Free The Dead Men Stood Together by Chris Priestley Page B

could not hold his gaze and climbed gratefully when the captain ordered me to the topsails. To be up there with the sun and the wind and the white sails billowing! I felt reborn.

XVIII
    I made no further effort to seek out my uncle. At first I felt disloyal, but very quickly I felt nothing at all. I told myself that his troubles were of his own making and there was nothing to be gained by my taking sides with him.
    Occasionally he would emerge from the hold as though stepping out of his own tomb, each time looking paler and thinner and less like the man I had known at the start of the voyage, less like a man at all.
    The disgust of the rest of the crew was so strong you could feel it in the air. But my uncle seemed not to notice. Or, if he did notice, he made sure not to show it. It was as if the crew had actually killed him and he was haunting them. He was a constant reminder of the loss of the albatross and of their own murderous rage.
    But the sun shone after so many days of grey mist. The effect of its rays on the crew was startling to see. The sullenness evaporated along with every trace of moisture in the ship.
    It had been so long since we had glimpsed the world unfiltered through the fog that it seemed newly made. Every grain of the timbers stood out in pin-sharp detail. Muted colours now gleamed. The sails hurt your eyes to look at them, they were so bright.
    The mood of the ship lifted and the breeze become a good strong wind at our backs. It slapped against the canvas of the mainsails and made the rigging creak and twang like fiddle strings as they fought to rein it in. Foam scudded on the wave crests.
    The temperature began to climb and climb with the clear air. The ice world and mist seemed quickly to be a thing of the past. The wet timbers of the ship began to steam and layers of clothing were shed one by one.
    Our pleasure at being under blue skies was not strained by the uncomfortable heat. We had only to recall the freezing cold or the creeping, whispering mist and any heat seemed bearable when it came out of clear bright skies.
    The sunshine warmed us through, right through – even to our very hearts – and for the first time in what seemed an age a song broke out and we all joined in. Whatever dangers these oceans had to offer, they might be good sailor’s dangers – dangers we knew and could battle with. Or so we hoped.
    I was singing out with gusto if not much melody when I saw my uncle emerging from the blackness of the hold into the shadow of the mainsail, and he seemed like some leftover particle of the gloom and ice we had escaped.
    One by one the men around me saw him too, and as each man saw him they stopped singing as I had done, and, as they stopped, others further off stopped too and craned their necks to try to glimpse what it was that had caused the song to falter.
    I did not know what reaction there would be to my uncle’s appearance, but never in the world did I think that the captain would step forward and clap him on the back. My uncle flinched, preparing for another lynching.
    ‘Now then, lads,’ said the captain to the crew. ‘What’s done is done and we are safely into open waters. Let’s all be glad and let bygones be bygones. What do you say?’
    This was greeted by silence and most of the men had their eyes cast down, studying the deck. But after a while, one by one, they muttered in agreement. There seemed to be no stomach now for any bad feeling. No one wanted to jinx our new good fortune with ill thoughts. Luck could be curdled by such things; every sailor knew it.
    This didn’t mean that my uncle was carried round the ship shoulder high. He was still mostly ignored – because the crew no doubt harboured feelings of guilt and shame about what they had been about to do.
    We all went about our work as the fine breeze filled our sails and hope filled our hearts. Gradually, hour by hour, my uncle, working alongside them, was accepted back into the crew on equal terms. And