Thursday 23 April 2009

Magnificent nose

‘Who’s down there?’

I glance at No Name in a wash of panic.
My heart races and my stomach churns. He remains unmoved. I suppose it’s wholly unlikely pirates have swarmed the Frontier, held the captain to ransom, and are about to ransack the hold, but then again ...

‘Whoever you are, I shall have to report you to the Captain.’ The voice, fragile and tentative, trails from above.

That's no pirate.
It's her. The inimitable Miss Celeste Burroughs, on her brisk morning jaunt no doubt. I curse under my breath. How could I have lost track of time?

I stumble recklessly up the stairs and throw open the hatch. The glare of the morning sun catches me unawares and, for a moment, I'm startled by the intensity of light and the
floating diaphanous figure before me. I have to grip the hatch to prevent myself collapsing unconscious back into the hold.

She steps back in alarm. ‘You!’

‘Miss Burroughs, I …’

‘Well, I should have known. What are you doing down there? Who were you talking to just now?’ Her accusing voice is shrill. She peers over my shoulder and I move to obscure the hold from her prying eyes.

‘I don’t mean to be uncharitable Miss Burroughs, but I must ask you to please lower your voice.’

She stiffens and her magnificent nose rears up in disdain. ‘You? Must ask me? I think you forget yourself, young man.’

‘All right, all right, I’m sorry, but I learned something, only moments ago …’ here I glance about with a great show of caution, ‘… a secret, which I’d rather not everyone gets wind of … if you know what I mean.’

She looks away with a straight back and an affected snort. ‘I’m certain I do not.’

I look back down into the hold. Would she? I extend my hand in invitation. ‘If you’ll follow me miss, you can learn it for yourself ... first hand.' She gives me a fierce reproachful look, but I know, in that single glance, that she’ll follow, and my stomach gives a fearful lurch in response.

Wednesday 15 April 2009

No Name

The engine, inexplicably, splutters to life and, almost at the same second, an exotic breeze tempts the sail. Herr Hanz Oppenheim adopts a jocular manner. Evidently he’s taking credit for our change in fortune. The sailors, however, remain unconvinced. Their pessimism for the journey is as resolute as their fear for the boy who poisons the hold air.

That night I'm back in the dark. No Name sits in the corner with his bread on his knees and his knees tucked right up to his chin. No Name. That’s how I think I’ll refer to him. He’s not offered a name and nor does he appear to intend to do so. Which is fine by me.

There’s something about him I quite like, although I can’t put my finger on it. I suppose we’re similar, in that we both want to get home, but we’re not the same. I watch him tear another hunk of rhy and stuff it into a chock-a-block mouth. We’re really worlds apart.

‘Don’t they feed you anything at all?’ I rake the corners of the dark hold, searching for an empty bowl.

He shrugs and chomps and I feel the weight of the inevitable next question press on my temples. ‘What did you mean before … when you said what you did?’ He looks up and his jaw stops working. He regards me with his bright right eye.

I hesitate. ‘Uh … you know … when you said all that about … well, about Pirates.’ I wave my hand in the air to suggest some sort of casual disregard for the word, a gesture so obviously rehearsed it makes me blush.

His response, though muted and delivered through mouthfuls of food, is clear and utterly without ambiguity.


‘They are coming.’


No sooner does he speak than a loud scrape sounds across the floorboards above our heads. We both look up and freeze.
As surely as night follows day, they are coming.

Monday 6 April 2009

Home

The temperature in the forward hold is cold as ice and I regret leaving my camel hair coat in the cabin. The light is as cool as the temperature, almost blue. Perhaps the room knows it’s underwater.

There’s something quite unsettling about being in a hold suspended in the drink. Doubly so, now it’s the middle of the night and there’s no one about, except me … and, of course, the figure before me.

He blinks twice in the blue dream light and it occurs to me I’ve not yet made his acquaintance. Not formally.

‘I don’t mean to alarm you … please don’t be afraid … I … my name is Harry St John.’ I extend a hand, only to withdraw it after a few painful moments on account of it going unanswered. Not that I blame him. Our paths have crossed twice and both times I did very little to help his cause.

'Do you have a name?'

His eyes stare right back at me. Well, his right eye does. His left eye roams independently.

I slow the pace of my speech and treat each word with a loud and careful enunciation. 'WHERE ... ARE ... YOU ... FROM?'

He answers in such a small voice it's barely audible, but I'm ecstatic when he does.

'Africa.'

I rock forward on my haunches and exclaim with, I'll admit, a certain edge of self-congratulatory satisfaction in my voice. 'Yes, yes Africa! You're from Africa!'

He nods and I nod, more emphatically, and together we nod for what seems like a good minute of mutual nodding.

'You're trying to get home, aren't you? I knew we had something in common.'

'Ja. Home. Africa.'

His heavy clipped accent reminds me of Herr Oppenheim, but he's not German. Dutch perhaps?

'How did you come aboard the Frontier ... this ship? Was it in Portsmouth? What were you doing in England? Where do you live in Africa?' I realise he's incapable of answering this barrage of questioning, but I can't stop asking. His next answer shores me up soon enough. It takes the proverbial wind right out of my sails.

'We are in big danger. Those pirates ... they are coming. We must not dock in the Canaries.'