A Full Inventory

Two days since my last entry. We’re approaching the nearest isle tomorrow night. Our journey was delayed by the crew stretching thin over two vessels. Though I’ve found much time to be mostly alone in the interim, that time has been spent working. I will attempt to remember as much as I can, though not much of interest has occurred.

Immediately after finishing the last entry I was ordered to head into the hull by Thomas. Captain Guilleme met me there, looking over the goods being shuffled around and stored. He stuck out a hand with sheets of paper and a quill. Simond, you can write yes?

Yessir, I can, I replied.

Take record of the goods here. Thomas is organizing the storage so you can ask him where to start.

Was there no ledger? I muttered. The captain looked at me then, and a fear of rebuke shot through me.

However, he only shook his head. The damn’d thing is in their tongue. Be it as it may, I don’t go round speaking the Nordic tongue, do ye?

No, sir, I do not. I replied.

He clapped a hand on my shoulder and said, A full inventory, my boy. With that he left the hold.

I spent the rest of the waking hours rummaging through the boxes counting out textiles and sacks of spices and other goods and listing them. I was last to sleep, I thought, but I did see Thomas as I was walking by the brig. He sat at a small table in the entryway, a candle in front of him. Inside a flicker of candle light reflected off a polished piece of metal.

The creaking of the floorboards gave me away, and Thomas noticed my presence. He turned and pushed the heavy metal door a bit further away from him to see me. Where are you off to? he asked.

The sun is down, I’m off to get some sleep. Are you on night watch?

That’s none of your business. And who gave you permission to stop your work?

I can’t exactly write without light, Sir.

Use a candle.

In a room full of wooden boxes, holding a flame close to count furs?

If you’re not a moron you’ll be fine, a child can keep a flame away from something they’re looking at. Unless you’re saying you’re not as capable as a child?

Depends on the child, I suppose. Though I expect if a child had also been up since before first light they might also be prone to bouts of sleep ending in flame.

He tsked at me. Fine, go on then, he finally acquiesced with a wave of his hand. He turned back to whatever he was doing. Now unobstructed I could better see it was a decorated box that reflected the candlelight. It sat away from the walls in the middle of the room. I left soon after seeing it. As I was drifting off I realized that this was the coffin that had been described to me before, now sitting alone in the Brig.

I forgot about this once I awoke the next morning, and quickly returned to work making the inventory of the goods aboard the ship. I finished around mid-day, only to then be sent back to the Dutch ship by rowboat to make a record of the goods left aboard it and its condition. I was brought down to the cargo hold by Marlon and Martin. They were in good spirits, and chatted about nothing as we went down. At the top of the stairs to the hull they fell silent.

It’s nothin’ good down there, Marlon said, we’ve cleared the bodies, but something stays in the air.

If I were ye, I’d stay up here where the air is more pleasant. Martin added.

I don’t have much of a choice, the captain’s asked for a count.

Martin looked apologetic, and led me down the stairs. The smell hit me first, heavy iron and sickly sweet fruit smells. The lantern-light was dim, but still I could see dark stains on the floor. After a second my other senses caught up to my nose and I could hear a wet scratching of a broom. I focused on the sound and steadied myself. Looking around I spotted two of the crew, Hugh and Edmund, sweeping the ground with cheap watered down rum. The twins greeted them, and grabbed brooms to help try to remove the stains from the ship.

The afternoon passed in idle chit-chat as we attended to our tasks. At dinner the topic turned to the subject of the missing crew.

Twas mutiny, Martin posed, small group started something and the captain put an end to it.

Then where are the rest of the crew? asked Hugh, turned to sea-foam? Marlon had no retort, and so Hugh continued. I say twas sea madness. Ship was becalmed and ran low on food, and the crew started turning on each other. Start fighting each other, killing. Ran out of food so they started trying to eat each other. Those who kept their wits ran away. Ones we found were just the ones that killed each other.

Jesus, I’m eating mate! Martin shouted.

That’s what they said! Hugh said with a laugh. At this we moved on to lighter subjects, and when night fell we moved to the old sleeping quarters of the previous crew. I was exhausted from the day’s work and fell asleep quickly.

I dreamt I was awoken by a thud in the night. I was still in the crew’s cabin, but where once there were only five of us I had a sense that the room was full of shipmates. The thud came again with a small scrape of wood. I stood and tried to shake awake the person in the bunk next to me. He spoke in a language I couldn’t comprehend, but I got the sense that he was telling me to return to sleep. The thudding came again.

The dream shifted to the passageways of the ship. In the way of dreams and night time the environment was hazy. My vision focused on the handle of the door to the hold. The thudding was louder here, I had found the source I was sure. When my hand touched the door a chill ran down my spine, just as it had that first day I boarded this ship. My mouth muttered a prayer I could not understand the words to and my hand opened the door. The coffin was inside, illuminated by a sickly light of a dying lantern. The lantern swung slowly with the rocking of the ship, creating great shadows on the walls. The thudding came again, from inside the coffin. I had to open it. I had to. Body moved without thought and undid the hatches and locks that kept it closed. A key sat indented into the wood, and with a quick turn the box opened.

I jolted awake to find myself in the crew room once again. The remnants of the dream stuck to me, and I stood quickly. The room was the same as it had been when I had fallen asleep. The only others with me were the twins, Hugh, and Edmund. My nerves did not calm. A feeling of wrongness stuck to me. Every glance at the room felt as though it would at any moment return to being full of others, that any moment I stayed inside would lead me inevitably down into the cargo hold. I could not stay there any longer.

The deck was empty, as I expected, quiet in that unsettling way the entire ship is. Hatred filled me for the position I was in. As I debated the merits of attempting to row back to the Fantome a light filled one of the portholes. It fled to the bow of the Fantome, upwards and onto the deck. For a moment I considered that whoever carried it would throw themselves overboard. But they simply reached the side and leaned over the taffrail. It heaved. I know of noone on-board who still gets sea-sick at this point. Even William has adapted to the rocking of the ship. Part of me mused it might still be him, that this was his way of hiding his sea-sickness from the others to preserve his image. The thought of him running up every night like this made me laugh, and soon my nerves calmed.

Still, the thought of returning to the bowels of the ship was unpleasant, so instead I sat against the mast and watched the ocean. The sun only started rising a short while ago, and at its first rays I returned to the Dutch captain’s office to use the desk to write on. While I was watching the ocean I thought of a way to give the newest entries of the dutch journal to Guilleme without handing over the newer journal entirely. I’ve carefully torn out those pages that have writing on them and tucked them neatly into the back of the older journal. The old journal has a lot of pages sticking out of it already, and if asked I can just say that I thought it unimportant at first because of the language barrier. In the meantime, I need to catch up with the rest of our little skeleton crew. Hopefully I can return to our ship sometime today, and escape the foul miasma of this ship.

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