We drove over the bridge and into Black River. I had not the first idea how to go about finding my father but I was glad to have something to do. We try the market first, Maas Lenny said.
A fisher on the river bank told us my father was up the river trapping shrimp. I had never eaten a shrimp and did not know my father knew how to catch them. While Lenny talked to the fisher, I sat on an old dock and stared at the calm, wide river. This close to the sea, it was one great moving body of water. I watched the birds in the mangroves and the fallen leaves floating by. It was only the second time I had been to Black River and I had never been on its waters. I knew crocodiles lived in the river. I got up and went over to Maas Lenny. He was trying to persuade the fisher to go up the Black River to get my father. Is his son, man, Maas Lenny said. Is an emergency. Life and death, man.
The fisher sighed. Me soon come, he said, and he walked away without urgency. I was sure he would not return and I wanted to hit him, or at least to steal his boat, which sat right there, moored to the dock, engine at the ready. Just cool, Maas Lenny said. The sun had passed its high point and soon it would be afternoon and once night fell we could no longer tell ourselves that Luke and Donovan had simply made a stop at Shannon Reef.
The fisher came back with a woman carrying a basket, and she took his fish and walked away. Make us go then, he said.
We got into his canoe.
17
“I’m the ship’s medic,” said Miller. He took Lloyd into a tiny cabin, peered into his eyes and mouth, took his temperature, and made him drink from a bottle of water in small sips. He was matter of fact but not rough. He listened to his chest with an instrument. “When last you eat, bwoy?” he said.
Lloyd had to think for a moment. He felt he had been on the Surrey for days. “Yesterday, sah. Me brought some bulla in my bag, but me lost it. Aaah!” he cried out, as Miller swabbed his cuts and bruises with something cold and stinging.
“We don’t have clothes your size, but put on this T-shirt anyway,” he said. “You can eat a bully beef sandwich? A cup of mint tea?”
“Thank you, sah. Thank you.”
“Don’t thank me, bwoy. You in more trouble than you been in your life. You stowaway on a Coast Guard boat; you really lick you head!”
Lloyd dried with the rough blanket and stripped off his shirt. He wished he had dry shorts—maybe McKenzie could retrieve his bag. He realized it must be buried under a pile of soaking anchor rope. The medic opened the door and called for the sandwich and the tea. Lloyd was becoming used to the motion of the ship. He looked around him, the gray steel hull, the bed with tightly stretched sheets, the small desk with a laptop computer open, a narrow cupboard door. He wondered if they were below the surface of the sea and wished the medic’s cabin had a porthole. “Sit,” he said to Lloyd. “Not on the bed! Take my chair.”
There was a knock on the door and Miller opened it. A sailor handed him a plate with a sandwich on it and a mug. Lloyd could smell the mint in the tea and he grabbed for the mug. The tea was almost boiling and burned his lips, but oh it was delicious. Gramps loved mint tea; he gave it to Lloyd whenever he was sick. The aromatic tea warmed him from the inside. He ate the sandwich in three bites—the hard dough bread was cut thick and the chunks of bully beef were salty and filling. The medic watched him. “Come,” he said, when Lloyd had drained the last drop of tea and wiped his hands on his wet shorts. “Time to see the captain. What you name?”
“Lloyd. Lloyd Saunders, sah.”
“Drink some more water and we go.”
Lloyd took his time drinking the water. It was too cold in the belly of the ship and the air had a strange dry metallic smell. He didn’t want to talk to the captain. He looked around the small cabin, with its cupboards and bunk. The ship seemed like a strange house to him, a house that went to sea, but a house with electricity and running water and bedrooms and a kitchen where mint tea could be made. There were probably even bathrooms—Lloyd realized he needed one. “Sah, could . . . could I use the toilet first?”
“The head?” said Miller. Lloyd wasn’t sure what he meant, but he nodded. They came out of the cabin and the medic knocked on another closed door. He opened it and Lloyd saw a closet-like space with a toilet. “See that handle at the side?” said the medic. “Crank it up and down when you done.”
There was a tiny basin next to the toilet and Lloyd turned on the faucet. Whoy, he said softly when fresh water came out of the tap. There was no towel on which to dry his hands and face—the sailors probably brought their own kit into the bathroom—the head, he corrected himself. He knew there were special names for things on boats. He would learn them. He wondered if he could become a sailor on a Coast Guard
