Shifting light

We're adrift, not far from the Canaries.

Seagulls loop and turn in the wide white sky. There’s kelp in the water. Even the fish seem different. But onboard the Frontier, expectancy is strangled by the long silence of another windless day. Captain Burroughs communicates with monosyllabic asides to Effemery, who in turn (to no avail) harangues the men. It's another day of idle sails.

‘Do you know where we’re going?’ I attempt to draw information from the RH I. Seedat.

‘Well, let me see, old boy.’ He strokes his chin, extends an arm and points to the featureless horizon. ‘At the minute, I believe we are going in this direction.’

No great insight there.

Later, in the shifting light of a whispering paraffin lamp, I study a folded note. Next door, the repetitive sawing of my father’s snores threatens to collapse the cabin's paper-thin walls. The air inside my pint-sized cove is close and stale. It smells of wood polish and moth balls and sweat.

The note, slipped under my door only a few moments ago, sheds no further light on the conundrum of the ship's present drift, but it's full of mystery all the same. I read it once more. You will find the hatch to the forward hold open tonight. Find out what you can from the stowaway. That's it. No name. No explanation. The handwriting is tight and precise, the curves deliberate. No ink smudges at all. I'm certain it's Herr Oppenheim’s.

An hour later, I stand at the door and listen for feet. Nothing. I open it and peer into the gloom. No movement. There’s a slight chemical odour wafting from the head, down the passage. I arrange the bundle of food (a half-loaf of rhy bread and some green olives) under my free arm and shut the door behind me.

A vicious cold prowls the forward deck. There are stars out, bright holes drilled into the pitch black. I clamber over intricate piles of coiled rope, on lookout for the burly red-bearded captain, or any shadowy movement. The deck is sedate, eerie in the half-moonlight.

At the forward hold hatch, I pause and listen to my thumping heartbeat. Oppenheim shares my view it seems. There's only one way to dispel all this talk of omens and superstition. We have to let the crew know they've nothing to fear ... that he's just a regular lad.

Down the spiral stairs I go, into the black hold, accompanied only by the echo of my steps. 'He's just a regular lad,' I repeat under my breath. A regular lad.