'Longboat!' he croaked, swaying but staying upright. 'Put the buggers in the longboat. Let 'em row home!'
The longboat was stowed in the middle of the deck though to call it a longboat was a misdirection. It was a stumpy little rowing boat, capable of taking six men at a pinch. What was remarkable was that it appeared to be undamaged, alone of anything on board the Daisy. Its lashings had remained firmly secured, and somehow the careering cannons had scraped by instead of into it.
What was Mannion thinking? Was he thinking at all, and had the blow addled his brains? The longboat looked about the only thing on board the Daisy that should be floating, that was seaworthy. Wasn't it their only chance? As if reading his mind, Mannion turned to Gresham. Turned his back on his attackers, in an act of supreme arrogance.
'Do what I says’ he hissed. 'Just this once, do it without arguing!'
Gresham looked at Mannion, sword arm still outstretched, looked at the men, huddling back now, courage replaced by stark fear.
'In the boat,' he said, 'and off this ship.'
The men turned to each other, startled. Was this man mad? This was why they had attacked him, to get the longboat, the only chance of survival! The officers and that bloody woman were bound to get it, weren't they? That was how it worked.
Shuffling, they started to free the longboat from its moorings. It should have been hoisted overboard, with a line rigged from the main mast, but that piece of rigging had long gone. Instead, freed of its ropes, the men manhandled the boat to the side and simply tipped it into the water. The surface was so close to the top of the Daisy's hull that the boat hardly splashed as it hit. The one who seemed to be their leader looked enquiringly to where four barrels of water had been lashed to the deck. Two had gone, two were left. God knows if the water inside them had been penetrated by the sea, but the water was fresh enough, loaded off one of the tiny islands by San Miguel. Gresham gave a quick nod. Three men manhandled the barrel into the boat, which sank dangerously under their combined weight, but righted itself again. Without a word, the men pushed off, fumbling for the oars stowed in the bottom of their craft, rowing in an ungainly fashion. Only when long out of sword range did they cry back over the water to them. 'Bastards!'they screamed. *Why did you give them the boat?' asked Gresham.
' 'Are you alright?' might've been a nicer thing to ask me first,' said Mannion, ruefully touching his head where a large hole the size of a salt mine seemed to have been opened up.
'You're talking, so you must be alright. Stupid bloody idiot to get caught out like that anyway. Serves you right. But answer the question! That boat's our only chance of survival.'
'No it ain't,' said Mannion. 'We needed them off here. Ten to three still isn't good odds. And anyway, watch that boat. I should think it'll happen before we lose sight of them.' *What will happen?' *You just wait.'
The boat was almost on the horizon when it happened. The mutineers had rigged the tiny sail the boat carried, and suddenly Gresham saw it topple, fall over the side. Men were standing up in the boat, dark silhouettes against the sky. One of them suddenly vanished, as if he had fallen through the deck.
'Rot,' said Mannion, 'the whole boat's riddled with rot. It was one of the first things I checked for. Someone's put a coat of paint over it all, but there's hardly a sound bit of timber in the whole bloody lot. Worst o' the lot round where they seat the mast. Once they put a sail up, they'll tear the heart out of her.'
The men were frantically stumbling and scrambling, arms and legs increasing the speed with which the rotten wood disintegrated. Soon heads were bobbing in the water.
'Don't imagine as any of them can swim,' said Mannion. 'Usually can't, sailors. And they'll panic, of course. Flail out, drive the good bits of timber away instead of grabbing on to them. Couple of them might grab something big enough to keep 'em afloat. Could take, two, three maybe even four days to die, if the weather stays good.'
Across the sea from them men were praying, screaming, not going gently into the good night but fighting for every scrap of life, and losing. Men with thoughts, with feelings, some with wives, all with lovers, men with children, men whose mothers had wept and laughed over them. Bad men, probably, the sweepings of God's earth, but men with the same capacity to feel pain and the same desire to hold on to existence as all of us, life being the only gift they had been given free of charge. Men brought crying into the world, leaving it crying their pain. Until the waters finally closed over their heads. And from the sinking deck of the Daisy — how odd that word sounded, redolent of English meadows, the smell of Spring and good solid earth, here on this rolling, oily expanse of grey water where no roots could ever take hold and everything was impermanent, fluid — these little dramas were being played out without sound, the figures in the water mere marionettes, detached, somehow not real.
Except they were real for Mannion.
'Bastards,' said Mannion, with total sincerity. 'Remember not to creep up on me again.'
Gresham had just killed a man, face to face. He was watching six men die. Yet he felt almost light-headed. Nothing mattered any more. It was all Fate. Man decided nothing. It was all decided for him. It felt very different from the time in Grantchester meadows. Was it maturity? Or was he simply becoming even more callous?
They turned away from the pathetic frail figures struggling in the water. Soon they were lost to view as Gresham and the others found a barrel of water, broached it, and drank until the taste of salt was no longer quite so strong in their mouths. The olives and the biscuit they found in other barrels were the best thing they had ever tasted. Was it the food they were tasting, or was it simply the taste of being alive? Anna ate with them. She had said virtually nothing, except to confirm that she had no lasting injuries. The tattered dress no longer concealed the girl's ankles, and Gresham found his eyes drawn unstoppably towards them, a different hunger surprising him now that he had taken the edge off the hunger for food and clean water. Suddenly the feet swirled away, and the girl was back to her cabin. God knew what terrors she had gone through there in the storm. She had seen a man killed in front of her, must have known her fate had Gresham and Mannion been overcome. She had not seen fit to share her fears with them. Perhaps they had had enough of their own.
An overwhelming desire to sleep came over Gresham. He had heard about this, from soldiers who had been in battle. The dreadful tiredness, the total imperative to sleep. The Daisy groaned as another wave lifted her water-filled belly up out of the sea. 1 must not sleep. We must somehow claim back the boat from the elements, must somehow get back to England, Gresham repeated to himself.
'We're sinking.' It was Anna. She had emerged from the cabin. How could a young girl's voice be so commanding? Somehow she had managed to comb her hair. 'I'm pleased to say I know nothing about the sea except that it is wet and unpleasant in ways I had never dreamed of,' she said to Gresham. 'Yet even I can see this boat is settling deeper and deeper into the water, not least of all because there is a foot of waters in my cabin that was not there an hour ago.'
'Water,' mumbled Gresham.
Mannion took over. 'Wooden ships, they're funny. You see, the wood really wants to float. It's what it was designed to do. Seen ships like this stay afloat for days. There's another thing, both bad news and good news. Load of them barrels they gave us when we set off. They're empty. Found that out too, soon after we set off. 'Bout half of them. That's what you can hear now.'
There was a constant bumping and crashing from within the hold as the ship rose and fell uneasily in the swell.
'They're helping us keep afloat, I reckon.'
'Raft,' said Gresham. 'Build a raft.'
They were dead in the water. Miraculously the two tops'ls were still largely intact, but flapping uselessly as the last savage swing of the storm had severed the ropes that hung at their foot, tensioning them and holding the wind. Leng had crept out from whatever corner he had been gibbering in, calmer now, just looking as if someone had held him underwater for half an hour.
'We have to build a raft,' said Gresham. 'Got some water left, got some food not spoilt. Use the empty barrels to build a raft, while the old Daisy's still got some life in her. Rig a sail as a shelter. Keep Anna out of the sun. You can survive for weeks, if you can keep out of the water. That's what kills you, staying in the water.' He was almost raving, feeling his control leaving him.
'Can I ask just one question?' asked Anna.
'You just have. Now will you shut up and let us get on with it?'
Why had he rounded on the girl, thought Gresham? Because he was exhausted, because crisis after crisis was piling up in his life, and most of all because he had not asked for her to be there as an extra burden, a burden demanding he think about someone other than himself. He liked being selfish, he had decided. It was safer, simpler,
