Boon Island - Kenneth Roberts [107]
When a man's hungry, he doesn't waste time thinking how meat tastes. There's blood in it, and a little hope and a little strength. He just chews at it until it dissolves and trickles down his throat. Then he's angry and desperate because there isn't more.
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December 24th, Sunday
Langman, inflamed by his success in capturing the seagull, was at us all Sunday to celebrate that day as Christmas.
Swede, equally determined to keep on with the raft while the weather was endurable, spoke to him sharply.
"What is it you want to celebrate, Langman?" he demanded. "Don't you remember what Christmas was like in London? Remember how all the sluts and beggars and cripples gathered in front of church doors, all mealy-mouthed and pious, and their eyes rolled up, hoping they looked as if they were talking to God? Remember, Langman?"
Langman, his lip curled, eyed him sideways.
"Well, I remember," Swede said. "When the church doors were opened and the alms and doles were handed out, all their piety disappeared and they fought each other like cats and dogs, each trying to get the others' alms away from 'em. They'd go off down the street, cursing and fighting, and push their way into public houses and get roaring drunk on gin!"
"You're against Christmas!" Langman said angrily.
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"There you go," Swede said, "twisting things around! I'm not going to have any first mate telling me how to celebrate the birth of Christ, or when to do it. You say today is Christmas, but you're wrong. When the proper time arrives, I'll celebrate Christmas in my own way."
Captain Dean turned to me. "Miles, you were in Christ Church. You must have heard talk about the celebrating of Christmas."
"Yes, sir, and my father and I often talked about it. He said it should be a festival for children and for the poornot a time for people to cripple themselves financially by exchanging expensive gifts that most givers can't afford and most recipients don't want. He said Christ would be the first one to pity those who can't decide which day to celebrate, and to laugh at those who, because of politics, say how it shall be celebrated."
"That's blasphemy again!" Langman cried.
"No, it's not," I said. "Every don in Christ Church knows that the Puritans by act of Parliament forbade merriment or religious services on Christmas. They said it was a heathen festival. Charles II revived feasting on Christmas. That's politics."
"Anyway, the date has always been the same," Langman insisted.
"That's not so," I told him. "I've heard professors lecture on it. Some of the ancients said Christ's birthday was May 20th: others said April 19th: still others put it on the seventeenth of November. One man held out for the twenty-eighth of March. Then January 6th was celebrated as his birthday for hundreds of years."
"I say this is Christmas," Langman persisted, "and the rest of my seagull should be divided for a feast."
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"All right," Captain Dean agreed. "Go ahead and divide it up. You'd better give Swede at least half of the neck. He seems to be doing most of the work on the raft."
The junk was completely stripped from the spar that Sunday noon, and we took turns using the cutlass-saw. The saw didn't really cut the wood: it abraded it: chewed it: wore it away.
By noontime Langman had divided the body of the gull and summoned us to the tent for what he persisted in calling our Christmas dinner.
"We can't distribute this by lot," he explained, "because some are better able to eat than others, and if I passed it out by lot, the wrong man might get the wrong thing and not be able to eat it. So I've taken Captain Dean at his word: I've gone ahead and divided it up.
"Now take Chips Bullock. He can't eat much, and he can't hardly chew at all, so I've given him the heart and the liver. Then there's Graystock and Saver. They claim they can't work or walk or do anything to help us, so I've given each of them one of the fish we found in