The Ocean of the Dead: Ship Kings 4

by Andrew McGahan

  He fell silent, breathless. Below, the crowd was wary still, but here and there came grim nods, grudging maybe, but given in Nell’s honour; for how could her sacrifice be argued with? Even Magliore said no more.

  It was enough. For now at least they would go on, prepared to believe that there was reason for the effort. Dow turned away from the railing.

  If only, he thought, he could believe it himself . . .

  *

  Later that day, he summoned the senior staff to the Great Cabin.

  It felt like an assembly of strangers. Boiler was there, and Nicky among the junior officers, but there was no Nell, and no Fidel. As for Jake Tooth, Dow had by then been down to sick bay to visit him, but there was little left to recognise of the former harpooner, only a thin old man, unconscious, chest wrapped in bloody bandages and his right arm missing from above the elbow. When Dow had asked the doctors if there was any hope, they had merely shaken their heads, admitting ignorance.

  But life, and the expedition, must go on. Dow got the meeting underway with the first order of business: the appointment of a new first officer for the Chloe. With Fidel gone, and Jake incapable, Boiler had been acting in the role, but by his own admission was not an experienced enough sailor. The most seasoned hand left was Prudence Weather, the Whale Island commander who had formerly served under Fidel. So the title fell to her.

  Various other positions also needed to be filled – commanders and lieutenants, masters and mates – to replace those lost in battle with the Sunken. These places Dow allocated now, some going to members of the Chloe’s crew, some to former crew of the Snout, and some even to survivors from the New World, for though Captain Leopold had gone down with his ship, many of his officers had not, and they seemed capable mariners.

  Meanwhile,tospeakonbehalfoftherestoftheNewWorld refugees – for they now made up over a quarter of the Chloe’s population – Dow granted the former duchess, Benedicta of the Husk, the rank of acting commander, little though she knew of ships or sailing. She was – as Dow studied her, seated at the table – a stout and somewhat elderly woman with a heavy face, and yet with lively eyes, not without an aura of humour and a readiness for new things. After all, she could hardly be too fixed in the ways of nobility if she had thrown in her old life and high position, and set off on this voyage of chance.

  Having announced his decision, Dow now asked her, ‘And you’ll serve under Prudence and Boiler and myself without complaint? We don’t have the luxury for fighting between ourselves anymore.’

  She bowed her head slightly, eyes glinting. ‘Indeed, young Mr Amber. I’m well aware that we are all in the same ship now. And besides, what has changed? We all still seek for the New World, just as we did before. You’ll have no trouble from me or my fellow castaways, only cooperation.’ Her smile was ironic. ‘I always rather admired your exploits from afar, in truth, in the old days; even if publicly I was compelled to call for your head.’

  Dow did not return the smile. ‘And what of Diego? Can you speak for him? There’s no room on this ship for any princes either.’

  She gave a solemn nod. ‘Have no fear. For one, his former highness is unwell, and will be kept in confinement for some time yet. But in any case, I – and my folk with me – consider that Diego’s princedom ended with the sinking of his vessel. For without even a ship to call his own, and with retreat to his old realm impossible, he can no more claim royalty than I can claim to still be a duchess. Indeed, I will say this: the rank of commander, as you have just bestowed it, is the only title that now matters to me.’

  Dow sat back in some relief. He need not worry about civil war on the Chloe in the immediate future, it seemed. Not until Diego regained his senses, anyway. Then there might be trouble. But that was for later.

  For the present, it was time to move on to other matters. Dow looked at his chief quartermaster, a lean and forbidding fellow – quartermasters were always lean and forbidding for some reason, forever hungry, even though they alone had free access to a ship’s food stores – by the name of Josiah Long.

  ‘I understand we lost some supplies in the battle and in the fire,’ Dow said. ‘How bad is it?’

  The quartermaster straightened in his chair, fingering the many iron keys he wore on a chain about his neck. ‘The fire was not set by the Sunken, you understand, but rather was caused by the accidental discharge of one of our own mines, as it was being removed from the magazine. The subsequent flames destroyed three nearby food bins, costing us several hundred pounds of salted meats, and two dozen wheels of cheese. Bad enough, but greater loss came from the flooding of the hold that ensued when the Sunken pierced the hull. Seawater spoiled many bags of grain and hard tack stored there.

  ‘In all, before the battle, we had supplies enough to feed the eleven hundred souls then on board on modest rations for maybe five more months. Now, with twelve hundred people to feed, and with some of our consumables lost, I would give us, on the severest rations possible, four months at the most before starvation becomes a reality. Nor will fishing or weed-gathering extend that time greatly – for not all weed is edible, nor is the Chloe a trawler to be laying great nets. In any case, our water, more crucially than the food, will stretch no further. For there is nothing that can refill our tanks now, save rainfall – and how long will it be until we see rain once more?’

  Dow pursed his lips. It was even worse than he had expected. Four months at the outside, on strictest rations. At ten miles a day, for eighteen hundred miles, it wasn’t enough. It wasn’t nearly enough.

  Still, what of that? It was not as if there was any option here. The water and the food must simply be stretched as far as they could go . . .

  Dow thanked the quartermaster, and turned the meeting to other questions. There was the state of the hull to be discussed – had the Sunken caused any irreparable damage? And the state of the boats – would they hold up to months of rowing? And the overcrowding – what could be done to prevent more disease breaking out below decks? All issues of importance, and yet, in truth, Dow felt uninterested, even as he called for them to be debated. He said little, merely let the various responsible officers have their turn, for in every case what needed to be done was self-evident, or indeed had been done already, while Dow had lain sick in his cabin.

  In fact, as he concluded the meeting and dismissed the assembly, Dow was struck yet again by the hollowness of his role. He was captain here, fated to be so, and foretold by prophets like Uyal as being vital to any hope of success – and yet to what end? How could he influence anything, when there was virtually no decision left to be made? Behold: there was no great strategy to be devised, no question of what course to set, no way he could sway things one way or the other by command or inspiration. Everything was fixed now, and would be the same even if he had died, or stayed behind with Nell.

  It was as he had said to the crew: there was only one direction to go, south, and only one way to get there, by rowing.

  Time alone would tell if they won through, or failed.

  Dow Amber had nothing to do with it.

  *

  Row, they did.

  In six boats, then seven, then eight, as the carpenters built and launched two further craft in the weeks that followed. Only two, however, for this exhausted the ready supply of timber, and anyway, it was impractical to harness a greater number to the towing ropes.

  Eight boats it was thus, crewed by nearly one hundred men and women per shift, labouring over the oars for an exhausting two hours every session, sweating themselves dry in the heat, salt crusting on their cramping limbs, before the next hundred took their place, the process repeated twelve times over through each day and night. And if the rowing had been arduous and agonising before, it was even worse now, with the crews on half rations or less, leaving everyone permanently hungry, thirsty, listless and weak.

  Nevertheless, in the first days after Dow’s return to command, the rowers bent to their work with a renewed enthusiasm. After all, there was a kind
of liberation to be found now in their very lack of choice. They could no longer turn back to the north even if they wanted to, so there was no place left for doubt or argument, and everyone could strive with an unclouded will.

  The task ahead was marked in three clear stages. First they must cross the remainder of the innermost Barrier, this hell of weeds and islands in which they laboured. Then they must traverse the southern Sterile Sea, the border between the two zones of life, equatorial and temperate. After that they would arrive at a sea of weeds and slimes again, but the more familiar weeds and slimes of the outer Doldrums. From there, they would have a thousand miles still to go, but could at least hope that an occasional breeze might rise, and waft them on their way. And waiting at the end of it all, the open ocean.

  With this in their minds, the crews watched ever over their shoulders as they rowed, seeking south for indication that the first of these stages, at least, was complete – the appearance of the Sterile Sea.

  A week passed, then two. The weed thinned slowly, mile by mile, and – a good sign of progress – by the end of the second week they had left the floating islands astern, and with them, presumably, the Sunken. There had been no sightings of the creatures since the battle, but no one on the Chloe had been in doubt that the ship was being watched, that the Sunken were following in the deeps by day, and rising by night to walk upon the surface, ready yet to destroy the intruders if they lingered. Only when the last islands vanished behind them northward did the sensation of being observed abate.

  But the lesser weeds remained in abundance. Another week went by, and still the ocean was thick with greenery. Three weeks became twenty-five days, then thirty, and the renewed hope with which they had set out began to give way to impatience. Surely, even at their crawling pace, they should have reached the Sterile Sea by now? So where was it? Was in fact the southern hemisphere the mirror image of the north? What if everything was different south of the equator? Maybe – as Magliore liked to claim – the whole southern world was like this, and they were rowing into an infinity of green?

  Such doubts had crept into even the councils in the Great Cabin, when finally, thirty-one days after Dow’s speech from the high deck, the weed, in the space of a day’s rowing, disappeared entirely.

  They had reached the Sterile Sea at last. True, it marked little change in the labour of rowing, for the water here, though clear, remained almost as clinging as the water they had left behind. But even so, hope revived, and the doubters below decks, Magliore included, fell silent.

  But the reprieve was short-lived. Two days later, Dow and Boiler were summoned to the lower holds by an urgent message from the quartermaster.

  They met with Josiah in the doorway of one of the Chloe’s several granaries. Within, bags of wheat and other cereals would normally be neatly piled in wooden bays. Now, however, many of the bags had been thrown across the floor and slashed open, spilling their contents. Josiah’s assistants were opening others, shaking their heads, even as Dow and Boiler arrived.

  ‘Well?’ asked Dow.

  The quartermaster was grim. ‘It’s bad news. Very bad. The Sunken flooded the lower hold, as you know, and we lost much of our dry goods. But these upper storerooms we thought safe, for no water reached them. But it seems plain now that with the flooding a certain mould gained access to the ship. I do not recognise the fungus, it is some strange pestilence from the Barrier waters, but it has crept through the very timbers of the decks and so into storerooms we thought secure. Here, for instance, every bag of wheat has been infected, and it’s the same with the beans and peas in other rooms.’

  Dow felt a sickening in his stomach. ‘This mould,’ he asked, ‘can it be removed?’

  ‘No.’ To demonstrate, Josiah scooped from the nearest bag a handful of wheat, and held it up. A livid white fur had encased each seed, and when the quartermaster tried to rub it off, the grains only crumbled between his fingers to husks, leaving a brown powdery flour.

  Dow’s heart sank further. ‘Can the flour be cooked and eaten at least?’

  ‘That, we’ll soon know. I’ve already ordered the bakers to experiment with it, and the cooks will do what they can with the beans and peas. We’d best hope it is all still edible, because as I reckon it more than half our surviving stores of grains and legumes are affected. The salted meats and fish seem safe in their sealed casks, and the last of the cheeses too, but even so . . .’

  He didn’t need to finish. In Josiah’s company, Dow and Boiler ascended to the kitchens to see how the bakers were faring. But there was no respite to be had. The blighted flour was useless. Baked, it would not rise, and produced not bread but hard slabs of biscuit. This in itself may not have meant disaster, but when the biscuit was eaten, it soon produced nausea and vomiting: the mould was poisonous. The same symptoms resulted from eating the tainted beans and peas. By the next day the reality of it had to be accepted. Fully half of their dry supplies would need to be thrown overboard.

  Dow gave the order, and the splashing of the bags into the sea was like a death knell to all who listened. In the Great Cabin, the quartermaster performed his grave recalculations, and soon everyone knew the result. By Josiah’s figures, even after cutting rations to below subsistence levels, they now had less than two months’ food remaining. Seven weeks at best.

  Black gloom descended over the ship. Seven weeks? It was hopeless. Maybe – and only maybe – they would be able to cross the Sterile Sea in as few as four of those weeks, and so gain the outer Doldrums. But what hope was there of then passing through the outer Doldrums to the open ocean, and of then finding land, in the mere matter of three weeks longer?

  No, it was impossible, even in wishful thinking. Inarguably, they were doomed. And it wasn’t after all going to be the Sunken that killed them, or any monster from the deep, or storm, or wreck. It was going to be the oldest enemy known to mariners since the days of sail began.

  They were going to starve.

  And yet still they rowed on.

  With bitter resignation now rather than hope, but they rowed nonetheless. For what else was there to do? To stop rowing might well save them all much pointless effort, but it was also a surrender to death. By continuing, death was at least denied for a time, and even defied.

  But despair settled all the same. Rumour reached Dow that Magliore now spoke openly of violent revolt, but that the crew were ignoring his call even in these straits, kept loyal by lethargy – for after all, as with so much else now, what would be the purpose? Magliore could not shorten the miles to freedom, nor fill the empty food holds, any more than Dow could.

  On they crept. Five days across the Sterile Sea, then ten, and nothing changed. The sun burned red through the haze by day, blackness enveloped them by night, and no wind blew. For Dow, there was only one piece of brighter news amid the misery, and it came from sick bay. After a month and a half on the brink of death, Jake Tooth was awake again. Upon being told, Dow went immediately to his old companion’s bedside. He found Jake skeletally thin, and as weak as a newborn – but alive.

  ‘I took a bit of a beating, I gather,’ the harpooner whispered, with the faintest ghost of his old smile.

  Dow nodded, tears stinging. ‘Worse than from any whale.’

  Jake raised the stump of his right arm a little to consider it. ‘Aye. A tooth is one thing, but this . . .’ Then his eyes fixed Dow with something of their former fierceness. ‘But we sail on? Yes?’

  Dow nodded again. Yes, they sailed on. But he left without telling Jake about the food, or about the loss of Nell, or about Fidel. There would be time enough for him to learn of all those ills, if he recovered to full health. Although to what avail full health would be, on a ship that was itself dying, Dow did not know.

  It was also at this time that Dow received a petition from Benedicta, a request to which he only reluctantly gave ear. Diego, who had by then been removed from the brig to a small cabin of his own, was asking that Dow come to see him.

  ‘I stress
that he is asking, not demanding,’ the once-duchess assured Dow. ‘He knows he is no longer in a position to demand anything.’

  ‘He’s sane, then?’ Dow wondered.

  ‘His mind is delicate – but he is himself again, and chastened, being fully aware of what has happened.’

  ‘And what does he want with me?’

  The old woman shrugged. ‘That I don’t know.’

  Dow agreed in the end, though he was hard-pressed to explain to himself why – certainly it was not through any concern for Diego’s state of mind. He owed the former prince nothing. If Diego had died raving in the brig, it would, in Dow’s judgement, only have been fitting, given his many crimes.

  But he went, and found Diego sitting on the narrow cot of a tiny cabin in the lower stern castle. The cabin would normally be assigned to a midshipman, and was no doubt cramped by Diego’s lofty standards, but he was better off than most folk on the Chloe – and it wasn’t Dow who had assigned it to him. That had been Benedicta’s choice, after Boiler had courteously set aside several cabins for the use of the New World refugees.

  Diego rose briefly when Dow appeared, then sat again as Dow remained in the doorway. Even in such a confined space, he seemed smaller to Dow than before. His tall frame was bent by the low roof, his clothes were dishevelled, his hair, longer now, was plastered flat, and loose folds of skin hung about his face: a deposed prince, with reddened, weary eyes.