Veracity

by Mark Lavorato

  I shook the water from my face, my eyes stinging with salt, my throat paradoxically dry. How perfectly frustrating this all was! We were grains of pollen rushing inside a jet stream. We had no control over the boat, over the situation, over our survival. Over anything.

  Mikkel was nearby, wiping water from his eyes as well, and as soon as he could see, he turned over and started crawling toward the hatch. Finally, some sense. I followed, and when we were getting close to it, I remember thinking about the crew, hoping that they'd already made it below deck, hoping that we were about to find every one of them there, safe and sound. But unfortunately, they weren't there. No. They were still on the upper deck, where, instead of worrying about saving their own lives, they were busy creating the most effective way to kill us all.

  We were almost at the hatch when the air ripped open with the deepest, most terrifying sound I have ever heard. "WHOOMP!" Both Mikkel and I flinched, covering our heads for a second before looking up in the direction of the sound. I'm sure that once we saw it, both of our mouths must have dropped wide open. The crew had raised the main sail.

  The small group that I'd seen below the mainmast must have laboured fanatically between the pauses of the waves to hoist it up. And they'd succeeded; because there it was, full, bulging, the cloth trembling at its edges. Anyone, even the most ill-trained sailor that has ever lived, could have seen that the wind was much, much too strong to have such a massive surface area propelling the ship. The mainmast bent and shuddered as the boat picked up ridiculous speed, and all of the flattened bodies lying on the floor began to slide toward the stern with the strength of the acceleration. We looked at the bow to see what the ship was flinging us toward, and could see, in a brief flash of light, that we would be crashing into a mammoth swell in the matter of seconds.

  There was no communication, no altruism, and certainly no bravery. None of us thought, for even a split second, about approaching the wildly swinging boom to try and take down the sail, nor did anyone think to go to the helm to try and steer us into a better direction. No. There was only one thing left to do, and only an instant to do it.

  Using both hands and feet, everyone scampered as fast as they could toward the hatch, which someone had already managed to fling open and dive into - all of us, like rodents fighting to leap into a burrow, sliding bumpily down the stairs headfirst, our bodies piling on top of themselves inside the water of the lower deck. I was somewhere in the middle of that heap of limbs and torsos, and was busy trying to squirm my way out, so I have no idea who had the presence of mind to close the hatch. It wasn't me.

  And we were still in the process of getting off of each other, still trying to breathe, trying to figure out which way was up, when the ship crashed into the first swell. None of us had time to brace ourselves, and least of all Onni, who almost drowned with that first impact. There was a deafening crash, and the mass of water in the gangway, with all of us in it, rushed toward the stairs, where Onni, who was one of the first people to have jumped through the hole, still hadn't even managed to get his head above the surface of the water. I remember first feeling the water sift around me, and then submerged bodies pushing against me on every side, and then I remember being pressed against the stairs for a moment, then jostled free again, back in the direction that we'd just come from as the water subsided, carrying our limp and tired bodies with it, strewing us randomly throughout the gangway.

  When I shot my head above the surface, I could hear Onni gasping and coughing, choking out bouts of seawater. Mikkel, who must have been closest, was trying to steady himself enough to pat him on the back, doing nothing for the water in his lungs of course, but showing, at least, that he was concerned.

  We could hear a strange thundering, which was probably a wave breaking over the deck again, and we all braced ourselves for the next impact, which didn't seem to come. And in that pause, some of us looked at each other with blank expressions and then looked away, as if we were all waiting for something without knowing what that something was.

  It's interesting to think that we might have all drowned in the gangway during the night, had cowardly Niels not opened the door of his quarters to vomit on us. When he flung it open, some of the water from the gangway drained into his room, seeming to lead us there in some bizarre way. He puked, his hands gripping the doorframe, and we all watched him without an inkling of sympathy. When he was finished, Knut was the first to crawl through the disgusting debris that was bobbing on the surface near Niels' legs, and had soon disappeared into the relative safety of the room. We all followed; Niels, recovering quietly, wiping his mouth and blinking at us as we passed.

  The next swell that we struck closed the door, the water swishing from one side of the room to the other, and our bodies bounced off of the berths and against the tight walls that seemed to be everywhere. The lantern in the room had gone out, and our world was suddenly completely void of perspective and shape.

  We felt our way from wherever we'd landed, and crawled onto the bunks, huddling in heaps of bodies, finding what corners we could. And just as we all seemed to have found a place, there was another impact, which caused one or two people to fumble to the slippery floor again. We could hear them floundering desperately to get back onto the beds, but all of us, being blind, and raking the darkness with our searching hands to try and help them, couldn't.

  I heard someone else vomit, though maybe it was only Niels again.

  Finally, the last person crawled into place, and we all reached out to hold him there, a collection of limbs netting him in. There was a strange stickiness to his skin, which made me assume that it was Aimil.

  Another impact. The ship groaned loudly, crackled. No one fell back onto the ground again, and this meant that we'd all found a stable hold or stance, which seemed to be the most important thing at the time, though I'm not sure why.

  From what I could tell, everyone was touching someone else - someone's hand on my arm, someone curled against my back - and I don't think that all of the contact was just for the purpose of collectively bracing ourselves, either; there was something else in it. Maybe we wanted to be reassured, or maybe we just didn't want to die alone. It's hard to say.

  Another impact, only this one was more forceful than the last. I heard someone gasping for air, probably because he'd had his back against the wall and had the wind knocked out of him.

  Judging by the sounds and sensations, the storm was right above us; the movements of the ship were becoming more sporadic, more violent, and the noises that it was making were louder, sounded more painful, damaging, and below these noises we could hear the water in the gangway rushing from one end to the other faster than it ever had before.

  I felt our bodies flex. We held our breath. I think that we were all waiting for some kind of sign that would signify the end, something that would let us know that the structure of the ship had finally reached its limit, that it was finally splitting apart and about to spill us out into the sea. And those of us who were waiting for that moment thought it had finally come, when, suddenly, it felt like the room jumped, then twisted, and we could hear an ear-splitting noise even above the thunder and surf, and the growling of the ship; and it was a very different kind of noise, one of bending metal and cables twisting undone, shrieking, screaming before they snapped. And then, it felt like another ship smashed into our side and was scraping along the gunwales. All of us must have been looking around, waiting for the room to collapse, waiting for the sound of rushing water to break through the darkness. But nothing came.

  After a few minutes of waiting, I started to notice that the movements of the boat had become very different, slower, almost sluggish. I breathed a sigh. It occurred to me what had made the horrible sounds; it was the mainmast breaking.

  Of course, we weren't safe by any means, but at least we wouldn't be crashing into the swells anymore, damaging the ship more severely with every blow. And this meant that if the storm didn't get any worse - and as luck would have it, it wou
ldn't - then we just might make it through the night after all. I wasn't relieved; it was just that I allowed myself to become distantly hopeful for the very first time.

  I could hear someone whimpering in front of me, and this soon turned into muffled crying. I didn't know who it was, but I could certainly understand them. The person who was touching my arm spoke. "Hey, it's okay... it's okay. The sail's gone. We might make it through now." It was Mikkel, always gracefully filling in the gaps that I left open.

  I wanted to thank him; thank him for being everything that I wasn't, or at the very least, thank him for saving my life. And knowing then that it was his hand touching my arm, I reached over to his shoulder and squeezed it tightly, then patted it gently, twice. But Mikkel didn't react. He didn't shift or turn his head, he didn't mutter a word or a sound, nor did he even squeeze my arm in return, which would have been the subtlest reply. Nothing. And I didn't understand this at first, though felt sure that he was trying to communicate something.

  I remembered once asking Dana why we didn't have money on the island, as was the case in all of the historical cultures. He said that, mostly, it was part of our collectivism, and then, which was very strange, he smiled this dry smile and told me that, regardless of our not having money, human beings would always find some form of reciprocation, and that the island had simply found other currencies in place of coloured paper and precious metals. Of course, he didn't mention what these currencies were, but that was the least important part. The important part was about reciprocation.

  And while we braced ourselves for hours in the jarring blackness that night, I considered Mikkel's reaction - or lack thereof. Until eventually, I came to understand what he was trying to say. This was his way of letting me know that he had absolved his debt, that from that moment on, we were even.

  * * *

  21

  I had always imagined that if a person narrowly escaped death, they would be stronger afterwards, more complete; I thought that such an event would empower them in a way that no other experience could. But I was wrong. And maybe this was only due to the fact that we hadn't survived because of anything we did, or as the result of any special skill we had - we were alive because of pure dumb luck. I remember there once being a storm on the island where most of the tallest trees on the northern shore were blown down and only a few straggling survivors were left. Of course, there was no reason for the remaining trees to have been spared; they weren't special in any way, weren't stronger or more robust, and they certainly hadn't been 'picked' by some higher force, they were only fortunate to have grown in the right spot, that as chance would have it, would be sheltered from the squall's random and powerful winds. And standing on the deck the next morning, we must have looked just like those trees; battered, swaying timidly above the wreckage of the night, numbingly blessed.

  We didn't say much. In fact, the only sound that I remember hearing was the sea smacking up against the hull, and the water still sloshing around in the dark gangway where we'd come from. We fanned out across the deck, our legs delicately stepping over irreparable debris, as if the tangle of cables and splintered wood might be damaged even more by the sound of our footsteps. And after inspecting everything at our feet and in our periphery, one by one, we raised our heads, some of us mouthing silent curses to ourselves.

  The mainmast had given way at its lower third, and some of its rigging still drooped sadly from its remains. Of that rigging, we could see that most of the stays and cables had stretched, frayed, or completely snapped, while the bolts and clamps that had once strengthened them, had been stripped, bent, and sheared. The damage was stunning. Eventually, as if with a serious weight, our heads sunk back down to the deck, and we continued walking through the rest of the spoils. Yet, after we'd toured the whole ship and seen the long list of destruction first hand, I was amazed to see that there wasn't an all-out panic spreading throughout the crew, and I was incredibly thankful for this, as I wouldn't really have known what to do with it if there was.

  I remember Toivo picking up a piece of cable that wasn't attached to anything and throwing it overboard. We all looked at him, awakening from our stricken trance. I was happy he started it; it was time to begin cleaning up whatever we could. Dana and I had talked a lot about what to do in complex situations that involved several problems. He'd repetitively taught me that the best thing to do was to take one problem at a time, systematically, from the most urgent to the least; so as was natural enough, we started with the water in the hull.

  It was an enormous job, and we took shifts manning the only pump that we had while everyone else gathered every bucket we could find and formed a human chain up the stairs to bail the water out manually. Some of the crew, like Toivo, and Aimil, whose blood-caked face had been cleaned and bandaged, worked much harder than the others, so I called on Onni, who had done very little, to clean the galley and reorganize it, and also to prepare us some food in it once he'd finished.

  The grain must have been one of the last things that he checked and reorganized, because we'd almost finished with the water, chasing it into corners and scraping the buckets along the floor, when Onni stepped into the gangway with the news. "The grain is ruined," he stated flatly. We stopped to look at him as he held out some of the starchy seeds as evidence. It was wet, and seeing as it was obviously out of the question to spread it out and dry it under the grey and drizzly skies, and knowing that it was extremely susceptible to going off in the first place, it seemed that he was right: we'd have to throw it away. "But that's not all," he continued, once we'd absorbed the first blow, "There's lots of other stuff that the water's gotten into as well." Then he turned away from us and walked up the stairs, stepping to the rail and dropping the handful of grain into the sea, brushing his palms clean afterward.

  The panic, that had until that moment been absent, or was at least being kept at bay, began to surface in the form of people swearing to themselves under their breath. Mikkel smoothly interjected before it could escalate much further though, and as he spoke, I couldn't believe how buoyant his tone was, almost as if he were having fun with the news. "It shouldn't be too much of a problem. We can live for ages on fish alone. Besides," he nudged Aimil to get his attention and nodded jokingly toward Onni, who was coming back down the stairs, "it saves us from having to eat that grainy slop he makes." He smiled and winked at Onni, who gave an embarrassed simper, while the rest of us broke into forced snickering. The grain, which made up about two-thirds of our diet, was gone, which, all things considered, wasn't really much to laugh about. I searched through the expressions of the crew for signs of genuine worry, and noticed that they were there. I also noticed a strange look on Toivo's face, and hoped it wasn't because he'd thrown away some of the fish we'd caught.

  "Aimil, we still have the two fish that you and Niels caught yesterday, right?" I asked.

  "Mm-hmm" he affirmed, looking even sillier than usual with the massive white bandage slashed across his face.

  "And that's what I cooked," said Onni, "But besides those fish and a few spices, there isn't much we can use."

  "I see. Well... let's check everything again just to make sure. Knut and Niels, go with Onni and help him out with that, and Toivo, Aimil, and Solmund, you go and rig some fishing lines. I imagine we'll have to keep them rigged from now on to feed eight people without the grain. Meanwhile, Mikkel and I will finish up with the water here. We'll meet in the galley once we're all finished, okay?"

  I noticed that they all dispersed a little reluctantly, which I didn't like. I wondered if I was going to have to remind them that I was still the captain, even though Mikkel had taken over for a bit during the storm. I thought about mentioning this to Mikkel while we were alone, but he'd quickly leaned in and started whispering about things that were much more pressing than the wavering line between captain and first mate, which only made me feel stupid, again.

  "How far will the engine take us?" he asked. I could barely hear him his voice was so low.

&n
bsp; "What do you...? Mikkel, we can't use the engine. It's only for getting us into port, and who knows what other kind of manoeuvring we'll have to do once we reach land. Remember: the bay we're heading to is supposed to be incredibly sheltered - meaning no wind well out to sea. And it's not like we can expect to use it now, and then again later; it isn't exactly the most reliable machine. Mitra warned me that we'd probably only be able to start it once. I mean - the fuel inside the tanks is ancient, stale, and we've had to add a lot of distilled alcohol just to improve the chances of it working. And besides all of that, and the fact that we'll be running on what is most likely the only refined fuel we'll ever come across in our lives, the tank is only an eighth full."

  "And...?" he persisted, becoming impatient, "How far exactly will that amount take us?" I gave him a look that illustrated how ridiculous I thought he was being. He continued, "Look, you're the only person on this ship that has a working knowledge of the engine. So... answer me, please. Do you know how far we can get with it, or not?"

  "I have no idea." I too, was becoming impatient. "Maybe half a day... a day. I don't really know. Why?"

  "Because...' he shook his head at me, amazed, "because, as you saw with your own eyes, the only thing left to propel the ship is a foremast with no rigging. If we can't figure out a way to raise a sail, we'll have to dash to land in whatever way we can. That seems clear, no?"

  I sighed. "Well... yeah. Look, let's just talk about this later, okay?" I turned and walked away from him. What I wanted was hours of time to think things through. Everything was happening so fast, and it's always been the same for me: absorbing events is one thing, but knowing how to react to them is quite another. I decided to go check on the grain with everyone else - as if that were needed.