by Maryk Lewis
not having made their plans soon enough, but each time puddings were scheduled for the rest of the voyage they had their own evening pudding feast in the hospital flat. Always there was sufficient for anybody else in the hospital flat at the time to be offered a portion, not that some of them were in any condition to accept.
By the third pudding day the rest of the disgruntled youngsters in the cabins had made their displeasure known, and the great, soggy delights were being produced there too, much to the disgust of some of the parents.
That was the day they saw their first foreign land, a hazy, purple mountain top peeping over the eastern horizon. It was their twenty fifth day at sea.
“Palma, one of the Canary Islands,” Ken MacGovern told Sarah. “We’re exactly on course. We had a few doubts about our compasses while the blacksmith was working on deck, but here we are just the same.”
“The result of your navigating,” Sarah noted.
“I like to think so,” he agreed, pleased with her noticing. “Not entirely me, though. We check each other every step of the way. There’ll be some new stars in the sky tonight. I’d like to show them to you.”
“That would be nice,” Sarah agreed. “I’m sure Jess will want to see them too.”
Ken’s face fell. That was not quite what he had in mind.
However, he was too well-mannered not to welcome the little sister when they met on the poop deck after the evening dishes had been washed and put away.
“There,” he said, “those are the pointers to the Southern Cross, stars which you’ll get to know well in your new home.”
“And how do you make a cross out of them?” Jess wanted to know.
“Not out of those two,” he explained, “but out of some others which are still below the horizon. We’ll see them more and more in the next few days.”
The stars were Ken’s excuse to get Sarah out on the deck of an evening. She was interested in them, and she liked Ken, but she didn’t want to encourage him too much, or give him any false hopes. Jess, always there, was her bulwark against the young officer’s beguilements.
Jess was under no illusions about her role, or about Ken’s interest in her sister. To some extent she was glad of it. It provided a counter to Sarah’s growing involvement with Gil Inkster, which could only lead to pain when they must part at Lyttelton, where Sarah would have to fulfil her obligations to Abel Cormack.
Little Phyllis was not of a like mind, and nor was Laurie. Neither of them approved of Sarah associating with any man other than their father. Laurie was polite, and withdrawn. Phyllis glared daggers at Ken at any hour of the day or night, and had to be kept in her cabin by her father, whenever they knew that Sarah was out on deck with Ken.
Gil vacillated. He knew he could make no claims on Sarah. She was not free. He wanted what he could have of her company, and yet he had to try and be fair to her as well.
“I want her for a new mummy,” Phyllis stated belligerently.
“That cannot be,” Gil told her. “She’s promised to another man.”
“I hate him,” Phyllis declared.
“You don’t even know him, and besides, it’s wicked to hate anybody.”
“Why did Mummy have to die?” Phyllis asked, and burst into tears.
It was a question Gil had never managed to answer satisfactorily, either for himself, or for his children. As happened on so many other nights, Phyllis cried herself to sleep in his arms. Late evening was when the loss caught up on them most. Laurie, a compassionate but sad little fellow, snuggled up against them, and the three of them sprawled in a grieving heap on the bunk, until Sarah came in and helped him to settle them into their own bunks for the night.
“I love you, Sarah,” Phyllis would say dozily as Sarah tucked her down.
“I love you too,” Sarah could say truthfully, though with a heavy heart. She knew what hurt awaited them in Lyttelton.
Laurie always stretched up and kissed her cheek, before climbing into his bunk himself. Sarah kissed him on the brow when she tucked in his blankets.
Afterwards she and Gil would sit over a last cup of tea in the great cabin, before going their separate ways for the night. Depending on which watch he was on, Ken would join them there each second evening. It made little difference. They never talked of anything personal. They couldn’t.
Sarah’s other noted admirer did not arouse such animosity in Phyllis. She knew about him, but David Selkirk’s obvious helplessness made him no contender, and not a rival for her father. Interest shown by other young men on board was even more distant and hopeless. For one so young, little Phyllis had it all worked out surprisingly well, but still couldn’t comprehend a relationship with somebody none of them had ever seen. For her Abel Cormack was some sort of ogre, who was going to come and steal Sarah away from them.
Jess too was beginning to view their arrival in Lyttelton with some doubt, not only for Sarah’s sake, but also for her own. Her position on board left her not quite fitting into any particular category.
While her bunk was in steerage, the steerage passengers did not really see her as one of themselves, and though everybody liked her, she was not included in any of the close friendship circles which had formed since they had set out. Samantha, two years her junior, was a special friend, but the friendship did not really have the approval of her parents, nor of the other cabin class passengers. Charles Rutherford was a friend of a sort. He and Jess liked each other, but Jess could never see herself sharing any secrets with him. In New Zealand Samantha and Charles would become part of the landed gentry, and Jess would only see them from a distance.
Mostly Jess’s friends were in the crew. Andy was the particular one. He was as much a best friend as Kathleen, the nicest girl she had known back in Ireland. Angus MacGillivray too was special. Jess could talk about almost anything at all with them. The trouble was at Lyttelton she would get off the ship, and they would sail on.
There was heartbreak in store. Both sisters prayed about Abel Cormack. They prayed that he was going to be worth all the pain.
A day’s sail past the Canary Islands they crossed the Tropic of Cancer. The word had gone around the ship that they were coming to the line, and many of the passengers, even some of the adults, were leaning over the gunwales looking for it.
“What colour will it be?” Samantha asked in the hospital flat, when Sarah was changing the dressing on David Selkirk’s leg.
“It depends on the colour of your eyes,” David told her with a very serious mien. “Let me look into your eyes and I’ll tell you.”
Jess knew full well that he was teasing, because Andy had already told her that there was no real line there. The line was only one which mapmakers drew on their maps. She knew that David was up to some joke, and let Samantha fall for his blarney just to see what he would do.
“What colour will I see?” Samantha asked, innocently leaning over him.
“Yellow,” he announced, peering deep into her eyes.
“But my eyes are blue,” she protested.
“Yellow,” he stated firmly.
“Then I’ll see yellow too,” Jess suggested.
“Not necessarily,” he denied. “Yours can be a different blue. Let me see.”
Obligingly she leaned close over him, and he said, “Yes, I thought so. You’ll see green.”
“What about me?” asked Sarah, bending close to let him see into her eyes.
Before she realised his intent he bobbed his head up, and planted a quick kiss full on her lips.
“Gold...purest gold!” he chortled.
“You rotten hound!” she gasped, leaping back, and wiping at her lips with the back of her hand. “You only did all that to catch me.”
Honora Mabon and Bridget Earnshaw, in the background, doubled up with laughter. It was a long time since Bridget had laughed at anything, but with her baby continuing to cling to life day after day, her hopes were beginning to rise. David, being able to clown in spite of his injuries, was an encouragement to her.
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Jess had expected a trick, but not that one. She laughed as much as anybody. Samantha was bug-eyed.
“Does that mean I won’t see yellow at all?” she asked.
“You won’t see any line in the sea,” Honora told her. “There isn’t one there.” And she went on to explain what the joke was.
A week’s good sailing wind followed, and during it they crossed the next line, the Equator.
That was an excuse for more fun and games. King Neptune and his attendants came aboard, demanding tribute from all those who had never crossed the equator before. Every one of the passengers had to pay up, as also did a few of the crew.
King Neptune was enthroned on the fore hatch, with on one side a sail folded up to make a bath full of sea water, and on the other a barrel full of froth made from calf’s-foot jelly, soap, and whitewash. The king was really the boatswain wrapped in a table cloth, and wearing a beard made of old rope. His attendants were other members of the crew dressed in outlandish fashion, some pretending to be women with chests ridiculously padded, and faces garishly painted.
Each tribute payer had to approach King Neptune with perhaps a sweet, or a biscuit, or in some cases a pennyworth of rum to be tipped into an enamel jug. If King Neptune found fault with the appearance of any of his subjects, his attendants were to required to rectify matters immediately.
Gil , one of the first to go forward, paid tribute with a stick of candy, but the king pretended to find fault with his shaving.
“I won’t have this slate