Why Mermaids Sing

Chapter 53

Outside, the sun shone brightly on the last of what had been a fine September day. Sebastian could hear the sound of children laughing and calling to one another as he walked into his library and laid the Harmony’s long-lost log on his desktop. For the briefest instant, he found himself hesitating. Then he opened the charred leather binding and stepped back into a dark and terrible episode.

The voyage’s first weeks out of India had been uneventful, and he skimmed them quickly. Some captains kept extensive, chatty logs. Not Bellamy. Bellamy’s entries were terse, impatient—the hurried scribblings of a man who kept his log to satisfy his ship’s owners rather than himself. He made only brief lists of his passengers, officers, and crew. Sebastian ran through the names, but there were no surprises. There had been twenty-one crew members. There, near the bottom of the list, Sebastian found the name Jack Parker, but he recognized none of the others.

He flipped through the days, the long layover in Cape Town, the fine sailing as they headed up the west coast of Africa. And then, on the fifth of March, Bellamy had written:

2:00 a.m. Strong gales with a heavy sea. Clewed up sails and hove to.

6:00 a.m. Strong gales continue from the WSW. Carried away the main topmast and mizzen masthead.

3:00 p.m. Shipped a heavy sea, carried away the jolly boat and two crewmen.

There was only one scrawled entry for the next day, 6 March.

10:00 a.m. Gale continues. No idea of our position at sea. Reckoning impossible in storm.

Two days later, Bellamy wrote:

8 March, 7:00 p.m. Shipped a heavy sea, washed away the long-boat, tiller. Unshipped the rudder. Cabin boy, Gideon, suffered a broken arm. Plucky lad.

As bad as things had been, on the ninth of March they got worse.

11:00 a.m. Pumps barely able to keep water from gaining. Crew restive. Cargo thrown overboard, but ship still lying heavy in the water and listing badly to starboard.

2:00 p.m. Ship suddenly righted though full of water. A dreadful sea making a fair breach over her from stem to stern. We are surely lost.

5:00 p.m. Gale dropped to strong breeze. Employed getting what provisions possible by knocking out bow port. Saved twenty pounds of bread and ten pounds of cheese, some rum and flour, now stored in maintop.

10 March. 6:00 a.m. Isaac Potter slipped into hold and drowned before we could get him out. Committed his body to the deep.

10:00 a.m. Crew restive. It is obvious that if we don’t spot a ship soon, the Harmony must be abandoned. Yet with no jolly boat or long boat, all cannot be saved.

11 March. 2:00 p.m. Crew mutinied and abandoned ship, taking most of remaining provisions and water. Officers and passengers left aboard. God save our souls.

13 March. 5:00 p.m. Stern stove in. I know not how we stay afloat. Made tent of spare canvas on forecastle. Able to salvage a bit of rice and more flour from below. Rationing half a gill of water each per day, but even at this rate it will not last long.

14 March. 7:00 a.m. Small shark caught by means of running bowline. Sir Humphrey rigged up a teakettle with a long pipe and a stretch of canvas to fashion a kind of distillation. But it affords only one wineglass of water a day each, barely enough to maintain life. Gideon feverish.

16 March. 10:00 a.m. Sir Humphrey has improved upon his distillation process. We can now manage nearly two wineglasses each per day. Barnacles gathered from side of vessel and eaten raw, but they will not last.

23 March. Suffering much from hunger. Gideon hanging on, though I know not how. No nourishment now for seven days.

24 March. 2:00 p.m. Saw a ship to windward. Made signal of distress, but stranger hauled his wind away from us.

25 March. 7:00 a.m. I like not the mutterings amongst the passengers. They have been awaiting the death of the cabin boy, Gideon, intending to feast upon his dead body. But he has not died, and now there is talk of killing him.

5:00 p.m. A dark day for us all. Over the objections of myself and Mr. David Jarvis, the passengers and ship’s officers voted to hasten Gideon’s death. Mr. Jarvis sought to protect the lad, but the others rushed him and in the altercation a cutlass was thrust through young Jarvis’s side. I thought for a moment Gideon would be saved, for they would make their meal of Mr. Jarvis instead. But, though injured, the young man defended himself stoutly, and they returned to Gideon.

Reverend Thornton delivered the last rites while Lord Stanton held Gideon down and Sir Humphrey Carmichael slit his throat. The poor lad’s blood was caught in a basin and shared amongst the passengers. Then the body was cut up into quarters and washed in the sea. They drew lots for the choicest parts. The Reverend and Mrs. Thornton drew the poor lad’s internal organs; Sir Humphrey an arm; Lord Stanton and Mr. Atkinson shared a leg, and so on. Even those such as Mr. Fairfax and Mrs. Dunlop, who had argued against the killing of the lad, did not fail to join in once the evil deed was done.

Only Mr. David Jarvis, wounded though he was, refused to partake of the feast. “Why should I condemn my soul to hell,” he told them, “so that I might live for one or two days more? I know well who you will fall upon once you’ve picked clean the bones of this poor lad.”

I myself found I could not quiet my stomach sufficient to eat the poor lad’s flesh. But when they passed the cup of his blood, God help me, I drank.

Pushing up from his desk, Sebastian went to pour himself a glass of brandy. But the brandy tasted bitter on his tongue and he set it aside.

Through the window overlooking the street he gazed down on a lady’s barouche driven at a smart clip up the street. A child chasing a hoop along the footpath glanced up to shout something, and the golden sunlight fell gracefully on his honey-colored hair and ruddy cheeks.

It was easy to condemn the passengers and officers of the Harmony, Sebastian realized, easy to sit in security and comfort and reassure oneself of one’s own superior moral fiber and courage. But no man can truly know how he will act until faced with such a choice: to hold to his convictions and embrace death, or to kill and live?

Reaching again for his brandy, Sebastian drank it down. Then he went back to his desk and read.

26 March, 8:00 a.m. English frigate hove in sight. Hoisted the ensign downward and the stranger hauled his wind toward us. Remains of cabin boy thrown overboard. Mr. Jarvis holding on to life, but he lost consciousness as the Sovereign hove to, and I doubt he will live to see another dawn.

There was one last line, entered in a shaky scrawl, then nothing.

10:00 a.m. Committed his body to the deep.