Then there was Aimil, his expression exactly the same as it always was, looking as if you'd just asked him a question that he didn't know the answer to, but was waiting for someone to tell him. He visually stood out from the others in the room, with his red hair and pale skin, and the rest of the crew with their tanned arms that were just a bit lighter than the wood of the walls.
Niels, with his eyes skirting restlessly around the room, folding and refolding his arms, shifted his weight from one leg to the other. Part of me wondered if he were any good at throwing knives, because, somehow, I imagined he would be.
Knut, incapable of wiping that smirk off his face, beaming with confidence, knowing that he'd outwitted me, that he'd won this little skirmish of power, that rehearsing words that might come up in a confrontation beforehand had paid off for him, again. There was something about the way his hair was neatly drawn to the side that suddenly struck me as maddening, and I wanted to reach out and ruffle it, or maybe find him asleep one day and cut it into jagged lines.
Onni, who was lightly tapping the side of his leg, looking at me with his lips pressed into a kind of encouraging grin, seeming like the only one in the room that might have a bit of sympathy for the awkward position I was in.
Solmund, still watching from the gangway, looked afraid, probably already wishing that he hadn't come on the expedition at all, wondering why he hadn't just stayed on the island, bridging the gaps of the Elders' imaginary voids for the rest of his days.
Mikkel, casual as always, standing beside him, watching the situation unravel through the doorway, careful to have positioned himself on neutral ground in every way possible. He still had that slight look of pity in his expression, as if he wanted to shake his head at me, but under the circumstances, couldn't.
And that was my crew, standing in the room, waiting for my reaction after having purposefully done something inappropriate, waiting to see how much I was going to mirror the Elders in my response, how much I would dare act like one of the people that I had personally rolled my eyes at many a time, often while standing next to some of the people who were now looking at me. Yes, this was a test, just as Dana had predicted. But somehow, I don't really think their incentive was what he'd imagined it to be; I didn't get the feeling they were testing me to find out where their limits were, it was more just a matter of seeing if I would fail. And I did.
"Alright," I sighed, "you guys can have your stupid little game. But I want you to know how disappointed I am that you did this secretly, that you all intentionally did this behind my back. There are better ways to go about these things - and I expected more from you." The room was quiet, except for the sounds of Onni's hand tapping at his thigh, which he'd bowed his head to look down at when I began speaking. But he was the only one who had looked away; everyone else seemed to be watching me square in the eye, looking as if they were struggling to keep a grin from splitting their faces in half. And after I'd walked out of the room and down the gangway, I'm sure every one of them had done exactly that, because as I was climbing the stairs to the upper deck, I could hear a muffled explosion of giggles in my wake - which was probably even a response to someone jumping into the middle of the room and mocking me with some fine juvenile display that I can only guess at.
I went back to the helm and corrected our course. And while I stood there, I continued to hear the now familiar thudding sounds, each one followed by an ever-increasing hilarity, which had to have been exaggerated, overemphasized for my benefit alone. They were rubbing it in my face. And to me, at the time, each one of those dampened clunks against the wood seemed to be communicating something more than just 'we won,' it also seemed to be whispering, 'and more easily than we ever thought we would.'
No, I can't say I was very happy with the way things had gone, but I also knew that the bitter taste of this small, petty defeat would pass, and that what I had to concentrate on was making sure that when something like this happened again, I was prepared for it, that I had a kind of plan of action in the back of my mind, ready, like Knut. I convinced myself that I wouldn't make the same mistake twice, that I would learn from my errors and stand my ground from that point on. And as long as I did that, I was sure the crew and I would find a way to fumble forward, and not regress any further than we had. Yes, I finally said to myself, nodding at the greying skies again and thinking of everyone bustling around in the wind, things were only going to get better.
And the slow reeling clouds pressed down on the water, tightening the gap, quietly shutting the horizon's eye, and seeming to wink at my self-encouragements in the strangest way. The sky was bowing its head, filling its lungs, holding its breath.
* * *
19
The layers of grey clouds, some of them marbled with dark folds, kept slating in above us; and as the sky filled, and the ceiling crouched ever lower, like a slow sinking blanket coming down over our heads, the winds began to build. But none of us were too worried. We all thought we'd seen similar skies to this on the island, where the streaking sheets would usually dissipate without ever spitting a drop of rain. We weren't even bothered to watch how fast or in what way the system was developing - we knew it was coming, and that seemed to be enough. Though, Mikkel did notice something a little strange, and mentioned it to me, calm as always. He'd noted that specific layers of the clouds were moving over us in one direction, while the bulk of the others were moving in the opposite, but that the interesting part was, of all these varying cloud directions, none of them corresponded with the main direction of the wind we were sailing with. Odd. Finally, a tiny virus of worry seeded itself in the pit of my stomach, and I made a point to watch the clouds more closely than I had been. I had to hold onto the rail when I did this, as the waves had been building throughout the days prior to that as well. Yet, for all my scrutinizing, I still couldn't find any real reason for concern, and wouldn't, until after the midday meal, when we caught sight of the swells.
"Hey Solmund - what are you drawing there?" Knut's tone, as it always was with Solmund, was acerbic, mocking.
"Nothing," came the defensive reply, like clockwork. He pressed the slate that he'd been drawing on against his chest.
Knut approached him and leaned over to speak into his face, while Toivo stopped and stood behind them both, smiling. "Is it a girl Solmund? Is that what you were doing in the library all that time - were you drawing girls?" He reached into Solmund's arms and started to pry the slate from his grip, "Come on - let's see who it is."
Mikkel disarmed the situation in a second, before I even had time to react to it. He was passing in front of Knut, and simply shot a quick look at him, letting him know that he wasn't impressed with what he was hearing, that he thought he was being childish and pathetic, and that seemed to be all that was needed. Because Knut quickly straightened up, a little embarrassed, "Okay, okay... forget it," he said, waving a dismissive hand through the air, "Just hope it's not one of us you're drawing," he joked over his shoulder, hoping to get a reaction from Toivo. But Toivo only pretended he didn't hear, probably wanting to avoid a similar glare from Mikkel. And that was that.
We all watched Knut as he walked away from Solmund, after being openly snubbed. He seemed to be busy looking for something on the deck, and when he didn't find it, he started looking at different people sitting around, and when that didn't seem to work, he finally lifted his head to scan the ocean. I'm sure what he was looking for was simply something to deflect our eyes off his back, to draw people's attention away from the bit of humiliation he'd just suffered. Though, in the same token, when his gaze finally fell on the seas to starboard, his reaction seemed sincere enough. "Holy shit," he mumbled. Everyone followed his line of sight out to sea - and there they were.
The swells were remote, secluded in a shaft of brighter light where the clouds must have thinned, or a few layers had parted for a brief minute or two. On the sea, a shimmering surface like this usually signifies the presence of stronger winds, but this was something very differen
t. There were shapes in the water, lines being drawn fathoms away by the curling of waves. At that same moment, the tiny seed of worry that had been planted in my stomach suddenly sprouted roots and exploded with foliage, wrapping its fingers around my intestines. Because it was obvious - at least to me - that the only thing that could have created such isolated, capping rollers, would have been a severe storm of some kind, where the waves, like the influxes of fugitives in the history books, had fled from some hub of violence, and were becoming weaker with every mile travelled. Only they didn't look very weak to me, which, considering the implications, it was a little more than a tad unsettling.
"They've been there for a while," Onni said, in his straightforward way, and to no one in particular. He was sitting against one of the rails at the time and to my great irritation, reached up to the metal tubing and started tapping away on it with a frantic rhythm that seemed to correspond perfectly with the feeling in my stomach.
Reflexively, stupidly, I started stammering out orders, "Okay - everyone listen up. Aimil, I want you and Niels to rig the lines for fishing. Keep everything you catch - even garbage fish. Toivo, go with Solmund to double check that everything is secured properly and get the storm sail out and ready for rigging. Knut, I want you to take an accurate reading of where we are, and keep taking one every half hour."
"What do you mean? It's best to do it at night, no?" Knut retorted.
"I don't care when it's best. Take a reading now and continue into the night. And Onni... stop tapping the rail." But he didn't.
I called Mikkel into the cabin, where we closed the door and sat across from each other. I'm afraid that, when I spoke, I sounded ridiculous, even to myself. "It's a storm. No? Do you think it's a storm? I think it's a storm."
"Umm... What I think is that you should calm down a bit," he replied, speaking much slower than he needed to. "I think you're getting everyone worked up here over nothing. And - well - it's your job to stay composed, don't you think?" I tilted my head at him, trying to communicate that that wasn't what I wanted to hear. In reply he rolled his eyes and tried again, "Okay... let's say, just for the sake of it, that we do get some choppy weather. This ship can take it - easily. The reason we have the schooner in the first place is because it was the best ship on the island. I mean - at worst, whatever this system is, it might give us some interesting conditions to sail in. But in terms of thinking we're in any real danger - and passing that onto the crew - I don't think is all that warranted." He paused for a moment, then, as an afterthought added, "And it's a little embarrassing."
"Oh." I said, feeling stupid. What was embarrassing exactly? Me as a person, revealing that I was afraid, or me as a leader, being afraid like a person. Is a leader's job really to avoid illuminating the fact that they are just a human being with all the typical weaknesses and inhibitions, who gets hungry and thirsty, who bleeds and drowns like everyone else? It seemed so. Which only meant that the more I learned about being a leader, the less I thought I could ever be one.
"I hope you're right," I said. Then, standing and turning from him, I spoke to the wall. "Now could you go and check that all of the hatches and doors are sealed."
He sighed at my back and left without a word, clearly unimpressed with my reaction to the situation. And I admit, I might have been a little melodramatic, reacting like I did to a couple of extra waves that hadn't even reached the boat yet; but there was a gravity to our situation that no one seemed to understand. The only thing that could have been strong enough to cause those waves to form was a major sea squall or a massive convection system, or maybe even an abnormally early tropical storm, which, considering the month we left in, was possible. Yet regardless of which one of these it was, any of them would require us to find a sheltered harbour. I looked at the map. There wasn't land for days, maybe even a week. The closest tangible earth, which was not our intended destination, was a tiny peninsula that stuck out like a sharp tooth into the sea, and which was probably four, maybe five days away. Nothing was around us, only endless ocean. We were entirely defenceless and exposed. I could still hear the urgency of Onni's rhythm, thumping the hollow metal, and I found myself chewing the skin on the knuckle of my thumb, listening to the beat reverberating along the rail to either side of him, wrapping around us, closing in.
In the first hour, I caught some quick looks between the crew, looks that were intended to scoff at my nervous reaction. But as the hours passed, the clever glances that were being exchanged altogether ceased, and were replaced, one by one, with an eagerness to take orders. And I'm sure this was because, after the swells had encircled the boat and had started tossing us high above the seascape one moment, and plunging us down into dark caves the next, every one of us knew we were in trouble. They were much larger than we'd supposed, and the ship flailed between the troughs and crests like the flimsy hair of seaweed. The winds had also increased, and together with the blackening sky, only added to the overall drama of getting things done on deck. Our balance was easily lost, it being impossible to anticipate the random motions of the ship, and our hands were always reaching out to snatch at the rails or the rigging, often grabbing hold of them just before we stumbled, though sometimes not, and a few of us even fell, quickly jumping back to our feet again, a little self-conscious, humbled.
The looks, if we found the time to exchange them, were edgy, worried, and after breaking eye contact, the two people who'd met eyes would invariably gape at the water, as if making sure that the conditions hadn't worsened in the split second they weren't watching them. And sometimes it seemed they had. Every minute that passed saw the ocean filling its heaving chest with a newer and more ardent energy; flexing its enormous muscles beneath us, around us. The boat seemed to be shrinking.
The sky continued to stoop ever lower, obscuring hints of brightness, making it difficult to tell where the evening ended and the night began. We finally received the first showers of thick rain, which started and stopped intermittently, until finally, it didn't stop at all. The wind, becoming increasingly sporadic in its speed and direction, mercilessly pounded the steel drops against our faces.
We had all grown up with rain, but there is something very different about it on a ship. On the island, most of the precipitation systems were isolated convection storms, so when it rained, the only thing we had to do was wait, choose a good tree or the doorway of one of the buildings, and stand there for the few minutes that it took for the storm to pass. So we were never really in the rain, never a part of it; and we certainly weren't equipped with any of those strange 'oil-skin' coats that the explorers in some of the history books had, which might have allowed us to be a little more effective when we had to be in it. But as it stood, we only had our usual thin clothing, which when wet, clung to us like the hindering skin of a snake before it's shed, sucking the warmth from our bodies, and encumbering our every unpleasant movement.
But I think that we were doing the best we could with what we had, running back and forth around the foremast, trying to keep up with the changing winds. I'd heard tales of being swept by a weather system until a boat was days off course, so I was content with the fact that the ship seemed to be responding well to the storm sail we'd raised and reefed, which of course had very little surface area, but helped maintain the balance and consistency of the ship.
I split the crew into shifts with the idea that, while one half of the crew tried to maintain some kind of course, the other half could be out of the rain, resting, keeping warm, and hopefully even managing to nourish themselves for the long night ahead. And knowing that the worst was yet to come, I ate with the first shift.
Onni, Knut, Niels and I sat around the table, which was designed to stay level by swivelling on a weighted ballast. This little contraption had always amused me, but it had suddenly become unnerving; while the rest of the room sloped in all other directions, it stayed constant, gauging what was happening to the ship a little too accurately for comfort. A lantern hung above us, swinging back and forth an
d projecting our pulsating images onto the walls. We didn't speak very much.
"Joshua, do you think... I mean - the boat will hold up, won't it?" asked Niels, his eyes seeming to be paradoxically calmed by the general mayhem.
"I... honestly don't know," I replied, realizing this was the wrong answer. I quickly amended it, "Well, actually, most probably, it'll stay intact."
Knut rolled his eyes at me, and Onni let a tranquil little grin spread across his face; and I wonder now what he was seeing in the situation that I wasn't. At that moment, the boat shifted violently to one side, complaining of its own weight with a deep groan, and all of the attention in the room shifted between the sounds and me; I think they were hoping, even for the sake of empty encouragement, that I might revise my comment and speak a little more convincingly for the dependability of the ship. But I looked down at my food instead.
We sat there without speaking for quite some time, wobbling back and forth in the nauseous shadows, stuffing food into our weakening stomachs, until we felt a shudder that was very different from the rest, which was followed by the sound of water running over the deck above us, everyone stopping to look up at the roof as if we might see it streaming across the ceiling. When the sound receded, it was replaced with a constant and distressing dripping noise that could have been falling from anywhere, everywhere. The first wave had breached the deck.
Shouting to the others to recheck all the hatches, I ran up the stairs to see if everything was okay, hoping that no one had been washed overboard. I was already thinking about what to do if they had been - what to throw, where to get it, where the safest place would be to haul them in from - but when I opened the hatch and poked my head above, I stopped thinking about what to do. The waves had become massive, wild, and they were roiling around the boat like some crazed creature searching for an unknown thing, chasing it, pursuing it obsessively. It was clear that any rescue attempt from that moment on was going to be useless. If anyone went into the water, they weren't coming out.
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