In The Wreckage: A Tale of Two Brothers (6 page)

The brothers fell into their hammocks and Conall tucked up tight. He missed Rufus. How would the dog get by without him? But he didn’t get chance to worry about it for long, because his eyes closed and he sunk deep into sleep, dreaming of ropes and knots and sails and seeing the wood of the deck he was washing, the cloth moving back and forth, relentless as the sea itself.
 

≈≈≈≈

It was still dark when Conall woke with Faro shaking his shoulder. He grumbled and curled up in his hammock. Faro pushed and rolled him out onto the floor.
 

“Shift’s starting,” he said. “I’m going to the washroom.”
 

Still half asleep, Conall stumbled after his brother down the ladder to the middle deck. The water was cold and stale, but washed off the sweat. He splashed his face, shook his hair and glanced at the mirror. He is eyes were bleary and tired. He needed more sleep. But his time was not his own, not any more. It belonged to Jonah Argent.
 

When they got back on deck, the first light of dawn coloured the sky to the east. The sun was rising behind the black outline of land. A dark shape loomed to starboard. From the front of the ship one of the sailors shouted instructions, calling out what he could see to the steersman at the back of the poop deck.
 

“Norway,” Faro said. “We’re passing the outer islands, heading for the mainland.”
 

The second mate was on duty, a thin, bony man by the name of Tyler Bagatt. ‘Bones’ Bagatt the crew called him. He caught the boys standing on the forecastle, staring open-mouthed, and clipped them both around the head. “Keep working and get off the forecastle unless you have business being here,” Bagatt said.
 

The boys were sent up the shrouds to help stow the mainsails. Within the hour the boat was running on engine power alone, as she glided towards the mainland.
 

Conall had seen photographs of mountains in the old books, but they didn’t capture half of it. Cliffs of stone rose from the sea, hundreds of feet of sheer rock. The land kept rising, with impossibly high mountain tops within half a mile of the seashore.
 

“It’s all rock,” Conall said to Faro. The boys were arranging ropes and stays, helping get the boat ready for arrival in port. “Mountains and rock.”
 

“Not much land for farms,” Faro said. “There’s nothing flat.”
 

By mid-morning the ship was heading into port, a sheltered fjord and a town ten times the size of Lerwick.
 

“One of the old cities,” Captain Hudson said, as he watched from the side of the ship. Conall was a few feet away, scrubbing the deck for the second time that morning. “Bergen, one of the great trading ports of the world. Home to half a million, in the old days.”
 

Ruins stretched for miles. Remains of homes and roads, shops and schools, scattered across hillsides around the fjord. “A lot of it’s overgrown,” Hudson said. “There’s tunnels, see boy, cut through the mountains. The work it must have taken to do that. You can’t fathom it. All that power. And it all went wrong.”
 

 
A scattering of houses rose up one hillside where smoke from the chimneys drifted into the morning air. It seemed to be the only part of the town still inhabited. A crowd had gathered around the houses and harbour, waving at the ship. As the ship drew closer, the entire crew came on deck. Heather clutched Rufus in her arms. The dog howled when he saw Conall, scrabbling at the girl’s clothes to get free. Conall rushed to help her, taking hold of the terrier in a firm grip. The dog lashed his face with its tongue and Heather laughed. The girl’s mother appeared at her side, an arm around her shoulder.
 

His time with Rufus was cut short by Jonah, who arrived with orders, tasks and duty rosters. Faro was to go with the first mate, to help with supplies. Conall was to help the captain and his wife, to fetch and carry and do whatever was needed.

“Watch yourselves ashore, both of you,” Jonah said. “They’re decent enough folk in this town, good as you’ll find these days, but that’s not saying much. Eyes open, and don’t go wandering, understand?”
 

≈≈≈≈

Bergen’s harbour-master rowed out to the ship, spoke with Captain Hudson, and guided
The Arkady
into port. The harbour had been rebuilt and reshaped as the waters rose, but could still take a ship the size of
The Arkady
, moored alongside the main dock.
 

Conall watched Hudson and Jonah Argent, heads together, debating what to do. The ship would be vulnerable, tied to the dockside. Anyone could board her, by force if they chose. But they could bring more supplies on board, save time and effort, and give the whole crew a break on land. In the end, they decided to take the risk, though Conall heard Jonah muttering to the sailors, urging them to stay alert.

A crowd of people gathered on shore, wanting to look around the boat, offering to trade. A group of young women with fresh-faces and blonde hair waited for the sailors to disembark, loitering on the dockside, well away from the other townsfolk. Their skirts were short and blouses low enough that there was no mistaking what they’d brought to sell.
 

Captain Hudson stood on the poop deck and announced the ship would stay in Bergen until the following morning. But no one was to stay in the town overnight, he warned. They sailed with the dawn light, and anyone missing would be left behind. “No one goes ashore alone,” he said. “In groups of three at least. And always an able-bodied man among them. The crew will take watches on board
The Arkady
, make sure the ship is secure at all times. You have your orders, enjoy your time.” He waved as if to dismiss them. “But don’t bring back any diseases,” he added, half under his breath.
 

The houses of Bergen were built from a mix of stone and wood, cut from the conifers that covered the mountains. More trees than Conall had seen in a lifetime on Shetland. Around the water’s edge, many of the buildings rotted away or stood silent and brooding, overtaken by the rising waters and long since abandoned.
 

Conall joined the captain and his wife along with two sailors as the first ashore. Erica Hudson took hold of Conall’s hand and whispered for him to stay close and not go wandering. She held onto his hand as if protecting him, and the sailors behind him sniggered. His face flushed with embarrassment. He was expected to work with the men. He was old enough, fully grown. He’d looked after himself all his life, no mother there to coddle him, only Faro. Now this woman treated him like a child in front of his crew-mates. But he didn’t dare pull his hand away. Upset the man’s wife and he’d soon get on the captain’s bad side. Besides, he might need this woman’s protection, before the voyage was out. So he put up with the indignity, and stuck close to her, though he touched the knife Jonah had given him, making sure it was still there, around his waist, hidden by his shirt.
 

The mayor and a group of elders met the captain as they came down the gangplank onto the dockside. Most were stodgy men with big bellies, wearing shirts and ties. The people of Bergen didn’t suffer from food shortages, that was clear, judging by the waistlines on show. The mayor herself was an old woman, seventy or more, with a twinkle in her eye and a cheeky smile, and slim to the point of being frail. She took Captain’s Hudson’s arm and led him towards the town hall. Inside a buffet had been laid on. All around people spoke in a strange language unknown to Conall, but whenever they addressed anyone from
The Arkady
, they could all speak perfect English.
 

Conall stuck beside Erica Hudson as they explored a long table full of food. “They don’t have things so bad. Better than Shetland.”
 

“They have more land for growing food and grazing animals,” Erica said. “And they’ve always had a way with boats and ships. I guess they never lost it, and they can still take to the sea, go fishing. And there’s the climate too. Cooler here, don’t you think? Look at the trees. There are no forests like this now, not in England, not even in Scotland.”

 
Conall stuck close to Captain Hudson and the mayor, listening to their conversation, keen to learn all he could about their trades, their talk and the worlds they lived in. It sounded as if Bergen was busier than Shetland had ever been, in his lifetime or even decades before, with passing ships and trade, people from inland bringing food and wood, metals and furs. All the same, no ship the size of
The Arkady
had been seen for a dozen years or more according to the mayor. “There’s no more fuel for the engines,” she said. “Few sail ships left, and no one to build new ones.”
 

The captain told of the years spent refitting
The Arkady
, a ship he’d found abandoned in the old port of Liverpool. “We had to protect her from raiders, find men who could do the repairs, who understood the sails and masts and rigging. We needed a crew, men who knew the sea and they are hard to find. And we needed men we could trust, and that’s harder still.”
 

Erica glanced at her husband as he said it, an odd expression on her face. Did she trust Jonah Argent and his men? Probably not. Part of him wanted to warn her, to tell her what he and Faro had heard about the treasure map.
 

The mayor asked the captain about the voyage and where the ship was heading.
 

“We make for Svalbard, to form a settlement,” he said. “All the work, refitting
The Arkady
, was so we could head north to the cooler climes, where it’s easier to grow food, and to live. There were no ships you see. We needed our own. And we wanted to bring so much. We have animals on board, to start a farm. It isn’t much, but a beginning. And once we’re settled, we can use the ship to make more journeys.”
 

“She should be used for trade,” the mayor said. “A ship like that should be in use. There’s so many people who want to go north.”
 

The captain agreed with her, but insisted his ship would be busy for many years, transporting people and animals, plants and equipment.
 

“Tell me,” the mayor said, “why Svalbard? Why not Greenland? There’s more land. Almost a continent. They say the glaciers have gone.”
 

“But is there any soil?”
 

“Is there on Svalbard?”
 

“Some, I’ve heard. And if there’s little, then we have plans. We’ll bring soil from further south.”
 

“That’s the work of years,” the mayor said. Conall read her thoughts from the look in her eyes. She thought it was madness, to start a farm on soil shipped over the ocean. And she didn’t much believe him, either, as though she suspected he hid something, his real story still unspoken.
 

“We must go,” Erica Hudson whispered in Conall’s ear. She made her excuses, thanked the mayor for the food, but insisted she must look for supplies. “Can’t trust the sailors to buy food,” she said. “It’ll all be bacon, and not a shred of greens among it.”
 

 
They took one of the sailors with them as a guard, and toured the shops and market stalls of Bergen. Traders sold fresh fish, prawns and crabs, caught that day they claimed. Erica visited every flower stall, every trader with vegetables, anyone selling seeds or roots or saplings. “Botany is a study of mine,” she said as they walked from a stall, her arms laden with flowers.
 

They wound through side-streets as she continued to explore, until Conall realised they were a quarter of a mile or more from the quayside. The streets were narrower and more enclosed. He sensed something. They weren’t safe. He couldn’t say why. He’d seen nothing. But they were being watched. Followed. Stalked. He stopped, called out to Erica but she was too far ahead. The sailor looked back at him, read his expression and bellowed at the top of his voice. The captain’s wife turned, and the sailor gestured for her to stop, to come back to where they stood. He had his long knife in his hand as if ready to fight, and gestured to Conall to do the same.
 

“What did you see?” the sailor asked.
 

“Nothing. It’s just…”
 

“I know. I feel it too.” The sailor dropped the flowers he carried into the gutter and took the captain’s wife by the arm. “We have to leave,” he said.
 

At that moment a group of six men surrounded them, coming from different directions. They kept well back, not threatening directly, but watching, letting them know they were trapped.
 

The sailor swore. They’d have to fight, might die here. But Conall’s only thought was Rufus. Not his brother, his mother or father, or his duty to
The Arkady
. The only image in his mind was the dog, never knowing what happened, not understanding, pining for him, hoping he’d return one day, staring over the side of the ship in Heather’s arms, longing for Conall to come home.
 

The sailor had drawn his long sword, waving it threateningly in the air.
 

“Now boys, no need for that,” one of the men said. “Let us have the woman and you can go.”
 

Conall took the knife from his waist, held ready in his right hand. Could he use it? Stab a man with cold steel?
 

“Conall, no.” Erica put her hands on his shoulders protectively, as if he were a child. He shook her off instinctively, angry. Didn’t she understand? This was real. These men would take her. He’d fight, die here if it came to it rather than back down. It didn’t matter. When someone came at you, you stood up to them. It’s the way it was.
 

Conall glanced at the sailor. He held his sword lower, his body less tense. He was wavering, thinking about their offer.
 

“Run,” Erica whispered to Conall. “You’re too young. Get away.”

“Keep back,” Conall shouted at the men. He shouted louder than needed. Loud enough to be heard half way across the town. A yell. “Keep back or we’ll fight,” he screamed. In his fear, his throat was tight, his voice the high-pitched screech of a boy, not the commanding bellow of a man that he’d intended. The men surrounding them laughed. He held a knife in his hands, an eight inch blade clean and sharp, ready to cut them. And they laughed.