In the short term, he was wrong. The following day was different, proving harder still upon our spirits, already lowered by the inadequacy of our sail, when we discovered that we had much less water than we supposed. The day before, we’d watered well assuming that the two metal tanks stored in the lifeboat were full and we had taken as much as we had needed, in the scorching sun, from the barrel. This was now three quarters empty and when Mick had gone to fill it from the tanks, his venomous expletives brought the true state of our supply to our horrified attention. One contained about two thirds of what it should, the other less than half.
Moreover, yesterday it had seemed hard to cut the cord and separate from the other boat but Henderson had planned to stay close by us. Neither crew had seemed too eager to be alone, a tiny, speck-like insignificance at the mercy of the infinite ocean. But it was harder still to watch his boat tacking effortlessly away on into the distance while we wallowed fretfully behind, a whining child clasping vainly at its brother’s shirt tail. A couple of times, we cranked the engine up and sped to catch them, but the skipper, with an anxious eye on our fast diminishing levels of fuel, declared that next time we would have to row. It was immediately obvious that such physical exertion was untenable during the day, for it was just too hot even to move, so Clarie drew up a rota to be implemented as soon as darkness fell. Dividing us up into crews of six with two to bail, he tried to distribute strength as equally as possible, though eventually, and with increasing exasperation, he was cajoled into conceding that mates should row together. We worked hard throughout the night, changing hourly, to make up for our deficiency, steering by the North Star and by torch light on Joe’s compass. We started up at dusk and pushed on through, till as far as we could bear into the morning. But to no avail. By the dawn on the third day, the other boat had gone.
‘Bastards,’ Billy griped. ‘Flamin’ bastards. Might’ve known Henderson’d leave us here for dead. Always was a sly bastard, that one.’
‘You’ll keep quiet, Rawlins, if you know what’s good for you. Don’t talk like that about Walter Henderson. He’s a friend of mine,’ Captain Edwards, small and birdlike in the prow, was still peering out in to the far distance, clinging to the fast-fading hope of catching sight of the small, white triangle.
‘Some fuckin’ friend,’ Billy muttered, turning away from him.
‘We’d’ve done the same,’ Joe sat down, giving it up. ‘Besides, we’re not dead yet, Billy boy,’ he added, slapping his knees and grinning through cracking lips. ‘Be picked up today, I reckon. And if not, another day or two, be sunning it up in the Canaries.’
‘Forget sunning it up,’ I smiled too. ‘Watering down’ll do for me.’ Jack and a few others around him tried to raise a concurring laugh but shrinking skin, starting to crack and itch with unwelcome stubble, prevented much enthusiasm. I was not yet quite frightened. That we were now alone was disconcerting, but I never for one moment considered that we would not make it. It might take us longer than the other crew, but they would greet us on the islands with water tins held high, joyfully exclaiming at our tardiness. Or we would be picked up. It would not be long. Even the knowledge that our water supply was lower than expected did not alarm me greatly. There was enough, if we rationed, to last us the two, at worst, three days that it would take us. I was irritable and disgruntled, physically discomforted by the ache of clawing hunger and fatigue, that of plaguing thirst, but it was not yet irreparable. And so I was not yet afraid.
But morale upon the boat was already getting low. Billy’s sentiments, though unfair, reflected a general feeling of abandonment. We could hardly blame Henderson’s crew for pressing on, and yet somehow, we did.
More unnerving still for me was the persistent, nagging worry that I may have inadvertently prolonged not only my own suffering, but also that of Joe. The disappearance of the other boat, its obvious progress and thus seemingly more imminent salvation meant that I, unwittingly, had made the poorer choice. Joe’s suggestion that we should follow Calhoun onto the other boat had been, perhaps, an oblique request, reflecting his intuitive faith in Calhoun’s proficiency. He’d wanted us to take our chances with Henderson and Calhoun, sensing instinctively that they might be the better bet. That he had not even thought, at my refusal, to move across without me struck me now as loyal, and although I could not possibly have predicted what had happened to our mast, I felt vaguely responsible. Sorry I had not listened with more care to the implication of his question.
I knew the thought that we could have been among them, that we could probably have almost made land by now, must have crossed his mind. How could it have failed to cross his mind, cramped upon our limping lifeboat, bored and hungry, dehydrating by the minute and seeking only to while away the blanching hours for the next meagre insufficiency of water? My only consolation lay in the speculative hope that it might not be too long.
Being Joe and generous, he would never say it. But it did not stop the awkwardness I felt for my decision from bothering me and I spent most of the day wondering how best to broach it with him. Knowing well that he would brook no apology for something he would not in the least consider necessary, I tried to lighten it by making it a joke. ‘Bloody hell, Joe,’ I said eventually, crouching down next to him that evening, ‘I told you we should’ve gone with Jamie! We’d’ve probably bloody been there by now!’
He was on his knees, working at his notch but when I spoke, he turned around to look at me and then with a derisive snort, he shoved me lightly at the shoulder. I tipped backwards, guilt dismissed, and fell giddily onto Mac. He was half sitting, half lying across the bottom of the boat, his arms up on the last seat, taking in the cool and ease of evening, the chance to get some rest. My ungainly landing doused him liberally with the bilgy water that pooled constantly along the belly of the boat and in which he, in his efforts to stretch his body out, was forced to lie. His legs and feet were already half submerged but my intrusive splashing irritated him. ‘Jesus, Cub!’ Mac glowered at me and then at Joe. ‘Don’t know what the fuck you two are sniggering about. Ain’t too funny – any of this fucking crap.’
Joe shrugged at Mac and then grinned at me, ‘Always pick the wrong ‘un, I do,’ he said, offering me a hand to yank me back.
‘Sorry, Mac,’ I said breathlessly, over my shoulder as I struggled to right myself. ‘Wouldn’t let Maggie hear you say that, Joe.’ As soon as the words had left my mouth, I was sorry that I’d said it. I knew him to be misguidedly susceptible to thinking himself unworthy as far as Maggie was concerned and by bringing her up before his eyes, just as he’d maligned his judgements, I felt I’d somehow blunderingly implied that he was right. His face clouded for an instant and he looked down. Then he shook his head slowly and passed a hand across his grizzled chin, scraping thoughtfully back and forth. ‘Yeah, well… she must be the exception to the rule,’ he said. He cleared his throat after a moment and throwing it off, he glanced back up at me and with laughter behind his voice, he added, ‘But you, Cub, on the other hand! You’re a bleeding disaster! Look at the state of you… you look as if you’ve slept behind a hedge… or on a lifeboat. And…’ he adjusted his fictitious spectacles and peered in an exaggerated manner at my scraggy pyjama bottoms, ‘am I right in thinking that those are your pyjamas?’ I looked down at the bleached and thinning material that covered my bottom half and both of us began to laugh.
That night I was not cold but for the first time, I wanted covering. The nights with their still and balmy breath were warm and so far had offered only singular relief from the bleak, ill-tempered raging of the sun during the daylight hours. But that night, my shoulders and my back craved the comfort of a wrapping. As I lay awake, forced to listen to the rhythmic dipping of the oars and the fluctuation of the waters, my eyes were drawn to the infinities above, the endless blackness of the sky, the stars, unperturbed by our predicament, and the cold-eyed, fixed attention of an impassive, glacial moon.
I fought against the sly, gradually pervading suspic
ion of my insignificance, wanting to hide from it, shut it out, to bury my head beneath blankets and lose it in the sweet oblivion of unfettered sleep. But wakefulness, like thirst, like hunger, would not let me be.
‘Hey, Resendes!’ Mick’s voice rang out across the rower’s heads, behind me, from the prow. His irritated tone snapped me back sharply from the isolation of my thoughts. ‘You’re taking us off course. Jesus! You wanna be goin’ east from the North Star. Right. Bloody hell. Are you asleep?…’ He was suddenly on his feet, incredulous and angry. ‘Is he a-fucking-sleep?’ he shouted, appealing to anyone awake near Tomas whose turn it was apparently to man the rudder. Most of us by this point had been long enough in Mick’s company to recognise that the extent of his annoyance at any given moment could be measured almost exactly by the increased intensity of his natural accent. The more agitated Mick ever became, the more pronounced his native tongue and, as he stood now railing down the boat at Tomas, it was obvious even in the darkness, from the inflection of his words, that he was furious.
‘No. Jesus Christ, Mick. Of course I am not sleeping,’ Tomas, affronted by the accusation, sounded indignant. He shot up from his seat, one hand still on the tiller, as if to verify his consciousness. ‘I am on the bloody course. North north-east.’
‘Well, it don’t look much like it from up here.’ Mick snapped testily. Tomas’ quick reaction was apparently enough to pacify Mick to a degree, for his voice lost a little of its spleen, though he was clearly still annoyed. ‘You’re too far left. Well, ain’t he, Captain?’
There was a moment’s pause as the Captain rose and turned to follow the line of Mick’s pointing finger. His answer when it came was measured and without censure, ‘Yes, I think you’re right there, Mick. A little more to the right, then, Tomas. Please.’
Mick spun round. ‘Joe? Where the hell is Joe?’
Joe, hunched up near me behind the last seat, lifted up an arm and waved it cheerily, ‘Here, Mick. I’m down here.’
‘Get that bleedin’ compass out and show it to Tomas, would you? Otherwise he’ll have us all in bloody Timbuktu before we know it.’
‘Better there than here I’d say,’ laughed Joe, unfolding his cramped-up legs and getting to his feet. He caught the torch that Jack threw up at him and whistling through his teeth, went down to sit by Tomas. Mollified slightly, Mick followed the skipper’s cue and sat back down, settling himself at the head of the prow and allaying his own anxieties every now and then by calling back, ‘A little more. Right. More. OK!’
I listened to the murmurings of Joe and Tomas talking for a little while and, comforted by their company, I must have dozed.
I was woken by Joe’s clumsy attempts at quietness on his return. He stood upon my foot as he tried to step into his place. ‘Ooph! Sorry, Cub. Sorry,’ he whispered loudly, stumbling and almost falling over the seat in front of me. He manoeuvred his way past my body and hunkering down, leant back against the far side of the boat but did not, as I was expecting, start to shuffle about in his habitually noisy but nonetheless ever-unproductive attempt to find a comfortable position for sleep. Instead, I saw him lift his knees so that they folded up against his chest. He brought his hands up to rest upon them and then I saw that he still held his compass. The sheen of its gold-coloured casing gleamed softly in the moonlight. He gazed at it, immersed, turning it over and smoothing it just as I had seen him do that morning by the radio shack. He sat there, with his thoughts of her, oblivious to it all.
Eventually, coming to, he glanced across at me and saw that I was now awake again and, for want of any other occupation, was watching him.
Craving a little perhaps of the immunity her proximity clearly afforded, I propped myself up on one elbow and ventured softly, ‘So it’s true then, Joe. How people say it is?’
His eyes found their way back to his hands and the physical embodiment of his dreams which lay between them. He continued to work his thumb steadily across the muted lustre of its surface but made no attempt at first to answer. I began to wonder if perhaps I had not spoken my thoughts out loud, but then he shook his head slowly, thoughtfully. ‘I don’t know. Who can ever say what it must be like for someone else?’
‘But how do you know?’ I asked, young enough and eager still to believe that there had to be some kind of formula, some useful code of understanding to which, through Maggie, he had miraculously gained access. Something that he could at least communicate that would ensure that if and when love should ever come to me, I would not be fool enough to mistake it. ‘What makes it any different? With Maggie, I mean?’
‘I don’t know,’ he murmured, the words barely coming audibly above the heavy sigh accompanying them. ‘I don’t know if I ever could explain.’ He let his head drop within the circle his arms made with his knees and, left only with the ragged outline of his hair to look at, I waited. But just as I thought that he had probably given up, that he must, albeit unconsciously, have accepted that there are certain aspects within the emotional spectrum of humanity for which there are no words, his voice came again, more thickly now and muffled. ‘It’s just that somehow Cub, she is inside me. As if she always has been. And when I met her, she simply stepped back into her place. As if she already knew me. Knew that she belonged. As if she always had.’ He paused and then he breathed more quietly still, ‘And so had I.’
Though I had pushed him to it, somehow I had not expected so close-hearted an admission. It shook me and, unsteadied before that which suddenly seemed so sacred, I scrabbled to shield us both from a disquieting sense of sensibility stripped bare. Covering it hastily with an appeal to his more tangible memory, I asked abruptly, ‘Where did you meet?’
‘Hmm?’ He lifted his head.
‘You and Maggie. Where did you meet?’
‘On a tram. She was with her sister and her sister’s husband. Maggie looked at me. She looked into me. And I knew then who she was.’
Neither of us said any more for a while and, as his eyes returned once more to the small, gold object in his hand, his attention wandered back towards the peace and consolation of her presence.
Folding myself back down, I tried to shuffle my body into a position that might better preface sleep. I closed my eyes but I knew it was no good. My most pressing discomfort now came so much more profoundly from within. For in attempting to make plain his own, Joe had shown me Maggie’s heart, and in so doing, had unintentionally given me a glimpse of the immeasurable depth of their connection. What he had been struggling to convey had brought before me so strong an image of two separate souls as one single entity, as so inextricably combined, that I had been left with the distinct impression that until the moment of their convergence, their lives, though independent, had been nonetheless incomplete. The loss of either one of them could do nothing then but condemn the other to the hollow half-existence of a being rent in two; bereft and broken, left to limp across the unrelenting winter of a life that could only ever be half lived.
I had been made to understand, for the first time, her stake in his safe and punctual return. And that Joe had thrown his lot so conclusively and, it had proved, somewhat ill-advisedly in with mine, meant that the consciousness of responsibility I had begun to feel towards him now extended further and encompassed her.
And as I curled up against the boat’s side and fought to shut them out, the dark and shifting shadows of misgiving, laying siege to the somnolence of the night, repeated to me softly that Joe had relied upon my judgement. This boat had been my choice. Should his and Maggie’s mutual reliance in consequence be threatened or, unthinkably, severed absolutely, then would I not in part bear blame for the devastation such a separation implied?
Unconscious of the icy shackles of anxiety chafing at the edges of my mind, Joe suddenly brought me up short with the pressure of his foot against my shin.
‘Cub,’ he whispered and, pressing more insistently, he jabbed his toe sharply into my leg so that I was forced to open my eyes again and look at him.
He was grinning. Tossing the compass lightly from one hand to the other, he caught it up in one enormous fist, which enfolded it completely. He held this clenched hand up for me to see and waved it slightly as if proving his resolve. ‘I’ll do it when I get home,’ he said. ‘I’ll do it when I get home.’
CHAPTER 6
SMALL CANARIES
‘Jesus Christ! I can’t bloody last till midday on that!’ Billy cried incredulously, swilling the meagre contents of his tin around and then looking back up at Clarie as if the latter’s expectation simply beggared all belief. It was Billy’s turn. He had reached the head of a dishevelled and unruly line of impatient, increasingly irritated, dehydrated men, which had formed at the middle of the boat and which, trailing down along one side, extended on around the stern. Skin, creased with dirt and grime, itched. Clothing, hardened with salt and already oversized, chafed at every turn and matted hair on heads and faces seemed to crawl. Dawn again and we queued for water.
The captain and Clarie had come to the conclusion that two tablespoonfuls of water at every meal would see us safely to the Canaries if we could make it in five days or less. And so they stood up by the barrel three times a day and dispensed it carefully. For a couple of days this rationing had seemed reasonable: we were thirsty, hot and dry, but it must be borne. Then, with the blurring of the days, our skin and muscles began to shrivel, shrieking out against the tyranny of rationed water, and the good sense of the decision palled. All rational thought fell victim to our bodies’ craving. Water. Two tablespoons were not enough. They couldn’t be. Thirst: appalling, unremitting thirst. It clung to us, it clawed at us, it started to consume us. Almost from the first dread moment of the sun’s appearance every day, the blasting heat commenced its torture, stealing moisture from the air, our mouths, our skin. Sucking our very beings dry, in the purity of its conviction that each could finally be reclaimed as dust.
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