The Ocean of the Dead: Ship Kings 4 Page 12

  *

  But plucking the survivors from the sea was only the beginning. Then somehow accommodation had to be found for them all, by the hundreds, in a ship already full to capacity. And food must be prepared for everyone, for no one had eaten in days. And bedding must be produced from somewhere, and dry clothes. And all of it amid darkness and confusion and children crying . . .

  It went on long into the night. Throughout, Dow allowed himself no rest, moving endlessly about the ship, overseeing the litany of tasks, comforting those bereft, calming those in panic. It was vital that he be seen, he knew. He was the man all these people had chosen to follow, in whose special fate they had elected to believe. In catastrophe and terror, they needed him.

  He must show that he was not bowed.

  Time and time again he spoke words of reassurance to crowded cabins and passageways, packed with staring faces, though afterwards he could not recall what he had said; the memory-making part of his brain seemed still lost in its Miasma daze. Not everyone paid heed: he saw anger in many eyes, and doubt of him. But he could not let himself be swayed by that doubt. He must portray nothing but conviction, act only with command.

  No one else seemed capable, not that terrible night. Normally, Dow would have relied on the likes of Fidel and Jake and Boiler – but they were not themselves. They seemed dazed, unsure, robbed of their usual confidence. And it wasn’t just shock from the loss of the Snout, Dow saw, as he spoke with them in snatches amid the chaos. They would have been proof against that. Rather it was the Miasma. Their experiences in the green cloud had done something to each of them, damaged them in subtle ways.

  Jake Tooth, for instance, had woken from the Miasma madness to find himself in the Snout’s galley – his ship sinking, already beyond saving. He was drenched in blood, but not another’s, it was his own. The whale’s tooth that had been embedded in his brow was gone, he had gouged it out with the aid of a kitchen cleaver. Of the tooth there was no sign, but its removal had left a hideous wound in his skull, bound now in bandages, and had left Jake himself stripped of his name and very identity.

  Boiler Swan on the other hand had woken without any wounds at all. But his fists were swollen and sore, and when he gazed at the many bruised and beaten faces among the survivors from the Snout, his eyes would drop in shame. A gentle soul at heart, for all his great size and strength and ferocious red face, in the Miasma it seemed he had become something monstrous.

  And Fidel, scholar, lover of learning, had woken in his own cabin, sprawled amid the upturned tables and smashed equipment of his laboratory, and the ashes of his entire library, a hundred books and more, all burned; ancient, many of them, and irreplaceable all. And to judge by the burns on his hands, and the locked door, he himself had wrought the atrocity.

  So while these three did what they could to help, an essential vitality in them was lacking. If strength was going to come from anywhere to hold the Chloe together through the disaster, then it must come from elsewhere.

  But the worst absence was Nell.

  Dow had not yet spoken with her since the Miasma. She was unhurt, he had been assured, but instead of helping in the crisis, even to act as nurse in sick bay, she had retreated to their cabin, and would not come out. Nor could Dow allow himself the time to go to her. The ship’s demands outweighed all others.

  But her abdication staggered him. Why was she hiding? They were partners in command here. The crew needed to see that both of them were unbowed. He could read it in the gazes of those he spoke with. Where is our scapegoat? Why does she stay away? But even though Dow sent her messages, pleading, still she refused.

  Thus it was that Dow was left to struggle through the awful night with no strength to offer the Chloe but his own.

  Nevertheless, as midnight came and went, and then the second and third bells after midnight, he felt increasingly confident that he was winning the fight. The mood across the ship was calming as more and more people began to sleep, packed though they were in storage holds or sprawled on open stairways. And if they could just survive this night intact, Dow felt, then they could survive the next day as well. And the day after that.

  Weariness tugged at his eyelids as he roamed the ship, but he would not sleep. He sent his commanders off to rest one by one, Fidel, and Jake, and Boiler. But he must stay awake. If it was his will alone that was holding the Chloe together, then he would maintain that hold till dawn.

  Then, just after the fourth bell had sounded, while descending a stairway between two lower decks, Dow happened upon Magliore.

  The poet was crouched on an upper step, presiding over a small crowd below, men mostly, from the Chloe’s crew. ‘I won’t say I wasn’t fooled,’ he was telling his listeners as Dow came near. ‘They talked up this New World of theirs, back in Stone Port, and I was as eager as any to bid farewell to the Old. But now I’ll get down on my knees and kiss the sand when we get home again. If we get home, that is, which in this state is no sure thing. What is our captain thinking, taking on so many folk? We’re too crowded, there’ll be riots before long for food, you’ll see. People will need to be put off. It’s hard, but I don’t see why it’s our fault the Snout went under.’

  Through Dow’s exhaustion an instant fury blazed. ‘If people are to be put off,’ he said, advancing down the stairs, ‘I know who’ll be the first. And who said anything about going home? Our course lies south.’

  Magliore jerked about and gazed up at Dow, surprised but undaunted. ‘South? Still? Are you mad? We must turn back.’

  And whereas ten hours ago Dow might well have admitted to this possibility, now, in his bright anger, there was only denial. ‘We will not. And I’ll have any man locked up who speaks otherwise.’

  ‘You can’t do that!’ rejoined the poet. ‘We’re all free men and volunteers on this ship.’

  Hot mutters of agreement came from the men lower on the stairs, but Dow only swept them with a withering glance. He returned his attention to the poet. ‘Don’t tempt me to try. I don’t care about your freedoms. My only concern is to get this ship across the Doldrums, and there’s nothing I won’t do to ensure that.’

  A rebellious voice dared to call from below. ‘Nothing? Does that include murdering an innocent man?’

  Dow flushed. Murder? He had not seen who it was that had spoken, and the faces below were now all shuttered tight. But he realised that he recognised several of the men there – they had been with Nicky when he had discovered Dow in the bilge. That meant they knew all about the dead man Samuels.

  Magliore was gazing down in amazement. ‘Murder, is it? Who said that? Talk to me now – what murder?’

  ‘There was no murder,’ Dow said, but all his anger and surety was gone. He felt sick, his head swimming. ‘I did nothing wrong, I—’

  A hand clamped abruptly on his shoulder. He spun, only to find Fidel. ‘Dow,’ the old commander said, ‘could I see you in private for a moment?’

  ‘What?’ Dow swayed on the step. Another wave of nausea took him, and for an instant he wasn’t sure where he was or who he was talking to. He glanced back down at Magliore. ‘I . . . this man was . . .’

  ‘I’ll deal with our poet later,’ Fidel promised him. ‘But for now, come away please. Out to the open air.’

  As quickly as it had come, the dizziness was gone, and Dow felt only serene self-assurance once more. Magliore didn’t matter, rumours didn’t matter, even murder didn’t matter. It all lay secure in fate’s hand. So he nodded calmly, and went with Fidel, leaving the poet behind.

  Once they emerged to the main deck, however, Fidel addressed him seriously again. ‘Dow, listen to me. You’re not yourself. Go to bed and sleep, please. Leave things to the rest of us for a while.’

  Sleep? No. Dow could stay awake like this forever. He shook his head. ‘I’m fine, Fidel.’

  ‘No, Dow, you’re not. You have energy, yes, but it’s of a feverish type, it’s a mania. You are not thinking clearly. The Miasma poison has affected you more than most, I
think. You need a proper sleep.’

  ‘We were all poisoned the same, you as much as me.’

  ‘Again – no. The cloud lingered longest in the bilge. You were still breathing the spores for hours after those on the upper decks were free. Trust me, Dow. Go to your cabin, go to Nell, and rest.’

  Suddenly every sinew in Dow’s body was aching. Suddenly he could scarcely keep his eyes open. To lie down, to sink into bed at Nell’s side, to see for himself that she was unharmed . . . it was irresistible.

  ‘An hour or two, then,’ he mumbled to Fidel. ‘An hour or two, but no more. Have me called at sunrise.’

  The dizziness was back. Fighting it, Dow strode woodenly off towards the stern castle. Yet when he threw open his cabin door, he found that Nell wasn’t in bed after all. She was sitting up in the darkness, curled tightly in one of the armchairs, staring at the window. She did not greet him as he entered, and said nothing as he sank into the chair opposite. Her face was hidden in shadow, but lamplight from the window fell on her arms and hands, and he could see the scars on her skin.

  There was no blood. They had not torn open.

  ‘Nell?’

  She shifted then, and the light fell on her face. And in his first shock Dow made note of a strange thing: down in the bilge, Nicky had withheld the truth from him. He had said that Nell was unharmed, unchanged. But he hadn’t mentioned her eyes. They were changed – all blackened, and swollen as if from hours of weeping.

  ‘I’m sorry I couldn’t come to you,’ she said at last, and her voice was hoarse, as raw as her gaze. ‘I truly am. You shouldn’t have had to deal with all that on your own.’

  Dow faltered. ‘It doesn’t matter now . . .’

  She returned her stare to the window. ‘But I wouldn’t have been any use anyway. I can’t face those people. Not like this.’

  ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘I can’t lie to them. Not after what I’ve seen.’

  ‘You mean in the Miasma? I saw things too. I saw you bleeding. But it wasn’t real, Nell, not any of it.’

  ‘Not what you saw, maybe.’ She shuddered, tears starting suddenly. ‘But what I saw . . . it was real. I saw my dreams, Dow. I saw my nightmares. All of them. All the visions I could never remember.’

  Dow sat back. ‘You mean . . .?’

  She smiled, but the dread did not leave her eyes. ‘I even knew you were alive, when the others couldn’t find you. I didn’t know where you were – but your death . . . that isn’t to happen yet, not here, not now.’ She laughed, awfully. ‘It’s not dying that either of us needs to fear.’

  ‘You’re making no sense,’ Dow protested, a chill inside him. ‘The Miasma poison must still be in your blood.’

  She shook her head. ‘The poison is gone. And it raised no madness in me in any case. I only slept, and woke where I’d fallen. Unharmed. Except that when I woke, I woke to the full memory of my every nightmare from this year past – and I was right all along, they were visions of things to come.’

  ‘Then it’s true?’ Dow breathed. ‘You see the future?’

  Doubt creased her features. ‘Yes . . . but not as if written in a book. It’s . . . different. One of my first dreams, I remember it clearly now, was about the Snout sinking. But the vision didn’t show the ship actually going under, it just showed an empty place in the sea where it had been. Do you understand?’

  Dow didn’t. ‘But how . . .?’’

  ‘It was the Miasma. It did something to me. It felt like my head was peeling open, being flayed away in strips. Then it all went black . . . but when I woke, everything that had been hidden all this time was unhidden at last. And I can’t deny it anymore.’

  ‘A true scapegoat you shall become,’ Dow whispered, awed to hear himself. It was the first time he had ever pronounced Axay’s prediction out loud.

  Nell looked at him. ‘You remember that too? I’ve never forgotten it. And now . . .’

  Now it had come to pass? Before he could think better of it, Dow had clutched her hands urgently. ‘Then have you seen what’s to become of us? Are we doomed to fail now? Should we turn back? Tell me!’

  She pulled away from him. ‘I don’t know. I told you, it isn’t like a book. It’s like . . . glimpses, but without any way to be sure what it is you’re seeing, except that you feel something, even if you can’t explain why. I haven’t seen the future all displayed in order. I only know that some of it . . . a lot of it . . . will be too terrible . . .’

  Dow clenched his fists helplessly. ‘But what are we to do? The whole thing is hopeless, surely, with only one ship. But we can’t turn back either, retreat to the Old World. There’s nothing for us there.’

  Her tear-filled gaze was pitying now. ‘I don’t know the answer. But I do know this. The choice isn’t yours to make anymore.’

  He withdrew from her in shock. ‘What?’

  ‘I’m sorry, Dow. But of that much I’m certain. It isn’t up to you any longer, the question of whether we go on or back. You aren’t in command here anymore . . . or at least, you won’t be soon. It will fall to another.’

  ‘Another?’ Dow stared in disbelief, the insult of it twisting in him like a knife blade. ‘There’ll be a mutiny, is that what you mean? The crew? They’ll put someone else in charge?’ Anger whirled up in him. It was insupportable. ‘Who will it be? Fidel? Jake? You?’

  She shook her head. ‘None of those. And I will fall just the same as you. But as for who will take your place . . .’ She frowned. ‘I thought I saw it, I know I did, but now, when I try to focus on his face . . .’ She shrank away at something, fear lighting in her hollow eyes. ‘No. He vanishes.’

  ‘There is no he,’ Dow insisted. ‘You’re wrong.’

  ‘If only I was wrong. But it will happen. And soon.’

  Dow lurched upright. ‘You need to get some rest. Fidel was right, the poison isn’t done with some of us yet. Go to bed, Nell, please.’ But Dow himself turned for the door. ‘We can talk when you’re better.’

  Grief thrilled in her voice. ‘No. Don’t leave.’

  He paused on the threshold. ‘I’m not going far. And all these phantoms will be gone in the morning.’

  ‘You don’t understand,’ she pleaded. ‘We have only a single day left, the two of us, before we’re parted. We mustn’t waste it.’

  ‘Parted?’ The deck seemed to fall away under Dow. Not only the captaincy, he would lose Nell too?

  ‘Yes. By tomorrow night, a gulf will come between us.’

  Denial won out in Dow, overcoming the terror. He said, ‘How can that happen? We’ve only got one ship left now. There’s nowhere else for either of us to go.’

  And so he left her.

  *

  Yet the sun rose the next morning, and the world went on as it ever had. Time did not stop merely for disaster or despair.

  And in fact Dow, having slept a little upon a couch in the Great Cabin, woke refreshed, the demons of the night banished. He set immediately to work with Jake and Boiler – there were still a thousand things to put right on the ship – and felt entirely in command of the situation once more, confident in himself and his captaincy. Yes, at one point Fidel came with one of the doctors from sick bay and requested that Dow let himself be examined, but he waved them off. He did not need a doctor.

  At noon he summoned a meeting of the senior officers.

  He knew he must not delay the matter. They would all be eager to discuss what was now to become of the expedition. There would be some who would want to turn back, no doubt. And even those who were less decided would at least want opinions on the question aired, and then perhaps the issue settled by a show of hands. A vote, as they were all in this together.

  Yesterday indeed, in his desolation as the Snout sank, Dow might have welcomed such a vote, even if the choice was to retreat, for it would have lifted the responsibility from his shoulders. But not now. Now, something deep within him rebelled at the thought of surrendering the decision. Maybe it was only a
reaction to Nell’s mad insistence that such power was soon to be taken from him – but the choice was his, the expedition was his, the hope of the New World was his. He would not give that up.

  All he had to do was convince the others.

  His main worry was Nell herself. What if she came to the meeting in the same mood as the night before? Had sleep chased away her strange Miasma fears, or was she still in their grip? If she spoke of prophecies and doom, she might sway the others against him, no matter what Dow argued. So when she entered the Great Cabin, the last to arrive, his eyes went to her searchingly. Her gaze in return was still haunted and full of grief, but she gave him a solemn nod, and Dow understood: she was unaltered in her beliefs, but for now at least she would not talk of them or oppose him.

  Relieved, he commenced the meeting with a simple question to the room. ‘You’ve all had the time now to assess our predicament. So what do you think? Are we fit still to continue our voyage? The New World awaits us as it ever did, but can one ship alone hope to reach it?’

  It was Fidel who spoke first. ‘As little as anyone may think it at the moment, we have in fact been fortunate. Given the evils of the Miasma, it could just as well have been both ships that were sunk. And the cost in lives could also have been higher: in all, some fifty people died during the Miasma itself, and thirty are missing, presumed drowned, from the sinking of the Snout. Less than a hundred casualties all told. Which leaves twelve hundred of us surviving here on the Chloe.

  ‘Alas, other than the lives of its crew, very little was salvaged from the Snout, so rapidly did it go down. All we saved were a few boatloads of foodstuffs, and the boats themselves. By this I mean the skiffs and cutters – not the Snout’s attack boats. They sank with the ship. In truth though, as there is no room on the Chloe to house them, we would have been obliged to leave them behind anyway. A worse loss is the Snout’s supply of whale oil. That we could have used. But it too is gone.

  ‘All bad enough. But I submit that it’s food and water, not oil, that is now the greater concern. The Chloe’s crew has nearly doubled in an instant, effectively halving our supplies. When we departed Great Island, we carried with us stores enough for a year. As we have voyaged two months and more since then, that left us – before the Miasma – with at best ten months’ worth. Now that is reduced to maybe six months. The question is, is that long enough still to cross the Doldrums, and yet have time on the other side to explore the southern ocean and find land, before thirst and starvation set in?’