Chase the Morning

‘Sorry, Steve,’ grinned Jyp. ‘I mind it hit me just that way the first time, and I was forewarned. East of the sun, west of the moon, remember, there’s our road. So naturally it’s setting behind us now, and we lose a day. No worry; we’ll soon pick it up on our way home. Now let’s eat.’

About the food I was a bit apprehensive, dimly remembering tales of weevil-ridden biscuit and salt pork, rock-hard and mouldy. I should have known better. The little saloon was brightly lit with swinging brass lanterns; the furniture was Queen Anne or something of the sort – I wouldn’t have dared call it antique, not here – and laid with bright silver. Captain Pierce was evidently in a profitable line; at any rate he lived big. Five courses, with wines, and the entrée was several in itself, stews and sliced meat mostly, and little roasted game-birds, one each. All the three-star restaurants in town would have killed to get hold of them. I was a bit disconcerted to be told they were golden plovers, which sounded rare. But they did things differently here, and nothing was going to bring those birds back; I tucked in. On boats my stomach was always a bit unsure at first, but not here. The motion might be the same, but evidently it just didn’t believe we were at sea.

After dinner there was coffee and brandy; Jyp lit a cigar, and the captain an enormous pipe, filled, I guessed, with the same blend of sulphur and nettles as his snuff. I managed to survive the result in that confined space for an hour or so, while the two of them vied with each other in what I sincerely hoped were enormous lies about past encounters with Wolves and other perils of the sea. I hardly dared disbelieve anything now, even Jyp’s tale about what he had caught with an oxhead as bait. At last I was driven to make my excuses and retire, wheezing, to bed. Or cot, rather. The captain had offered me, as ‘owner’, the use of his cabin, but I’d thought it tactful to refuse. Instead I had one of the two little cubbyholes, as they called them, adjoining the saloon doors. Jyp, as sailing master, had the one on the port side. A little over six feet square, mine held only a rickety chair, a hinged wall-table and an ominously coffin-like box slung by ropes from the beams above. This was my bed, it was two inches too short for me, and I hadn’t the knack of sleeping coiled up yet. Besides, all my instincts screamed at me that it was about nine in the morning, high time I was at work. The air was stuffy, and somehow it smelt too much of dinner; the single cloudy porthole that gave onto the deck I couldn’t open. The drink buzzing around in my head didn’t help. After a suffocating hour or two I gave up, dressed and mooched out on deck again, taking the brandy bottle Pierce had given me for a nightcap.

The night took my breath away, it was so beautiful. The sun was long gone now, the stars were out and a sweep of luminous grey cloud stretched in a great arch, a frozen wave, over a full moon that edged it with cold fire, bleached the decks and turned the sails to taut sheets of silver. A soft thunder seemed to echo through the vast dome of the night above us, rolling in time to the smooth slow heaving of the ship. The urgent hiss along the hull told of the true speed she was making, and the snapping flutter of the masthead pennants, the soft hum of the rigging. A few gulls still cried in our wake, or came to perch along the yardarms. The maindeck was empty but for the forms of sleeping hands, wrapped in their blankets. This was the deck watch, ready for any emergency, while their comrades rocked more comfortably in their hammocks below. Around the rails on quarterdeck and foredeck the lookouts paced, each to his own little beat, walking to keep awake, while at the helm Mall still stood, her long hair shot with light and her eyes gleaming star-bright. The lookouts and the master’s mate in command saluted me as I appeared, and Mall jerked her head in casual invitation; I held up the bottle, and saw her teeth flash in answer.

‘A fine wolves’ moon!’ she said as I clambered up the gangway.

‘Don’t spoil it!’ I pleaded. ‘It’s too beautiful.’

‘Is it not?’ she agreed cheerfully. ‘Come, you’ll have a wider view from here – though better yet from the rigging, or the mastheads –’