Jamrach's Menagerie - Carol Birch [85]
A whaleboat is a canny thing, twenty-six feet long, slim and beaked and swift. Ours were chimeric, burdened with masts and sails never meant for them, built up, patchwork prowed, laden well beyond their means. Nothing like a whaleboat for skipping over the waves, but these new craft were cumbersome. We laboured west all day till the sun went down. The moon was in the east.
“Ever see that, boys?” Dan says. “Moonbow. Rainbow at night.”
The moonbow shone on the western horizon, painted on cloud. Under the bow the sky was paler.
“Let’s assume it augurs hope,” said Rainey in a faintly sarcastic tone, “like Noah’s rainbow.” His face was hawkish and red. He’d wiped away the blood, and had a rough plaster above his beady left eye, which dribbled constantly into the bruised skin about it.
“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 all the time, as if this was just part of the day’s work, the kind of thing that happens all the time. “Not to worry, lads,” he’d said, same as ever. “Seen worse than this, I have, believe me. Don’t worry, I’ll 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 wall. Listen to that lot, Jaffy, she’d say, cocking her head and smiling. Life in all its glory. Come here, shall I sing a song?
Yes, yes, things were bad, but we’d get through. We always did.
“What now?” said Dan. “Well, 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’ll 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’ll all 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, all of us, till Skip, looking down at the lump of hardtack in his hands, said in a horrified voice, “It was all 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 killed Mr. Comeragh. I liked Mr. Comeragh. I’ve killed them all!”
“Enough!” barked the captain.
Skip put his head down and nibbled miserably at his tack.
“Billy thought it was,” he said a moment later.
“Thought what?” asked Dag.
“Thought it was my fault.”
“Yeah, well Billy 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