Jamrach's Menagerie - Carol Birch [53]
There was a solemn nodding and a murmur.
“I will not risk a man,” Dan said.
Captain Proctor stepped forward, smiling. “I think we will need some training for this,” he said gamely.
“Of course.” Dan grinned. “Though you’re whale men, remember. If you can hunt a whale you can hunt anything.”
“Huh,” said Skip.
“What if it breathes fire?” a voice piped up.
It was Felix Duggan, his wide eyes looking truly scared. Everyone laughed.
“I don’t think it will breathe fire,” Dan said, “I truly don’t. But if it does, I tell you what we do.” He looked very serious then burst out laughing. “We run like hell!”
Everyone else laughed too.
“Don’t worry,” Dan said, “you’ll hear us coming, pants on fire. In the boats and back to ship.”
“What if it flies?”
That was John Copper.
We all saw it, the mighty flying dragon, vast scaly wings, streams of fire blasting all to waste before it, scorching the earth. Flying after our ship. An eye in the sky.
“There are no credible reports that it flies,” said Dan.
It.
Dan said: “We give it two weeks. Then on with the whaling with or without the beast. No one is obliged to take part in this. Anyone who really wishes to can stay with the ship.”
“Fairly spoken, Mr. Rymer,” said the Captain. “I for one look forward to the experience. If we do succeed it will be a great thing, a great thing indeed.”
“Chances are we won’t find anything,” said Dan wryly. “Chances are we’ll poke about on a few islands and come back with nothing but a poll parrot.”
Captain Proctor chuckled. “Now,” he said, “to business.”
Business meant the Straits. We sailed on among the islands, and passed many small boats, any one of which could have been a pirate craft for all I knew. None were. How could you ever tell? The others, Gabriel and Sam and Yan and even John Copper just seemed to know. “That,” they’d say, “that’s just a sampan.” As if it was obvious. As far as I was concerned, those faces looking up, they could have all been Yan’s dad. I wouldn’t know the difference between a pirate and Yan’s dad. Then a great ship of the line loomed on the horizon, and a high mountain appeared on our larboard side. The ship passed us at a great distance, heading for the open ocean. Land closed in. The sea was fast and there were sandbanks, but we made no poor moves, and by late afternoon had passed the narrowest part of the passage and taken the eastern channel where an island divided the opening sea.
We emerged into an inner sea of islands, some no more than just rocks. The sun was setting. A thick forest of cloud lay motionless on the horizon, here and there throwing up foamy explosions of wild cumulus. Long ripples moved over the sea, and the orange rays of the sun radiated behind the clouds in the likeness of a flower spreading its petals. Then it sank, and all was red, dark, blood red, and the sea black.
We awoke to a long blue coastline. For a long time we had only good sailing, and a kind of peace settled over the ship. I felt we had reached those storied places, the siren realms where mermaids sing and lotus-eaters gorge, where Sinbad the Sailor paces the deck and dreams of crystal streams and rubied caverns. I thought of islands that come and go, are found and not found again. Days and days went by, and I fell into a long delight. We took a whale now and then. For a while burnt flesh and boiling oil was thick about us, but we sailed on, out of the stench and into the wine-sweet air, a good draught of which was like apples and spices and flowers. A pod of dolphins joined us off an island of white sand and coconut palms, rode our bow wave joyfully for a mile or two, shiny backs breaching the air. They left us and took with them the time of stillness. After them the breezes got up in a jolly, whistling kind of way, and the waves began to rise against a mountainous region to starboard, breaking hugely over miles of shimmering strand that edged a dense, green jungle, whence came,