Barnacles
Bailey cursed as the thin edge of the shell bit deep into the side of his hand. Snatching a dirty piece of cloth, he dabbed at the blood that bubbled up. It stung.
Holding the stained cloth to his hand, Bailey sat down heavily on a piling. The endless curve of the ship’s hull, like the soft swell of a shoulder or back, rose high above his head. At his feet, tiny whispers of the highest tide lapped. Shore birds waded in the water, searching for food. A few stood a hundred feet away, washing in and out with the waves, eyeing the slowly growing pile of barnacles and sea debris at Bailey’s feet.
“Whales carry barnacles. They swim just fine.” Bailey squinted up. A few feet above his head, the waterline ended. A crew had removed at least half the barnacles during the week. Now, Saturday, they had dragged him out of his bed and ordered him to continue the job. He picked up his scraper with aching fingers laced with half a dozen other cuts and went back to work.
A light breeze brushed through his hair and fluttered the heavy sheets of canvas hanging above. They’d done a terrible job of furling the sails and the heavy canvas flapped against the side of the boat. The breeze brought the faintest whiff of salt and sea, but also a heavy musty scent of fish and slime. Winter was coming, and the docks, usually teeming with life and encrusted with ships, stretched empty into the harbor.
Bailey’s scraper slipped again; swearing, he flung it down and smashed it beneath the heel of his boot as brilliant red stained his fingers.
At this rate, his hands would still be out of commission and useless for the sails when they headed back to sea next week. If only he were in charge instead of that stupid, half-drunk--
Bailey cut himself off, frowning. “Bloody idiot.”
A few hundred feet away, two figures emerged from the huddle of huts and customs houses on the shore. They had the rolling gait of inveterate seamen who had not recovered their land legs after a week on shore and probably never would. The two of them sauntered side by side down the longest dock and stood at the end, staring out over the rolling water into a horizon flat and empty and endless. The soft movement of the waves carried their words like a piece of driftwood directly to Bailey’s ears as he slumped on his piling.
“We’re really casting off next week?”
“He says we can make it.”
“Do you know what ye need to make the next set of islands, Davis? Fresh water and fair weather! Not grog.”
“The grog is for morale. You of all people ought--”
“What does he think we’re doing, dancing drunk till midnight?”
Bailey gave a little jump as he recognized the resonant voice of the speaker, adapted to carry over the wind in a storm, as the first mate. His partner would be Davis, Captain O’Hara’s clerk. Everything in his body suddenly attuned to the soft noise across the waves.
The first mate spoke again.
“What is the temper of the cabin?”
“It’s hard to tell.”
“Give us an estimate, then.”
Davis dropped his voice and Bailey couldn’t make out the rest. He wobbled on his piling and realized he’d been leaning toward them.
“...five days,” the first mate said, gesturing toward the horizon. A thin bank of clouds was building at the edge of the sea.
“...three days out of port.”
“We don’t have that kind of time.”
“Two days, perhaps.”
Bailey stood as the voices trailed off. Deliberately, he swept the fragments of his scraper to the ground beneath the dry dock. They clinked against rocks covered in dry, stiff sea moss. He walked to the end of the dock, the vast clumsy bulk of the ship rising behind him, and looked out.
“It’s our duty,” the first mate was saying.
“Can you rely on your men?”
“All of them. And you?”
A quiet sound of assent.
“...the winter. I guarantee, once he sobers up, he’ll thank us.”
A handshake. More silence. The first mate reached down and scooped up a handful of water, letting it run out between cupped fingers. A flurry of breeze snatched spray from the tops of the waves, bringing a sudden chill and a heavy smell of rain and lightning that was gone almost before Bailey could identify it. He shivered.
Since he was a boy, he had dreamed of overhearing plans just like this. He had dwelt on the thrill it brought him to imagine saving an entire ship and its crew, defending the captain at all costs from a few desperate mutineers.
Davis and the mate walked back down the dock toward the tiny town. Bailey watched them go, picturing Captain O’Hara. He’d hardly seen the man on the last leg of this voyage--but he’d heard him, wailing mournful sea songs from behind his cabin door late into the night. He’d felt the man’s presence as the ship wallowed in the last storm, tight sails humming in the wind and threatening to break.
Bailey looked up at the bulk of the ship’s hull, discolored and still crusted with patches of barnacles.
He had never sailed under such an incompetent captain before. Yet in all his boyhood fantasies, he had never imagined himself taking the side of the mutineers.
Another gust of wind brought the scent of rain to his nose, and it lingered this time.
He turned back, arms crossed as he headed back up the dock toward his lodging. At the end of the dock, leaning on a cane, stood a tall, bearded figure. Captain O’Hara.
Bailey stopped in his tracks. The captain had not noticed him. The words he had just heard flashed through his brain with white-hot intensity. Then the face of his father, waving farewell from the dock at home.
Take care of him, his father had said.
For the life of him, Bailey did not understand what his father saw in Captain O’Hara, but he trusted him.
Captain O’Hara spotted him and waved his cane. Even at a distance, Bailey could see the brilliant white teeth that split the beard in a smile. He waved back. Maybe the captain knew already. But perhaps he did not. He did not know what the crew was planning. Maybe the man’s life was in danger.
Maybe not.
Bailey put his hands in his pockets and resumed his walk up the dock as casually as he could.
“Ahoy, Bailey! Seaworthy yet?”
“Not yet, sir,” Bailey said, worried his voice would give him away.
“Get her ready! We sail Sunday!”
This close, Bailey could smell the alcohol on his breath.
“Sir, I’m not sure--”
“Sunday, Bailey! The next port awaits us. By the way--have you seen Davis?”
Bailey took a deep breath.
“No, sir.”
“Hm. Haven’t been able to find him today.” Captain O’Hara turned and, leaning on his cane, made his way back toward the town.
Bailey bit his tongue and watched him go.
No comments:
Post a Comment