At the Midway (45 page)

But at least he could watch
men
hit each other.

From the exposed bridge, he could see the ring that had been erected next to the boat deck.  His lips raised a grin.  Well... Ensign Garrett had come out.  It would do the captain's bones good to see him thrashed.

Slowly, however, his grin began to fade.

He had been adrift for over a week.

The sea gulls had adopted a cockeyed way of looking at him.  After the third day, William Pegg could have sworn they were the reincarnated voices of dead shipmates.

"You wanta cause trouble, boy?" one bird croaked.  Captain Chandry was easily recognizable among his fellows.  A gull covered with dung from crown to back, he swaggered, cried, and fell down at improbable moments.  He occupied the bowstem as if it was his own, and rarely shut up.  "You're a fucking mutineer, boy.  I shoulda locked the fo'c'sle door and let the smoke take you.  Goddamn, that was something, seeing you choke and puke.  You should be the one covered in shit, not me."

"Ah..." William moaned, and covered his eyes.

He had not been able to save all the duff.  When the whaleboat was tossed from the Lydia Bailey, the clumps of dough were scattered across the centerboard.  In the heat of the following day the dough rose and baked, the yeast emitting an imperceptible hiss as it fermented inside the loaves.  By the time William opened his eyes late that morning, the gulls had swooped down and stolen half his supply.  It was their insistent bickering and flapping that awakened him.  He watched them argue with each other for several minutes, bemused.  Then the reality of his plight hit him and he scrambled madly to rescue the remaining loaves.

Chewing on one of the gooey lumps, the paste nearly choked him, prompting him to investigate his water situation.  It was dire.  In his haste to escape, the purser had only managed to get one small watercask on board.  Half full, at that. 
How many days, at how many thimblefuls
? William wondered.

There was no question in which bird the the purser was reincarnated.  A particularly large gull with a permanent smudge on its chest was a master thief.  He waddled up tamely with a friendly smirk, leaned forward confidingly, then suddenly darted to the side and snatched a dumpling.  Angered by the bird's duplicity, William leaped forward.  A tug
-
o'
-
war ensued, the soggy dough stretching out between them like warm taffy, until it broke and the sea gull tumbled overboard.

The boy laughed until his sides nearly burst.  First the duff sauce down the cargo well, and now this!  There was no end to his vengeance against the man who'd stolen his books.  An eternal crusade, as well it should be.  And now what?  Should he lure the reincarnated thief closer, catch him by the neck, and cut him open?  It would be interesting to see if it was the absence of a heart that made him so heartless.

For that matter, bird meat might not be so bad.  Raw, but more substantive than a continuous diet of duff.  But the gull refused to co
-
operate.  No matter how much William baited, cajoled, or jumped, the purser, as well as the other gulls, always managed to elude him.

Well, if not fowl, then fish.

He went through the larboard boat becket and supply chest.  Taking out one of the waifs, he used the end of the boat spade to pry out one of the wires stapling the flag to the pole.  Pressing the wire around an oarlock, he shaped it into a hook, making a rough loop on the straight end.  After an hour's labor, he managed to split five yards off the heavy whaling line.  He fine
-
tuned the end and fit it through the gimlet he'd made in the wire, then attached the other end of the line to the drag pole.  He was able to use a toggle bearing from the harpoon as a weight.  But he had only duff bread with which to bait his hook.  He could only pray that there was a fish out there with a yen for Portuguese.

Sushi.  He would have sushi.  The thought made his mouth water and kept thirst at bay, for a while.  He'd never had raw fish before, but he'd heard of the Japanese delicacy.  They even ate raw heads.  Something red, dripping, filling... he could hardly wait.  Lowering his line, he peered over the gunwhale and whispered to the depths, "Please come, fishy... you love me, don't you, fishy?"

Just like the gulls, as the days progressed the denizens of the sea began to unmask themselves as reincarnated souls.  But they remained anonymous, their song the murmurous chant of the multitude.  They knew William had recognized them for what they were.  This annoyed them, because they considered it the ultimate fall from grace to come back as a fish.  They avoided his improvised tackle out of spite (as well as a justified repugnance for the duff offering).  Why should he be allowed in the sunlight, while they were compelled to lurk below?

But the sun was the very thing that was killing him.  It had sucked every breeze off the planet, it seemed, leaving William in the wide, searing doldrums.  "Come with me, into my furnace," it intoned as the boy tried to cover himself.  Day lasted forever.

And the sea refused to rock him to sleep.

And the duff sauce caked and cracked on his skin.  He would not clean it off.  It would be his only protection if the monsters returned.  It also appeared to keep the gulls at arms distance
-
-
he was fearful they would pluck out his eyes as he slept; at least, he had heard such a thing happening to other castaways.

What was wrong with the fish down there?  Certainly, there had to be one in all the ocean that found duff appealing.  If he could catch a bird, cut it up for bait….

William Pegg did not know that in addition to thirst, inadequate food and exposure, he was suffering from a concussion incurred when his head hit the gunwhale on the
Lydia Bailey
.  The catcalls and insults of the gulls were every bit as real to him as if Captain Chandry and the purser themselves were hooting from the bow.  The hallucinations were beneficial, in a way, since they helped take his mind off his gut
-
wrenching nausea.

Even more distracting was the ancient bird with tattered feathers that landed in the water next to him and stared at him long and hard.  Lead Foot, who else?  Bobbing on the waves, he began to murmur something.  It took William half the day to discern what he was saying.

"Happy Easter….  Happy Easter....  Happy Easter...."

"Why'd you tell me that story, Lead Foot?  Those people trapped on that island, starving, eatin' each other up
-
-
what a thing to talk about!  Like a bunch of savages have anything to do with us.  You won't catch white men eating each other
-
-"

"Not you, leastwise," Lead Foot the gull blinked.  "You got no one to eat!"

"Aw…."  He reached for an object to throw at the bird and found himself holding something green and furry.  Duff bread, already gone to mold.

"How many days?" he said, staring at the green mass.

"Those Easter Island people were so hungry, they ate anything.  That's the good thing about being human, boy.  You can eat anything."

"Hell, I'm not going to eat this!" William shouted, heaving the clump at the bird.  He missed its head by a yard.  The gull swam over, gave it a disdainful sniff, and allowed it to sodden and sink without touching it.

"Should know better than to throw shit at your old friend," the gull pouted.

"I want to die, Lead Foot.  I feel so sick."

"Hmmm… what're you fishing for?"

"Anything I can eat."

"Must not want to die too bad.  What're you using for bait?"

"Don't ask."

His back ached from being pressed against the planks so long.  He leaned forward, resting his chin on the gunwhale and hanging his arm over the side.  His shadow peered back from the unreflective water.  He needed sleep.  Removing the line from the drag pole, he bound it to his wrist.  He watched the tiny concentric ripples that pulled away from the line in tiny guppy breaths.  He tried counting them and dozed off with thoughts of infinity.

A sudden jerk woke him.  At first he thought he'd made a strike
-
-
his hand had been pulled into the water.  Half over the gunwhale, he thanked the stars he had not fallen in.

But something was wrong.  Staring down, he noted the tiny ripples had turned red.  Lifting his arm, he was horrified to find his hand was half gone.

His scream was cut short.  Something streaked out of the water at him.  William rocketed back and slammed into the bottom of the boat.  The shark just missed biting his head off.

"Oh God
-
-
!"

The pain shot through him like a needle in the eye. There was a thump as the shark slapped the centerboard from below.

"My hand! You took my hand!  Bastard!  You bastard!"

And then another beating wave of agony hit and he screamed and screamed.  Water flashed over the gunwhale.  The shark had an idea of tearing through the planks.  But after a while it gave up.  William Pegg was left alone with his agony.

Truly alone.  Because the pain wiped out all fantasy, illusion, hallucination.  The gulls
-
-
when they returned
-
-
no longer spoke.  The sea no longer sang.  Everything was sharp.  The horizon cut like a razor across his nose.

But the salt that burned so fiercely also helped stop his bleeding.  White powdery
-
looking salt formed leprous patches on the wound.

Several fingers of his right hand were gone.  His thumb remained, but the muscles at the base had been torn out, making it useless.  His palm was cut through at the center.  The miracle was that the shark had not pulled him overboard.  To William's thinking, though, that fact was a tragedy.  Things were so clear now.  He lived on a shining blade, stropped sharp and clean by godless simplicity.

"My hand…."

Three days after the shark attack, a week after the sinking of the
Lydia Bailey
, the Fates decreed William Pegg should live.

The
Florida
hove into view.

Midshipman Beck was not overly fond of the taste of blood.  The last time he'd tasted this much was when he'd fallen off the back porch at his aunt's house in Troy.  While he was still spitting out rubies of phlegm, his mother put him over her knee and gave him the walloping of his life.

Ensign Garrett was not his mother.  Nor was Beck any longer afraid of him… for Garrett was slowly picking himself off the deck after a solid roundhouse from the middy.  In spite of the taste in his mouth, he was beginning to feel rather good.

The fight had gone badly for him up to this point.  Garrett displayed remarkable speed as he danced around his opponent, landing blows at will.  The spectators were unable to disguise their sympathies.  Officers cheered and ratings moaned.

"Pick up your feet, Beck!  Stop moving like an elephant!"

"
Try
and hit him, at least!"

Beck tried, and received two jabs in the side of his head as Garrett whipped sideways like smoke in the wind.

It hurt... but not as much as Beck had anticipated.  Surprised by how lightly the blows fell, the midshipman realized he could go a number of rounds at this pace without serious harm to himself.  Studying Garrett's jaw, he decided he needed only one good shot.  Just give him enough time.

It happened late in the second round.  Garrett, unscathed, became cocky and tried trading some toe-to-toe with Beck.  Practically a gift.  The midshipman took full advantage of it.

As a consequence, Garrett went sprawling on the deck.  It took him two tries to make it back to his feet.  Officers urged him on with wild shouts as he wobbled toward his opponent.  The rest of the bluejackets fell uncommonly silent.  They championed Beck, yet it was... odd... seeing Garrett flattened so succinctly.  And their instincts raged.  What would be the consequence?

The ensign shook his head, then came on again.  He now knew better than to test Beck on his own flat-footed terms.  But when he tried returning to his previous style, he found the blow had robbed him of some of his speed.

Flick... flick... flick....  He tagged Beck again and again.  The spectators were impressed by his comeback.  Beck himself was appalled.  He'd never had an opponent get back up to fight after taking the kind of head shot he'd dealt Garrett.  He felt a little queasy.  What was happening here?  Still, Garrett had slowed down some.  The midshipman's chances of hitting his target had improved.

"Go for his head, Beck!" the bluejackets yelled, swinging back into the mood.

Beck discovered he was having difficulty seeing out his right eye.  It was beginning to swell shut.  He did not have as much time as he'd first estimated.  If he didn't finish soon, he would be blinded, completely open to attack.

"Ooo-wah!" the crew exulted as he led with a whistling right.  Garrett managed to parry part of the blow, but there was a wicked crack.  Some were sure a bone had been broken.