Boat of Three: Part Two

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Julian shook his head firmly. “I don’t trust him, Captain. I don’t trust this man at all!”

“No, I don’t trust him, either,” Captain Molley sighed. “But frankly, that doesn’t have anything to do with it. Though I may not like it…he did surrender to us. Maritime law is very clear that he is now under our protection.”

“You can’t be serious!”

Captain ignored Julian, and spoke instead to the pirate. “Tell me, man, what is your name?”

“Bartholomew,” the pirate bowed his head. “Bartholomew Briggs. And…thank you Captain…for speaking up for me. I don’t know many that would.”

“Could you even speak up for yourself, Briggs?” Julian shot from behind. “What would you do if you were in our situation?”

“I am in your situation.”

“No. Me and Captain have been together for nearly a year now. We are two-of-a-kind. We’re crew! You’re something different.”

“I’m telling you, Julian,” Captain Molley strained, “Bartholomew is now a member of our crew as well.”

“Captain, no! There’s a difference in this boat, you must see that! What would you do, Briggs, if it was you and your captain in this boat, and you had come across one of us in the water?”

Bartholomew shrugged. “I’m a pirate…I suppose I would do what pirates do.”

“There, you see it, Captain?!” Julian exclaimed. “We can’t trust someone like this!”

“Like I said, trust has nothing to do with it.”

“Has nothing–?!” Julian’s words were lost in his incredulity.

Literally caught in the middle of the argument, Bartholomew suddenly gave out a wheezing laugh.

“What are you doing that for?” Julian snapped.

“Just the irony of it all.”

“What irony?”

“Oh, you say there’s a difference in this boat. Say that I don’t belong. Now I told you truly, if it had been be and my captain who came across you in the water, we would have cut your throat and been on our way.”

“Where’s the irony in that?”

“Why it’s the very same thing you want to do with me now, isn’t it? Seems you and I have a lot in common, Julian, quite a lot, indeed. In fact there is a difference in this crew, you’re right about that. But it’s that your Captain here is the only one of us who has any honor.”

“I’m nothing like you,” Julian spat. He stared darkly into the water for a time, then looked up to Captain Molley with deep anger. “Captain…I’ll never be able to forgive you for this.”

Captain Molley’s eyes narrowed, trying to discern the full weight of what Julian meant by that. He held the gaze for a few moments, then turned back to Bartholomew.

“What you have told us–about the pirate’s cove–this is true? You swear it?”

“What good would it do me to lie? I might as well die now, than deceive you and die later.”

“Do you swear it?”

“Yes, alright then. I swear it.”

“Well then, what is our bearing?”

Bartholomew craned around in his seat, his hands moving in front of his face, tracing lines on an invisible map.

“Well–I didn’t keep the charts myself,” he said nervously. “But–we’re about…a hundred miles southwest of Isla Barro? Yes?”

Captain Molley lowered his forehead to his hands and sighed heavily. Julian was far less reserved.

“You don’t know?! You really don’t know?! You’re planning to lead us back in with your best guess?!”

“I’m a sailor, not a navigator!” Bartholomew shot back. “You could do better, Julian?”

“Have you even seen a map of it?” Captain Molley asked pointedly.

“I’ve seen maps, and I know where it would be on the map, but obviously we don’t inscribe the mark where just anyone can see! Imagine if that canvas fell into the wrong hands! No, we keep it in our heads.”

Captain Molley reached into his coat and pulled a damp piece of parchment from one of his pockets.

“Show me that you know where we are.”

“Without a pen?”

“I have no pen. But trace things out with your finger, and I’ll follow along. To answer your question, we are two hundred miles south-by-southwest of Isla Barro. So what would that look like?”

Bartholomew swallowed and hovered his finger over the paper for a long while.

“It’s–it’s like–so, Isla Barro would be here, of course, in this corner. And we would be here…he drew a line down and slightly to the left.”

“Well at least he knows how a compass works,” Julian remarked sarcastically.

“Now the surrounding area,” Captain Molley urged.

“And–so– Venezuela is down here…a way’s. And Tartina is a bit up here, between us and Isla Barro. And Isla Veo is here, a bit before that.”

He rattled off a few more ports, common ones, in sequence heading back from where they were now, moving north-by-northeast, until he got back to Isla Barrow.

“And what is down here?” Captain Molley asked, prodding the paper further south-by-southwest.

“That’s–um–that’s Mina Terna? Or else Port Stephens?”

Captain Molley was dejected. “Because those were the two next ports that you heard your captain discussing berthing in.”

Bartholomew frowned and blinked quickly, as if he didn’t understand the accusation.

“You don’t know where you are, and you don’t know where you were headed. You only know where you’ve been, the line of ports your crew stopped in from Isla Barro to here.” Captain Molley traced his finger over the few places that Bartholomew had made mention of. “You don’t know the broader waters at all!”

“I do!”

“Can you tell me one thing that isn’t on this main line here? Anything that isn’t just reciting the last three weeks of your course?”

Bartholomew paused for a long while again. “Venezuela is…down this way,” he offered sheepishly.

“Useless.”

“No!” he cried. “Not useless. That cove I was telling you about, it’s back along the way we’ve come. We spied it on our way here, just a few days ago. I can get us back that far!”

“A needle in a haystack!” Julian spat.

“Well what would you prefer?” Bartholomew looked angrily back and forth at his companions. “I wish that I had a perfect tattoo of the map on my thigh, but I don’t! But what I do have is better than anything else either of you have to offer!”

Captain Molley and Julian quieted down at that. It was true. A needle in the haystack was still better chances than trying to move forward or back along their route, hoping for the odd merchant vessel to happen across their way.

Captain Molley sighed once more. “You just have to be honest with us, Bartholomew,” he said heavily. “We each have our part to play in this if we’re to survive, and we can’t afford to be holding secrets from each other. You have to be honest.”

Bartholomew nodded and tapped his finger back on the paper. “If we’re here, and Tartina was here, then the cove is…here.”

“Nearly straight north.”

“Nearly.”

“If your scale is right, seventy miles, against the current. How large is the island?”

“Maybe half-a-mile across? Small.”

“Alright. We move North, but in a narrow zigzag. Widen it out the further we go…cover a larger and larger area the closer we get.”

“But won’t that take quite a lot longer?” Julian asked with a tremor in his voice.

“Yes it will. You can be sure, we’re all going to get quite thinner over these next two weeks. But this is the best way forward.”

“Why better than moving for it in a straight line, then searching about if we happen to be a little off?” Bartholomew asked and Julian nodded.

“We will be off,” Captain Molley stressed. “Seventy miles? Without proper instruments? We’re blindfolded and throwing the dart backwards over our shoulder. I guarantee you we won’t hit a bulls-eye. And how would we know that we had now reached seventy miles and not sixty-five? Or eighty? And when we got there and saw no island, what direction then? Madly row due east, hoping it was there? And then when it wasn’t madly rowing back all the way back and continuing west? Spiraling in and out like dogs chasing their tails? No. We aren’t going to try and stick a perfect jab that’s sure to fail. We’re going to feel our way to it.”

Neither Julian nor Bartholomew appeared entirely convinced, but also neither of them could come up with as impressive of a speech as the Captain’s to counter his opinion. And so they lowered their eyes and made themselves ready for orders.

“Our heading…” Captain Molley pointed one arm towards the setting sun and moved the other in an arc from it until it was at a right angle, “is that direction. I’ll try to estimate our speed, and the amount of time we continue in this direction. When the stars get up we’ll correct course as needed, but for now we row straight.”

So saying, each man took hold of an oar and began their journey forward. As they did, the sun continued to sink in the sky, eventually extinguishing its flame in the eternal ocean, its last traces of light streaking out of the East, giving way to the encroaching night. Still the men rowed forward as dusk settled in, and stars began too peep out, and the onset of night fell on them. Still they worked. They worked, and they worked in total silence. Having no common ground for discussion, each was left to somberly reflect on how poor their chances were.

But though they did not vocally discuss how dire the situation was, each knew that that was where they other’s thoughts were. And every continuing moment of silence only reaffirmed to each man that the others were similarly being weighed by the poor chances of their situation. Indeed they communicated much of helplessness and resignation in their mutual silence.

What was there to be done, though? There might be a time for panic, a time for despair, a time for venting anger, but it was not now. Now was the time for waiting and watching.

It was Captain Molley who finally broke the tension. He pulled up his oar and set it across his lap. The other two men felt the greater burden of rowing the boat by themselves and looked back to him.

“We’ll need to conserve our strength,” he said to them. “We have to keep moving forward, but we have to have the energy to do that. We’re going to ration our food and sleep in shifts. One man rests while the other two continue rowing. Always two of us will be rowing. At the very least we have to prevent the current from undoing all our progress.”

The other two nodded.

“We’ll rest in two hour shifts. At the end of each cycle all three of us will row for six hours.”

Julian’s eyes narrowed. “Two hours of rest a day each?”

“Four. And twenty of rowing. Our bodies are going to break down over time. We will have to reassess that as we go along. But now, while we have our energy, we must do as much as we can. Make no mistake, this is no marathon. We must sprint if we are to survive.”

“A twenty hour sprint!”

“What would you have us do, Julian?”

Julian had no answer for that.

“We’ll let Bartholomew rest first–“

“Why him?”

“Everyone will get the same rest, Julian. It doesn’t matter who goes first.”

“Let him go first,” Bartholomew gestured to Julian. “I don’t mind. I’ll go last. And I don’t need two full hours. Maybe one.”

“I’ll go last,” Captain Molley avowed.

“And when you do, Captain, might I suggest you move one seat further, to the very back of the boat. The better to feel if either of us was approaching.”

Julian and Captain Molley both narrowed their eyes and looked at Bartholomew suspiciously.

“And what exactly do you mean by that?” Captain Molley asked.

“What? You don’t think–? Well I’m sorry if I made you both uncomfortable, I’m just stating the facts here. Like I said before, Captain you are a man of integrity, one willing to endanger himself to save another. Julian–Mister Holstead, is it?–and I are made of blacker cloth. So when I’m sleeping and you’re awake Captain, I already know you won’t let any harm come to me. And when Julian sleeps he already knows you won’t let any harm come to him, either. But as there isn’t a man of honor to watch while you sleep, so best you should put yourself snug. Back where you could feel even the stealthiest of approaches. Is that–is that wrong?”

“Now you listen to me,” Julian breathed out darkly. “My wanting to rid the world of a murderer and a thief like you is one thing, but to suggest that I would ever do harm to a true shipmate?! There’s a world of difference in that! How dare you!”

But Captain Molley only looked down in contemplation. He did not share what it was he reflected on, but after a moment he quietly said. “No harm in taking all the possible precautions, though. I will sleep in the back.”

Julian’s eyes widened in hurt.

***

On Monday I discussed how many stories feature a sense of hostility between protagonists, where they must work together, but do not like each other. In many cases, they don’t even trust each other.

That is certainly the case with my current story, and nowhere is that more clear than in the last exchange of this section. Bartholomew wears his cynical views on his sleeve, Julian is very vocal of his distrust of Bartholomew and his disagreement with the Captain Molley’s every decision, and with companions like these, who can blame Captain Molley and his own statement of doubt in them at the end.

But of course, by affirming his distrust in the other men, Captain Molley weakens their ability to trust him as well. Now they know what he thinks: that they might kill him for their own gain. And knowing that he thinks that, it doesn’t take much to start wondering how his own sense of loyalty to them is being eroded. What if he were to decide the only to way to be safe from their betrayal was to betray them first?

There is a significant moment in this final exchange, the part where Captain Molley sits in silent contemplation before announcing that he will indeed sleep in the back of the boat. I actually knew full well what he was thinking about, that moment where Julian suggested he wouldn’t rescue a third sailor, even if it was a proper shipmate. I went back and forth about whether I should share that part of his thought-process with the reader or not. In the end I chose not to, and I would like to consider the power in leaving elements of your character shrouded. On Monday I would like to explore this concept more, and then we will continue our voyage of distrust with the third section of Boat of Three next Thursday.

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