Jamrach's Menagerie (27 page)

‘What now, Dan?’ I tugged at his sleeve like an infant. My voice came out high and throttled. My chest ached as if I was going to cry, but it wasn’t because of the situation I was in. It was something to do with the way Dan put an arm round us both when we got in the boat, me and Tim, and the way he’d been acting al the time, as if this was just part of the day’s work, the kind of thing that happens al the time. ‘Not to worry, lads,’ he’d said, same as ever. ‘Seen worse than this, I have, believe me. Don’t worry, I’l get you home.’ He’d even smiled at us.
Smiled.
As if nothing was wrong. I felt strangely towards him, as if he was Ma or something – reminded me of how she used to say cheerful things in the very old days when we lived in Bermondsey, me and her, when there was shouting and screams coming through the wal . Listen to that lot, Jaffy, she’d say, cocking her head and smiling. Life in al its glory. Come here, shal I sing a song?

Yes, yes, things were bad, but we’d get through. We always did.

‘What now?’ said Dan. ‘Wel , as the captain said, Jaf, we stick together. Travel with the wind. Plenty bread, plenty water – if we’re careful – a good sixty days. We’l meet with another whale ship long before that, I reckon, hard not to hereabouts. And if the worst comes to the worst, we make South America. No question. Tough little boats, these are.’

Mr Rainey looked at him as if he knew it wasn’t so.

‘Don’t you fool us, Dan,’ Tim said. ‘We’re not stupid.’

‘I don’t fool, Tim,’ Dan said, glaring at him. ‘You don’t know what you’re talking about and I do. Keep your head and do as you’re told, and we’l al get home.’

The captain’s boat drew alongside and we lit the lanterns.

Our portions were doled out. I looked over and imagined being in that boat and was glad I was in this. It was safer.

Dan and Gabriel and Yan knew what they were doing. The Captain’s boat had Skip, sitting there with his white moon face as blank as a plate.

‘You’re going to be hungry, boys,’ Dan said. ‘Get used to it.’

A chunk of hard bread and two swigs of water. The hogs got a swig too; we had to keep them alive. No baccy. No drink. Oh God, give me a smoke and the slow burn of rum. A man of liquor, Rainey was sweating for the lack of both. His hands shook and his eyes lamented. He looked like someone who was feeling sick and trying to ignore it. That’s how the whole world felt. Stupid and silent, al of us, til Skip, looking down at the lump of hardtack in his hands, said in a horrified voice, ‘It was al my fault.’

‘Idiot,’ said John Copper, ‘’Course it wasn’t your fault.’

‘It’s me,’ Skip whimpered. ‘I’ve been horrible.’ His nose ran.

‘That’s as may be,’ the captain said sternly, ‘it’s neither here nor there now. Eat.’

‘I’ve kil ed Mr Comeragh. I liked Mr Comeragh. I’ve kil ed them al !’

‘Enough!’ barked the captain.

Skip put his head down and nibbled miserably at his tack.

‘Bil y thought it was,’ he said a moment later.

‘Thought what?’ asked Dag.

‘Thought it was my fault.’

‘Yeah, wel Bil y didn’t know his arse from his elbow, did he?’ said Tim.

‘Enough!’

We bobbed on a sparkle of waves, side by side, chewing like cattle. There was a nippy wind. The grinding of my jaws was loud in my head, click-clack of bones. Our hog, sitting roped between Gabriel and Yan with an air of stolid endurance, was a hairy old beast with a rounded bel y. I gazed at it and wished I was an animal, to know nothing and never think ahead.

‘Mouthy little brat, Bil Stock, wasn’t he?’ said Tim to no one in particular.

‘Yeah,’ I said after a while, ‘he was, wasn’t he?’

Some time in a high-tossed dawn, one by one we arose drenched, yawning and groaning from the bel y of the boat.

The wind had blown al night, and the hog had shat. We got our hardtack and a drop of water and sailed on. Thank God these boats did not sail easy, for it kept us on our toes.

Better to be occupied than idle. Someone had to man the steering oar. Someone had to fix and hammer and bale.

Someone had to keep watch. We were overladen and low in the water, and the sea slopped in al day. We tried to catch fish, but had no means. We had wood from the ship. Gabriel set to whittling a spear.

Thirst and hunger came on sharp. The world can divide, can double like vision. So could I. I was here, wide-eyed, mad-silenced, staring at the sky and the dim grey sea, the bruised and laden smudges of cloud, the waves. The rest of my life was a dream. Things went on stil , sane, reasonable.

The captain and Mr Rainey kept on at us al the time to keep up appearances, making us shave with the edge of a knife and rub our teeth and comb our hair, and say our prayers night and morning. The prayers were Dan’s job. He was good at it too.

‘Sweet Jesus Christ who died for us,’ a calm but ringing voice that carried between the boats, ‘have mercy on us in this troubling time. We are twelve souls afloat on your great ocean asking for help. Send us, Lord, a sail. Amen. We wil now say the Lord’s Prayer …’

Twelve murmuring men, hands together, heads bowed.

Days passed.

Meaningless to speak of a tal y. A long time ago Skip said time’s gone funny, and it had. It was a dream in the blink of an eye and it was a lifetime. When I think of it now it’s as if I lived another whole life a long time ago, was born into it, lived it and died in it.

‘Wake up there, Jaf.’

Dan had a shaky hand, missing his booze.

‘You were dreaming,’ he said. ‘What was it? Something chasing you?’

I shook my head. A bag of water in my chest. A dam of tears.

Dreams. The dragon, bigger than before, walking down
Lysander
’s deck on its hind legs like a man. I jerked and blinked the wet from my eyelashes. First thing I saw was Mr Rainey, eyes ablaze, spitting a glob of grey into his hand.

His face was yel ow-green, rotten. I looked about, couldn’t see the captain’s boat.

‘They’ve gone!’ I cried.

‘No no no.’ Gabriel, steady at the steering oar. ‘They are there.’

The waves rol ed in deep val eys. The captain’s boat appeared and disappeared, sometimes for long minutes at a time. When we saw them they were baling like us. Never less than three of us at it and stil al things in the boat were afloat, including the poor hog. I was sorry for the hog. God knows what he made of life, a peculiar thing it must have seemed to him. The hogs and us were al wel salted by now.

The salt put a rime about our dry lips and red eyes, made patterns on our dirty clothes, intricate as patterns in rock.

Things of water, al of us. Made no difference if it rained on and off, except that it fil ed the boat quicker and had us al a-baling at once, muscles burning, every man in rhythm. We baled until it was our turn to sleep, slept in the water, woke and baled again. Cried, stupid. In my mind always, a warm bed and a fire. The smel of ale and sweat and ladies’

powder. We got our hardtack, got our water. Tim’s face always there, stolid, unreadable, even smiling sometimes, and the seas and skies rising and fal ing. Every day the same. We blew on and on. Our faces seeing only our other faces, day after day, til no one knew who was who, we were al one: a peculiar striving creature, licking its parched lips, goggling its sore eyes at the horizon.

One day the sky changed and we had clear weather come mid-afternoon. Our boats came together.

‘Jesus Christ,’ Tim said, ‘look at them.’

‘We look like that too,’ I said.

‘How’s your bread?’ the captain cal ed across. ‘Ours is wet.’

‘Inevitable,’ Mr Rainey replied. ‘Ours too, but not al of it.’

‘Pretty much al of ours,’ the Captain said. ‘Al bearing up over there?’

‘Aye aye, Captain, al here in fine form.’

‘We must lay out the bread to dry.’

Wilson Pride was already doing this, spreading patiently on top of a bit of old canvas, his face fathomless.

‘Stil got your hog?’

‘Oh, certainly. You have yours?’

‘Indeed.’

Their hog had a name by now. Napoleon, shortened to Pole. That was John Copper.

I wasn’t hungry. There was a funny feeling in my gut, but I wasn’t hungry. My portion had served me wel enough, but my mouth and throat were getting raw. The captain said we could al have an extra ration of water tonight, our first night of peace for ages. It was wonderful, that little gift of extra. It was warm and sat on my tongue, a stil pond. I held it as long as I could but my mouth absorbed it.

‘Al right, Skip?’ I asked him.

His mouth was set in an awkward sneer. He nodded once sharply.

‘We are making excel ent speed,’ the captain said heartily. There was a big red sore in the middle of his forehead like a third eye. ‘We’re dead in the middle of the offshore whaling ground. It’s only a matter of time now, men.

Meanwhile – there’s plenty to do.’

We set about fixing our leaks with Joe Harper’s tools and we spread things out to dry wherever we could.

The sun fel out of the sky.

I drifted asleep in the dark and woke to salt. Bloody salt.

Salt coming out of the bread. Salt tack, burning hot under the sun. Laid out like wares on a stal . Made me think of my home, the market people standing in the cold in their mufflers. Lick my lips, I taste salt. Lick my arm, salt.

Everywhere. We frothed a little as we spoke, working our mouths and throats with gurning patience to make a little spit. Dolphins came, dancing along with our boats. Wished I stil had my old telescope, but it had gone under with al the rest. Two or three days they were our companions, cheerful glimmering things that roiled and boiled and made rainbows, but we couldn’t catch one. Those eyeless faces were laughing, and after a while we started laughing with them, me and Tim, and went on for so long that Dan told us to shut our fucking traps or he’d chuck us overboard, which made us laugh even more. I had a sore inside my left elbow and another coming up on the back of my neck, and was trying not to scratch. We laughed so much that Mr Rainey, who’d been retching al day and looked as if he was bleeding inside, said, ‘Dan, knock their heads together’, and he did, but not very hard, and after that we were quiet, but had to avoid each other’s eyes so we wouldn’t start again. We got our water. It didn’t do much good. My tongue was al wiggly, drying up as soon as I got it a bit wet, tingling at the root and in the sides of my cheeks like an earache.

‘Oh God,’ I said. ‘Why the hel did I ever come on this journey?’

‘You came on this journey,’ said Tim, ‘to keep up with me.

Because I was going, that’s why you came.’

It was true. ‘Wel , I wasn’t going to let you have al the glory, was I?’ I said.

‘Al the glory!’ Tim squawked. ‘Al the glory! Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!’

‘Why can’t we eat the hog?’ I asked Dan.

‘Because we’re saving it.’

‘Til when?’

‘Til the right time.’

‘When’s that?’

‘When it comes.’

I was silent for a moment, then: ‘Which is?’

Gabriel, whittling away with a knife at a piece of wood that was much too short, trying to make a spear, snorted laughter.

‘Stow it, Jaf,’ Dan said.

The captain cal ed the boats together. Good to see again their dirty salt phizogs: the captain’s square face with fal en cheeks; the glaring black eyes of Wilson Pride; Simon Flower, his long brown hair like snakes on his shoulders; Dag, rimed white as a ghost; John Copper with sore eyes and runny nose. And Skip, sitting in the stern with his arms wrapped round himself, rocking like a pendulum. John Copper sat next to him. ‘I’m going mad,’ John said.

‘John’s finding life trying.’ Captain Proctor smiled blearily.

The surnames had al been dropped; we were al plain Johns and Tims and Simons now, apart from Mr Rainey, and the captain, of course, who was stil the captain.

‘It’s him,’ said John, jerking a thumb backwards over his shoulder at Skip. ‘Driving me up the wal , he is. Keeps poking me al night saying there’s an owl sitting on the gunnel, and there bloody isn’t.’

We laughed.

‘What’s the matter, Skip?’ asked Tim.

Skip just shook his head.

‘When’s this ship coming, Captain?’ Gabriel was polishing the end of his spear. ‘I thought it would have come by now.’

‘I wish I knew. Could be tomorrow, could be the next ten minutes, could be a week or more for al we know.’

‘Could be never,’ said Simon.

‘That’s right, could be never.’ The captain threw a quick look at him. ‘But by my reckoning, we’re wel on course for the coast of Chile, so if the worst comes to the worst and no ship comes, we should make a landing there in about three weeks. Weather permitting, of course.’ He looked round at us al and smiled in an encouraging way.

‘Three weeks.’ Simon drooped.

‘It’s nothing,’ said Rainey sharply.

‘In the course of your life, Simon,’ the captain added, stifling a yawn, ‘three weeks is a drop in the ocean.’

‘It’s my head,’ said John. ‘If I could just get rid of this headache.’

‘Where is it?’ I asked. ‘I’ve got one too.’

‘Al over.’

‘Mine’s at the back of my eyes.’

‘It’s bloody awful,’ Skip said in a sudden tearful voice. ‘I can’t stand it.’

‘What do you mean by that, Skip?’ Dan said. ‘You
are
standing it. You have no choice.’

‘
He’s
standing it,’ John said, ‘it’s me that’s going mad.’

‘It’s
my
head too,’ said Skip.