The Pirate. Christopher Wallace
as his discomfort and the lack of air began to bite. The darkness under the water he could have expected, the silence he did not, nor the relative peace this granted from the cacophony of storm and bellowed orders above. Of its own, aside from the cramps and giddiness he was beginning to feel, this was almost worth staying under for.
He had kicked to return to the surface when his left hand ran through what he thought was a mop. Instinctively, he stayed to explore the immediate area surrounding it, in case what he had touched was a scalp. He was floating horizontally and his by now frozen fingers met the texture of more wood, more canvas, more ragged splinters that had once been proud veneers; then shockingly, something less rigid – a substance, a shoulder, an arm, a hand that he squeezed with his. Martin tore blindly at the wall that seemed to have pinned down the components of the torso he had discovered. Was it his imagination or had the other hand sought his, had it pressed his palm in a feeble attempt to signal that Martin’s help was needed? He pulled on the rope with urgent vigour, hoping that those above would themselves take its fluctuating tension as a sign that they too should join the effort to free those trapped below. He was running out of air and knew he had to return to the surface, trailing his arm in the darkness a final time in order to deliver a departing handshake, a simple physical gesture that could perhaps impart a more complicated hope; I have found you, I won’t forget you, I will get you out. He kicked again for the surface.
As soon as his head was above water, the sound of pandemonium returned. Martin tried to shout as he regained his short breath. He had returned to the same scene as before, men vainly trying to empty the hold one pail at a time. The difference in the waterline was negligible and it was beyond belief that only one man held the rope that could be another man’s saviour.
‘He’s alive … For Christ’s sake pull him free, all of you, we cannot let them die like drowned dogs!’
‘Steady with the bailing, men … Master Bosun, can you feel any response to the pulls on the rope?’
The bosun looked blankly at the captain. Martin would later wonder if he had actually heard the question above the rain and wind. The lack of a ready answer seemed good enough for Captain Henry.
‘No response. You have found nobody with your antics, Doctor. The men will bail out the hold as ordered. You will join us on the deck now, sir, at once if you please.’
‘There are two men down there. I have touched one, he is still alive … I beg you, Captain, give the order to haul them out, all hands at once!’
Something in the way he had said it, rather than what he had said, made the men halt their labours. His voice had been that of reason, bereft of anger, fear or even any hint of consternation; it had simply said what had needed to be said. This was the first time Martin would learn that men will listen to a calm voice rather than an imploring one.
‘On deck … now, sir!’
All except the captain would have heeded his call. Martin gave the slightest of nods to the skipper. I have heard you. He raised his knees and ducked his head under the water again, kicking and pushing, diving down with his arms in one fluid movement.
Captain Henry confined Martin to quarters once he finally climbed out of the hold and returned to the deck. He went back to the hammock where he had been sleeping only hours before. The same hammock, the same cabin, the same ship. Yet everything had changed.
The bodies of the two young deckhands originally sent down – Jim O’Rourke and Peter McGill – were recovered just after daybreak. By then the storm had subsided and some of the water in the hold had seeped out of the ship of its own accord. Once the Anne began to sit higher in the water this process moved it faster than any army of buckets could ever have hoped to. In hindsight, the crew realized that the sudden flood had stabilized the loose cargo better than poor Jim and Pete would have managed, however heroic their efforts. May they rest in peace. Their bodies had looked battered and beaten when eventually retrieved, limbs had been broken and twisted in the struggle that must have ensued in the chaos of the dark below.
The two men were wrapped in coarse calico cloth and dispatched back to the waves that had killed them the evening before, the skipper obviously deciding that the longer they stayed aboard, the more their presence might adversely affect crew morale.
In accord with the tradition that dictated all men be present when the captain conducted the funeral rites, Martin’s curfew was briefly withdrawn to allow him on deck.
‘… Harrison, Jones, Kennedy, Cooper, Smith, O’Rourke, McGill …’
Captain Henry’s voice as he read out the list of the dead was steady, strong and authoritative. As if, thought Martin, the presence of the Bible in his hand granted him the right to speak on behalf of God. The God whose will it was that the men be lost so tragically in the night to the storm. The same God who was to be thanked that he had spared the Anne.
‘… Praise be to God. Amen.’
The weather was kind that morning; calm, a gentle breeze working its warm air through the ship’s sodden timbers, effortlessly blowing the wet sails dry. A blue sky arched above the gathering of men on the dot on the sea like a cathedral roof. Somewhere, at some point between the madness of night and the tranquillity of the dawn, the boat had been slipped into Paradise.
So it was that the captain read out the names to a sun-filled morning, those names being uttered together in the ceremony and thus united for eternity; as crew, comrades, and victims of the tempest. Martin listened and knew that this was the history as Captain Henry would record it in his log for posterity. He would write how, under his stewardship, the steady progress of the Anne had come to an abrupt and unfortunate end when confronted by a rage of unimaginable power. How, under his command, the men had held their resolve despite daunting odds, had remained steadfast, protecting cargo and vessel, a testament to the discipline captain and crew displayed when faced with the most severe of tests. And with his own hand, pondered Martin, Captain Henry would exonerate himself from any blame attached to the deaths of the men under his command. O’Rourke, McGill. Drowned aboard ship. A strange history. Left to die in order that the cargo be protected, so that their bodies could become buffers for the more precious goods being transported, the ones Captain Henry had ordered be stacked in such haste at the outset of the voyage. They had died so that the captain’s authority could be maintained in the face of impertinence from the lower ranks. Harrison, Jones, Kennedy, Cooper, Smith. Ordered to remain on deck so as to defy the waves that might claim them whereas lesser captains would have had them serve no immediate purpose and stay in quarters. O’Rourke, McGill. Drowned aboard ship. Bodies as cargo. Never again, thought Martin. Everything had changed.
Now let me introduce a great influence on my life, someone who has floated in and floated out, probably without ever realizing the effect he was having. Someone of whom I thought warmly, until recently, very recently; although when I reflect in any kind of detail on the past, I realize he is consistently linked to the very worst decisions I have ever made. Someone of whom now, when I’m trying to remember from whatever memories I have of him, I realize I know nothing at all. I mean, I can tell you what he looked like, how he looks now, the few things he said when I first met him, and the way he finds it impossible to say anything without employing a drop of his languid shoulders to add whatever nuance of irony or malice is required for his pronouncements. All this I can tell you, but what strikes me in doing so is that every attitude, belief or opinion I thought he had is exactly that – those that I thought he had. Because Jérome never gave anything away, at least willingly, and maybe that’s what drew me to him in the first place. This would be back in the heady days of my donut-selling spree at Camp Les Acacias. I had never met anyone like him before, anyone so aloof, so distant, and yet so in tune and central to the mood of the moment. His was a presence that rock stars spend years perfecting; of the people but removed from them. At least, that’s the way he struck me. The doubts came later, too late, that my adulation could be misplaced. You see, I had been raised in a world of certainties, knowing my place in a cheerless family living a cheerless life in a damp and cheerless corner of a cold and cheerless country. Still, the future was there for us to grasp, if we were ready with the grim application required