by Paul Lynch
THE WORLD THAT WAS ALL SKY was leaded and sinking fast and the sun was nowhere to be seen. Around noon came the sound that many dreaded, the snapping shut of the hatches and the ventilators to keep watertight the boat, the scuffle of tarpaulin on the deck and the dull thud of pitched weights. Nothing to suck on now but the air tombed beneath.
The master watched the sky swirl and he bellowed commands in a broad voice that was torn up and scattered by the wind. The ship scudded headlong into the squall. Mountains rose out of the sea, reached up towards the sky as if it wanted to take the smudged remnants of the heavens into its quickening mouth, a sea of jagged teeth.
The waters became then what was the world, invisible hands tormenting it, a dark-slated churning that sucked the ship down deep and spat it out again. The Murmod heeled and its beams bent groaning with the exertion and almost every man but the master feared that it would break apart. The sailors fought with a strength supernatural as if they had become incubi feeding on the strength of all those below who could do nothing but remain in their bunks, nausea and mind sickness pitching each single one of them in that darkness with dead weight down into his own inert void. They lay with fear drowning their spirits, some of them bent double, vomiting into what buckets there were or upon themselves and their bedding. Some tried to light candles but the oakum wicks would not stay lit, were tossed about in their saucers of fat, and children cried and women wept and men shushed them but they too were afraid and in the men’s quarters they wanted to reach out to each other for comfort but did nothing.
A woman found her way to the door of the hold, held on to it, a flickering candle in her hand and her voice shy. She called to the man nearest her and he took the name and passed it on till a man got up from a bunk and went towards her.
I know that man, Snodgrass said. That’s his sister he’s going to.
Day became a night of pounding darkness. The wind burled around the boat, a coven of riled witches said one woman, the rain venomous and cat-spitting upon the deck. The men in their thirst and hunger produced what alcohol they had left and they shared their cups with one another and tried to drink away their anxiety. The sound of their voices rose in unison as their blood was sluiced with drink, a solidarity of shouting to quell the noise of the storm, but their spirits foundered as the night wore on, their voices lowering till there was just the occasional talk as the men lay wide-eyed for lack of sleep, lay listening to the howling sky.
I don’t want to die, said Snodgrass.
You’re not going to die, said Coyle.
How’d you know it?
I just know it so I do.
The ship pitched and shuddered and the men were silent and then Snodgrass’s voice in the smothering darkness. Kilt in the middle of the sea where nobody will know that I’m gone and I won’t get no burial.
No sleep at all and then night became day, no reprieve and the trapped air around them thinning to be filled by the thickening fetor of their own dirt, a reeking butyric stench all sweat and stale urine while excrement slopped in brimmed buckets. Little food to be had and what they had left could not be kept down and they clung to their cots, some of the men grim and silent and others wailing an animal-like sound weak against the fury outside, and Coyle lay there curling into his own body as if he could protect himself from the elements, began to think of the firs. The size of them as he walked that time on his own after seeing his father drown, carrying with him the last look of his father’s eyes, and how he slept in the hollow of a fallen oak tree, pulled the leaves into a damp blanket around his body and fought against his memory. And that day Coyle remained sleepless though the world a dream until he noticed that despite his nausea the roaring wind was only a whisper and the rain had softened into a hiss that became silent and he thought of that morning when he awoke no longer a boy and he climbed out of that ragged carcass of a tree.
They emerged red-eyed and silent into the rinsed evening air, their clothes ragged and their bodies bent and their faces creased with dirt. They stared with disbelief at the great waters silent, smoothed with a benevolent repose, and they looked with distrust towards the sun that glittered warmly in the pale blue sky, moved awkward through its gift of pure air. Women huddled and began to find their voices and some of the men took off their shirts and they sat bare-chested on the deck goose-fleshed by the breeze while another lay down with his arms outstretched like he was a man awaiting crucifixion. The cabooses were lit and a rough queue formed of quarrelsome people, the clang and scrape of pot and pan and the hacking sounds of coughing.
COYLE LISTENED TO THE GROANS of the sick reach from below and he thumbed the ribbon in his hand. He stood with a handful of others watching the sail master at work, the old man pocked and lobster-faced and he bent to work with nimble fingers about the bodies that had been taken up from below—a woman and a boy, each claimed by fever and their faces swelled up like they were full of the sea. The sail master took no notice of the crowd’s watching, scuttled sideways like a crab about the bodies and licked the tips of his fingers as he worked, mummifying both in white sail, and he called in scuffed voice to another sailor to tie weights about their ankles. The mother of the child was watching dead-eyed the sail-wrapping of the body, her body stiff and her shawl in her hands and her hair blowing in her face. Behind her the child’s father stood haggard and white-knuckled and when the sail master worked the last stitch of the shroud, a needle to pierce through the rubbery flanks of nostril and seal the body of air, he shuddered with a groan and fell into the arms of another.
Coyle watched the young man who had quit his bed during the night to aid his sister stand now over her sail-coffined body. His lips trembling and he kept his arms folded as the wind pronged his hair and then he dropped to his knees and went to her softly and brought the shrouded corpse up to him.
A crowd assembled and the master of the ship emerged with one arm in his jacket and he sleeved the loose limb and buttoned the garment and he checked that the bodies were ready for ceremony. His face was crumpled and red-eyed from tiredness and his white hair glistened uncombed in the hard noon sun. His face was freshly shaven and he pinched the smooth flesh on his jaw and he coughed to get attention. A small black bible and he hurried a few words and then he closed the book with the words still in his mouth and he turned and nodded to four sailors in peacoats behind him. They bent to the bodies and took the shrouded woman first, counted to three and lifted the remains onto a pair of nailed planks. They carried the remains at shoulder height to the bulwark and hoisted her aslant amidst hush. They did not need to count for the lifting of the child, the body featherlight upon the boards, and they hoisted it too up over the side of the deck, the faceless remains sliding off the wood and fluttering softly as if caressed by the breeze, before the thin lips of the ocean parted to take the child down into the deep.
HE WAS SNOOZING noontime in his bunk when he felt a hand on his shoulder. Snodgrass leaning over him eyes broad with excitement and The Cutter climbing down from the bunk above. Noble leaned over the side of the bed and spat tobacco. What’s the fuss? he said. The Cutter shouted, Quit that spitting would ya. Snodgrass pointed upwards. Come see.
They saw the fin in the ocean when it was pointed out to them. A dark glistening gray, a steady ripple along the surface of the water and foam gentle in its wake. The men spoke of the shark in whispers as if the creature could hear the words they were saying.
It’s following us a day now, said Snodgrass. Don’t tell no one.
The men looked at him. Coyle leaned his head in and smiled. We’ll get the ship’s master to announce it.
Snodgrass winced. That’s not funny. That thing can’t be up to no good.
The men watched the line of the shark, constant, deliberate, as the ship tacked under gray sky. They sat and played cards and they ate and when they were done they gathered again to see. At seven o’clock the first mate poured water upon the deck fires, steam hissing up into the riled faces of those with dinners half cooked, and
they grumbled and took their ware and vittles below. The men beckoned to the mate and he walked over and they pointed to the shark.
Aye, he sighed. I seen that already.
The Cutter looked to the mate. Hey how about this?
He tapped Snodgrass on the shoulder. How long is it?
Forty-nine days.
The Cutter pointed at Snodgrass’s head. Impressive isn’t he? Regular as a clock.
Snodgrass scrunched his nose baring yellowing ridged teeth and he squeezed his ears like he was trying to squeeze out the sound of The Cutter. He turned to the mate. What’s it up to? he said. The creature.
The first mate picked his nose and rolled his findings between finger and thumb and flicked it upon the wind. He looked at the shark fin cutting darkly the water and he shrugged and took a sniff of the air. His blue eyes full of knowing.
I’d say that thing following us is a sure sign of death.
EVENING KISSED THE burning darkness. From dim inferno of western sky sprawled a reaching fog. He watched it take hold and settle upon them, a phantom pall that turned night sky to dust and muffled the sea to silence. He lay deadened throughout the night, his body awkward turning, his mind slumbered with shallow and shapeless dreams, and he would awake, his breath frosted in the foul air and he would wrap his arms about himself from the cold and listen to the terrors of the night. The desolate lament of the ship’s foghorn sounding across a hushed sea and the ceaseless chorus of the sick, solo voices rising rabid and raving above stifled groans, the clamors of the delirious and the dying rising out from their berths to nestle amidst the ghosted sea. And then the tolling of the ship’s bell, grim-sounding as if they had come to a place that was not godless ocean at all but graveyard consecrated and the ship groaning had become a lurching vessel for the dead.
In the morning he heard that Sam Tea had died during the night. They said the man was discovered with his eyes and mouth open as if he was in shock at his own passing. Swelling had so disfigured the man that no person would help in the removal. The Mute had disappeared from his post by the invalid’s bed and the body lay uncovered till the first mate came down to the hold. They found The Mute hunched over his heels in a corner at the other end of the ship, his face scrunched mean and his fists balled on his knees. He would acknowledge the presence of no other, not even the first mate, who made to arrange his brother’s burial and who called upon an older man who bunked beside the bereaved to console him. The man put a hand onto his shoulder but The Mute twitched and turned and spat violently upon the ground.
HIGH CLOUDS DUSTED a distant sky so that it seemed they were sailing aslant some great snow-laden mountain. The sail master went to work spit-fingered on Sam Tea and the bodies of two others, was heard to complain from his hollow red cheeks that he was running out of sail. When he was finished they gathered on deck and the master appeared and they waited for The Mute but he was not to be found and the first mate and another went looking for him. They returned without him, said he was not going to be coming, and the master shrugged and committed the bodies to the sea, indifference on his face and hunger written on the faces of all the others.
HE SAT ON THE DECK with his legs crossed beneath him and he chewed on griddle-cake. The surface burnt black and the centre raw and he champed through it and worked the clots over with his tongue while watching. Mothers putting patties of food into the small hands of children who took the offerings and ate quietly. Beneath their matted hair and the filth on their moppet faces he could make out their pallid skin, their eyes shored like small stones by gray pools, not children now in the way they behaved but like the elderly—light of bone but their bodies weighted invisible with lethargy. Across from him a woman sat with an infant on her breast. The child’s feet were woolen-booted and a small boy with skyward hair leaned his swollen eyes upon his mother’s shoulder. A shaft of light cut by the mast fell and made tender the side of her face and he watched her eat and feed the boy porridge, both of them feeding from the flat of her hand, the woman not seeing his gaze at all but looking beyond him to the kiss of the sea and sky, the skin of an older woman rutted and grooved on a young woman’s face. She started coughing and then she saw him looking and smiled.
Do you have any of yer own? she said.
Aye. A wee girl. Coyle held his hand a distance above the deck as if to demonstrate the child’s height.
Did you leave her behind?
Had to.
The woman nodded. You can send for her surely when you get settled. I heard there’s lots who do that.
As she spoke the softness fell from his face. Mark you me, Coyle said. She’s not going to grow up not knowing who I am. I swear that to you now on me grave.
HE SAT IN HIS BARE FEET picking the dirt in his fingernails, Snodgrass silent beside him and their backs upon the bulwark. The deck was quieter than usual, the sea worked by a tender breeze and the bow of the ship nodding in agreement. And then The Cutter was upon them and heavyboned he dropped down sending both men toppling. Snodgrass cursed him and Coyle knuckled him in the leg and The Cutter laughed. Food on his plate and he began to eat with his hands. Coyle looked at him. Ya dirty-fingered bastard ya.
The Cutter finished his food and set the plate down beside him and then he nudged Coyle softly with his elbow. Over yonder, he said.
What is it?
Donny turn your head.
I think I know.
The Mute.
Aye.
But I’ll knock the fucking eyes out of his head.
Might make him talk.
But then again it mightn’t.
Coyle worked his nails again, pretended not to see. I just want to keep the peace, he said. He’s been at that now this past few days.
Snodgrass looked over at The Mute.
Would ye stop looking at him, Coyle said.
I’m gathering from the way he’s looking at you he doesn’t like you, said Snodgrass.
That’s a prize mind you got in that head of yours, said Coyle.
Go an fuck, said Snodgrass.
The Cutter rubbed his nose with the back of his hand. He can’t still be sore about that time, he said.
Back to his old ways again, said Coyle.
Like a bad dog.
Why would he wait till now?
There might be more to it than you figure.
I’ve had no other dealings with him.
Who knows what’s going on in that mind of his? It’s not as if he’s going to tell anyone about it.
Maybe someone can ask him to draw it.
HE AWOKE NEAR MIDNIGHT and noticed the rain at peace and he stood up and shook The Cutter and they went up to the deck for air. A small crowd already gathered and the two men speechless at what they saw. It was not the world anymore but the world upended. Sky where sea should be and the waters alive as if the stars had plummeted from their fixings and left the night canvas an empty black. The ocean glowed molten-white like liquid fire unquenchable. The phosphorescence spread out around them in fields of phantom light, each rippling wave crested with a line of the same peculiar sight that shot up the prow of the ship as the bow sliced the water, a leaping luminescence as if the sea had become a living thing stretching lustrous and tingling that fizzled out on the night air.
From the masts and rigging fell shadows sinister and the boat a whisper on the water. Hushed too were the onlookers, twenty or so, with puzzled brows and eyes wide in wonder. The master stood on the deck alongside his wife and she whispered to those near her in a voice of calm authority that she’d seen this wonder of the sea before but never quite this remarkable and isn’t it the most wondrous thing and nearby The Cutter spoke, his voice quiet and respectful.
I donny know whether to be terrified or in awe of it.
A man beside them whispered. The sailors are saying it is a natural sight of the warmer waters. They say it means that we’re near Amerikay.
Coyle whispered. There’s more mysteries to this world than I’d have ever thought.
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br /> The Cutter whispered back. And do you know what?
What?
The fish aren’t getting a wink of sleep.
They stood and watched till the east blotched blue and flared and when they went down into the hold and lay restless in their beds, their minds stretching to accommodate this sight that filled them with fear and wonder, they thought of those left behind at home and the stories they would like to tell and how they would put the sight of it into words. And when finally he fell to sleep that night, Coyle dreamed of the sea, the waters white-hot and burning brightly about his body, and then the dream darkened until they were sailing through waters that became the deepest dye of red.
HE WATCHED THE white tips of the water chesting forward, a thing of foaming beauty alive for one brief moment and then they turned in on themselves, the ceaseless renewal of the sea. Behind him a woman came upon the deck, toothless she was and her head was shorn and he turned and then he watched her. She ferried clothes folded over her arm to a spot where she began to lay them out, each item one by one on the boards, and then she stood up and called out and began to auction them. Each item was lifted and held and examined. A woman hardly taller than a child held the white dress up to her body, the sleeves drooped past her hands and the hem of the dress bundled about the deck. She negotiated a price and drew a string-tied purse from around her neck and put the money into the woman’s outstretched hand. Other items disappeared until there was a black shawl left. He watched a young mother produce a coin and take the garment. She walked over to the other side of the deck and wrapped it tenderly about the shoulders of a coughing child.
The short woman appeared on deck wearing her new dress, the material dragging behind her, and two boys began to follow standing on the flowing hem until it rose up as she walked and trapped her. The men laughed at the sight until Snodgrass wagged a finger. Don’t be laughing at her, he said. She’s wearing a dead woman’s dress.