to try to glimpse what it was that had caused the song to falter.

  I did not know what reaction there would be to my uncle’s appearance, but never in the world did I think that the captain would step forward and clap him on the back. My uncle flinched, preparing for another lynching.

  ‘Now then, lads,’ said the captain to the crew. ‘What’s done is done and we are safely into open waters. Let’s all be glad and let bygones be bygones. What do you say?’

  This was greeted by silence and most of the men had their eyes cast down, studying the deck. But after a while, one by one, they muttered in agreement. There seemed to be no stomach now for any bad feeling. No one wanted to jinx our new good fortune with ill thoughts. Luck could be curdled by such things; every sailor knew it.

  This didn’t mean that my uncle was carried round the ship shoulder high. He was still mostly ignored – because the crew no doubt harboured feelings of guilt and shame about what they had been about to do.

  We all went about our work as the fine breeze filled our sails and hope filled our hearts. Gradually, hour by hour, my uncle, working alongside them, was accepted back into the crew on equal terms. And not just when we worked.

  The men began to nod at him when he walked past. They did not deliberately walk away from him as they had before. They would even choose to sit beside him occasionally. They were trying, in their way, to make amends.

  It may have begun as a grudging forgiveness but it soon became more – much more. No one looks for meaning in signs and portents as keenly as a mariner. And it had not escaped anyone’s notice that moments after the albatross was shot, the fearful mist had dissolved and we were blown into good clear seas and open skies.

  Perhaps the albatross had been a demon in disguise. Perhaps it had cast a spell over the crew to distract them from their fate.

  ‘Who’s to say that the albatross wasn’t keeping us in that mist?’ said a sailor standing in a group beside me one day.

  ‘You’ve changed your tune,’ said another.

  ‘No,’ said yet another, pushing forward. ‘He’s right. Our luck changed when the bird was killed.’

  ‘Aye,’ said the first. ‘I think maybe that bird was some kind of evil spirit. Something that had us bewitched.’

  A huge mariner from the far north of Scotland smacked his mighty hand against the mast.

  ‘Aye!’ he growled. ‘He was right to shoot it!’

  To my surprise, a great murmur of assent went up and down the ship as this theory was finally accepted by one and all. My uncle, who had been standing nearby in the shade of the mainsails, stepped forward warily, blinking into the sunlight.

  I could see that he was as surprised as I was when a great gaggle of the crew gathered about him, slapping him and cheering him and wanting to have some contact with him, as though it was he now, and not the albatross, who was the source of good fortune. Such is the fickleness and foolishness of superstition.

  Though I shook my head a little with wonder at the about-turn of the crew, still I was glad of it. If the crew felt ashamed of their actions, then I felt more so, for I had a duty of kinship. I joined in the cheers and tried to put the past behind me.

  A wide smile appeared on my uncle’s face for the first time in an age, and for a while it seemed almost as if the clock had been turned back and we were all as we were at the beginning of the voyage.

  It was a dream of course. Nothing was the same. Nothing would ever be the same again.

  XIX

  So it was that my uncle found himself actually welcomed by the crew. It was astonishing to see. Each day brought hearty claps on his back from young and old, and, though confused at first, when he learned their meaning, he was happy to agree that his actions had been the saving of the ship.

  My uncle might not have been telling his stories any more, but he was only too happy to be the hero of this one, however unlikely a hero he might be.

  I still felt the shame of having not cried out to stop his hanging and, though he said nothing, I was sure he must hate me for it.

  He gave no sign of any bitterness, however. He had recovered some of his old good cheer and swagger, but I didn’t altogether believe in it, any more than I believed that his killing of the bird had been the saving of the ship. Or that, even if it had, that had been his intention when he pulled the trigger.

  But this made me feel guilty too. Was I being unfair? Maybe my uncle had genuinely felt the bird to be an evil presence. Maybe he really was a hero and I was refusing to give him credit.

  The good wind blew and we sailed on, confident that we would eventually make landfall and have a chance to pick up some provisions of fresh food and water. All would be well. We had been plucked from the mouth of hell and I suddenly had an overwhelming urge to make my peace with my
uncle.

  I went down into the far reaches of the hold where I knew he often took himself when not at work. It seemed the approval of the crew didn’t mean he wanted to spend any more time than necessary in their company.

  The hold was so dark after the brightness of the daylight above that it was like blindness to step into its gloom. I cursed loudly as I cracked my shin against some unseen obstacle as I fumbled my way, searching for him in the darkness.

  I finally glimpsed his pale face through the murk. I had intended to apologise for not speaking up for him when he was attacked. But down there, in the dark, I felt too afraid of him, too afraid to remind him of my treachery.

  ‘Uncle,’ I said eventually, ‘how can you stand being in such darkness? I can’t see a thing.’

  ‘There is nothing to see,’ he said.

  There was no comfort in his voice. I felt like I was in a cave with a wounded wolf.

  ‘But it stinks down here,’ I said.

  ‘Does it?’ he answered wearily.

  ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘It really does. Why do you spend so much time down here on your own?’

  He did not reply.

  ‘You see,’ I said cheerfully. ‘All is well again. You had no need to despair. Perhaps your repentance was heard.’

  ‘Repentance?’ he said, with a flash of his old haughtiness in his voice. It troubled me to hear it and I struggled to keep the annoyance I felt from showing in my voice.

  ‘You were sorry for it and now all is well,’ I persisted, in the hope he would change his tone.

  ‘No,’ he said, shaking his head and carrying on tying off a rope. ‘You’ve heard the crew. I was right all along. I was right!’

  Even as I spoke, I felt I should simply agree with him and leave. Every second in that place was revolting to me. But I could not bear his triumphant tone.

  ‘Is that why you killed the bird, then?’ I said. ‘To free the ship and save the crew?’

  ‘What difference does it make why I shot it?’ he said, his eyes glowing in the darkness. ‘Are we not back on course? Are we not free of the ice and safely through the mist? I saved us by killing that bird. Spare me your grief for that creature. It is shared by no one on this ship.’

  I had perceived the same madness in him that day – in the moments before he shot the albatross. He had not changed. It was only the crew who had changed their opinion of him. And it was not to last.

  XX

  My uncle smiled and talked to the crew when he was working; most other times he took himself off into his little lair below deck. He did not eat with us, nor sleep with us.

  This didn’t seem to bother anyone but me, and after a while it didn’t bother me either. I had nothing to say to him and I felt that only I saw his true nature. I remembered the pilot’s son and felt a little like him now, in that I too sensed evil hovering around my uncle.

  What could I do? My uncle was right: the whole crew, and the captain too, they all wanted to believe that he had saved them by killing that bird. They all wanted to believe that misfortune was behind them.

  And the truth was I wanted to believe it as well. I wanted to be part of this new happier mood. I wanted to believe that everything would be well. Because, as soon as I stopped to think, there was still much to be concerned about.

  We were sure of little about our position other than that we were somehow now in the Pacific – waters unknown to most of the crew. The compass had not worked since we had entered the icy seas of the frozen south and we had not been able to use the stars because the mist had obscured our view.

  We knew also that we were heading north and, judging by the position of the sun in the now clear skies, we were about to cross the Line – the equator – where the sun at midday would stand directly overhead.

  The captain and helmsman consulted maps, trying to decode where we might be, but, until we sighted some land or another ship, we could not be certain. And all we could hope for was that the ship we saw would be a friendly one, or the land we came upon would not wreck us or be inhabited by cannibals or some such.

  Day by day, this new uncertainty chipped away at the relief we had felt to be free of the mist. With heavy hearts we all came to realise that we were not free of the enchantment; we had just exchanged one kind for another.

  Being able to see for miles was no help in finding our way. All we could see was miles and miles of empty ocean. We were as lost as we ever had been, and now it felt as though we were being teased and toyed with, our hopes raised only to be cruelly hacked down.

  And the more we realised this, the more unbearable the heat became. We were in a desert: a desert of salt water. We had seen nothing but water for weeks now. The albatross had been the only sign of life outside the ship. On the entire voyage since leaving Cape Verde, we had seen not even a single fish – no, nor even one strand of weed. And there was no more life in this sun-drenched ocean than there had been in the frozen one.

  We had enjoyed the sun after so many days of mist and cold and damp, but we had yet to feel its full force. Now the sun rose to its full height and there was nowhere to escape its roasting glow.

  The boards of the ship began to shrink as all the moisture was driven from them by the force of the sun. Flesh was baked along with wood and canvas and all effort seemed too much to bear.

  We did what needed to be done at night, the darkness having returned as we had sailed to more northerly climes. Repairs were needed: the shrinking boards were in danger of sending us to the bottom of the ocean as leak after leak was found and sealed.

  We sweated the day away, and our sweat turned to steam before it hit the deck. The captain rationed the water we had taken aboard but our need was too great and it was quickly disappearing. The cold had preserved our foodstuffs, but all that we had left now began to rot and fester. The holds were a stinking, evil place.

  And so, bit by bit, all the joy we had felt in leaving the grip of the ice evaporated in the heat. As changeable as the sea, the crew began to think again about my uncle and his part in our supposed salvation.

  ‘I told you we spoke too soon,’ said the very same sailor who had spoken in my uncle’s defence only days before.

  ‘Aye,’ said another. ‘He might have freed us from the mist, but we were only swapping one hell for another.’

  ‘Who knows if we’ll ever sight land?’ said the first. ‘How much longer can we last in this heat?’

  The sailors hushed their voices as the captain approached and went back to their tasks. The captain watched them leave and stepped up beside me.

  ‘What were they saying?’ he asked, still looking in their direction.

  ‘Nothing,’ I said.

  The captain turned to me and his expression made it clear that this wasn’t going to be enough to end the conversation.

  ‘They are worried, Captain,’ I said. ‘We are worried.’

  He nodded, looking away.

  ‘They have been at sea too long,’ he said. ‘The salt gets into your brain.’

  ‘Do you know where we are, Captain?’ I asked.

  He looked up, squinting into the sun.

  ‘We are very close to the Line,’ he said. ‘But where along the Line – well, your guess is as good as mine.’

  He looked at me and smiled. It was a kind smile.

  ‘No ocean lasts for ever, boy,’ he said. And then, after a pause, he patted me on the shoulder. ‘Nothing lasts for ever.’

  I’m not sure whether this was meant to comfort me or make me accept whatever fate was about to deliver.

  The searing temperature heated up the blood of the crew as well. Tempers shortened and fights flared up over trivial things. More than once the captain had to threaten a flogging before the men would calm themselves and go about their work.

  My uncle found himself shunned once more and I didn’t feel the need to seek him out. Why should I suffer because of what he was and what he’d done?

  There was an edge now, a tension all through the ship. It was
better not to make eye contact for fear that it might be misunderstood. I’d feared that kinship to him would damn me as well in the eyes of the crew. But I think they had long ago forgotten there had ever been a link between us.

  Even when the crew had welcomed him back, he had not taken to sleeping with us. He had kept himself to his favoured dank, dark part of the hold and stayed there whenever he was not called upon to work.

  The crew accepted this behaviour and didn’t bother him. My uncle could do as he pleased. It was not as though they had ever really come to like him any better than they had before. But it was different for me.

  I could not so easily forget him, however much I would have liked to. I was his nephew. Although I could not think of him without thinking of the albatross he had shot without cause or thought, he was still my father’s brother.

  ‘Maybe you can look out for him,’ my mother had said. I heard her voice clearly in my head. I had thought it a joke at the time. Now it felt like a request I was honour-bound to obey. It made me angry that I could not set it aside.

  Eventually, once again, cursing as I went, I was moved to go and speak to him. It wasn’t just that he was my uncle, I wanted some sense that he understood what he’d done.

  I climbed the ladder down into the darkness. The stink was even worse than before. As usual, he was sitting alone in the hold, lit only by a thin ray of milky light seeping through the timbers above his head.

  ‘Uncle,’ I said curtly, more than once before he turned his face to look at me.

  He looked at me for some little while, his eyes shadowed and impossible to see.

  ‘What is it?’ he said.

  His voice seemed to be laced with the humid dampness of the hold. His tone infuriated me again.

  ‘I have come to see you,’ I said, finding that now I was here I could not actually think of anything I wanted to say to him.

  He nodded and looked away. As my eyes grew accustomed to the dark, I noticed that he had the body of the albatross beside him. He saw my eyes moving towards it and placed a hand on it defensively. The smell drifted towards my nostrils. It turned my stomach.