‘Just like playing squash,’ I grinned. ‘Good for the wrists.’ She raised an eyebrow, and Jyp chortled.
‘He means kind of a tennis game – not what you were thinking, lady. Okay, we’ll teach you, Steve – and heaven help your poor hide. Meantime, though, let’s us buckle to on these spars. Maybe we can salvage something …’
We did, eventually; but not much, and by then the sweat had sloughed most of the powder-burn off our faces. The day grew hotter, and men took turns to collapse in the scuppers and let the deck-pumps play over them. I lay gasping among them as the stream moved on, blinking up at the sky and feeling the thin crust of salt dry almost at once on my skin; I licked it hungrily from my lips. Where were we? It felt more tropical than anything, the air warm and the sun fierce. Overhead, on the jury-rig coupled to the mainmast stump, the single sail flapped loosely as they ran it up, giving us moments of welcome shade. After five hours solid slog in the stinking heat below it was sheer paradise; I wasn’t up to the technicalities of re-rigging, but patching shotholes with planks and mallets, that I could manage. Now, though, I didn’t feel able to drive a nail through tissue-paper; getting back on deck had taken my last reserves, and I was glad enough to just elbow myself up again and wait for the next glorious blast of water. Instead a shadow settled over me, almost as welcome, and lingered.
‘Well, hi,’ came Jyp’s voice. ‘Still rarin’ t’go, are we?’
‘Bugger off,’ I croaked, blinking up at him, a silhouette edged with glowing brass. He shifted, and the sunlight clashed like a giant cymbal. I sank back with a groan. ‘No stay, I need the shade. My head’s ready to fall off and roll down the scuppers. Any more hammering and it probably will.’
‘You’ll never miss it,’ he said cheerfully. ‘But we’re close to done now. We’ll be able to tack now without shipping too much water, thanks to you guys. And the new rig takes the weight of the sail just jim-dandy.’
I took the hand he stretched out and he hauled me effortlessly to my feet. He must have been working as hard as everyone else, he looked just as hot and haggard and bristly, but it didn’t seem to diminish his energy in the least. His lean face was aglow as he grinned up at the primitive lash-up made with the broken foremast. How old was he, I wondered; how long ago did he come into the world, and where? There was something about him, something the same as Mall, though less strong – an aura of energy, inexhaustible strength. They seemed completely tireless, almost inhumanly so – except that they positively radiated humanity, whether in good nature and kindness, almost overwhelmingly so to me, or in the startling ferocity they let loose on their enemies. Inhuman was no way to think of them; superhuman would be nearer the mark.
Was it their age alone, or was that just incidental to another quality, another force that drove them to live so long and so intensely? Now that I came to think of it, there was something the same about Pierce, in a more stolid way, and about other faces in the crew. But in them it was not as strong or as complete, and sometimes it did look inhuman; the limping Master Gunner, Hands, seemed to crackle and glitter with malicious destructive energy, as if he burned not food but gunpowder in his guts. As if he embodied the living spirit of his guns, with no purpose except to destroy, and no care as to what.
Suddenly I felt the lack deeply, even of a one-sided passion like that; nothing of the sort burned in me. I felt rusty and ashen and empty, like the long-neglected fireplace I’d uncovered in redecorating my flat. The need to help Clare raised a glow, maybe – no, more than that. One last fierce flame in the embers; but its lonely blaze only highlighted the empty hearth. The rest was cold.
Jyp clouted me amiably on the shoulder. ‘Hey, cheer up!’ he said, propelling me through the incredible clutter towards the quarterdeck. ‘Thought you’d like to see – we’re going to bring her head around now, let the sail catch the wind a little and if the rig holds – why, we’re cookin’ with gas!’
‘
