The covenant - James A. Michener [128]
They were dreadful, these low-ceilinged hovels below the waterline. Fresh air was unknown, cleanliness impossible. Men emptied their bowels in corners and children lay white and gasping on filthy bunks. During the transit of the equator the temperatures were intolerable and dying people pleaded for a breath of air, but when the lower latitudes were reached, the next to die cried for blankets.
At the hundredth day Paul became aware that his wife, Marie, was not handling the long passage at all well. Her life in the cold, damp shack close to the river IJ in Amsterdam had started a lung congestion which had never really mended, and now, with worsening conditions belowdecks, she began to cough blood. Frantically Paul sought assistance among the passengers, but to no avail. There were scholars aboard the Java, and a failed clergyman, and some excellent farmers, but no doctors or nurses, and Paul had to watch in despair as his wife declined.
'Marie,' he pleaded, 'we must walk on deck. To catch the breezes.'
'I cannot move,' she whispered, and when he forced her to her feet, he saw that her knees crumpled, so he returned her to the filthy bed.
He sought counsel among the women passengers, and all they could do was look gloomily at the stricken Frenchwoman and shake their heads lugubriously. It was no use appealing to the crew, for they were a miserable lot. Dutch sailors of merit preferred to work the Baltic ships, from which they could return to their homes periodically; also, the pay was better. For the long passages to Batavia, the Lords XVII had to rely principally on those untrained Germans whom De Pre had seen outside the Compagnie offices. They were not sailors, nor were they disciplined. For twenty years they had been conducting religious warfare back and forth across Germany, and it was unreasonable to think that they would now settle down and obey orders. Uncertain of what their Dutch officers were saying, totally unable to comprehend the French emigrants, they barely kept the ship afloat, and it was probably they who had been responsible for the sinking of the Texel: the Dutch captain had surely shouted the right order at the moment of peril, but his sailors had not responded.
So the Java rolled and pitched through the South Atlantic, with all hands praying that the wind would steady so they might make land before everyone was dead. Under these circumstances it was not strange that Marie de Pre should sink closer and closer to unconsciousness; her husband watched in horror as her vital signs diminished.
'Marie!' he pleaded. 'We must go aloft. You must walk and regain your strength.' As he argued with her three sailors moved through the filthy quarters collecting bodies, and Paul ran to them begging for fresh water for his wife. The Germans looked at him and grunted. The Cape would soon be reached and then these troublesome passengers would be gone, such of them as had survived.
Long before any sailor could win his silver schilling for crying, 'Table Mountain!' Marie de Pre fell into a coma, and since there was no proper clergyman aboard the rolling ship, the Dutch sick-comforter was summoned. He was a small, round fellow with rheumy eyes and the self-effacing manner of one who had tried to pass the courses at Leiden University and failed. Forbidden to preach like a real minister, he discharged his deep convictions by serving as general handyman to the Dutch church; especially he comforted those who were about to die.
As soon as he saw Marie he said, 'We'd better fetch her children,' and when Henri and Louis appeared he took their hands, drew them to him, and said softly in Dutch, 'Now's the time for courage, eh?'
'Could we pray in French?' Paul asked, hoping that his wife would be heartened by the language she had used as a child in Caix.