A Wrinkle in the Skin

by John Christopher

  He kept the chocolate in his mouth, sucking it until it dissolved. Billy was still eating the rest, and he looked away, unable to bear the sight.

  They came on another wreck not long after they set out the next day. It was far more crumpled and dilapidated than the first, built of rotting slimy wood which gaped in places. It was, or had been, high-pooped, and there were rows of holes beneath the bulwarks whose regular spacing showed them to be gunports. From one, in fact, a rusty, weed-hung muzzle projected, as it had done since it fired its last shot and the ship rolled in the waters and sank. How long since? Nearly four hundred years? Had it been one of the ships of the great Armada, harried by Drake and the storm through the cold gray waters of the Channel? Or a British vessel, more than two hundred years later, lost on its way home from Trafalgar? There was no way of telling, and it was of no importance.

  Billy said, “It’s very old, isn’t it, Mr. Cotter?”

  “Yes. Very old.”

  “Do you think there might be treasure in it?”

  “I suppose there might. It wouldn’t do us much good if there were.”

  “Can I look?”

  There were two aspects to treasure, of course. The worlds markets were all closed, and doubloons would buy nothing, not an egg nor a steak nor a crust of bread. But they were doubloons still. Magic and mystery remained, in a child’s eye. Matthew seated himself on a flat rock, easing off the heavy pack.

  “No harm to look,” he said. “But we’d better go carefully. I wouldn’t trust those timbers to bear any weight.”

  She lay on her port side, and they found a place just aft of the stem where a hole was big enough to admit Matthew stooping. It was very dark inside after the bright sunlight, and he made Billy stand until their eyes grew more used to the dimness. He had been afraid of timbers that would give way, even under the boys light weight; but he realized, as they began to move around, that the fears had been groundless. Although the general outline of the ships exterior shape remained, her insides had dissolved. Bulkheads and fittings had fallen and lay, mixed with sand and mud, forming an uneven but firm floor. There was nothing but a dark shell and a smell of rot.

  As Matthew stood there, thinking about the boys disappointment, he felt the ground shiver and heard the wooden walls groan around them. His movement was almost instinctive: He grabbed Billy roughly and plunged for the open air, holding him. They came out into the hot sunlight and he felt a surge of relief which left him weak. He let Billy go, and breathed in deeply.

  Billy said, “It wasn’t a very big one, was it?” He was frightened, too, and trying not to show it.

  Matthew said, “No, not a big one.” He paused, still collecting himself. “And since she stood up to the very big ones, she wouldn’t be likely to cave in now. Wood is better than bricks and stone—less rigid.”

  It was true. The hulk was not the deathtrap a house would have been. But he did not want to go back in there, leave the wide safety of the open.

  He said, “There wasn’t anything to see, was there? Nothing interesting.”

  Billy shook his head. “Not really.”

  “Then we’ll go on, I think. Or do you want to rest?”

  “No. I’d rather go on, Mr. Cotter.”

  There were other small tremors in the next hour, but they did not worry them. Matthew, as he walked, thought of the wreck and of what he had said about it. It had come through the cataclysm—the heaving of the seabed, the sucking outrush of the waters—and stayed more or less in one piece. Chance, he realized, must have had a lot to do with it. But if those rotting timbers could survive … He thought of Jane again, of the old house on high ground. The wooden roof could have protected her, and she would have been at the top of the house.

  He looked back at the battered hull of the ship. A sign, perhaps. A renewal of hope, at any rate. He started whistling, and saw Billy look at him, curious but smiling.

  They came to the place Billy called the Giant Steps. There was a whole series of faults, from ten to fifty yards apart, between which the sandy ground was flat and featureless. At each fault there was a sharp drop of some inches, in one case as much as four feet. It was like the terracing Matthew remembered seeing on agricultural land in hilly places; there was an impression of both artificiality and incompleteness. Some giant gardener would return, perhaps, for the sowing. The Steps went on a long way, more than a mile, and ended only where the sand gave way to rock.

  At this point there were more pools, and fish swimming in them. In one quite small one a mackerel a foot long threshed exhaustedly. The pool was not more than three times its length and less than a foot deep. The fish could not have survived in so tiny a space since the waters went, and Matthew could see what must have happened. The small pool was separated from a much larger one by a ridge of rock, raised a few inches above the level of the water. The mackerel must have been in the larger pool and leaped from there, blindly seeking the deep sea which it had lost. It had landed instead in this puddle, by now deoxygenated and stripped of nutrient. Here, quite soon, it would die.

  Billy leaned over the rock pool and plunged his arms in the water. Droplets sparkled in the sun and the fish twisted slackly away from his fingers. He said, “Shall I get him, Mr. Cotter? I could catch him easily.”

  “We’ve no fuel to start a fire.”

  “We could take him with us. We might find some wood later on.”

  Matthew shook his head. “It’s not worth it.” He felt a great compassion for the fish, for the urge toward life which had caused it to jump the ridge and for its present helplessness. “If you can catch it, I should pop it back in the other pool.”

  The fish had more reserve of strength than had seemed likely. It squirmed out of the boy’s grasp, and in the end Matthew lent him a hand. Together they lifted the mackerel through the air and let it drop on the far side of the barrier. It swam down into the depths—this pool was more than twenty feet long and the sun’s rays did not show its bottom.

  Billy said, “It will be all right now, won’t it?”

  “Yes, I should think so.”

  It would last a little longer, a few more days, weeks, maybe months. But these pools were all drying out, withering, away from the sea’s refreshment. In the end, it made no difference.

  They went on more slowly. There were a lot of rocks, many sharp-edged, over which they had to climb. Once when they stopped to rest, Matthew examined Billy’s shoes. The soles were getting thin, showing cuts and cracks across the leather. They would have to last until they reached the mainland and he could forage for more. He warned him to avoid rough ground as much as possible, but it was not the sort of advice one could expect a young boy to take notice of.

  After the rocks came mud flats. The surface was fairly firm to begin with, but as they advanced they found the mud soft beneath its outer crust. Their feet sank in, at first no more than an inch or so and then more deeply. When Matthew felt it sucking so much that it was an effort to raise his foot again, he decided that they must try to get round instead of keeping on their direct path. The flats stretched far out in front of them, but the firmer ground ran northeast, so Matthew turned that way. They walked with the sun at their backs, sinking toward a horizon which, for the first time that day, had some cloud. There was a dullness to the scene; on their right the gray rocks, ridge after ridge, on their left the barren blackness of the mud. Billy’s lightheartedness left him, and he stopped chattering. They plodded on silently together. Matthew asked Billy if he wanted to rest, but he shook his head. It was depressing to think of halting in this desolation.

  In the end, as the sun sank and darkness gathered over a scene that showed no intrinsic change, they had to halt. They had covered, Matthew calculated, something like twelve to fifteen miles the day before, rather more than that today. But the last five miles at least on a course carrying them as much east as north. The only encouraging thing was that the weather had held so far, and looking at the dull red afterglow in the sky behind them, he won
dered how long that would last. The wind was stronger again, howling among the rocks.

  They opened tins and had their evening meal. Quite apart from the question of heating food, a fire would have been a comfort; but even if the sun had not gone down there was nothing here that would bum. Matthew wrapped as much clothing as possible round the boy, and they lay down on the mud together, in each others arms. The earlier mood of hope was all gone. He was conscious only of their wretchedness, their vulnerability.

  The rain woke them before morning light, a swift violent shower that lashed against them and soaked them through. Matthew rearranged the mackintosh to give Billy as much protection as he could, and set himself to endure it. The rain did not last long, but left them wet and shivering with cold. They sat huddled together, waiting for the sky to brighten.

  Day broke slowly and reluctantly, to the accompaniment of another heavy shower of rain. They were already so wet that this made little difference. Matthew opened a tin of concentrated soup and they wolfed it between them. It tasted unpleasant, but presumably it was nourishing. Then they set off again. The rain had softened the mud, forcing them to take to the rocks to find firm footing. The going was difficult and exhausting, particularly for Billy. Matthew was obliged to call halts frequently so that he could rest.

  They went on in this way for what seemed like hours. There was no trace of the sun behind the scudding monochrome of the clouds; the day remained gray and dark. Rain eased off at intervals, only to return. They had been wet and tired and cold when they started, and became more so. They opened another tin—of sausage and beans—and spooned them out in turn.

  At last the ground changed, the mud giving way to firm sand and shingle, interspersed with boulders and massive rock formations. Matthew had no idea how far they had traveled to the east, but he decided it would be sensible to turn off at something less than a right angle to the line they had been following. Without the sun he could make only an approximate guess at the direction in which they were heading. If this weather continued, he realized, they might easily find themselves going round in circles. And it had a depressingly permanent look to it. There had been no rain for over an hour, but the sky remained as threatening as before.

  When he first saw the ship, he did not believe it. A mirage, he thought confusedly—but surely mirages required hot dry air, and brightness? Or a hallucination … Only the stem and twenty or thirty feet behind were visible, the rest being hidden by a ridge of rock. The element of fantasy lay in the fact that the ship seemed to be completely undamaged, her bows white and unscarred though oddly lacking in elevation. She rested on even keel in the sand, in an incredible act of balance.

  Billy, clutching his arm, said, “Look! What sort is she, Mr. Cotter?”

  “I’m not sure,” he said. “We’d better go and take a closer look.”

  As they came round the ridge, the trick of balance explained itself; so did the lowness of her bows. The ship rested amidships on a reef. It was nothing very much but it held her firmly upright. As to the puzzling nature of the stem section, that was made clear in the shock of seeing her full length. This was a tanker, one of the modern giants. She must, Matthew calculated, be eight hundred feet or more in length, getting on for a hundred-thousand-tonner. Her lines ran back, very low and straight, to a single squat tower at the stem. She might have buckled somewhat at the point of impact, but from where they stood there was no sign of damage at all.

  Billy said, “Isn’t she terrific! Do you think we can go on board?”

  She lay there, superbly erect on the dry seabed, all grace and power and purity, a majestic artifact of the vanished world. She had ridden the departing waves, and dropped here like a bird.

  He said, “We’ll have a try, Billy.”

  9

  THE RAIN CAME DOWN as they walked toward the tanker, not violently this time but with a drenching persistence. It beat against the white bulwarks which, low as they were, towered above their heads, and they sought shelter under the broad curve of her bottom. It occurred to Matthew that going aboard might be more easily proposed than achieved. There had been no sign of life on board as they approached. Although from the outside the ship looked undamaged, he supposed her crew could have been swept overboard or killed by the shock of impact. He did not see how he and the boy could scale these smooth sides without help, quite apart from the overhang.

  At least they could make a survey of the ship from outside, though what it amounted to so far was a close-up view of the red underbelly of the monster. And monster she was. The arch of steel stretched ahead of them as an almost endless arcade. Looking along it, and upwards, Matthew had a renewed fear of being enclosed, roofed in. It was irrational; if the big quakes had not toppled her, it was improbable that any of the still-occurring smaller ones would. All the same, he moved out into the driving rain, and Billy, without question, followed him.

  They could see a little more now, but not much. They were approaching the tower at the stem of the ship. Matthew paused, cupped his hands, and called up. His voice rang hollowly, and there was no reply. There was only the wind, and the swish of rain.

  Later, as they were rounding the stem, Matthew thought he heard a cry. He saw what might have caused it a moment later: a bedraggled-looking sea gull walking across the sand. Apart from worms and fishes, it was the first life they had encountered since the dog and the rabbits on Alderney. Billy shouted at the sight and the gull took to the air, flapped a dozen yards or so, and resumed its original clumsy progress. Matthew wondered about it. Had the dim memory of past feastings brought it to the ship, or did it find some present nourishment here? He called up to the ship a second time, and his voice seemed to echo in the silence.

  Immediately after that he caught sight of the ladder.

  It was made of steel and nylon and hung from the bulwark, forward of the stern on the starboard side. It reached the ground, and more—the extra lay in a tangled untidy heap on the sand. Matthew went to it and tugged, at first gently and then with all his strength. It was firmly secured at the top.

  He looked at Billy, and said, “What about it? Shall we go up? Do you think you can climb a rope ladder? It’s pretty high.”

  “I’m sure I can! Honest.”

  “You go first.”

  The boy went up easily. Matthew let him get a few yards’ lead and started up himself. The ladder swung and bucked under their combined weights, and he had a wave of height nausea. He halted, clinging tightly to the steel rungs, and the deep earthquake fear superimposed itself on the vertigo, petrifying him. If a big shock came, and this steel wall tilted and slid toward them … He tried to tell himself how absurd it was, but reason was overwhelmed by terror. Shaking, he heard Billy call down something. His first response was a meaningless croak. Clearing his throat, coughing, he forced himself into speech.

  “What’s that?”

  “I said I’m nearly up! But its harder. The ladder bangs against the side.”

  “Rest a while,” he called.

  “No, I don’t need to.”

  Gradually the fear diminished into something which, although it chilled him still, could be controlled. He moved one foot up, reached with his hand for a higher rung. He began to climb steadily, not letting himself think of anything but the mechanical process, the alternation of hands and feet. He heard a cry of triumph which told him Billy had got to the top, but did not reply. Now he had to be careful because incautious movements swung him and the ladder against the white-painted steel. He was nearly there, surely, but he did not look up. Suddenly the rail was in front of his eyes, with Billy’s legs behind it.

  It was funny that the fear left him as soon as he had swung on board—the earthquake fear as well as the height fear. He was on the raised deck surrounding the tower; below and forward the tanks ran in a long line toward the fantastically distant bows. He was impressed by the size and strength of it all. It no longer seemed strange that the ship should have come through the cataclysm unscathed. Or relatively
unscathed-part of the rail had broken away on the port side, and there might be damage due to buckling in the far distance; it was difficult to be sure.

  And then he became aware of something else. He had an idea he had been conscious of it for a time, without realizing or understanding what it was. Now it nagged at his senses, impossible to ignore or deny … the very faint throb in the metal under his feet, the muted hum from somewhere in the ship. He stared incredulously at the squat tower in front of him. There was still no sign of life, but somewhere in there a generator was running.

  Matthew shouted again, “Hello, therel Anybody home?” He called, “Hello … hello … hello …” and Billy took it up, calling with him. The rain came down harder and swept across the decks over the side. There was a swimming pool set in the deck, and the rain hissed off the surface of the water. A couple of reclining chairs, made of tubular steel and brightly colored plastic, stood near the springboard at this end of the pool. It was as though people had been swimming and sunbathing there until the rain drove them indoors for shelter.

  “There’s no one,” Billy said. “Unless they cant hear us from inside.”

  “It might be that. We’d better go and look.”

  They trudged across the deck to the tower. Matthew found a door and turned a handle to open it. He had another shock when he did so. He had been expecting a dark interior and found a corridor lit by electric light. Billy exclaimed beside him.

  “There must be people on board,” Matthew explained. “They’ve managed to keep the generators going—they’ll be oil-fueled, I suppose.”

  “Shall we call them again?”

  “No, I don’t think so. We’ll go on till we find them.”

  The place was a warren of passages and companionways. Matthew opened doors at random and found cabins, washrooms, what appeared to be a chartroom. There was something odd which it took him a while to formulate, but which was epitomized in a cabin with two built-in bunks. The bunks were neatly made up with sheets and blankets, and everything in the cabin was in order. Matthew realized that the same neatness obtained throughout. Whatever chaos had been caused by the shaking the ship had had when the catastrophe happened had been tidied up to an almost fanatical degree.