new worlds
I'll tell you, Son, I couldn't believe that there was a beach there. The rocks themselves were an exciting sight after three months - or was it five? of salt air and empty horizons, but to round those rocks and find a beaten but sandy shore! I was shackled but the crew had all moved to the starboard side, were hanging off it as if the meat had gone bad. When they'd sucked in their fill of land they couldn't pull our beast in soon enough.
That night, a way back from the beach in the low-lying scrub, we lit fires and danced. I tell you, the Captain even danced. The boys who were too sick to stand were propped up against logs and despite their weak bodies and pale skin they grinned and laughed. We all drank our fill of rum and didn't mind that the barrel was empty when it came time to carry on. For a few fleeting days we were neither crooks nor sailors nor officers but men glad for the warmth of a blaze and the crunch of grass underneath our boots.
None of us knew where we were, mind, and I'm not sure if it was I alone who harboured a fear of what lay beyond the dark undergrowth around us. A couple - Taylor and Gimmy - must have been braver than I, for the third night they vanished, leaving only the wrinkled hemp blankets they'd slept under. Who knows what they escaped to? Was this an island that they had stranded themselves on, or did they reach some foreign village? What great or dangerous new world awaited them? Son, I ask you never to leave your fate in the hands of a land you are blind to, because unlike the boundless sea, which is old and spiteful and as hard as any piece of rock, it can be commanded and mastered; its waves can yield great treasures. But earth is fickle and will decide what it provides before you have a chance to say yes or no.
So we carried on, to the great new land. I'll tell you the Captain's hopes were much greater than all of ours. He was privvy in his cigar scented cabin to some letter or past conversation which assured him our course was true and noble. He promised the low-lives like me, below the deck, coughing and cold, that even we would own our piece of the New World; that we'd need not steal chickens and bread for abundance of our own.
Chickens have nothing to do with it, Son. Land cannot be tamed; a chicken in the New World is a different animal to one at home. Whatever spell this place would cast upon our meagre stocks, whatever rot it would set upon our wood and whatever sickness it would inflict upon our mates, Son, I feared it, and I was right to. Or was I? If I hadn't feared I suppose those last moments at sea, as we set away again from that once joyous stretch of white-washed beach, might have been the last moments of peace I ever had.
That night, a way back from the beach in the low-lying scrub, we lit fires and danced. I tell you, the Captain even danced. The boys who were too sick to stand were propped up against logs and despite their weak bodies and pale skin they grinned and laughed. We all drank our fill of rum and didn't mind that the barrel was empty when it came time to carry on. For a few fleeting days we were neither crooks nor sailors nor officers but men glad for the warmth of a blaze and the crunch of grass underneath our boots.
None of us knew where we were, mind, and I'm not sure if it was I alone who harboured a fear of what lay beyond the dark undergrowth around us. A couple - Taylor and Gimmy - must have been braver than I, for the third night they vanished, leaving only the wrinkled hemp blankets they'd slept under. Who knows what they escaped to? Was this an island that they had stranded themselves on, or did they reach some foreign village? What great or dangerous new world awaited them? Son, I ask you never to leave your fate in the hands of a land you are blind to, because unlike the boundless sea, which is old and spiteful and as hard as any piece of rock, it can be commanded and mastered; its waves can yield great treasures. But earth is fickle and will decide what it provides before you have a chance to say yes or no.
So we carried on, to the great new land. I'll tell you the Captain's hopes were much greater than all of ours. He was privvy in his cigar scented cabin to some letter or past conversation which assured him our course was true and noble. He promised the low-lives like me, below the deck, coughing and cold, that even we would own our piece of the New World; that we'd need not steal chickens and bread for abundance of our own.
Chickens have nothing to do with it, Son. Land cannot be tamed; a chicken in the New World is a different animal to one at home. Whatever spell this place would cast upon our meagre stocks, whatever rot it would set upon our wood and whatever sickness it would inflict upon our mates, Son, I feared it, and I was right to. Or was I? If I hadn't feared I suppose those last moments at sea, as we set away again from that once joyous stretch of white-washed beach, might have been the last moments of peace I ever had.
posted by bsjezz at 3:35 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home