Chapter Three
Talamanca
Another vivid dream assailed me the following night, and I jerked awake with a cry of terror, startling the captain who came to with a curse.
“Christ Almighty, Rooster. I thought the Spanish were after us.”
He moved to comfort me, but I held up a hand.
“No. Leave me a moment.” I couldn’t bear to be confined. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. Whatever you need. Please tell me.”
I blinked in the darkness and focused on calming my breathing.
“Only…stay with me. Keep close.”
“Of course,” he said, pulling the blanket over his chest as he gazed at me with reassuring concern. “I hate to see you struggle.”
I made an attempt at a laugh. “So silly to be so undone by a nightmare.” The noise of my heart beat thumped in my ears.
“Well,” he said, “happens to the best of us.”
I gazed down at him. “Have you ever been plagued by such horrors?”
He gave me a look. “As an ex-navy officer and now a regular brigand? Yes. My sleep is not always peaceful.”
I didn’t say anything, wanting to learn more but hesitant to ask for clarification.
He put a hand to his forehead. “I’ve seen things that…well, that I’ll not forget.”
“What’s the worst thing that you’ve seen?” I asked, then regretted the question. “Never mind. You don’t need to—”
“There was a young fellow—a jolly, cheerful chap whom everyone liked—about nineteen, I think. Regular deckhand. He and an officer were sentenced to hanging for sodomy.”
A cold fear hit me in the chest.
“Fuck.”
“Yes. Nasty business. I fail to see how it is anyone’s regard where a man decides to put his cock, unless he does so without leave or with a person who has not yet reached adulthood. In this case, two grown men had engaged willingly together. Yet the deed was still considered a hanging offense.”
I nodded, not wanting to say anything and thinking how awful to pay for such a thing with your life.
“I had to watch the sentence carried out. The nineteen year-old survived. He received a stay—a pardon—at the last moment.”
“Oh. Well, that’s good, isn’t it?”
“Mmm. Not really, I’m afraid. They did him and his friend up, all ready to go through with the sentence.
The older man panicked and began to flail about and ended up with a bullet to the head.
The young lad was given a reprieve and taken down, but he was not right after that.
His mind had been shocked past the point of repair. ”
“Bloody hell. That is…horrible.”
“I shouldn’t have told you that. The tale is not a pleasant one.”
“I’m not a child. You don’t have to coddle me.”
“At any rate, on occasion, the things I’ve witnessed return to me in the depths of my slumber,” he said. “But, since you’ve been sharing my bed, my sleep has been peaceful. I wish yours was as well.”
“Sometimes I wonder…” I began.
“What, my precious lad?”
“I wonder if the visions are a dream at all.”
He stilled, as if I’d voiced a possibility that hadn’t occurred to him.
“What do you mean?”
My heart pounded in my chest as I tried to explain.
“Only that…the nightmare is always the same. The same…creature. The same song. The same,” I gulped. “Teeth.”
“Song?” he asked, his body relaxing as if a musical affinity meant the beast couldn’t be a threat. “The creature sings?” he asked, amusement in his voice.
“Not exactly. Well, yes, but the lips don’t move. The song comes from the creature somehow.”
He gazed at me with sympathy.
“What if the thing in my dream is real?”
“Look, I’ve never had children. I don’t have experience with battling monsters under the bed,” Dinesh admitted.
“Under the sea, you mean. You see, I mention the possibility because my own powers are inexplicable. And I wonder if there are things in these depths that seek to harm me.”
“Rooster, you’ve been through a lot. Perhaps this is your mind’s way of dealing with all of that upset. All of that…” He waved his hand in the space above us.
I carried his thought forward. “Guilt from all those lives lost at Cayonne. You don’t have to remind me.”
“I’m sorry. I only wanted to mention that you’re still recovering from that.”
“It’s been months.”
He stroked my cheek with a finger, moving a stray bit of hair behind my ear.
“Yes. But I saw how badly that affected you. I know you were outraged that we kept the town’s destruction a secret, but I’m glad we did.”
I eyed him with displeasure.my little
He tilted his head. “If we had told you whilst you were regaining your strength, the upset would have delayed your recovery. By the time you found out, you were strong enough to face the truth.”
I didn’t say anything. Because he was right, but his obfuscation still upset me.
“I didn’t want to keep the facts from you. But I do feel I made the right choice.” he said.
“I know. But if anything similar happens in future, I want to know the details. Without delay.”
“Of course.”
“I’m feeling a bit better. But I don’t want to talk of this anymore,” I said. “If I turn the other way, will you cuddle me?”
“You mean, like two nesting spoons? Of course.”
I arranged myself so that he could snug up behind me and hold me close to his chest in the darkness. I immediately felt better.
“My mam used to hold me this way,” I whispered. “When I was a wee lad. Before she—”
“Shh. It’s all right. Go back to sleep. I’ll keep you safe, my little rooster. Would you like me to sing you a lullaby?”
I stiffened.
“I beg pardon? A lullaby? I’m no babe or child.”
I tried to turn in his arms to give him a look of displeasure, but he held me firm, chuckling.
“Oh my goodness, that hit a nerve. Yes, a lullaby, my dear lad. There are no written rules that one adult cannot sing a lullaby to another, if they want to.”
I let myself relax. This was no doubt true.
“Do you…know any lullabies? We determined that you have no children.” Something that I’d not thought to ask and was now relieved to know.
“As a matter of fact, I do. Coincidentally, from when I was a lad.”
“That long ago? Is the tune in an ancient language from the dawn of time?”
“You know, Simon,” he said, sliding his hand along my side and around to give my buttock a hard pinch. “I can spank you under these covers if I’ve a mind to.”
“No, no. Sing. Sing me the lullaby. Please, Dinesh.”
“Very well. If I sound like the thing in your nightmare, tell me to stop.”
But he didn’t. Dinesh’s voice was warm and familiar, rough and soft like the smoke that drifted from the cigarillos he liked to smoke. I drifted off to the sweet and melodic song and to the comfort of his closeness.
***
By the next morning, land was sighted, and by mid-afternoon we were close enough to get a good look at Talamanca from the sea.
I was wrestling with the newly washed and dried bed sheets in our rooms when there was a knock and the door was pushed open.
“Simon!”
I looked up to see Domingo with Squid peering over his shoulder.
“Yes?”
“Captain Martin sent us to fetch you. He said you’ve never seen the Americas, and we’re getting close.”
“Hold on, now. Have you two seen the place before?”
Domingo barked a laugh and shook his head. “Rooster, I’m from Venezuela. I didn’t actually grow up on Tortuga.”
“Oh fuck, I’m sorry. Squid?”
He smiled. “I’ve been too many places to count. Never been to Talamanca, although I have seen the Americas.”
“Well, shit. How come I’m the last?”
I left the sheets in a bundle on the bed and followed Domingo and Squid to the decks, where the rest of the crew were gathered at the bow. Surely I wasn’t the only one who hadn’t seen the Americas.
Captain Martin came over to bring me forward as the crew made way.
There was a familiar broad expanse of ocean, but instead of going on to the horizon, an immense shelf of land stretched out in front of us. It was far enough away that it appeared hazy and unreal.
“Holy shit.”
There was no end to the vast shoreline, either to the right or the left.
I’d never seen so much land. I’d grown up in Spanish Town, Jamaica, the only son of British missionaries, and spent a brief period in Port Royal before finding my destiny on the Arrow.
“Does the continent ever end? Or does the land only keep going?”
“I showed you the pictures in the atlas, remember?”
“Aye. But this is… Are you sure we’re in the right place?”
The crew laughed and Captain Martin leaned in to kiss me on the cheek and squeeze my arse.
“Yes, we’re in the right place. Hillier is an excellent navigator.
We only have to travel south about five leagues to get to the beach where we left Francis so long ago.
There’s a very small island off the coast, and we can sit to the lea of that.
We’ll set our anchor, then take the skiffs to shore.
If Francis and his people spy us, perhaps there will be a welcome party. ”
I frowned. “They won’t think we’re an enemy ship come to take spoils? Or the Spanish?”
Captain Martin laughed.
“Francis Bell knows this ship very well, and he’ll recognize her. And the Spanish have long ago given up making any profit off this land.”
“Is the place so barren as that?”
He gave me a sober look. “Barren? No. But the Spaniards came looking for gold and found none, only dense, impenetrable jungle, insects, and heat. Their diseases decimated the indigenous population of this land, and then they left.”
“Well,” I said. “So what’s left, then?”
“Paradise,” Captain Martin said.
“Well.”
“The strongest have survived and now make a community of people living off the land as they’ve always done. It’s a modest life, for certain, but one that seems to fit Francis to a T.”
The day was a perfect one for our approach. Gulls danced and dove under a spattering of white clouds, their raucous cries announcing our arrival.
“There’s the island, there!” Dinesh said when he caught sight of it. “And Francis’s beach. See, Rooster?”
“Looks quite primeval.” I commented.
The rainforest came right to the edge of the sand, the jungle lush and green and intimidatingly large. I couldn’t take my eyes off the incredible vista.