Free Seagulls in My Soup by Tristan Jones Page B

like a jack-rabbit. But all
Aries
did was shiver and shake from aerials to keel, like a felled mastodon, a great, stupid ox, a grounded leviathan.
    By this time we were all three wet through with spray and rain, but although Tony retreated to the wheelhouse, Reynaud and I stayed out on deck—awed, possibly, by the holiness of what was happening. I swallowed mouthfuls of cool water, which the wind drove at my face. Everywhere around
Aries
water streamed and swept in cataracts lashed ragged as they shot to leeward. It was as if half the sky had fallen down upon us, and half the sea were rising up to meet it.
    The awesome deluge seemed to last forever. Then, just as it all became unbearable, and I started to haul myself along the handrail to the wheelhouse, it stopped. It stopped instantly. All became quiet except for the low mumble of the idling engines. In a matter of a second it was as if the squall had never been, except for a diminishing excitement—a slight agitation on the moonlit faces of the swells. In a moment the natural forces of the world had abandoned us once more to the petty details of human existence; we were again deprived of the revelation of grandeur, released from unthinking, uncaring eternal beauty, and cast down again into our own private pits of human anxiety.
    For a few moments we had been, all three of us, bound together inexorably. It was as if we had become one in some ineffable, inexpressible way. It was as if the universe had judged us and found us wanting.
    Halfway to the wheelhouse door I stopped in the sudden silence and stared again at the southern edge of the black blanket of the night sky. Three lights appeared on the horizon. My heart jolted and I focused intently on the lights until I discerned that they were, in fact, three low stars, leaping and falling between the crests of the waves. Then I turned again and said to Reynaud, who still stood, sodden, looking south, “I may be wrong, but I think there’s something there.” I thought it just as well to keep him worried.
    He started, surprised, and leaned forward to stare more intently. “Are you sure?
Vous êtes sûr?”
    â€œNo, I’m not, but I thought I saw something just now, way out over the horizon, more to the southeast. It could be that they’re searching for us on the track to Marseilles . . . But look, you’re wet through—why don’t you go down to the engine room and dry out.”
    Reynaud merely grunted at this, and then said, “Let’s get going.”
    â€œOK, but you really ought to get inside the wheelhouse so you don’t dry out in the headwind.”
    I went into the wheelhouse. Tony was standing by the navigation table. I winked at him—a mere flicker of an eyelid. He gave no response. I was not certain that he had seen me in the dull glow of the pink compass light, but I imagined that I saw a slight movement of his body.
    With Reynaud close behind, watching me, I returned to the helm, pushed the engine gear lever forward, and slowly opened up the throttle. The boat moved slowly at first; then, as the speed increased, her stern lowered, her bow arose, and she was leaping again into the blackness of the night like a sprung hare. Now that the squall had disturbed the sea, her bows butted and battered, rammed and thundered over and upon the crests of the wakened seas. The hull gave off a rumbling sound to accompany the screaming whine of the engines. Once in a while a great dollop of green water, with a spitting zizz of spray, sped over the bow. We were moving at speed now, and I stared through the windscreen between douses of water. The sea now looked as if it had picked up its baggage and was moving swiftly to the star-spangled edges of the world. Even the stars themselves—the ones low down on the horizon—seemed to be marching with
Aries,
trying to race her toward our goal—or our doom.
    All through the night we continued at full