by Craig Cliff
‘Keep away,’ I said, backing towards the bow.
What did I expect to do? I wondered about this later, once I’d been tied to the mizzen top, facing forward, with Vengeance lashed behind me, facing aft. I couldn’t overpower them all, no matter how enraged I felt.
Indeed, the struggle was brief and humiliating.
‘We’ll nae touch her again,’ Sepsey shouted from the deck in his mock Scottish accent while Swenson, Boag, Jarrell and Burton carried me and Vengeance up the shrouds. ‘You two will be close for eternity, but you’ll nae see her again.’
15 March 1891
Wind eased beneath the door and daylight followed, illuminating a band of whirling dust above the floorboards. I rolled onto my back, draped my forearm over my eyes and composed myself. Despite the excitement of crossing the channel, traversing the tussock and, in the perfect dark, finding this hut, I’d managed to sleep soundly. My first settled night since leaving that dingy Melbourne boarding house, a room that had been transfigured by months of deprivation into the height of opulence. But here I was: inside, sheltered, nearly dry. My body shivered, a habit that would prove hard to kick, but my teeth were not chattering. Wisps of air rustled unseen pieces of paper and metal fixtures, but it was silence compared with the wind and rain that had raged outside my grotto on Lemon Wedge. My ears felt both clogged up and cleaned out. As if I were losing my hearing as I had lost my voice. As if I could hear a twig snap a hundred yards away.
I lowered the arm from my eyes and looked up at the underside of the top bunk. Into one of the slats someone had carved:
STELLA, JULY 1889, CPTN’S ORDERS
I ran my fingers across the letters, feeling the tiny ridges pushed up by the scribe’s implement. What had he used? The corner of a chisel? No, the lines were too thick and imprecise. More likely a screwdriver, something close to hand when the vandal’s impulse struck. And what was this wood? Tidy parallel grain. Long knot-free sections. Light in colour, though this was possibly the sapwood. It would hold a fine edge, whatever it was. I looked closely at the wall beside me: a tongue and groove panel of this same wood, each piece a uniform six inches wide. The work of a skilled builder. Someone with a decent saw, at least. Perhaps it was all pre-cut and brought to the island. These wallboards were slightly darker than the slats, more honeyed, with tiny reflective flecks like mica in a slab of granite. I pushed my cheek hard against the wood and inhaled deeply. I closed my eyes and saw the timber’s silvery speckles transposed on the dark of my lids.
I’d slept fully dressed, feet still inside my decaying boots, just as I had every night on Lemon Wedge, though the layer of salt crust, sweat and peat that caked my skin felt inexcusable on this particular morning. I swung around slowly and placed my boots on the floor. The boards rumbled like an empty stomach as I stood, careful not to knock my head against the overhang of the top bunk. The place was tiny. A single room, perhaps fourteen feet by nine, crammed with wooden crates—cheap pine if I was not mistaken—stacked on top of each other, tantalisingly nondescript. The roof was corrugated iron, pitched from a high stud on the back wall down to just above the lintel of the door, and supported by a series of rafters and purlins of the same attractive wood as the rest of the hut. Not only would it be wonderful to carve, a log of it was bound to make a decent mast. I hoped the tree that produced this timber was a native to the island. I even considered leaving an inventory of the contents of the hut until later and running outside in search of trees, so that I might climb among their limbs, pick their strange, antiscorbutic fruits, shed my soiled clothes and live a life in Eden.
There was a wee window to the right of the door, covered by a square of red and blue flannel that was nailed to the frame. I pulled the nearest corner free from the powdery nail and pushed my face close to the glass. It seemed to frost before I’d let out a breath. I wiped the glass with the meat of my hand. The scene outside remained unchanged: complete white. My hand was on the door knob in one step.
The outside world rushed to greet me, the surging wind leaving pricks of water on my cheeks and beard. I shielded my eyes and squinted. Dark shapes to the left and right showed through the gauzy mist. Hills perhaps. Low down the knee-high sedges were being threshed by the wind, thick droplets of water jumping from clump to clump. I tightened my grip on the door as the wind pulsed against it, eager to snatch this new toy from me. I turned to look back inside the hut and spotted an oil lantern resting on the bench against the eastern wall. There must be matches, too, I thought.
I stepped back inside, closed the door and struggled to see in the sudden gloom. I pulled the flannelette curtain from the window and heard the tinkle as one of the nails bounced on the floorboards. I blinked a few times and edged across the small, unoccupied patch of floor towards the bench and the stacked crates. Next to the lantern I found a dusty bottle with a cork half-inserted down the neck. I gave it a shake and heard the rattle of matchsticks loose at the bottom, removed the cork and tipped the contents onto the smooth surface of the bench. In addition to two dozen matches there was a wee piece of flint. The lantern felt heavy, as if there were oil in it already, but I gave it a sniff anyway. Penguin blubber. I would know the smell anywhere.
I held a matchstick down by the head to ensure it did not snap and struck it against the surface of the bench. A blue-orange flame fizzed to life and I quickly lit the lamp. In better light the room was no larger, the wooden crates just as inscrutable. I hung the lamp on a nail that protruded from a nearby rafter and lifted the first lid. Inside were two containers of red metal, possibly zinc, about eighteen inches high and twelve inches square at the top. Both had pieces of softly yellowed paper with scalloped corners pasted to their lids.
The first read:
Flannel shirts, 12 count (six blue, six grey)
Woollen vests, 12 count
The second read:
Trousers, 12 count
A sudden itch coursed down my back. Fresh clothes. I hadn’t eaten since the previous day, but I was no stranger to hunger by this time. I slipped my battered waistcoat from my shoulders and undid my shirt in three rough tugs. I leant forward to look more closely at the lid of one of the tins. It was welded shut. I scanned the bench, the tops of the crates. There must have been some kind of opener, a knife, something to get into these stores. On the far wall someone had written:
GOOD WATER IN SWAMP CLOSE BY
I noticed another message painted in thin black lines on top of the crate nearest the door.
The curse of the widow and fatherless light upon the man that breaks open this box, whilst he has a ship at his back.
I paused a moment to decode this message. These supplies were not for men with a ship at their backs, therefore they must be left for castaways like me. The next logical step was to conclude that if there was the need for a provision depot such as this, I must still be a long way from civilisation. Perhaps it would take many days to cross the island and find a settlement. Perhaps there was nothing to find. I took a deep breath and tried to focus on the blessings these boxes and this well-made roof over my head represented.
I lifted the lid with the curse painted on it. Sitting atop one of the zinc containers was a can opener. I took it up, the bulbous wooden handle cool against my flesh. Before pressing the sharp prong into the zinc I weighed this tool in my hand. It was well balanced, pivoting at the gold-coloured ferrule that hid the point at which the tang of the blade recessed into the neck of the handle. It wouldn’t take much to adapt this tool for woodwork. There were bound to be stones against which I could increase the bevel. And leather, there was surely leather—boots, belts, the latches of bags—among this bounty. Perhaps there would be no need to alter this tool. There might be carpenter’s tools in one of these boxes for the castaway to repair a boat or craft a new one. I pressed the blade into the box and worked it around three sides before peeling back the lid. Cabin bread, proclaimed four identical cardboard boxes. I lifted one out of the container, but they were all the same. Boxes and boxes of cabin
bread. I tore open the first of these boxes and the dusty, mealy smell of the biscuits plumed into the air and my stomach turned in a mixture of delight and disbelief. My teeth were weak, but I managed to break off a corner, using the molars on my right side. One hundred and twenty-six days on Lemon Wedge, nursing my farinaceous cravings, and here I was dissolving a lump of cabin bread in my mouth. I tell you, Avis, there are not many sensations in my life, these past few weeks notwithstanding, that can compare to that moment of succour.
By midday I had opened every box in the hut and arranged my provisions. Beneath the bench I placed my food: four cases of preserved beef and mutton in four-pound tins, one hundred pounds of beef dripping, twenty-five pounds of tea, fifty-six pounds of sugar and twelve hundredweight of cabin bread. I also had a kettle, a frying pan and a camp oven, but no flour or yeast, meaning no fresh bread.
The provisions were better than raw penguin flesh and limpets, but it was clear that a castaway was supposed to supplement his diet with the island’s bounty. To this end there were two sheath knives, six fishing lines and thirty-six fish hooks of assorted sizes. If I could not fish easily from the shore I could use my raft, which I could now improve thanks to the saw, hammer and file that lay swaddled in hessian beneath my bunk. I also had ten pounds of wire nails of assorted sizes, two skeins of twine, one packet of sewing needles, six sail needles, one seaming palm, twelve reels of strong white cotton and four packets of white tape.
If I injured myself among the waves or clambering over cliffs I had a crate bursting with medical supplies: one pint of castor oil, one pint of carbolic acid, one jar of zinc ointment, ninety-nine laxative pills (I’d already greedily popped one into my mouth as if it were a boiled sweet), lint and wadding, a reel of silk for sewing wounds, a packet of surgical needles, one pair of scissors and fourteen pounds of yellow soap.
Whoever had left these supplies had envisioned more than one castaway occupying the hut at a time. In addition to the two bunks, there were two Bibles and a draughts board with the requisite number of pieces. I wondered if I could fool myself into playing both sides. And then there were the dozen three-piece suits of the thickest wool, sporting brown fingernail-sized houndstooth checks against a dull black background. On closer inspection the brown was flecked with grey, red, light blue and reddish orange. The lining of the single-breasted coats was dark brown with a greasy sheen and featured deep internal pockets. Of course, this will all be familiar to you, my dear. They had been packed into zinc containers like the rest of the supplies, with layers of sacking and cardboard between each item. Some of the coats and waistcoats still bore their price tags (49s 6d and 4s 9d respectively). I could not imagine anyone stepping out in such a suit in any city, its loud checks and heavy fabric, the waistcoats uniformly tight, the coats and trousers long and baggy. And all those deep pockets. They seemed purpose-made for the castaway’s life.
I looked at my new wardrobe, laid out across the lower bunk, and sighed. So much and yet no footwear. There were thick woollen socks and underwear, but nothing to replace Tim’s tatty, too-wee pair of boots. I had double- and triple-checked the boxes, underneath the bed, even climbed onto the top bunk to make sure there was nothing stored in the rafters. Still, there might be more stores outside. Perhaps this hut was one of several in the vicinity.
The whiteness still pushed against the window. I clenched and unclenched my toes as I weighed my choices. The excitement and exertion of opening and cataloguing my supplies had flushed my cheeks, despite my being bare-chested since uncovering the first container. I had resisted putting on any of these new items, wanting to wash with the yellow soap in the ‘good water close by’ once the mist had cleared.
I picked a fresh woollen blanket from the pile at the foot of my bed, pulled it over my shoulders and headed outside.
The cold took a bite from each cheek as if my head were an apple. I regretted not putting a shirt on beneath the blanket but hunched lower and hustled around the side of the hut.
Nothing.
I looked in the direction I suspected was east. Nothing but mist. Not even the dark shapes in the distance I’d seen that morning. There was no telling what I’d walk into, or walk off, if I left the hut in these conditions. I considered retrieving the lantern from inside, but the light would settle on the pinpricks of moisture that surrounded me and go no further. And the wind. I couldn’t risk it catching the lantern, smashing it, the flames reaching the hut that was stuffed with wool, wood and beef dripping. Wouldn’t that be something, I thought. Finding this bonanza and seeing it go up in smoke having traded two shirts, two vests and one waistcoat for a single blanket. I placed my hand on the wall of the hut, both to reaffirm its existence and to steady myself. I took a step towards the rear of the hut, tracing a line on the weatherboard with the tips of my fingers. As I rounded the corner I let my hand drop. There was something leaning against the hut, almost as tall as me. It took a moment to decipher the form, the odd angle, the fact I had become resigned to never seeing her again. I stepped forward. Yes. I didn’t know how, but it was her. It was Vengeance.
I placed a hand on her right cheek. It was cold and damp, scarred by her journey.
I picked her up, calling on that same charge of adrenaline I had used to carry her away from Sepsey and the other sailors that day in November. How could any man carry her up from the shore, through the dense tussock? It must have been a team of men. But still, it would be a great effort. And for what? It was as if she had worked her spell on the men.
I remembered the stories my mother used to tell me about brounies and the Unseelie Court. Perhaps there was a spirit inside Vengeance. It would explain a lot.
As I carried her inside the hut—her back, pocked with round trenail holes, pressed against my chest—she could be smiling. I hoped she was smiling.
Once we were both inside, I placed her against the far wall so that her head was turned to face my bunk. The wound Sepsey had inflicted at her base had let the rot in. She was mouldering, being eaten from the inside.
It’s a good thing we cannae talk, I thought, the tales we have to tell. Better to move on. Make a life here. Make a home.
A new month begins tomorrow, did you know that? We’ve been up here three weeks. I am not sure how much longer this can last.
Keep writing, Gabriel. Oh, do please keep writing.
I fear we will be interrupted any day. Any minute. I wake at the slightest sound outside. Your father will come for you. He is coming for you. This cannot last.
But while it does, you must write!
Adventures in Solitude
Do you know what the morra is? I asked.
The seventh of November?
Aye, but—
Day number two hundred and thirty-nine on the big island?
I stopped on the path to consider this, running my hand over the browned tips of bracken leaves. Aye, you’re right—
Of course I’m right.
Well, all right. But it will also be one year since the Agathos was dismasted and we were cast away.
An entire year, she said, the appropriate note of wonder in her voice. How many albatross do you think you’ve killed in that time?
Och, you know that’s a sore spot.
And yet here you are, skelpin’ up to snap another’s neck.
I swung around to face the hut, now more than a hundred and fifty yards behind me.
I’m nae like you. I cannae make do with a light breeze and a coat of dust.
I understand that, Gabriel. Take as many of the tube-nosed numpties as you please. I merely object to the black mood it’ll put you in for the next two days. You never take the strunts when you kill a penguin—
Aye, but there’re thousands of them.
And there are hundreds of albatross.
At this moment a large, dopey adult started to run down the path towards me, its huge webbed feet slapping the ground, its impossibly long wings flapping, head bobbing as if convincing itself that yes, it will happen, a gus
t of wind will come and lift me into the air and take from me the great burden of gravity. I leant face-first into the ferns to avoid a collision. When I pushed back and looked behind me the albatross was gliding over the corrugated iron roof of the hut and out to the cold blue channel.
You know how I feel, I said to Vengeance, who I’d left, as always, propped in the corner of the depot atop a layer of flattened zinc boxes, a thick wool blanket across her shoulders. My voice had not returned since I tore my throat to shreds screaming for the steamer on Lemon Wedge, but Vengeance couldn’t talk either so we were on equal footing.
You’re a fool, Gabriel, she said as I resumed my progress higher up the plateau.
I know. But I cannae face another bite of penguin.
They’ve only been back a couple of months.
We have been cast away too long when we’re saying ‘only a couple of months’.
You made do on oats back home.
Aye, oats and tatties. I could go weeks without a strip of meat. But that was different. I cannae do what I do down here without some meat to charge me up.
The albatross pathway led up along a wee ridge in the island’s central plateau. When I first discovered it I thought it was the work of man, that it led to more huts, to civilisation, but I had scoured the island and found it deserted. The few signs of previous visitors I came across did little to suggest I’d be rescued any time soon. Up from the landing place I’d found a teak headboard with a faint inscription, its letters disappearing after seven decades of moss, frost and wind.
To the M—Foster, Chief Officer of the Schr. Prince of Denmark, who was unfortunately drown— —ke the Board Arbour—14th Day of December in the—1825
Closer to the depot, but later in my stay, I’d found a pine board buried under a layer of peat. Into the wood someone had carved: