Mr. Willoughby had been ignoring this exchange, squatting on his heels in the shadow of the aft-deck scuttlebutt, a large barrel filled with water for refreshment of the deck watch. He was counting on his fingers, evidently absorbed in some kind of calculation. As Jamie stalked away, he looked up.
“Not rat,” he said, shaking his head. “Not dragon, too. Tsei-mi born in Year of Ox.”
“Really?” I said, looking after the broad shoulders and red head, lowered stubbornly against the wind. “How appropriate.”
42
THE MAN IN THE MOON
As his title suggested, Jamie’s job as supercargo was not onerous. Beyond checking the contents of the hold against the bills of lading to insure that the
In the meantime, there was little for him—or me—to do. While Mr. Picard, the bosun, eyed Jamie’s powerful frame covetously, it was obvious that he would never make a seaman. Quick and agile as any of the crew, his ignorance of ropes and sails made him useless for anything beyond the occasional situation where sheer strength was required. It was plain he was a soldier, not a sailor.
He did assist with enthusiasm at the gunnery practice that was held every other day, helping to run the four huge guns on their carriages in and out with a tremendous racket, and spending hours in rapt discussion of esoteric cannon lore with Tom Sturgis, the gunner. During these thunderous exercises, Marsali, Mr. Willoughby, and I sat safely out of the way under the care of Fergus, who was excluded from the fireworks because of his missing hand.
Somewhat to my surprise, I had been accepted as the ship’s surgeon with little question from the crew. It was Fergus who explained that in small merchant ships, even barber-surgeons were uncommon. It was commonly the gunner’s wife—if he had one—who dealt with the small injuries and illnesses of the crew.
I saw the normal run of crushed fingers, burnt hands, skin infections, abscessed teeth, and digestive ills, but in a crew of only thirty-two men, there was seldom enough work to keep me busy beyond the hour of sick call each morning.
In consequence, both Jamie and I had a great deal of free time. And, as the
For the first time since my return to Edinburgh, there was time to talk; to relearn all the half-forgotten things we knew of each other, to find out the new facets that experience had polished, and simply to take pleasure in each other’s presence, without the distractions of danger and daily life.
We strolled the deck constantly, up and down, marking off miles as we conversed of everything and nothing, pointing out to each other the phenomena of a sea voyage; the spectacular sunrises and sunsets, schools of strange green and silver fish, enormous islands of floating seaweed, harboring thousands of tiny crabs and jellyfish, the sleek dolphins that appeared for several days in a row, swimming parallel with the ship, leaping out of the water now and then, as though to get a look at the curious creatures above the water.
The moon rose huge and fast and golden, a great glowing disc that slid upward, out of the water and into the sky like a phoenix rising. The water was dark now, and the dolphins invisible, but I thought somehow that they were still there, keeping pace with the ship on her flight through the dark.
It was a scene breathtaking enough even for the sailors, who had seen it a thousand times, to stop and sigh with pleasure at the sight, as the huge orb rose to hang just over the edge of the world, seeming almost near enough to touch.
Jamie and I stood close together by the rail, admiring it. It seemed so close that we could make out with ease the dark spots and shadows on its surface.
“It seems so close ye could speak to the Man in the Moon,” he said, smiling, and waved a hand in greeting to the dreaming golden face above.
“‘The weeping Pleiads wester / and the moon is under seas,’” I quoted. “And look, it is, down there, too.” I pointed over the rail, to where the trail of moonlight deepened, glowing in the water as though a twin of the moon itself were sunken there.
“When I left,” I said, “men were getting ready to fly to the moon. I wonder whether they’ll make it.”
“Do the flying machines go so high, then?” Jamie asked. He squinted at the moon. “I should say it’s a great way, for all it looks so close just now. I read a book by an astronomer—he said it was perhaps three hundred leagues from the earth to the moon. Is he wrong, then, or is it only that the—airplanes, was it?—will fly so far?”
