Mrs Jewell and the Wreck of the General Grant by Cristina Sanders

Author:Cristina Sanders
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781988595443
Publisher: The Cuba Press Ltd
Published: 2022-06-14T11:44:49+00:00

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We had a song, the next night, by the fire. I had been sitting quietly next to Joseph as Peter McNevin took up a sailor’s tune about the high seas around the horn, joined by Ashworth and Mr McClelland adding a harmony blown on the whistle that sounded like the wind. A song together felt like a corner turned. They followed with an English song I didn’t know but some of the men sang along. It made a pleasant change from the fighting.

Mr McClelland had a folk song for us, and then he asked me, “Do you know ‘The Bonnie Burn’, Mrs Jewell?”

And he began a song I loved, about a man who leaves home and all his life is trying to find his way back to the river that flows past his door. I’d never sung it in English, but I knew the Gaelic. I was shy to sing in front of the men, but to my surprise Joseph told me to go ahead and Mr McClelland nodded to me across the fire, so when he began the chorus I joined in with my mother’s language, softly. Timidly.

Joseph’s eyes gleamed. I thought I might be embarrassed to sing like this, with him watching me perform for the men. Was I sharing too much of myself with them? I didn’t look at my husband, kept my eyes on Mr McClelland, who switched tongues and we sang the next verse together in Gaelic.

Later, in the hut, I was sitting up in my corner, waiting for Scott’s snore before I lay down to sleep. I’d laid a piece of driftwood between my feet and his head to force him away but sometimes I still felt him creeping up in the night, his fingers reaching over to touch my leg. I told Joseph I had placed the wood there as I was afraid of kicking Scott in the night. If I’d had any hope Joseph would have moved Scott without causing a fuss I would have told him the truth, but I wouldn’t draw attention to my vulnerability. More than anything I wanted the men to ignore the fact that a woman slept among them. I waited with my arms wrapped around my knees and dozed, running through the songs again in my head, glad for the fine voices of Peter McNevin and Mr McClelland and the lovely roll of a Highland song. Across the hut, in the darkness, I became aware of another waking breath. I had slept so long in the company of the men that I knew the pulse of their breathing. Someone else was sitting up. A bulk close to the doorway. Teer.

“That’s a fine voice you have, Mrs Jewell,” he said so softly I wondered if he could tell I was awake in the dark or if he was just talking into the night. “It gave me hope. Hope that, just maybe, you might save us all.”

A long while later, when someone between us turned with a grunt and a snore, I slipped down beside Joseph and closed my eyes.

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