Jamrach's Menagerie - Carol Birch [87]
“We look like that too,” I said.
“How’s your bread?” the captain called across. “Ours is wet.”
“Inevitable,” Mr. Rainey replied. “Ours too, but not all of it.”
“Pretty much all of ours,” the Captain said. “All bearing up over there?”
“Aye aye, captain, all 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.
“Still 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 well enough, but my mouth and throat were getting raw. The captain said we could all 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 still pond. I held it as long as I could, but my mouth absorbed it.
“All right, Skip?” I asked him.
His mouth was set in an awkward sneer. He nodded once sharply.
“We are making excellent 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 fell 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 stall. 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 girning patience to make a little spit. Dolphins came, dancing along with our boats. Wished I still had my old telescope, but it had gone under with all 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 all 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 all 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 hell 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. “Well, I wasn’t going to let you have all the glory, was I?” I said.
“All the glory!” Tim squawked. “All 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.”
“Till when?”
“Till 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 called the boats together. Good to see again their dirty salt phizogs: the captain’s square face with fallen 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