Chapter 11
The Boat: Day Seven
This morning we had our last teaspoon each of water. No one spoke as Hodgkin, adopting almost the role of priest, shared it out ever so carefully, ensuring not a drop was spilt. Our tongues had become so swollen that swallowing even this pitiful amount was difficult. I swilled it round my mouth, relishing the sensation; then felt it dribble down my throat. And then it was gone. The end of communion. I staggered back to my bench feeling bereft. The fact we’d always, until now, had another ration to look forward to, however minuscule, sustained us a little. Now, it was gone, every last drop of it, and the thought was unbearable. I looked at all the water surrounding us – it seemed so harmless, so tranquil, so tempting, but I’d seen, we’d all seen, the devastating effect it’d had on Pablo and Swann. What was it in the Rime of the Ancient Mariner? – Water, water everywhere and not a drop to drink. I trailed my hand over the side, simply to feel water against my skin but immediately the salt bit into the sores on the back of my hand and stung. I closed my eyes and fantasied about water. I saw myself standing under a waterfall, feeling it soak me to the skin with fresh, clear water. I felt it wash away all the grime from me, felt it cooling down my burning skin. I imagined absorbing it through every pore, allowing it to cleanse me from within.
I dreamt of Karachi. I’d never been to the place before. In fact, if truth be told, I wouldn’t even be able to place it on a map. But in order to divert my thoughts away from water, I tried to visualize it. I saw trams making their way down long roads lined with palm trees. I saw grand houses fronted by wrought-iron fences topped with curlicue patterns. I saw men in turbans and women in saris. I dreamt of walking into a café and sitting outside under a parasol, being served sweet tea by an Indian waiter in a crisp white jacket. I light a cigarette and watch the plumes of smoke disappear into the hot Indian air. I sit alone; I have no need for company. All I need is my tea, a cigarette or two and maybe something sweet, perhaps a large slab of Madeira cake. I wonder whether they have Madeira cake in Karachi. Such simple pleasures but it’s the simple pleasures that one misses most. Gentle music plays in the background, a string serenade perhaps. I buy an English newspaper – Plymouth Argyll have won the cup; England have beaten India by fifty runs; an inventor has come up with the means of turning salt water into fresh; the war is at an end. This time, unlike the last time, it really was the war to end all wars. Hitler has given himself up. The King has him locked up in the Tower of London. I longed also for a bed, a soft bed on which to lie out flat and sleep. The hard wooden benches were so painful on my scrawny buttocks and ribs. I longed for a ceiling above me; I was fed up with the night sky and its infinite stars. All that emptiness, all that nothingness, a constant reminder of my insignificance.
I dreamt of walking on the moor near the village. I tried to imagine the smell of bracken, the crunch of dried grass beneath my feet, of Angie chasing wasps. I dreamt of feeding a sugar lump to the old piebald horse that lived in a field next to the moor.
But, unable to hold onto them, the images faded. Instead, I thought of Bernard Swann. I hoped his end came quickly, that he didn’t suffer for too long, but in truth I didn’t feel anything for him. Or Pablo, or Charlie Palmer, Leo Arbatov or John Clair. Death no longer seemed to concern me now – I’d seen so much of it in the last few days. I felt as if my brother had been dead for years. My mind had shrivelled so much I lacked the capacity for grief or pity, each of them leaving just the faintest of somnolent traces on my mind. I grieved not for my brother or the others but for a cup of tea in a quaint Indian café. For a cigarette and a nice English newspaper.
*
Rain! It started off as little more than a pitter-patter but then, in no time, it became torrential. Suddenly re-energized, we positively danced while craning back our heads, savouring those first precious drops of rainwater. Owen hugged me. We had the rain without the storm. Thank goodness we hadn’t thrown all the empty tins of pemmican and bully beef overboard. We lined them up and in no time they were half full. Five men; five tins. We gulped down the water. Too quickly perhaps, Hodgkin straightaway threw up. But it didn’t diminish the elation he felt, we all felt, at feeling the sensation of water in our bellies. Owen started singing It Looks Like Rain In Cherry Blossom Lane. Soon, we’d all joined in, crisscrossing our arms as if singing Auld Lang Syne on New Year’s Eve. We’d regained our voices. After so long without speaking, how strange it was to talk let alone sing. Having sated our immediate thirst, we emptied the tins of water into the bottles, and every receptacle we could find. And still the rain fell in torrents, resembling a curtain, through which we could barely see a thing. Oh, the joy. We splashed our feet in the boat until a stab of fear struck me – what if this rain carried on and on? Eventually, the boat would fill up. There’d be no way we could bail at such a speed. We’d sink. The thought had not crossed the minds of the others. We’d be OK for a long while yet but now, having so happily welcomed the rain, I wished it to stop.
And then it did. As abruptly as it had arrived, the rain simply ceased as if God had turned off the tap. We remained on our feet, splashing in water, causing the boat to rock on the still sea, all happily drenched. Davison put the rain down to God, and with his arms outreached, proceeded to thank Him with lavish exaltations.
‘Stop that,’ yelled Beckett.
‘Harris, what’s the matter? Do you not believe the rain was God’s doing?’
‘No, I bloody don’t.’
‘Leave him be,’ said Hodgkin.
‘No. Anything good that happens is God’s work but He doesn’t take any of the blame for putting us in this shit in the first place.’
‘I think you’ll find, Harris, that that was the Germans.’
Beckett stepped closer to him. ‘Yeah, but this God of yours doesn’t see fit for us to be rescued.’
‘Fair point,’ said Owen.
‘No,’ I said. ‘If Ed needs his God, let him have it.’
‘Yeah, but we don’t want to hear it all the time,’ said Beckett. ‘Your God’s happy enough to let us rot out here.’
‘Everything has its purpose, God has His plan, and–’
‘Stop, just bloody stop, won’t you? I’m sick of it, you never used to be like this.’
‘Perhaps that’s the reason why we find ourselves here. Because we failed to believe…’
Despite Beckett’s obvious anger, none of us expected it. He hit him so hard, Davison fell against the side of the boat, lost balance and with flailing arms toppled backwards overboard into the water.
‘Christ, Beckett, what have you done?’ I screamed.
‘You idiot,’ said Hodgkin.
Owen leant over the side. ‘Ed, you OK? You OK?’ Thankfully, Davison was still conscious, beating his arms in the water.
‘He deserved it,’ muttered Beckett. ‘All that God stuff…’ He shuffled back to the stern like a child who knows he’s done wrong, while Davison flapped near the boat.
I joined Owen at the side of the boat. ‘Your hand, Ed,’ called Owen. ‘Give me your hand.’
My heart stopped – there was something dark in the water. Something dark and not too far behind him, a sinister shadow moving at speed. ‘Oh, God.’ I knew with terrifying certainty what it was. ‘Ed,’ I yelled, the panic rising in my throat. Realising something was wrong, he turned round. He saw it too. Frantically, he tried to swim away but too late. His eyes ablaze with utter, gut-wrenching terror, he screamed as the shark emerged like a rocket from the water, its frightful triangular teeth exposed like rows upon rows of razors. The sea curdled as the beast lunged at Ed. We watched, our hands over our mouths, as the water turned red. The boat rocked; Ed’s desperate shrieks filled the air. I saw the poor man hit the shark on its nose, fruitlessly trying to fend off this mountain of a fish. The shark had Ed by the leg, its teeth clasped vice-like onto his thigh, shaking him like a ragdoll. With his free leg, screaming frantically, he tried to kick at the shark. Unable to watch, I turned, pulling a
t my hair, hollering, Ed’s terrified cries bouncing in my head. And then, abruptly, the screaming stopped, leaving only the sound of the bubbling water.
I turned. The water was still boiling, the redness seeping away, but Ed was gone. I saw a glimpse of the dark shadow sink into the sea. Owen vomited while I collapsed against a bench and sobbed uncontrollably.
*
I don’t know how many hours passed but when I gazed over at the others, I found them, like me, all huddled up in balls in different parts of the boat.
When finally we mustered up the strength to gather, Hodgkin, Beckett, Owen and myself, Hodgkin suggested we pray. It was, he said, what Ed would have wished.
No one objected.
Chapter 12
The Boat: Day Eight
My parents have a larder. That’s where I see myself now. It’s big, as big as a modest living room; grey slate floors, a huge white cupboard – one half of which is full of tins and packet food. Perhaps not now, not with the war on, but when I was a boy, my mother stored enough food to sink a battleship. Perhaps that’s not the best analogy to use given my circumstances. The other half is stacked high with plates and bowls and cups and saucers and serving platters and dishes and baking trays and a weighing machine and a myriad other things useful in the kitchen. More than we could ever need. My mother can’t bear to throw anything away; my father puts it down to her threadbare life as a child. The larder walls are thick, the windows small, covered with thick curtains permanently drawn. Even in the height of summer, this place remains cool. At the near end, next to the door leading to the kitchen, a huge table made of thick wood. More food. A tray of jams, another of pickles and condiments. Wire mesh domes cover the cheese board, the remains of last night’s roast beef supper and suet pudding. A dish of leftover vegetables sits covered by a tea towel. There are the bread bins and bottles of milk, a fruit bowl and even a bowl of nuts. Father believes nuts are a vital aid to healthy bowel movements. There’s a large tin full of little homemade cakes. I stand in the middle of this gastronomic heaven and spin round, breathing in the mixture of intoxicating smells: meat, bread, sweet – all mixed into one glorious symphony of food. My mouth salivates. How long now is it to dinner? I’d never appreciated my mother’s larder before – it was just there. By God, I do now. But I’ve yet to mention the centrepiece of this fabulous place. At the far end of the larder, cemented into the ceiling are a couple of hooks. And hanging by a piece of string wrapped round its feet from one of those hooks is a dead pheasant. It’s a male with its dazzling feathers of speckled golden brown, its turquoise neck and its red face. It’s a beautiful bird – even in death, even hanging upside down stripped of its dignity in my mother’s larder. Beneath it, a newspaper – just in case, my mother says, it drips blood. It won’t drip blood now, I think, it’s too dead. If asked, my father will claim to have shot it. He has a shotgun, never used as far as I know, which he keeps hidden away in the scullery. But, in truth, Mum bought the bird in the market at the nearby village.
So, back to the table with its bounty of food. What to eat first? I reach for an apple. But as I grab for it, it disappears. I must have imagined it. A slice of bread. Yet, it too vanishes at the point I almost touch it. No, this cannot be true. Perhaps a chunk of beef. God, yes, that’d be nice. But no, no, it’s gone. Strange. Everything’s disappearing before my eyes. Soon the larder is bare – all gone, nothing on the table; nothing in the cupboards, just the plates, endless empty plates. I’m so hungry, so thirsty.
*
‘I can hear something.’ Owen’s voice, as with the rest of us, had become little more than a growl.
I tried to speak but my swollen tongue seemed to fill my entire mouth. ‘What?’ I croaked.
‘L-listen.’ His breath smells like death, his voice like that of a ghost.
Beckett struggled to his feet. ‘He’s right. Look, it’s a plane, a bloody plane.’
‘Get the flares, Gardner’ ordered Hodgkin.
‘Is it one of ours?’ I asked.
‘Does it matter?’ said Beckett. ‘It could be a Martian for all I care.’
‘It’s a long way off,’ I said. ‘It’s flying away from us.’
‘Still worth a shot.’ With trembling hands, Hodgkin inserted a flare into the gun.
‘Are you sure, Captain?’ asked Owen.
‘It’s worth a try.’
Hodgkin fired it into the sky. ‘Surely, they’ll see it.’
We watched as the flare descended, knowing that the plane hadn’t seen it.
‘Do another,’ said Beckett.
‘No,’ I said. ‘We’ve only got the two left.’
‘Searight’s right; it’d be a waste.’ Hodgkin, his eyes still cast towards the sky, didn’t see Beckett approach him until he had snatched the flare gun from his hand. ‘No, Beckett, what do you think you’re doing?’
‘You sent it in the wrong direction,’ said Beckett.
‘Don’t do it,’ I said, wanting to do something to stop him but lacking the strength to reach him.
‘Put that down, Beckett,’ said Hodgkin. ‘That’s an order.’
Stepping away from Hodgkin, Beckett slotted in another flare. Hodgkin reached him just as Beckett was about to fire. He grabbed for Beckett’s tattooed arm, pulling it down at the point Beckett pulled the trigger. The flare shot straight into the water.
We all stood, slumped, lost for words. Looking up to the sky, I saw the aeroplane grow smaller and more distant.
‘You bastard,’ snarled Beckett.
‘Don’t you speak–’
‘Do we think I give a fig for your authority? You’re weak, Captain; always have been. Weak and useless.’
Hodgkin didn’t seem to have it within him to respond.
‘So now thanks to that little adventure, we’ve only got the one flare left,’ I said. ‘Well done, Beckett.’
‘And you can shut it, Searight.’
I did. Not because Beckett told me to; I just didn’t have anything else to say, too wrapped up in another disappointment. No one spoke another word for hours.
*
‘We’ve got company, boys.’ The voice belonged to Beckett.
On opening my eyes, I noticed that the boat was moving unusually fast – a wind had blown up and was pushing us on – to where, of course, we had no idea. Beckett was right – mostly to our starboard side we were being overtaken by huge numbers of flying fish. What a sight – silvery blue things with their enormous wing-like fins skimming across the water. There seemed to be an unending number of them and rapidly they came nearer and nearer to the boat. I knew we were all thinking the same – how to catch one. Then, as if to answer our question, one flew straight into the boat, landing at Beckett’s feet at the stern. Beckett lunged and caught it. It slipped out of his hands. Before it had chance to move again, Beckett stamped on its head, killing it. A moment later, he’d picked it up and with his teeth tore into its flesh. Then, finding a lid from a discarded tin of bully beef, he used its jagged edge to cut away its head.
‘Hey, stop,’ shouted Hodgkin. ‘We have to share. Beckett, stop, that’s an order.’
But Beckett, having given up on trying to remove the head, had no intention of sharing the fish with us. Grunting loudly, his head shaking as he bit large chunks, he devoured it all with astonishing speed. Afterwards, he stood panting, catching his breath, his lips red and glistening, blood and gunk dribbling down his chin onto his chest. He smiled a manic grin at us, his eyes those of a wild beast. Whatever was left of the fish, and there wasn’t much, he threw back into the sea. With his soiled fingernails, he picked at his teeth.
‘You selfish bastard,’ said Owen.
‘Right, that’s it,’ said Hodgkin. ‘I’m now officially putting you on a charge of indiscipline. When we get back to port, you will be–’
‘I don’t give a fuck what you do,’ growled Beckett, speaking slowly. ‘You’re all dead anyway.’ He lumbered to the stern and, sitting down, leant over the side of the b
oat and vomited. He leant back, clutching his neck and groaned. Hodgkin, Owen Gardner and I sat at the bow, wanting to keep as much distance between us and Beckett as possible. It worried me the extent of animosity Beckett had for Hodgkin. Somehow, I knew our ‘captain’ needed protecting.
Meanwhile, the flying fish had gone.
*
I don’t know how long I’d fallen asleep but when I opened my eyes, it was night-time. A half-moon brightened the world, casting what in any other circumstance might be considered a beautiful glow. Piled on the bench opposite mine a bunch of bananas had appeared. I counted them – six yellow bananas, as yellow as yellow can be. I didn’t question where they’d come from; all that mattered was that they were there. With a thumping heart, I glanced at the others, making sure they were still asleep. I had no intention of sharing. All I had to do was to reach out for them. I began to weep, so thankful for this deliverance. Owen woke up. ‘You OK, Robert?’
I had to tell him. ‘Look,’ I said, pointing at the bananas.
His eyes followed my finger. ‘What are you pointing at?’
‘Bananas,’ I whispered, winking at him.
‘Where?’
‘There,’ I said impatiently. How could he not see them?
‘I don’t see no bananas.’
Your loss, I thought. Summoning my strength, I stretched out my hand, shaking with anticipation. But they’d gone. As soon as I’d reached for them, they’d gone. ‘Hey? Where did they go?’
‘The bananas?’
‘You took them, didn’t you? You took my bananas.’
He shook his head in a pitying way.
‘Give them back. Give them back, you swine. They were given to me. What have you done with them?’
‘Robert, calm down, mate. I didn’t take them.’
‘So where have they gone? They were… they were right there.’ I began to cry again.
The Unforgiving Sea (The Searight Saga Book 2) Page 8