Thieves of the Black Sea. Joe O'Neill
half believing that the boy he saw was real and not a dreamlike image of his old friend, Aji.
His mind was still confused.
The old woman then appeared with a tray of fresh fruit and more pitchers of water. She opened a large tin of aloe vera, which she applied to their faces and lesions. Immediately their skin felt cooler.
The boys eagerly shoved pieces of orange and watermelon in their mouths and gulped glass after glass of fresh water.
“So, you must be Tariq,” came a bold voice from behind them.
They turned as a big man appeared in front of them—the same man who had been on the mast with Fez. He was large, but not fat—all bone and muscle. His face carried the look of a boxer, while the gleam in his eye gave a hint of a rogue and a gypsy. His posture and voice suggested that he was a man of some authority on the boat. A soft black beard covered his square jaw. His right ear was deformed and resembled a gnarly mushroom.
“You speak Arabic?” Tariq asked.
“Yes, of course I speak Arabic. I also speak Greek, English, Turkish, Spanish, French, and a smattering of Russian. It sounds like you’ve all had quite an adventure! Another ten minutes and I don’t think we could have saved you.”
Tariq approached the man and extended his hand. The man smiled and shook it with massive hands. Tariq thought the man might break his fingers, his grip was so tight.
“Thank you for saving me and my friends. May I ask your name?”
The man laughed.
“Ah, I always appreciate a boy with good manners. I am Captain Scopas and this is my boat—the Osprey! As your friends may have explained to you, this is my clan and we live on the sea, traveling by boat from port to port. That is my mother, Helen, who took care of you. You met my boy Panos and his shark, Lako. Quite a story, eh?”
“I’ve never heard of a boy swimming with a shark before,” Tariq answered, who was mesmerized by the man’s deformed ear.
“In the Greek Islands, where I am from, it’s not so uncommon. Many of the village boys would swim with sharks. Ah, the world is a wonderful place, is it not?”
Captain Scopas laughed and hugged Tariq. Tariq felt like a mouse being squeezed by a python.
He let go and noticed Tariq staring at his ear.
“You’re wondering about my ear, eh? I was wrestling with a Russian and this happened—he popped my entire ear and blood went everywhere. This Russian was so afraid of blood he fainted on the spot and I won the match. Ha! That will show those damn Russians, who think they wrestle better than anyone.”
Tariq was embarrassed for staring.
“I’m sorry, it’s just…,” he tried to explain
“No need to explain. Tonight, we will prepare a feast in your honor. I must attend to my duties, but, please, enjoy yourselves. We dock at Constantinople in four days’ time if this wind holds up.”
“Constantinople?” Tariq asked, suddenly remembering his dream where Melbourne Jack told him to find a panther in Constantinople.
“Ah, you’re wondering why a proud Greek such as myself would set foot in Constantinople with the dreaded Turks? Well, I have some unpleasant business to attend to, my friend, that’s all I can tell you.”
Captain Scopas suddenly turned very serious and then disappeared below deck.
“What did he mean by ‘the dreaded Turks’?” Aseem asked.
Fez and Tariq shrugged their shoulders.
Tariq couldn’t help but feel as if he were in a dream. He recalled the voice of Melbourne Jack in his head, telling him to find a panther in Constantinople—and now a sea captain was telling him that’s exactly where they were headed.
He took another drink of water and ate some more orange slices.
Inez couldn’t move or talk. Her hands had been tied behind her back and her feet were bound together in front of her. A dirty cloth had been stuffed into her mouth.
Her head felt like a sack of cement.
Two burly and dour German men stood in front of her smoking cigarettes, studying a map, and occasionally giving her an angry glare.
Inez’s long red hair was caked with blood and dirt. Just fifteen years old, she’d recently gone through a growth spurt, and her gangly legs and arms ached as the rope dug into her skin. Her brown eyes, wide with terror, studied the men as they glanced at her. She breathed heavily, almost hyperventilating. For the first time in her life, she felt helpless.
Once, she had gone rabbit hunting with her father and they had laid a steel trap with turnips and carrots. Half a day went by, and when they returned, they found a hare in the trap, the steel teeth gripping its left leg. The terrified hare had tried to scramble and break free from the trap’s teeth, but the steel pressed deep into its skin and wouldn’t release. The animal screamed in fright as they edged closer to it.
Inez remembered what it felt like to grab the hare by the scruff of its neck, and how it looked at her with such fear. As if it knew it was headed for certain death.
Inez felt like that hare—trapped and horrified, and completely at the mercy of her captors.
The last thing she remembered, before waking up with her hands and feet bound, was spying on these same men from up on a hilltop. Then everything had gone black. One of the men must have snuck up behind her and knocked her unconscious.
The men clearly weren’t happy, as they kept arguing in German, scratching their heads, and pointing at Inez, until finally they put the map away. Two of the men picked her up—one at her armpits and the other at her feet—and threw her into the bed of a truck that was covered with a cloth canopy made from heavy cotton and held up by steel girders. She landed hard on the steel grate and it stung her back sharply. The truck reeked of oil and gasoline and the bed was a mess of rust and mud.
Looking up, Inez saw one of the men stare intently at her with such evil that she shuddered. He screamed something at her in German and waved his hands, motioning for her to move to the back of the bed. Complying, she scooted until her back felt the hard, cold steel.
Satisfied, he flicked his cigarette at her.
The truck’s engine roared to life and soon rumbled along the dirt road. A similar truck tailgated so closely behind, Inez could see the growth of the driver’s beard.
The two trucks drove away from the farmhouse and away from her school and the safety of her home and friends.
Inez had never felt so alone.
Rain slapped down on the tent roof like the pitter-patter of thousands of pairs of little feet.
The night was especially dark, as the sky was filled with thick, gray clouds. Strands of water fell from the sky to the dirt below, forming huge mud puddles on the battlefield, which was now a temporary encampment. The blood of thousands of fallen warriors created red streams that seeped into the earth.
Zijuan slept fitfully in her tent when the dreams came to her.
A boy swimming with a shark.
A faraway city.
An old book of some importance.
A black panther.
A sea captain with a beard.
Then the images changed, and she saw Melbourne Jack sitting above them, almost floating, smiling in an angelic haze.
She tossed in her sleep as more images filled her mind.
A city, gray with smoke,