Somewheres East of Suez by Tristan Jones

Author:Tristan Jones
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub, pdf
ISBN: 9781574090635
Publisher: IB Dave's Library
Published: 1988-01-02T08:00:00+00:00

11

Gate, Tears, and Epithet

As the wan light of false dawn filtered into the after cabin through a murk of billowing, black dust blowing over the boat in the screeching wind, I lifted my head from my hands and found myself staring, unwittingly at first, at my little library on its shelf over the navigation table.

My row of books was far smaller than the collection I had gathered and cherished when I had lived ashore in the U.S.A., and I remembered all my heart-searching back in San Diego when I had sorted out the books I should take with me on this voyage. Books weighed. Weight in a multihull vessel was anathema. I’d had over three hundred; I’d given away all but thirty-five of my precious books so as not to carry that excess weight, and so slow the boat down. Now I stared and stared at my thirty-five books. They had been thrown about a lot; the soot from the defective cabin-heater back in the freezing winter in Germany had covered them with gray grime, I’d had little chance to read any of them since….

I heard the crew stirring forward, even through the noise of the wind roaring overhead. It is amazing, when you love a boat, how the slightest untoward noise or movement could be felt, almost telepathically, no matter what hell was let loose topside. My bleary gaze returned to my books, and I realized that someone, something, somewhere, was telling me something, demanding something of me, and that something was heartbreaking. I had to reduce the weight on board, so as to reduce the load the anchors had to hold against that screaming wind. To reduce the weight on board I had, among other things, to dump my library overboard.

Resisting the thought, my mind raced through the list of every conceivable weight in Outward Leg. Anyone who knows anything at all about voyaging craft, and especially one stored up and victualed for three months minimum, knows roughly how many weights that made.

I couldn’t ditch any food; neither Aden nor Djibouti, in those strife-torn times, might be open to us. I could hardly consider dumping any fresh water, except as a last resort. All excess clothes, winter gear and footwear, blankets and sheets, would have to go. We didn’t—wouldn’t—need things like that until we reached colder regions.

Thomas came into the cabin with a cup of coffee for me and one for Svante, who was huddled against the shrieking, stridulate wind keeping watch on the anchor lines. He too was bleary-eyed, after only an hour’s attempt at sleep. It was almost as though, if we raised our voices, we would add to the ship’s strain and agony. I spoke quietly. “Thomas, get rid of all excess clothing,” I said. “Everything—all we don’t need to sail to India. Dump it overboard. We could have given it away to those poor buggers in the Sudan, but now it’s too late…we have to get rid of all extra weight.” I didn’t mention the books.

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