by Richard Bell
Chapter 5
The second morning after the captain was struck down we awoke to a pink-streaked dawn of almost deafening stillness. I’d lost track of the days of storm we’d endured, but now all around to the furthest horizons, the slick, greasy water lay flat and littered with scraps of limp foam. The becalmed sea stretched as flat as paper, while overhead a few tattered clouds chased each other through a silence more eerie and unsettling than the storm.
I attempted to help with the bailing and addressing things on deck, but my inexperience and weakness led someone to suggest I look to the captain’s wounds. He hadn’t been touched since being carried to his cramped cabin. The storm had been ruthless; clothes, belongings and nautical instruments were strewn in disarray across the floor. Afraid of infection by the captain’s ill luck the sailors wouldn’t visit. Despite their obvious concern I was the only one who had even checked on his survival.
Unresponsive and pale, his breathing was shallow and labored. It seemed obvious he was nearing death; under the slipshod bandage his half-exposed wound was swollen, red and hot. The falling mast had crushed both shoulder and arm, splintering bones and leaving a wound that gaped from ribs to hip. His single blessing was unconsciousness. Even with doctors and medicine such an injury could not be survived. His only hope was quick and painless liberation, to avoid this human pain.
His wounds emitted a strong sweet, putrid smell, oozing bubbles from deep within. I nursed those with influenza, but knew next to nothing of care for the injured. With nothing else to occupy myself, I took on his care. I rebound his wounds, rolled him from his urine soaked pallet and carefully arranged his limbs on a piece of canvas. After bathing his dry, hot skin and cooling his head with damp rags, I returned his tiny cabin to some semblance of order.
Such nursing was an appropriate task for a priest. Life itself was often little more than waiting while adjusting to life’s turns. While priests are taught to accept death’s inevitability, lay folk often find it unsettling. On the bulkhead of his cramped cabin was a scroll of Ma Tsu in her red dress and box-like imperial hat, holding her tablet and staff. Remembering that Quan Yin herself was said to have chosen her gender, my mumbled prayers addressed her as I served our captain. It was clear he would not recover. The knowledge lent a kind of freedom. Serving him would present few challenges.
I whispered the sutras for the dying into his ear, urging him to abandon the natural human struggle for security and existence here among life, suggesting he accept his passing as a natural part of his path. Impermanence is difficult for us all, but accepting it is freeing. Accepting that the end of life’s brief flicker is difficult. The only difference between my own death and the captain or anyone’s is which moment it occurs. In reality even generations are but moments.
As I puttered in the captain’s cabin, a wisp of drifting smoke caught my attention; a fire had been re-kindled. Someone was making tea and perhaps cooking. It had been well over a week and the simple homey smell lured the rest of us from our duties. One by one we gathered. I sat among the sailors simply to listen to human voices. We’d been blown far from trade routes and our vessel was damaged beyond repair. We’d lost all reasonable chance of survival. But we desired being close and sharing.
As an outsider among the sailors I squatted to a side, listening to their awkward discussion of what should be done. Without the captain making decisions, there was confusion and uneasy dithering over whether to turn back or continue on.
Suddenly the helmsman spat a frustrated oath, rose and stalked to the stern where he unlashed the rudder and called out orders to pull in our sea anchors and re-set sails. Without comment, the others responded and our stubby vessel slowly swung about.
Re-lashing the rudder on a course back toward China, the helmsman gave a satisfied shrug. No one muttered a contradictory word. There was no way to tell if it would make any difference, no way of really knowing which direction would be best. But for that moment, simply having a decision made was a triumph. With our vessel crippled and knowing nothing of navigation, there was little else to do. For good or ill, we were now headed back toward home. The faces about me seemed less strained. There were even a few tight smiles about the small brazier. I doubt if any of us had hope of survival. We were simply grateful for human contact and our rationed cups of tea.
We shared small portions of millet and tea. It was my first cooked meal since leaving Nan-Hua, but even more important to me was that I seemed to be accepted by the sailors. Our moment of simple existence was enough to bridge the gap between us. We savored that companionable silence as the last of the food was divided. Then with our last drops of tea had drained from our cups, we returned to our tasks without comment.
But well before sunset black clouds were again massing in the west and the wind and sea switched back to a fearsome natural force. Well before dark we were forced to again turn, drop our sea anchors and run before the wind. The returning tempest even drained the helmsman’s will; stone-faced, he relashed the tiller and quietly turned away. Darkness dropped abruptly and the storm regathered itself, its rage returning with a vengeance that begrudged our brief respite. Forced eastward again our slim hope of home was dashed.
The next morning, I found the Captain’s body cold; mercifully, he’d never awakened. Though knowing he was failing the crew was surprisingly distraught at his death. With the storm raging I would have waited, but wary of the ill luck from having a body on board, they demanded an immediate funeral. Quickly sewing the canvas about him, they carried him onto the deck.
I knelt amidships beside the corpse, bracing myself against the swells. Seeking focus, I chanted the sutras, but halfway through, our hastily repaired rudder gave way and we swung about and flooded by a cresting swell.
I leapt to save myself without a thought of priestly duty, clinging to the rigging against the sucking water. A minute later, when the ship was righted and the deck had drained, the captain’s body was gone.
I argued vehemently that we’d performed the ritual, but the sailors were inconsolable. “...an omen.” the sailor-cook wailed. The man beside him collapsed into gasping sobs. The rest of us looked on in silence.