CHAPTER FORTY

The ship listed until every thing in the brig had shifted and fallen hard against the timber hull. Just when Tom thought the ship was going water-over-wheel (into the river to drown Tom and Andrew) it paused in the roll and began the groaning roll back to starboard. For a moment the floor was level and then it began its starboard descent. The contents of the brig slid back across the floor. Tom got jammed between a coil of rope and a crate that smelt like rotting oranges.

A slash of lightning lit up the brig and flared on the quivering white face of Andrew.

Suddenly the rain started, and within seconds the window became a sheet of water. The river churned, and the boat kept up its huge sway.

The storm roared but there was another sound that rose above the din, and it took Tom a moment to place this new sound. The sound was even more terrifying than the storm. This sound was like murder. Tom held his body still and tried to discern between the clashes and thumps and thundering rain, just what this noise was and where it was coming from. Then he realised … it was Andrew screaming like the damned on their way to hell.

While Andrew howled the fear out, Tom held it in, hugging his knees up to his chin, while murmuring to himself: ‘Hail Mary, mother of God.

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Something large hit the boat.

Surely they would sink.

The boat rocked and lurched in the roiling river, but it didn’t sink, and the oars kept groaning as whatever large beasts performed the singular task of rowing. Rain poured across the wooden decks, and the wind howled.

After a moment Andrew stopped screaming.

In a flash of lightning Tom saw Andrew with his head between his knees, shaking violently.

For some reason Tom was becoming deeply relaxed. The worse the storm became, the calmer and more relaxed Tom felt. This (here in the storm battered gaol on a ship in a fantastic land) this was life in a way that Tom had never felt life before.

Then the storm ended.

The brig’s window became filled with queer light, the light almost like a foreshadowing, a harbinger. It was coloured a holy orange and a sickly green. Tom walked on his knees to the window and stared out, and felt the sky rolling into him, like a drug. He suddenly turned to Andrew, thinking he might also be absorbing this sudden change, and this strange but beautiful light.

Andrew was still crying, like a child who had lost sight of his mother. He had his head in his hands and he shook.

Tom turned back to the window, only the queer sky had already been replaced by a mist that darkened the window. He sat back down, and put his back against a crate. It was barely possible to make out the coils of rope, and the hard lines of crates now laying at odd angles all over the brig. What next, he wondered.