Lloyd had to leave the Surrey. Foster was nearby but watching the activity on deck. Could he simply jump onto the next canoe? The sun beat down and even so early in the morning, he began to sweat. The heat was good—he had been cold for so many hours. He loved the smell of the sea breeze and he felt he was in a place he knew well, in the open air on a boat that rode the waves. He was still thirsty. He needed his bag.
He left his place on the dinghy and headed to the gunwale. “Don’t even think about it, bwoy,” said the captain.
Lloyd turned and saw him descending the ladder from the bridge. “Me was just going to look for my bag,” he said.
“Where you left it?”
“Me threw it down where the anchor rope go. Me was going to hide in there, but it too deep.”
“My God. You would have died in there.” Captain Blake shook his head. “Okay. Follow me. Foster!” They went to the bow of the Surrey. Two sailors stood on deck and saluted as the captain walked onto the forward deck. Lloyd saw the hatch was open.
“This boy’s bag is in the anchor well,” Captain Blake said. “Any chance you could get it out, Foster?”
“Aye aye, sah!” Foster eased himself into the hatchway—it was a tight fit. One of the other sailors peered into the well. “See it there!” he said. “In a plastic bag. No, the other side.”
Foster handed the bag to the other sailor and climbed out of the anchor hold. The few moments he had spent in confinement below had beaded his forehead with sweat. Lloyd shivered. He could have died there. Captain Blake handed the bag to him. It was squashed, but intact and fairly dry. Lloyd sat on the deck and searched inside for the bullas. He found them in their wrapping, reduced to crumbs. He pulled out the water bottle and took a long drink. It made him thirstier. His spare clothes in the bag were dry. “Can I change, sah?” he said to Captain Blake.
“Take him below, Foster,” said the captain. “Don’t let him out of your sight.”
That first night when we all knew Luke had gone to drift we ate boiled pepper shrimp with our fingers. My father’s shrimp, my mother’s cook pot. She spread newspaper over the kitchen table and the seven of us huddled around it—a table that once held us all easily as boys was now too crowded. No one spoke. We shelled the shrimp with tiny ticking sounds. The pepper they had been cooked in burned our fingers, but our mother did not warn us about touching our eyes. The food stuck in our throats, but our mother said it was not to be wasted. I have never been able to stand the taste of shrimp since.
We began our wait. At first, it was all of Great Bay that waited, in groups of men and women, gathered on the beach, in bars and cook sheds and grocery shops and under trees. Then the waiting spread to other fishing villages—to Calabash Bay and Billy’s Bay and Frenchman’s. The men talked in low voices about where Donovan and Luke could have gone. Everyone agreed the weather was fair and the problem must be engine trouble. The women hardly spoke. When night fell, kerosene lamps were lit and those who had electricity turned it on. As the moon rose, the groups of people thinned but never completely disappeared. The Treasure Beach communities always kept their vigil for anyone gone to drift.
I stayed with my father at Sheldon’s Bar. He hardly seemed to notice my presence. He had told my brothers that when the light of day came we would all go to sea to look for Luke. No one would go alone—we would travel in pairs and we would stay in plain sight of one another. I did not say anything, but I thought this to be a poor plan for finding a small canoe, lost at sea.
19
Lloyd sat on the stern of the Surrey, legs overboard, staring at Middle Cay. He had eaten all the bulla crumbs and drank half the bottle of water. He had gone to the bathroom—the head—three times. His headache had gone. He was glad to be back in his own clothes. How would he get onto the cay to ask his questions? It was too far to swim. He could not face the thought of coming this far, surviving that pounding night and not being allowed off the ship.
The Surrey was quiet except for the noise of the generator. The sun was well up. The captain was on the bridge with one other sailor. Lloyd climbed up the ladder. “Captain,” he said.
“What you want, bwoy?”
“Please, sah. Please let me go onto Middle Cay. Please let me talk to the fishers.”
Captain Blake made a sound of irritation. Lloyd waited. He looked around, liking the high vantage point. He could see two other islands and many fishing canoes at sea. There was also a big commercial fishing vessel anchored much farther offshore than the Surrey. “Conch fishers,” said the captain, following his gaze. Lloyd wondered if it would have been better to seek passage with the conch fishers. He had heard they used young boys to dive for the conch, breathing air through a long hose to a machine that sat on the surface of the sea. Perhaps they would have given him a job and he would not have to beg to be allowed on Middle
