by David Bell
The carpenters found one or two joints that needed work but weren’t too bad. What I found under the water put a more serious look on their faces. About an arm span from the stern on the larboard side and about the same amount below the waterline a joint had sheared and the strake ends had started out leaving way for water to get in as it liked. Once she was righted the hole wouldn’t be so deep down but it would have to be repaired as soon as could be: strake ends would have to be cut back and a new timber scarfed in and pegged, but that couldn’t be done under water. Skipper says very well in that way he has, it has to be plugged somehow. Use cloth and rope ends and whatever else you need. She’ll need patching over outboard and inboard with double-strength sailcloth until we can get her somewhere to careen her. Now, then, he says to me, are you ready to take a look in the hold. The lord said I was to take turns with Sharesh and we had to keep a line tied around our waists. He would keep a hold of the other end himself.
Sharesh went under first. We had to take out some jars that were floating about in the water before he could see where to go down. He came up spluttering and said a lot of the crates and boxes had shifted aft and were piled up on top of each other and hard against the ship’s side. He didn’t think many were broken open but he could feel some ingots with his feet. The lord asked him what about jars and he said he hadn’t had time to see about them. Then I went under. I couldn’t see a thing. I had to use my hands and feet to feel what was there. I did feel lots of jars and not many broken. I reckoned there were more ingots spilled out of the crates than Sharesh had found. There wasn’t much doubt about it; she was down at the stern because the cargo had shifted and she was flooded as well. The last thing the lord asked was how many jars there were, full or empty.
The skipper called everybody together and told us what had to be done. First, every man was to eat his daybreak food and drink his water. Because we didn’t have much left, we would get one cup in the morning and one at night. Work would go on until noon and then every man would rest, in the shade of the ship or in the water, whatever he chose, unless he had a job to do that couldn’t wait. Work would start again at daybreak. The cargo had to be unloaded and brought ashore and a lot of sand digging done if the ship were ever to be set afloat again. The lord chimed in after the skipper finished. Pray if you want to, he said, and work because you have to. We are not going to leave our bones or the bones of our ship bleaching on the Libun shore. Anyone who wishes to leave may go now. We all laughed at that.
I was diving again before long, helping the carpenters stop the hole near the stern. I was lucky to work on the outside. For Sharesh in the hold it was much worse. He had to work in the dark and when he came up for air it was hot and stale. I finished before he did and went to help out. The carpenters gave us wads of cloth and rope teased out into threads that we kept stuffing into the hole until we couldn’t force any more in. A lot of it floated out until at last we got the knack of tangling it on the splinters to make it hold. The worst part came after that when the sailcloth patches had to be fixed. You try it. First you have to bore the holes for pegs that you use to fix the cloth to the timbers. I’d never used an auger before and believe me it’s not the easiest thing to do underwater when you can only hold your breath for so long. When you’ve finished the holes, it’s a two-man job, one holding the cloth in place and the other making a hole in it for hammering the peg through into the hole bored in the wood underneath. You end up nearly drowned and with most of your fingernails blackened. That’s another thing: try hammering under water. Can’t be done. You have to hold a bronze punch on the end of the peg and force it in bumping it with a big stone. We used a piece Kerma hammered off one of the anchors. We had to stop long before it was noon. We couldn’t go on any longer. In the hold we just couldn’t make it work because we couldn’t see. In the end we gave up and just hoped the patch on the outside would last until the hold was baled out and the inside of the hole could be seen and patched over. It took two days for us to plug and patch that hole. Only then could the baling start.
It’s easier for me to talk about it now, but I can tell you we nearly died trying to get that ship back in the water. We could only work when the sun went down and, while we weren’t working, all we could think about was water. Two cups a day isn’t much when you’re heaving ingots of tin out of stinking water in a dark hold and handing them up to somebody on the deck, or if you’re the one carrying them ashore and piling them up on the beach. They get hot in that sun, you know. We had to shift three hundred ingots and four hundred bars of tin metal. The heaviest job was the five crates of tinstone. The wood had got wet and looked like breaking, so the tinstone lumps had to be shovelled out and taken onshore in buckets and the crates taken apart for the carpenters to put back together again when they dried out. There were other things as well, like all the jars, big and small, empty or full. I can’t remember what else now, except the barrels of salt fish. I’ll never forget them. Skipper said they had to be kept, never mind how they stank, because that was about all we had left to eat, apart from what Leptos and Leptos could catch. All that on two cups of water a day, mind you. It couldn’t last. Everybody was getting weaker all the time. And all the time we were thinking even if we do get her back in the water we have to carry all this lot back and stow it in the hold, again.
The lord and the skipper and the archer captain never seemed to sleep, even though they did their fair share of the carrying. They sat talking most of the night. I tried to listen but I usually dozed off before I heard much. My ears did prick up when I heard the skipper say the water was running out and we might have to drop to one cup a day. We could try catching more fish: that had water in it. Not enough, the lord said. Better use up the wine. It gives life a more interesting end. I didn’t like the sound of that word ‘end’. Then he said something I could hardly believe. He said he would go with Luzar and look for sand walkers. They knew where the water was. Funny how the others didn’t ask him if he was serious. But you don’t ask the lord that. Anyway, when I woke up in the morning he was gone and so was Luzar.
With all the cargo out of her the ship was as light as she was going to be, so it was time to get her back in the water, if we could. It would have to be soon. The patch was holding but she was still taking in water, likely through strained seams, so baling had to go on. Once she was afloat, the cargo would have to be reloaded as quickly as we could do it and a place found where we could careen her before she flooded again. That would mean shifting the cargo and ballast to heel her over enough for the carpenters to get at the hole. We might even have to get lines on the mast and heave her as well. I wondered how we were going to do that, in our state.
We knew what to do. We’d done it often enough. On the word, haul, haul on your lines, shove, shove with your hands, shove with your back, your feet, any part of you that could shove. She wouldn’t move. Again. And again. Rest, have a blow, then again. She was fast, bow tilted too high. How to bring it down? Dig, that’s how, dig the sand away. The heaving and shoving had taken away what was left of our strength. Everybody tried digging but it wasn’t enough. The skipper could see it and told us to stand down. Wait for night and try again. I saw some men just flop down on the sand. Their mates had to drag them out of the sun and into the shaded side of the ship. I tried to make my cup of water last but you can’t when our throat’s on fire. Suck your pebble. It stuck to my tongue. Don’t think of water. How can you think of anything else?
Was I dreaming, or was the skipper really talking quietly to the archer captain, saying that if the ship didn’t move next time it never would because the men were too weak? Whatever it was, we didn’t try again that night. We drank our last cup of water and lay back, waiting for the morning. I was dreaming. There was a camel walking slowly along the sand towards the ship. Behind it was another. Three men walked beside them. One was limping a bit. The skipper went up to the man who was limping and took him by the hand. Somebody said something and the camels kneeled down and settled
on the sand, doing a lot of snarling and groaning. The men started taking things off the camels’ backs, lots of long sagging bag things. A bag was handed to the skipper. He shook his head and gave it to Kerma. Kerma lifted the bag high and poured water from it into his mouth. Luzar and the lord had found water and brought it back for us. It was not a dream. Typhis woke up the crew and everybody drank. We had to have more. A jar was filled and kept for the morning. The empty waterskins were strapped onto the camels’ backs. Myrtias and Luzar went this time. How could Luzar go back into that furnace a second time? Off they went, away into the Deshert with the sand walker who owned the camels, to bring back more water and the Deshret swallowed them up. When morning came we moved the ship.
How did they find the sand walkers? I don’t know. I don’t know how Luzar does the things he does. And the lord, well, he just does what he says he will, and that’s it. He did say something to Sharesh and Sharesh told me. He said they found the sand walker sitting in the Deshret with a cloth covering his head. He was sitting beside a hole in the sand. It was a well. They asked him for some water and he gave it to them. You have to do that, the sand walker said and no, you could not take payment. The lord asked the sand walker to keep a bronze dagger safe for him for when he came back to that place. They have no bronze in that country, only flint. The sand walker said he would do as he was asked. Luzar and Myrtias came back with him and his camels loaded with the waterskins after a night and a day. I watched the sand walker go away into the Deshret. He was sitting on one of his camels and leading the other by a line. He never looked back. In the Deshret they say the man who has water is like a god because he has the power of life and death. That’s what the lord said.
The water gave us our strength back, or at least enough of it for one more try. It was dawn. I’m sure I saw the skipper offering a prayer to the Lady Mistress of Oceans before he joined in the work. Everybody took hold on a line or put a shoulder to the strakes. Kerma and three others who knew how to use a shovel stood ready to dig. Typhis glanced at the skipper and then yelled the commands. Dig! Heave!
The four diggers scooped out the sand from under the bow near the water’s edge as fast as dogs delve for rabbits. As they dug, two other men swept water into the holes with boards, washing the loosened sand away and deepening the hole. Typhis bellowed for another heave and by the Lord Potheidan I felt the ship move. She stopped. Typhis went mad. He howled like a devil, heave, you useless buggers! Do you want to stay here forever? Heave! She wouldn’t shift. Kerma flung down his shovel and leaped at the bow. He put his shoulder against the cutwater timber and shoved with all his strength. I saw his eyes bulge and the veins stand out in his neck like ropes. She moved again, more this time. The lord came round from the other side where he had been pushing. He shouted to us. You, you, you, he shouted, jabbing his finger at a dozen of us. Get on board, all of you; run down to the stern when you hear the helmsman’s call. Dig, heave, run, all together!
It shifted weight to the stern, not much, but enough. I heard Kerma give out a great cry as he and the lord put their shoulders to the timbers for the last time and I saw the head of Lord Potheidan’s horse lift up. A line snapped and sang past my face but I didn’t care. The Davina slid back through the slurry of sand and froth and into the waves. We watched her sitting on the water as dainty as a girl at her wedding but we had no breath left to cheer. Somebody, Myrtias, I think, began to laugh and soon we were all laughing like fools. Not the skipper: he raised his arms up to the sky and then out to sea. That night Sharesh played his pipes. Everybody was happy again but we were too tired to dance.
The carpenters lashed timbers together for a makeshift raft to float the ingots and other cargo out to the ship and the work of loading her again began. This time we kept going, never mind the sun. Nobody wanted to stay in that awful place any longer than they had to. We’d moved about half the metal when the skipper and the lord came over and stopped the work. Skipper said she was down by the stern again because of the weight of the water she was still taking in, together with the metal. Somebody at the back said leave the rest of the metal where it is, on the shore. Before the skipper could say anything the lord put on his look and said, ‘listen all of you, listen to me. We have not been a hundred and forty-three days on this voyage and lived through all the dangers that challenged us to fail now in our purpose, turn into cowards and abandon our prize here in the Deshret. I will never do that. I will never allow you to do that. We are all going back to Keftiu with a full hold and this is how we will do it.
‘I’d never have thought of it. You know what he did? He had us tight seal all the empty jars we’d lugged ashore and take ‘em back to the ship and strap ‘em on low down aft. They helped keep her afloat, see, when we set off in search of somewhere to make repairs. He’d have made us empty our bowels if he thought it would help. I know that. Lucky for us we had a light wind and a gentle sea so we didn’t have to.
‘I needn’t tell you about how we found a sheltered place where we could shift the load and careen the ship; I’ve told you how that’s done. After she was baled out dry, the carpenters did their job and we did ours, Sharesh and me, caulking the seals again. It took about four days to get her shipshape and seaworthy again and the water was running short by the finish. When we put to sea again we kept as close to the shore as we dared, eyes skinned for signs of a river, or a valley where there might have been one. First night out we had the star dead ahead of us and the smell of the Deshret still in our noses, so the skipper decided to sail on. Next day we had mountains in sight off the starboard bow beyond the yellow dusty plain and they were green. They were green! There had to be water there. The crew shouted for the skipper to put in and find it. They must have known he wouldn’t do that: the mountains were too far away. I was at lookout and I saw the coast was turning away to starboard. Skipper had seen it as well and he must have reckoned those distant hills would come down to the sea.
‘That night the star was on our larboard beam. When the sun rose next day, it came up fine on the larboard bow, soft and shimmering in the mist. Mist! The yellow haze that made your throat rasp had gone. Mist: it lay low on the sea, hiding the shore. Sharesh was sent up the mast. He didn’t give a proper lookout’s call. He just said words – cliffs, trees, valley. His voice was hoarse. Like the rest of us he was too thirsty to talk properly, but his words were the best we ever heard. The skipper told Typhis to steer starboard, dead slow, then lift oars, bow and stroke to paddle and hold her. We waited for the mist to clear.
‘There ahead of us was a bay with clear blue shallow water and a narrow sandy beach, then some cliffs of yellow-and-white-layered stone with a valley cutting through and boulders piled up where it opened onto the beach. The skipper ordered Typhis to take us into the bay and drop anchor. He said a flood must have carried the boulders down the valley and dropped them on the beach. The flood was long gone but, halfway up the valley in the shade of an overhanging rock, was a pool of clear cool water. By the time I reached it Luzar was in it up to his neck. Waterskins and jars could wait. The whole crew flung themselves in, gulping, splashing and ducking each other. Round the fire that night we decided to give it a name because it had saved our lives. We called it Davina’s Pool. Captains ranging that coast ought to know about that pool. Sharesh made up a song about it, I can still whistle the tune, if you like, but I’ve forgotten most of the words.
‘We set sail next day with all our jars full and a net packed with birds caught in the woods on top of the cliffs. Further along the coast we left the green hills behind and caught the smell of the deshret coming offshore again. I got the idea the lord knew where we were going. I heard him saying things to the skipper about bays and headlands we were passing. Two days after leaving Davina’s Pool, we turned into a bay that had an arm of land sheltering it from the sea. It wasn’t anything to sing about, just sand and brown rock and we’d seen plenty of that, but it was a safe mooring for the night. We had to break up a couple of crates to make a fire fo
r the fish because there wasn’t a tree or a bush in sight. I was glad to sleep onshore again, next to the fire. There’s nothing better than that and watching the stars. I remembered Naudok saying he knew how many there were. Why I believed him, I don’t know, but I still do. I was nearly asleep when I heard some voices talking low. I sat up and saw the lord walking away into the Deshret. You can’t mistake him. He’s so big and he has that bit of a limp. You can’t mistake Kerma nor Luzar, either. They were following him.
‘They were back in the morning with some others, three men, one old, from the way he walked, and two maybe younger: they were covered up in loose clothes, even their heads, so you could only see their eyes. They were sand walkers, sure enough. The lord sent me to ask the skipper to come ashore. He should hear what these men had to say but their god wouldn’t allow them to set foot on a ship. Sharesh and me were able to hear what was said because of being lookouts. There was a fair bit of pressing palms together and bowing heads and sipping water and then the lord said these men had saved his life when he was lost in the Deshret a long time ago. Now we could save theirs. Their goats had been stolen. He would give them enough silver to buy more. He named a price and the skipper looked a bit surprised. I was wondering what was going on and then the lord said these men, his friends, knew what course we should set for Keftiu. Was that not worth much silver? I was so excited I wanted to shout and rush about and tell everybody but the look on the lord’s face kept me quiet and standing there. After more courtesies the sand walkers went off into the Deshret with the lord following them, still talking, and seeing them on their way. The skipper said we would sail as soon as he returned. I’ve never seen a crew move so fast to get a ship ready for sea.
‘What else can I tell you? Yes, I know the thing you really want to know, but I mean about crossing the dark sea to Keftiu. I’ll tell you what we did; it won’t take long. We put to sea at midday with the sun astern. When it got dark and we saw the star, we altered course to starboard and followed it. We did the same for the next day and night. When morning came again Sharesh was at lookout. He kept getting shouts from the crew: could he see land. No, he said, not yet. We could hardly bear waiting but Typhis kept us at it. Then came the call everybody wanted to hear: land! Land, fine on the starboard bow! I never heard a sweeter call. We were coming home. Not my home, I didn’t have a home, except the ship, but Keftiu would do.