Samurai and Other Stories (13 page)

A strange lethargy began to take me. I took a step forward, towards the door, then another. In my head I heard you, my dear Lizzie, calling me in from the field, calling me home for supper.

“Captain!” the First Mate cried. He pulled me back towards the fire, putting his own body between myself and the creeping ice.

“Best warm your hands,” he said. “It’s turned a bit on the nippy side.”

I turned and faced the fire, feeling the heat tighten the skin across my cheeks. A layer of frost that had formed on my hands melted away. My blood began to move again so that I felt I might live, at least for a short time longer.
 

“Tell me, Cap’n,” Stumpy Jack said. “Is it Old Nick himself come to take us? I always heard tell that fire was more in his line of work.”

“I can’t tell you that, Jack,” I replied. “But there’s more than just Mother Nature working agin’ us this night. Stoke the fire, man. Keep stoking the fire. It’s all that stands between us and a cold grave.”

I helped Stumpy Jack load more wood on the flames. The fire had grown so as to fill the grate. We had to stand back and throw the fuel on, but still the ice crept across the room towards us and we were forced to huddle ever closer together.

“It’s getting right cozy,” Jim Crawford said. “When I dreamt of cuddling up with a warm body in this tavern, it wasn’t any of you I had in mind.”

“I don’t know about that,” someone called back. “Give me a shilling and I’ll do for you. I’ll even take me wooden teeth out.”

That bought a round of laughter, and raised our spirits. But not for long.

One by one the men fell silent, each lost in his own thoughts.
 

There was naught to be heard but the crackle of the logs as the fire ate through fuel as fast as we could throw it on the flames.

The spread of the ice slowed.
 

Finally it stopped, a mere six inches from our feet. It did not retreat, but neither did it encroach any further. I began to believe that we might yet survive the night.

“Is it over, Cap’n?” the First Mate asked.

“Mayhap. Just pray it does not get any colder,” I said. “And we may yet see the morning.”

And then it came, the thing I had been dreading, the thing that had taken the pastor.

From outside we could hear shuffling, and a peculiar grunting, like a pig after truffles.
 

The wind outside rose, from nowhere to a howling, shrieking gale. Heavy sleet lashed like musket-shot against the shutters. The ice crawled once more, began to creep ever faster towards our feet.

“If you have any good ideas, Captain...?” the First Mate said.
 

“Truly, I can think of none, for what Christian man has ever endured such devilry?” I replied.
 

“Mayhap we should ask the Lord for some help?” the Mate said softly.

I asked myself what the pastor might do, were he still with us.

It took all of my strength, but I took myself further from the fire. I put my own body between the ice and my crewmen.

“Lads, we are in a dark place,” I started. “I’ve led you into trouble aplenty afore now, and I’ve always brought you home safe. And so I will again. With a little help. The pastor has gone to join his Lord, but mayhap he’ll turn back and lend us a hand if he hears us calling. Let us pray.”

I led the men in the Paternoster. Their voices were strong and clear, but mine own faltered. I had been watching the ice.
 

Our appeals to our maker made not a jot of difference. The ice thickened, inexorably, throughout the room. It still crept slowly forward, and had almost reached all the way to the toe of my shoes.

In the end it was the practical things that helped most... we rotated the men round so that all would have a spell in front of the fire, but even that proved of little worth as the supply of logs dwindled and the fire burned down.

“Break up the trestles and tables lads,” the Mate shouted. “Everything that’s not breathing goes on the fire.”

We burnt whatever we could find around us, from chairs and tables to the very leg of pork we had been eating earlier. The smell of cooking meat filled the tavern, but none of us were hungry.
 

We huddled together until you couldn’t have squeezed a sheet of paper between us. In that way we kept ourselves alive.
 

But still the ice crept forward.

“Keep moving, men,” the First Mate shouted. “Give everyone a sight of the fire.”

The wind howled up a notch. The long night went on.

We shuffled in our tight huddle, looking forward only to our next spell in front of the fire, dreading our next pass in front of the door.
 

I came to believe there were voices in the wind, soft voices whispering hopes of peace and warmer climes if I would only close my eyes and allow myself to dream.

At other times I found myself talking to you, Lizzie, saying all the things I plan to say on my return, if I am spared long enough to see that day.
 

At some point in that long night we forgot to shuffle, each of us lost in our own icy hell. After a while no one stoked the fire. The ice crept ever closer.

“Goodbye, Jennie,” I heard the First Mate whisper, which was passing strange, as his wife was named Charlotte. That was the last I heard. I fell into an icy black hole that had no bottom.
 

An eternity later I woke, from a dream of sun and hot sand into a nightmare of icy death.
 

At first I thought myself back in Aberdeen in my own bed, wrapped and swaddled in a thick quilt against a winter’s morning.
 

Then I moved.
 

A cold blue hand fell onto my face.
 

It was no bed-sheet I lay under... it was the dead, frozen bodies of my crew. They had done their last duty to me, keeping me alive through the night.
 

I crawled, on hands and knees like a whipped dog, pushing myself through the blue dead forest of my crew-mates’ limbs, promising the Lord that I’d be his faithful servant if he’d only but grant me one final glimpse of warm sun on green pastures.

The Lord finally heard me. I dragged my body clear and stood in front of the dying embers of the fire, tears blinding me as I surveyed the frozen bodies of my crew.
 

There came a moan from within the pile.

“Cap’n,” the First Mate cried. “Are we in hell?”

I reached into the pile and found his warm hand. He dragged himself out as I used what paltry strength I had left to help his escape.

“Not in hell,” I said as I lifted him to his feet. “But as close as mortal man should get.”

More groans rose from the pile of frozen flesh.

Of thirty men who entered the tavern the night before, only six of us pulled ourselves from the tangled pile and out into the near-forgotten warmth of a morning sun.
 

“Fuck me,” Stumpy Jack said, squinting in the sudden light. “I ain’t been in a pickle near as bad as that since John the Baker’s Son insulted the Prince of Prussia’s consort. I thought I was a goner for sure.”

“We are all only here because of the Lord’s mercy,” the First Mate said. “Have heart boys. We may yet see hearth and home.”

“And Jennie?” I said.

The First Mate smiled.
 

“Don’t be telling the missus, Cap’n,” he said. “Jennie is a widow in Liverpool... sort of a home from home, if you get my meaning?”

“Don’t worry,” Jim Crawford said. “We will ne’er get home again, so no one will ever know.”

“Home again?” I said. “We may yet. But we must be strong if we are to survive another night such as the last one.”

“As long as the sun shines, surely our strength will return,” the First Mate said.

Indeed, the simple pleasure of the warmth of sunshine on my face was already pushing the memory of the cold away. I no longer felt that I might expire at any minute.

We stood, blinking, watching the ice and snow melt away with unnatural rapidity until all that was left was a dampness on the ground and the silent dead bodies of our brave shipmates back in the tavern.

And that was when we six made our vow.

“There will be no more hiding in locked taverns,” I said to them. “We have lost too many friends and we will lose no more. We will make our stand on the Havenhome. And this time we will be ready.”

*
   
*
   
*

At first the six of us who survived that hellish night in the tavern felt joy at the mere fact we were yet alive, with so many of our fellowship having fallen. Afterwards, the crew had a mind to up anchor and leave, never mind it would be near-nigh impossible for a crew of so few to get the vessel anywhere in open sea. In the end I shamed them into staying.

“I stay here,” I shouted. “If you choose to go, you may leave me behind. Have you so far forgotten the fellowship we shared that you can leave your friends where they lie? Would you deny them the comfort of the words of the Lord?”

None spoke.

“And what of when we six are home and safe? What will you tell their wives, their sweethearts? Would you be able to ever look them in the eye again? And when they ask in the taverns how it is that we six came home yet the others did not? Could you speak up and say that we ran like rats for the comfort of home while our shipmates lay dead in a tavern? I know that I could not. I will stay here, until we have eased the path to Paradise for our fallen.”

“And I will stand with you, Cap’n, as always. You have led us through many dangers. I have trust that you will not betray us now.”

The First Mate brought himself over to join me.
 

Together we stood there, while the remaining others stared at us sullenly, weighing their thoughts of mutiny against their loyalty to me, their captain.

In truth I myself wanted little more than to flee back to your soft arms, but I held firm, although I half expected at any moment for a storm to brew up and freeze me, immobile, to the spot. The storm did not come, but the last remainder of my crew did, eventually coming sheepishly to join us.
 

“The Lord will reward you, in this life or the next,” I said to each of them.

“Do not be too quick with your praise, Cap’n,” the First Mate said. “For mayhap they know as well as we do that four men, no matter how strong, could not even so much as get the boat out of this harbour, never mind across all the seas that separate us from home.”

“Still, they have shown themselves brave enough to step down beside us. What each man holds in his heart lies between him and his maker, but their actions show them to be still true. For that, I give thanks.”

“Then we will all give thanks together, to the Lord,” the First Mate said. “The pastor may not be here, but that does not mean we should neglect our debts. Let us pray.”

The First Mate led us in prayer, as solemn and faithful as if he himself was a pastor. Then Stumpy Jack started up the old songs. We sang “Wind and Sail, He Watches O’er Us,” at the top of our voices.
 

I was the first to make my way back into that hellhole of the tavern, despite the heaviness that lay on my soul.

“Let us have at it, lads,” the Mate said behind me, leading the rest inside. “We cannot have our friends lying here in the dark when there is warm sunshine to be had outside.”

And so we lifted and we carried, trying not to remember the times we had spent with those who were now no more than cold meat under our hands. I will spare you the details, dearest Lizzie, but bringing the bodies of our fallen out of the tavern was a sore blow to our hearts. Some of us had a tear in our eye as we laid them in a row in front of the courthouse. But a far sorer blow was yet to come.
 

When we went to fetch the pastor and Bald Tom, neither of them was to be found.
 

I stood in the ruin of what was left of the privy.
 

I could find no sign that Bald Tom had ever been there, save for a single partially frozen shit on the ground.

Stumpy Jack wailed. “The devil has taken them. And it will be us for it next.”

He would have fled there and then if the First Mate hadn’t held him by the scruff of the neck.

“Have courage, man,” he said, loud enough for us all to hear. “Last night the Good Lord saved our sorry skins. He has a purpose for us all, even you, old Stumpy. All we have to do is trust him, and he will deliver us.”

Those quiet words from the big man gave us all succour, but only until we dragged the bodies out to the cemetery.

None of us were prepared for the sight that met us.
 

This time old Stumpy did flee, screaming back to the boat as if all the demons of hell were after him.
 

The graves we had spent the last days digging all lay open, brown earth strewn every which way. The dead had not lain at rest, despite all the pastor’s pleas and prayers. They had risen up, digging their way out of the cold earth.
 

There was no sign of any bodies, man, woman or child. Not a single one slept where we had put them.

“What shall we do, Cap’n? Shall we take them back to the Havenhome,” the First Mate asked, but I had no answer.

“Leave them here,” Jim Crawford shouted. “Leave them here. For if those we have said the words over can yet rise, then surely there is no hope for any of us.”

“I must think on it,” I said. “And I cannot hold a thought in my head while these graves lie before me. Leave our dead be. I will repair to my cabin. Mayhap the Lord will send me guidance.”

We followed Stumpy Jack back to the boat; more slowly, but with no less trepidation in our hearts.

By the time we got back onto the Havenhome Stumpy Jack was already blind drunk and no use to man nor beast.

“We have to go back and bury our crewmates,” the First Mate said.

“Why bother. They will only be up and about again on the morrow,” Stumpy Jack replied. He wept, a pitiful sight in such an old sea dog such as him.

“Jack has it right,” Jim Crawford piped up. “Despite all our efforts, despite all the pastor’s prayers, they’ve all come up again. And who is to know, mayhap the pastor and Bald Tom are with them even now.”