The Cannibals (3 page)

And with those words, fate turned again.

There were times I thought I'd been cursed. It seemed that, along with the wonderful diamond I had pulled from the Thames, I had picked up a devil as well. Midgely had told me once that my jewel might have been the famous Jolly Stone, the ruin of all who'd touched it. I had been plagued by such terrible luck, all my plans thwarted, that I dreaded the same would happen again.

But in the morning it seemed I had nothing to fear. From Father came word that a dance would be held that night, and the boys took off their caps and hurrahed.

All through the day the sea was flat, the wind a warm breeze. At noon a tower of rock appeared beyond the bowsprit, as though at the edge of the world. It looked like a
bewitched bit of land, or a fabulous castle rising from the ocean. In the sunlight it shimmered.

Then slowly it collapsed. It settled into the water, and I realized that we'd seen a strange mirage, a twist and shatter of sunlight that had raised to our sights an island beyond the horizon.

I wondered what sort of omen this was.

The breeze faded away, and the ship—in a flap of sails and a groan of rope—wallowed on a bright, hot sea. The longboat lay motionless behind us. With no wind to hold them aloft, the albatrosses sat on the water. They looked like chickens laid out to fry on a white-hot griddle. The boys lay on their backs as though dead, looking up at the bleached canvas.

Late in the forenoon, clouds came riding from the east. They came in streaks and masses, like a cavalry of enormous yellow horses. Then a sailor arrived to take Midgely and me to the cabin.

We thought it was to settle our last plans. But we found Father by the windows, pacing back and forth. He told us straight out, “I've had a change of heart.”

It was partly because of the weather. He didn't care for the calm and the clouds. “There's a storm brewing up,” said he. “If it holds off till night, there's no fear. But if the wind picks up before sunset, it will blow like the very dickens.”

“We ain't afraid,” said Midgely.

“Of course you're not, William,” said Father. “But…” He faltered and sighed. “Tom, I feel that I've been visited by your mother. I saw her as clear as day.”

“Oh, Father,” I said.

“She was in her veils and her shawls; she was right over there.” He raised an arm and pointed. His finger was shaking. “There on my berth. She lay flat on her back.”

“Well, that was Mother all right,” I said dryly. For half my life I had known her to do little more than that. She had gone mad when my sister drowned. She had taken to her bed, and only rarely gotten up.

“She drew back her veils as I watched,” said Father. “Her face was like ash. Even her lips were white. ‘Keep him safe,’ she told me. ‘Keep the boy safe.’ Then she faded away into nothing.”

“Holy jumping mother of Moses. You're giving me the shivers,” said Midgely. “She's on her deathbed, ain't she, Captain Tin? She's calling from her deathbed, she is.”

I saw him do something he had never done before. He raised his little hand and crossed himself, touching his forehead, his lips, his breast, and shoulders.

I sat down then, though not on the bed. I fell into the chair by the table, feeling as though I were dropping into a bottomless pit. I found that I cared more for my mother than I'd ever thought, and the notion that she was now dying in her bed in England made me tremble through and through.

“Tom!” said my father. “Listen to me, Tom.” He came beside me and lifted my chin. “She's not here, not in spirit nor in body. I was thinking of her, that was all. I know fully well—the both of us do—what she would say about you leaving the ship. Tom, I didn't see
her;
I saw my own thoughts.”

“You're not going to let us escape, are you?” asked Midgely.

“No,” said Father. “I'm not. I'll take you to Australia as I
wanted. I'll explain it all to the governor, and I'll take you home again. That's what I've decided.”

“Because of what you saw?” I asked.

“Because of what I
know
,” said he. “You haven't got it in you, Tom. You're…well—dash it!—I'm sorry to say this, but you're too soft.”

He turned away. He didn't go to the windows, but sat on the bed. He placed his elbows on his thighs, then settled his head in his hands. “It's not your fault, Tom; you've been coddled. Your mother worried too much.”

His words stung more than he could know. It was true that I had been that way. I had been spoiled and selfish. But I believed I had changed, and it hurt me to think that my father couldn't see it.

Shadows spilled through the doorway. In crept old Bede, his long nose arriving first. “Would the young
convicts
…,” he started.

But Father's head snapped up, and he roared, “Get out, man! Leave us alone, you toad-eating fool.”

Such anger I had never known from him. I saw the dismay on Bede's long face and—in that moment—I didn't believe he was a spy for Mr. Goodfellow. He couldn't have looked more injured if my father had taken a lash to him. Out he went, as stealthily as he'd arrived.

“Oh, Bede,” Father called after him. “I'm sorry.”

But it was too late. The man hadn't heard—or had chosen not to.

My father stood up. He moved behind me and put his hands on my shoulders. “Good Lord, I don't know what's
wrong with me. I feel that I'm lying ahull today, beset by squalls. But, dear Tom, don't worry. I'll look after you.”

I left the cabin nearly brokenhearted. Midge held my sleeve as we climbed up to the deck. “It's over now,” I said. “I'll never get home.”

“You might,” said he. “You're the captain's son, ain't you? If he stands up for you, they might let you stay with him. He can do what he likes, a captain can.”

What he said made sense, and—with that—my spirits lifted. We walked to the steps and down to the waist of the ship.

“I think he
will
get you home,” said Midge. “But he can't help me. Not for spit.”

I saw that he was crying. Down each cheek a tear was rolling, and the corners of his mouth were shaking. It broke my heart to see him so, for even when Benjamin Penny had punctured his eyes, Midge had never wept. He'd gone bravely on as a darkness engulfed him. But now it seemed his stuffing had been pulled away, and all that was left was a frightened boy. I wanted to tell him that if he had to stay in Australia that I would stay with him. But could I really do it? Would I pass up a chance to go home?

He sniffed. “At least I'll get to Australia. That's good, Tom; I'm glad for that. But I don't want to be there without you.”

The strange calm lasted into evening. The air grew clammy hot, the sky full of clouds that looked torn and shredded, bleeding crimson through their wounds. My father had the topgallants furled, and reefs put in the topsails. He
ordered a sailor to double the length of the longboat's towline. But he kept to his word and let the convicts dance.

The fiddler sat where he always did, bobbing his black bush of a head as he squealed out cheerful songs. Boy danced with boy, convict with convict, in a wild confusion of stamping feet and swirling bodies. I saw the giant Gaskin Boggis whirling Penny by his webbed hands. The red hair of young Carrots was like a fire leaping through the crowd.

I had always loved our dances. They were moments of joy in months of misery. But now the music failed to stir me, and I sat with Midge at the foot of the mainmast shrouds.

The deck vibrated. The rigging trembled. Round went the boys in a lively reel, and their bare feet sent a drumroll over the sea and up to the sky, and it seemed to marshal the clouds. A breath of wind put a curl in the topsail; then the ship groaned from end to end.

“Here comes that storm,” said Midge. “By cracky, don't your father know the sea?”

The next puff filled the mainsail. With a creak in her timbers, the ship started moving.

“It's Australia for me,” said Midge. “If the wind pipes up they'll hoist the boat. They'd never tow it in a storm.”

I heard the laughter of the sailors, the thumps as pairs of boys collided.

Midgely touched my arm. “Will you promise me something, Tom?” he asked. “When you get home, will you see if me mum's alive? And if she is, will you tell her I ain't angry that she didn't want me?”

“Oh, Midge,” I said.

“Tell her this,” said he. “Tell her, ‘He got to go to sea, missus. Your boy went all the way to halfway round the world.’ Will you say that to her?”

The ship was sailing now. The yards were braced, the deck aslant. Like sixty spinning tops, the convict boys massed along the lower rail.

I leapt up and grabbed Midgely. I pulled him to his feet; I danced him down the deck. We swirled among the boys and out again, past the lumber, past the fiddler. I pushed him against the mainmast shrouds. “Climb!” I told him.

He didn't question me. In a flash he was gone, scurrying up the ratlines. I followed him, but not so quickly. It alarmed me to feel the rope closing round my feet, the steep tilt of the ship. Before I was halfway up, the deck seemed impossibly distant. But I struggled on, and finally Midge reached down from the maintop and helped me through the lubber's hole. I collapsed on the broad, curved surface.

“Good for you, Tom,” he said.

The top was more exposed than I'd thought it would be, nor as secure as I'd hoped. There was no rail or hoop to keep me there. I lay flat on my stomach, my hands wedged in the gap of the doubled mast. The big maincourse hung on its great yard, creaking as it shifted in the iron truss. I could look above it to the sails of the foremast, down to the dancing convicts. From side to side was empty sea.

The fiddler's song came to an end, and the dancing petered out. I looked for Boggis and Weedle and Benjamin Penny, but couldn't find them on the bit of deck that I could see. When the sailors marched the boys below, not one of the three, nor Carrots, was anywhere in the line.

“What are they up to?” I asked Midge. “Do you think they saw us? Do you think they know we're here?”

“Not a chance,” said Midgely. “But even if they did, what does it matter?”

The wind kept rising as the sky grew dark. I looked out to the north, hoping to see the island we would have to reach, or at least the breakers on its shore. But there was not so much as a speck of land, and soon we were fully in darkness. The wind hummed; the maintop tilted as the brig bounded through the waves.

The air took on a hot tingle. Far away, lightning flashed and sizzled. Then the wind rose again, and a rain came driving down. It streamed from the sails above us, soaking the wood and soaking my clothes. The top became as slick as ice.

“Can you see the longboat?” Midgely asked. “Are they hauling it in?”

I turned around and peered from the back of the maintop. Lightning glared more closely, and I saw the helmsman at the wheel. I saw the longboat still behind us. Then the wind made a sudden shriek. The masts tilted far to the side, and I slithered across the wet top until my feet overhung the edge. We both held on—to the top and to each other—so that neither of us would go spinning off into the night.

Bolts of lightning smoked across the sky. I saw the sails glow with a pure whiteness, the rigging etched in silver. I saw a wave towering over the deck. Below me—in one instant—was only wild and boiling water, and in the next a shattered pile of wood. The stacks of lumber were breaking apart.

Then I saw Walter Weedle. I saw Carrots and Boggis, Benjamin Penny and Early Discall. Clasping hands, they stood in a human chain that stretched to the side of the ship. Weedle was anchored at the rail. Then the lightning seared again, and all of them were gone.

I thought they were lost. The truth was slow to sink in, but it did. I shouted at Midge, “They're taking the boat!”

I shifted around on the tilted top. Far behind and far below, I saw a feather of white spray where the longboat scythed back and forth on its towline.

What happened next I couldn't say. I knew only that Midgely was falling, that he'd somehow lost his balance. He slid past me and shot right over the edge. I grabbed his arm and clutched the shrouds, ready to take the shock of his weight. But it was too much, and it tore me from the rigging. We tumbled together, down past the mainsail and into the sea.

My canvas clothes buoyed me up. Bulges of air in the trousers and sleeves bobbed me to the surface. Midge was there, his hand still in mine. Waves tumbled over us, and spray stung our faces. As the ship sailed past, I began to struggle, and then to sink. It was little Midge who held me above the sea, but he couldn't hold on for very long.

Something grabbed me in the water. It clutched me by the waist and tore me suddenly through the waves. My first thought was of a shark, the next of a whale that would swallow me whole. Whatever it was, it pulled me along at a frantic speed. Then it grabbed Midgely as well and pulled him, too. I saw the spray pluming from his hands and head as, side by side, we shot along across the sea.

I tried to fight the thing off, but wherever I pummeled and punched, my fists met only water. Then a low, dark shape went rushing by.

In a furious tumble of foam, it sliced down the back of a wave. It dove through the crest, then surfaced again, hurtling toward us.

It was the longboat, half on its side and half full of water.
Swinging out from the ship, it had dragged the towline with it. The rope was what held us, stretched tight as an iron bar.

As it veered across the wake, I reached out and grabbed the boat. It hauled me along, and I hauled Midge, our hands still locked together. He flailed and thrashed until he somehow got his own hand on the gunwale, and we hung on as the boat shot up the waves at a slant. I saw the ship—or at least the windows in the stern. They were squares of yellow light in a steeply slanted line, and in the middle was a figure, my father staring out. To him, the sea would be nothing but blackness, our struggle unseen.

A rumbling wave—a giant old graybeard—fell across us. With a bang, the tow rope snapped in two, and the longboat came to a stop. It rolled and wallowed in the waves, slopping water across the gunwales. Lighting flashed above us, and I saw my father's ship sailing along on her way.