Jamrach's Menagerie - Carol Birch [97]
“It’s my fault,” Skip said.
He said this so many times it became true. Yes, we thought. If he hadn’t let the dragon free. So many dead and it’s all your fault. Not that we were angry with him. No point. It was God everyone was angry at. The thunder and lightning. The stupid waves. We rode a monster.
“Will you shut up with that?” Tim said listlessly.
“Sorry,” said Skip.
It went on and on, a day and a day and another day, until the day Captain Proctor said we had to cut the rations again. Wilson Pride laughed. I never saw him really laugh but that once; a rich giggling laugh that just about cracked his face open, and got us all going as if it was a great joke, this cutting of the rations. Captain Proctor sacrificed his leather belt. Precious little to make a fire with. Wilson took a couple of leaves of Skip’s sketchbook to help the flames along, and he boiled up the belt in one of the buckets and kept it bubbling there with a little water, very careful, very careful with the water now. It smelled like the tanning factory. Bermondsey on the ocean. He said we shouldn’t eat the belt itself, but doled out the water it was cooked in, dark and roasty and bitter, the fire of a hot drink down the startled gullet. That and my portion and it was, all told, not a bad night that followed. I slept cosy. The good, hot drink stayed in my stomach, a wonderful hum of ease as I drifted in dreams of bright wanderings in strange worlds that span on and on and in and out of each other, hundreds and hundreds of them.
I woke in the night and heard Dan talking to Yan. The boats were hooked together. They lolled each in their respective sterns, quietly conversing.
“Like fire,” said Yan.
“Whereabouts?”
“Here.”
“How are your ankles?”
“Terrible.”
“No better then?”
“Look.”
Dan shifted. A moment’s silence then, “Jesus,” he said.
“You see?” said Yan.
“We could do with Abel. He had a way with that sort of thing.”
“What day is it?”
“Day forty-seven.”
“Are you sure?”
“Sure.”
“Weather’s on the turn.”
“God, let it rain.”
It did, but not till next nightfall, and we filled the buckets and drank. First sip, sip, then more, at last a time to drink.
“That’s enough,” Dan said.
His hand on mine, gentle, decayed.
“There, see?” he said. “Something always comes along.”
In the morning we awoke to the slow whining of the fiddle. Scrape, scrape, the sound was losing sweetness yet oddly lovely, the voice going hoarse. Something was getting at the fiddle. The salt I suppose, just like it got at everything else.
“Ach!” said Simon. “No good.”
Dan shook me. “Up, Jaf,” he said.
I felt light, as if I might drift up into the sky.
“Up, Jaf.”
He pulled my cover off. I couldn’t see a thing. Blind in the full sun full in my eyes.
“Steady.” Dan’s hand.
I knocked against Tim.
“Watch what you’re doing!” he snapped.
I retched. Nothing came. Things cleared.
“Come on, Jaf,” Gabe said, “take your oar.”
A huge yawn shook me. I dragged myself up. Skip was sitting next to me crying, his moon face gone beyond recall. He was the colour of liver. His skin clung to his skull, though his eyes were still bright.
“All right, Skip?” I said to him.
He nodded.
Yan was in a bad way.
“You’re five and we’re six,” the captain said. “Take one more, will you? This man has to lie down, we need more room.”
So Dag came on our boat and we dipped lower in the water. In the captain’s boat, Yan stretched out like a log. John Copper groaned and held his stomach, groping down his breeches and sticking his scrawny arse over the side to drip dark green goo into the sea.
Not even worth baling these days, it was so still. Nothing to do but lie and doze. But you keep on waking up, that’s the trouble. There’s always someone somewhere moaning or champing his mouth disgustingly, someone swearing or mumbling, waking from a dream with a cry. Always your own heart yattering on in your ears as if it’ll burst. When evening came Yan refused his bread. Pushed it away. Wouldn’t even drink. Simon tried to pour it in his mouth, but he let it