The Choir Boats (27 page)

About the only uplifting diversions, besides the dolphins, were
Isaak’s prowess at rat-catching, and Sally’s stabs at Yountish.

“
Na tisk
,” she would stammer. “No, no, it must be ‘
Na trisk murrash
em’na nahosh, saroo
. . .’ Hold on, I’ve got it. ‘. . . s
aroo ba ballibash’na
dewawrinni
.’”

“I venture to say, Miss McLeish,” Reglum would say. “That you
are gifted with languages.”

Sally curtsied.

“However,” he would add, to general laughter. “You’ve just
informed us that ‘It rains on my house when the cheese is high in
the sky.’”

Sally would laugh too, until she realized how much James
Kidlington would have delighted in this sort of play.

“Chum-sist-chuss-pink-pink-pink,” went the Fulginator hour by
hour. “Weeeoow-zuss-pink-bedum-dum.”

“The concentric lembus in quadrant 37.f shows positive apertures
and the planar shift in quadrant 108.d is correlative,” Dorentius
would mutter.

Sally understood them both. What she did not understand were
the place-names assigned to the coordinates in the charts.

“‘
Eswarroo Cha
,’” she spelled out in the concordance. ‘A sea that,
that does not flow, that does not move’?”

“In a manner of speaking,” said Dorentius. “We might call it the
Gelid Sea. Like the doldrums in Big Land, only worse.”

“Worse how?”

“The sea in that place engulfs ships, drowns them with ooze.”

Seeing Sally’s look of horror, Dorentius said, “I do not intend to
take us there! We are headed instead — if the Fulginator calculates
the probabilities true — to a place that we could call the Opalucent
Shoals in English.”

The Fulginator calculated correctly, and soon the
Gallinule
navigated a series of shoals, easy to mark from the milky colour that
gave them their name. The fog and the voices in the mist were gone.
The
Gallinule
steamed through placid water, with its Small Moon a
source of comfort and the dolphins tirelessly leading the way.

The dolphins became agitated on the third day in the shoals.
By the time Barnabas and Sanford came up on deck, the dolphins
danced on tail-tip backwards, chittering to the
Gallinule
’s crew. All
eyes and ears strained for the next hour as the dolphins noised their
alarm without pause.

The sea changed abruptly. It boiled. All around the ship it boiled.
Staring down dumbfounded, Barnabas could make out shapes in the
water. All around him the crew was shouting in Yountish. Nexius
took time only to yell at Barnabas and Sanford, “Carkodrillos!”
Reglum, racing by, added, “Dart-fish!” Neither name enlightened
the McDoons much, but they had no time to think, so it did not
matter.

Hundreds of fish had erupted, thrashing and roiling the surface
of the sea. Hard to see in the churning, they were as long as a man,
some longer, entirely silver with large plate scales and obsidian eyes.
Each had a long, needle nose and a mouth with many teeth. They
swarmed the ship. Nexius gave orders. Fencible teams ran to the
rail-mounted cannon, and tilted them so they faced nearly straight
down into the frothing mass below. Barnabas and Sanford did not
need to know Yountish to know Nexius was calling out, “One, two,
three . . . FIRE!” The fusillade of grapeshot hit the sea with a huge
noise. Using mittens, the Fencibles lifted the expended cannon off,
mounted the next cannon, and fired again. And again. And again,
reloading as they went so they could keep up a nearly continuous
fire. The sea was bloody and dozens of ripped fish bodies floated
astern, but the attack continued. Over the din, Barnabas and Sanford
heard a sound from the hull as if the
Gallinule
had hit rocks. Thud,
thud, thud it came, an irregular pattern not at all like the constant
chugging of the steam engine.

Thud . . . thud, thud.

Nexius and the ship’s captain bellowed more orders. Some of
the Fencibles and most of the sailors peeled away from the railing
and flung themselves below. Barnabas and Sanford watched the
remaining Fencibles reload, and decided they could be more use
below decks.

Thud, thud . . . thud.

They jumped down the steps, and kept going to the bottom deck.
Men (thud!) moved all (thud!) around (thud!) them in the dimness.
Thud! Lanterns swung crazily, so it was hard to see. A knot of men
wrestled something that protruded from the wall. A dart-fish had
thrust right through, and was snapping and whipping its head
around, seeking to enter entirely. Another one had pushed its way
up through the floor. There were others. Shouts. Snapping. The
silver scales and the eyes, wet, gleamed from the lantern light.

Barnabas saw Reglum’s lead assistant, jaw clenched, wade into
the fray wielding a marlinspike. One of the dart-fish leaped into the
hold, followed by a gush of seawater. Its flanks were shredded from
the copper sheathing it had pierced, but it had accomplished its task.
Now another hole was opened, water pouring in at two places. The
carpenters ran up, fighting the power of the water, holding prepared
planks and oakum, trying to plug the holes.

Suddenly, right at Sanford’s feet, a Fencible cried out and fell. A
dart-fish, whipping its body around, had slashed his thigh. Blood
spurted, and the carkodrillo wriggled frenetically to open the
breach that its body blocked. Without thinking, Sanford scooped up
the fallen man’s cutlass and threw himself on the fish. The thing’s
head caught him sidewise in the hip but its mouth was nearly closed.
Even so, Sanford felt his flesh sliced and knew without feeling it
that blood was washing down his legs. Sanford hurled himself at
the carkodrillo again. He almost severed its head with his cutlass. It
died with one last bucking motion, effectively closing the hole it had
opened. The thudding stopped.

The carpenters had covered the gaps, though both leaked heavily.
Three dead dart-fish extended into the hold. The fallen Fencible
received treatment. Sanford looked down at his bloody self and the
bloody cutlass (a deeper red than his, but red all the same). Barnabas,
who wielded a cutlass himself, was at his side.

“Sanford!” yelled Barnabas.

“I need to eat more goat-meat,” said Sanford, clutching his leg
and slumping against the wall. “Another layer of fat would have
been useful.”

“Come on,” shouted Reglum. “Get these men to the sick-bay!”

A few anxious hours ensued, as the A.B.s (who were also the ship’s
physicians and surgeons) saw to the wounded.

“Glad tidings,” said Reglum. “Mr. Sanford is made of very sturdy
stuff. His gash is ugly but clean and not as deep as first feared. We
have had him sewn up tight.”

“Praise the Lord,” said Barnabas, adding (because he felt it could
not hurt under the circumstances), “And the Mother too. And, no,
no, old friend, you cannot get up yet, not for a few days. In the
meantime, we’ve arranged for an extra goat’s-meat pie for you!”

“The cannon decimated them,” said Reglum. “But they were
routed by the dolphins. The dolphins slammed into the carkodrillos
from behind, battering them to death. Caught between the dolphins
and the guns, and with the ship moving faster than they are
accustomed to, the dart-fish withdrew.”

“Thank goodness for the copper sheathing on the ship’s bottom,”
said Barnabas.

“Yes,” said Reglum. “Without it, the
Gallinule
would be on the
bottom, and we’d all be a meal for the carkodrillos. But the captain
says, copper or no, those
keemkulish
punched five holes in our hull,
and we are taking on water. We need to put in to dry-dock or else we
will not reach Yount. He has asked Mr. Bunce to plot us a course to
Supply Island.”

The
Gallinule
reached Supply Island with several feet of water
in the hold, despite pumping round the clock. Supply Island had a
deep-water cove. At the head of the cove, ringed by hills, were several
buildings, like barracks, and a dry-dock facility.

Soon the
Gallinule
was in the dry-dock, the holes in its hull
being repaired. The ferocity of the carkodrillo attack was plain to
see: besides the five punctures, the hull was scored and buckled in
dozens of places. Sanford was not alone in once more thanking the
Yountish Royal Marine for sheathing ships in copper. The captain
and the sailors would be at least two days making the repairs
and reprovisioning the ship. Dorentius and his
equipe
would be
calibrating and triangulating all day too. Sally wanted to stay and
help the fulginators but Barnabas would have none of it.

“Come on, Sally lass,” he said. “The fulginators can handle their
own affairs for one afternoon without your help. See, Mr. Bammary
has invited us on an excursion. Damn glad to get off this tub and
stretch my legs.”

Reglum said to Sally, “Please do join us. This island has an
interesting history. Oh, and bring your cat if you wish!”

The island was quiet, the sun was warm, the hills the colour of
those above Funchal, Sally thought with a jolt, wishing again that
James Kidlington could be with them, and hating him because he
could not be. That decided her: she needed to conquer her mood.
After all, she was a McDoon of Mincing Lane. With a platoon of
Fencibles, Reglum, Barnabas, and Sally walked up the hill away from
the dry-dock. The air was very dry and warm. Even the Fencibles
were breathing hard as they reached the top of the hill. Beyond were
several downs, one after the other. They were forced to walk at a
leisurely pace, being never able to draw a full breath.

“Mr. Bammary,” puffed Barnabas. “I wonder at this exertion.
There seems to be insufficient air.”

“You are right about that,” Reglum puffed back. “One always
feels light-headed here, and not in a pleasant fashion either.” The
grass was like sisal and crackled under their feet. The wind rattled
the seed pods of the few shrubs that could be seen. Their eyes stung,
their ears popped as they plodded inland.

Barnabas said, “You mentioned this island had an interesting
history. Seems rather barren to me. What has happened here to
make it worth the knowing?”

Reglum called a halt, welcomed by all, to respond. “We discovered
this place over sixteen hundred years ago, about the time in your
world that Marcus Aurelius defended Rome against the Germans.
Though, of course, at the time we discovered the island, we knew
nothing of Marcus Aurelius or Rome at all for that matter. For
sixteen hundred years, we have used this place as a supply dump
and advance camp, stockpiling provisions. Not long ago we built the
dry-dock we use today.”

Barnabas interrupted. “But you do not populate it?”

“No,” Reglum shook his head. “The island will always remain
unpeopled. For one thing, as you have sensed, the air here is poor.
People could not live here long before anaemia and lethargy overtook
them. Even fire does not burn as it should here; it smoulders rather.
But there is another reason. Come, I will show you.”

At the top of the farthest down, they looked at what Reglum
had brought them to see. A town was stretched out below them in
a valley, large enough to house perhaps ten thousand souls. The
streets were neatly laid out in rows, with squares and courts, here
what looked like a cathedral, there what might be a guildhall. Sally
felt her spirits rise at the sight of the creamy honey-coloured stone
under the pale wide sky.

“But no,” she said to herself. “No sound, no movement, no smoke
from chimneys . . .”

“It looked like this when we found it sixteen hundred years ago,”
said Reglum. “We have charted and measured every building, every
street. Sages have written volumes on individual buildings, arguing
that this one contained communal baths or that this one was a
market hall. Whatever force holds time at bay here is unknown to
us. There is no decay in the stone, nothing crumbles. Three other
towns are on the island, all as deserted as this one. Men and women
lived here. We have found mosaics. They had dogs and cats for pets.
They tilled the earth, enjoyed the grape, sailed in ships. All gone,
without a trace, leaving their towns untouched behind.”

Sally looked at Isaak, carried in a basket, and thought:
The
disappeared had cats for pets!

Not knowing she did so, Sally drew a small square in the air with
her index fingers, over and over again. The words of Ezekiel came
into her mind:
“An end! An end has come upon the four corners of the
land. Now the end is upon you, I will let loose the anger upon you . . . When
I make you a city laid waste, like cities that are not inhabited . . .”

“Gone, just vanished it seems,” Reglum gazed at the city, as if
some clue to the mystery might be in plain sight but overlooked
these past sixteen hundred years. “No physical calamity struck. This
is not Pompeii as discovered in your world. Nor do we find any sign
of strife or any disturbances of bones — in fact, we find no bones at
all except in graveyards. Many believe that the inhabitants of these
towns found their little island transported here by an event like
the Great Confluxion, maybe by
the
Great Confluxion. So here they
would have been, just this one small island encircled by howling
death, a few towns surrounded by the mists. It may be that the
inhabitants came down to the beach one day and, holding hands,
walked into the sea and drowned themselves.”

The Fencibles who understood English made the warding sign
and whispered, “
Kaskas muri ankus’eem
.” Sally did the same. Reglum
turned away but they heard him. “Only conjecture, of course. It’s
why most of us call it Ghost Island instead of its official name.”

That evening they dined ashore. Sally asked, “This island is the first
one we have encountered that holds even traces of human life. Have
you met no others, besides those of us from Big Land?”

The Yountish officers put down their forks. For once, Reglum and
Dorentius looked at one another to see who should go first. Reglum
nodded to his Cantabrigian rival.