The Mark of the Golden Dragon (4 page)

"Is Memsahib all right?" he asks, fearful.

I gag and spit, trying, unsuccessfully, to clear my mouth of the grit.

"No?" he persists.

I find my voice.

"All right?" I choke. "All
right?
No, I'm not
all right.
I am definitely
not
all right, you little worm. Because of you, I am stuck here on some godforsaken beach, and all of my friends are quite sure that I am dead and rolling about on the bottom of the sea. Of course, I am
perfectly
all right with that. Why should I not be, you miserable little..."

The little fellow's big dark eyes well up with tears.

"Ravi is sorry and he will go now and bother Memsahib no more." He whimpers, turning away in sorrow.

"Oh, you'll go all right! By all your heathen gods, you'll trot your little brown ass down the beach
that
way." I point south, for we have landed in a shallow cove and cannot see very far along the shore. "And then you'll come back and report to me what's there on the other side of that outcropping." I struggle to my feet and aim a halfhearted kick at his retreating backside. "
That's
where you'll go!"

As I watch him run off, intent on his mission, I sink back down and sit with my head between my knees as I wail out my misery.

Damn, damn, damn, son of a bitch, damn! Oh, Lord, I don' wanna be here, cast away yet again! I want my ship. I want my friends ... sniff ... I jus' wanna ... wanna go back to Boston! I just wanna go back to Amy and Randall and to the Pig and the Lawson Peabody and I'll never leave. No, I never, ever will. I swear it ... sniff. If Jaimy finds out I'm still alive and he still wants me, he can come to Boston to get me, 'cause I ain't goin to London ever again, no I ain't ... sniff ... But I know he won't be comin' for me, oh no, 'cause he's gotta think me dead, 'cause who could survive a storm like that, cast away on the roaring sea? Nobody, that's who. He'd be crazy to think otherwise ... sniff ... and though I know he'll be sad and melancholy for a while—poor Jaimy—I know, too, that he'll soon lift his head and cast his gaze about for someone to ease his
pain. I know that for sure because I would do the same thing. Grief over a lost love is intense, but it only lasts so long. I wish you well, Jaimy, I really do. People always say in a case like this that life goes on ... and it does ... for those who are living ... sniff. No matter what happens to you in the way of loss and grief, you still get hungry, and right now, I'm getting hungry ... and thirsty ... and damn, damn, son of a bitch, damn!

Yesterday, in the midst of the great typhoon, when Ravi and I both went over the side of the
Lorelei Lee
and into the angry, roiling sea, I managed to fall clear of the sinking tangle of rigging that had dragged us over the side. I bobbed up on the crest of a towering wave, and I had just enough light in the murkiness to see Ravi's head break the surface next to me. I lunged out and grasped him to me.

"Ahoy! Lads!" I had screamed into the howling storm. "I'm here! Here, lads! Help us!"

But the last sight I had of the
Lorelei Lee
was her broad stern yawing away from us, and all I got for that vain cry in the maelstrom was a choking mouthful of seawater. Another monster wave heaved up and the
Lee
—my ship, my love, and my last hope—was gone.

I sputtered and kicked and tried to stay up, but...
I can't, I can't...

All right, Lord, take me,
I prayed as I sank down into the water with Ravi wrapped around me.
I have had enough. I commend my body to the sea and my soul to thee...

But then, just as I was about to suck in my final, fatal gulp of the salt, my foot struck something rough, something moving, something that felt ... alive?

A shark? A whale...? Oh, please, Lord, not that! Please let me be swallowed by your mighty sea and not by one of your fearsome beasts. Please, no!

But it was not a hungry, toothy mouth that brushed my leg, no. It was the rough rake of thick canvas and hard wood that propeled me and my young boy back to the surface. It was the once damned and now blessed mizzenmast. The spanker sail had trapped just enough air in its soggy billow to float and lift the entangled mast back up to the surface. The top of the mast thrust into the air and then fell to the side, the ballooning spanker hissing wetly next to it.

"Ravi!" I cried, gasping in the sweet air. "Here! Get up on the mast! Straddle it now!"

I grabbed the half-drowned boy by his loincloth to hoist him up, and then I clambered aboard myself, wrapping my legs around the wildly plunging mast and hanging on for dear life itself.

The raging sea continued to fling us about all night long, till I lost all sense of time and space. All I knew to do was to hang on and that is what I did. I dimly sensed that Ravi was doing the same, but I could no longer care. My rational mind, which had long since fled, would have known that the wood of this mast, though seasoned, would soon become waterlogged and, feeling the pull of the iron rigging, would slowly sink, taking Ravi and me with it. But, trailing the rigging below it like the tentacles of a gigantic jellyfish, the mast stayed mercifully afloat, helped by what air was still trapped in the sail. It floated long enough, thanks be to God, till bright morning found us aground on this desolate beach.

I had stumbled off the mast and crawled up the beach, and then, exhausted, flung myself face-down on the lovely warm sand and let blessed sleep take me away.

I rouse myself as Ravi comes pounding back up the beach to report on his scouting trip.

"Nothing there, Memsahib," he pants. "Only more beach and jungle." He glances, I think a bit uneasily, to the thick wall of forest that lies dark and somewhat foreboding off to our right. "What will we do, Memsahib?"

"Do?" I sigh, getting to my feet once again. "What we are going to do is march north till I find some sort of civilization in this godforsaken-heathen part of the world, and then we are going to make our way across goddamned Asia and goddamned Africa and the goddamned Atlantic Ocean and back to Boston, and
I swear
I will
never, ever
leave that part of the world, not for blood nor money!"

"I am sorry for getting dear Memsahib in pickle," he murmurs, head down.

Then, with a heavy sigh, I let all the resentment flow out of me. I am still alive, sucking air, and so is my dear little Ravi.

I relent and reach out to ruffle his hair. "Come on, you little heathen, let us get on with things. I'm sorry I yelled at you. Now let's get on with it."

My shirt is full of itchy sand and my pants are full of ... what...? Sand fleas?
Yuck!
I pull both off and wade into the water to rinse both myself and my meager garments free of the grit and the bugs.

"Tsk!" says Ravi. "Such immodesties."

"I should think you'd be used to my ways by now," I retort, sinking beneath the now gentle surf and scrubbing off the sand. "I suspect you've probably got sand in your drawers, too, so get in here and rinse off."

"I have already cleansed myself in the holy waters of Mother Ocean."

"Well, good, as we've got some walking to do."

As I have done in similar circumstances in the past, I take an inventory of what I have and what I do not have.

What I have:

Self, body battered and bruised but still whole, and grateful for that;

Loose white shirt and cotton duck trousers, all warming and drying under the sun;

One fallen foremast from
Lorelei Lee
—useless now, but which did serve admirably as a raft;

Much tangled rope—possibly useful;

Large sodden sheet of canvas sail—also useful;

One sharp knife—my shiv, as it were, the one I had taken from Rooster Charlie on the day he died and which has been at my side ever since.

And ... one very tiny Indian boy.

What I do not have:

I do not have hat, shoes, food, nor money. No, I did not wear my money belt when I was on the
Lee.
Why should I, as I was among friends?
Why not, indeed,
I think ruefully. No shoes is no problem, but no hat? How I shall hide my hair, I don't know, for I am sure to be the sole bearer of sandy blond locks within a radius of a thousand miles or more.

Further thought is required...

***

"All right, lad," I say, drawing out my shiv. "Let's do this." I wade up to the sail that lies quiet in the surf and begin a long cut in the fabric close to the spar to which it is attached.

"What is Memsahib doing?" asks Ravi.

"Well, I am going to cut out a piece about six foot by eight. With the rope that I'm also going to cut off, we'll make a tent to shelter us when we go to sleep at night back there in the woods."

He looks dubious at this but says nothing.

"And then I shall cut some smaller strips as I must fashion some sort of cap to hide my hair."

"Missy not have much hair, at least not on head..."

"Right. And what I do have is the wrong color, and I won't want to stand out."

"Ummm..."

I cut off some lengths of line and coil them into a loop. I also shear off some more canvas to use as blankets or ground covers, plus a bit more to use for whatever. I also sever a medium-sized iron turnbuckle and add it to our pile—it could come in handy should we need a club. When we leave here, we will not be able to come back and salvage any more from the mizzenmast.

This being done, I spread all out on the beach to dry. After an hour or so, I pull on my salty-stiff pants and shirt and roll up the canvas.

Using the rope, I fashion two backpacks and make us ready to go.

"All right, let us head north and see what awaits us there."

"Uh ... Missy Memsahib," says Ravi, as I adjust the pack on his back.

"Yes?"

"We will sleep in jungle?"

"Yes. Why not? Where else?"

"Ummm ... is all right ... if Missy have good karma."

"Why would I need that?"

He looks again at the wall of jungle. "For there do tigers live."

Tigers?

"Come on, Ravi, how can tigers be such a danger? Here? How can they sneak up on us? This is 1807, after all. Modern times."

We have been walking northward along the shore. There have been no signs of habitation as yet.

"Tiger do not know that, Memsahib. Many, many poor people in my country are eaten by tigers every year. Much horribles."

"Hmmm. Can these beasts swim?" I ask, looking toward the ocean. "Would a tiger chase you into the water? Cats don't usually like to get wet, you know."

"Little kitties, yes, but big tigers not seem to mind," says Ravi. "Many stories of them swimming in rivers to capture luckless peoples."

"Do you think one of them would chase us into the ocean?"

"Depends on how hungry tiger is. They very often hungry."

Hmmm ... I can appreciate that, being rather hungry myself ... and thirsty, which is much more worrying. We can live a long time without food, but not without fresh water—three days tops, if that.

We come to a large open flat area of beach, and I am gratified to see beneath my feet little round holes marking the presence of some lovely clams.

"Let us stop and refresh ourselves. Drop your pack and start digging here. Use your hands, as the mud is quite soft."

"Dig for what, Memsahib?"

"Clams. Something to eat. You'll see. Just follow those holes down and you'll find clams at the bottom. Roundish things, city boy, like rocks, but different. You'll see. Pile 'em up, and I'll be right back to open 'em and we shall eat ... and, hopefully, drink."

The lad looks rather dubious, but he kneels down and bends to his task, clawing away at the muddy sand. I, on the other hand, shed my pack and head for the edge of the jungle, where I have spied a few palm trees bearing heavy bunches of coconuts and, possibly, a source of fresh water for us.

The trees are very long and very high, with no low branches on which to climb, so I whip out my shiv and cut about a six-foot length of line from my copious coils of rope and knot the ends together to form a loop around the base of the palm. Placing myself in the loop, I begin to walk up the slope of the tree, feet on trunk, and rope around my waist—two steps with my bare feet clutching the rough bark, and then move the rope up a few inches, settle back, and then do it again, inch by inch, till I reach the cluster of nuts at the top. When there, I take a moment to look out over the sea.

Stop that, girl. Ain't no one comin' to look for you this time.