Remember Me - Lesley Pearse [114]
Emmanuel was in her arms, Charlotte was lying with her head in her mother’s lap. They were so thin and weak that they could no longer cry. They just lay there with their dull eyes constantly fixed on her. Mary had thought she was familiar with every kind of suffering, but knowing that she was responsible for her children’s slow and terrible death was new and far worse.
The last of the food had gone several days before, and the water ran out at noon the previous day, when Emmanuel and Charlotte were given the last drops. No one had spoken today, for they had all lapsed into a kind of torpor, their eyes fixed on the horizon. They weren’t even scanning it for land any longer, just avoiding looking at one another, for the sight of how weak they all were was too distressing.
Everyone but Mary and Will was asleep now. William Moreton sprawled against the empty water cask, Sam Broome and Nat Lilly were curled up like a couple of dogs in the bows, the others lay sagging against each other. Nat and Samuel Bird had suffered the worst from sunburn because of their fair skin, and their faces looked monstrous – red, swollen and blistered. Bill too had his share of sunburn on his bald head, but for the last few days he’d wrapped a piece of rag round it like a turban.
Will was hunched up at the tiller, but when Mary glanced at him she saw a stranger. He appeared to have shrunk, his once fleshy face now skeletal, and his eyes and mouth appearing much too large. It was just as well the wind was favourable, as it had been since they left the Gulf, for no one would have had the strength to lift the oars, much less row with them.
Mary wondered how the stars and moon could still shine so brightly at such a time. They twinkled in the calm, dark water like candles in a shrine. It seemed to her they were telling her to let the children go and spare them any further suffering.
She lifted Emmanuel higher into her arms. He weighed so little now, and she remembered how heavy he had been when they set out all those weeks before. He was all eyes now, for as his flesh disappeared, they had become more prominent. He didn’t even turn his head towards her breast the way he used to, as if he’d finally accepted there was no food there now.
‘I’m so sorry,’ she whispered, kissing his little bony forehead. She wished they could have survived to see him walk, to hear him talk, to know that he would become as strong as his father when he was fully grown. It wasn’t fair that his short life should have been such a hard one. But as she turned her body slightly on the seat, intending to lower him into the water, she felt his fingers curl round one of hers.
It seemed to Mary he was making a silent plea to stay with her until the end. She clutched him tighter, bent her face to his little head and cried inwardly at her own cowardice.
‘Mary!’
She woke with a start, to find Will tugging at her dress.
The first rays of light were coming into the sky, and her first thought was that Will was expecting a storm and she must get bowls ready to catch the rain to drink.
‘Mary, are my eyes deceiving me, or is that land?’ he asked hoarsely.
Mary looked. It did look like land, a darker, wavy shape on the horizon.
A wild excitement ran through her. ‘Can we both be deceived at once?’ she asked. ‘It looks like land to me too.’
She moved along the seat, still holding the children, to be closer to him, and clutched hold of his hand.
‘Oh, Will,’ she whispered. ‘Can it be true?’
They held hands for at least an hour, watching and hoping against hope it wasn’t some kind of cruel joke of nature. But the dark shape remained constant, growing closer with each minute, until finally they were convinced it was in reality trees.
‘Well, my girl,’ Will said, beaming at her, ‘I got you there. Today’s the 5th of June 1791, and I’ve got to write in the log that I sighted land. It’s sixty-seven days since we left Sydney, and I thank