Excerpt: Second Wind: Blues

The fleet's supply of food was dangerously low, and most of the children were dead already from illness and lack of rest. On deck, any hands able to work the rigging, no matter how small, were haggard and exhausted from their marathon labors. The sun and the wind took their turns beating and cooling the sailors until even long-worn skins were cracked and bitter, and some prayed for a storm to rise up from beneath. Let the course be damned, they would say, but give us a moment in the shade! With the Lucky Stroke in its current state – the lower mast splintered and the topsails useless – all the ship's power was drawn from the curtains on either side of the bow, and the oars at aft. The Admiral ordered repairs to be made, and without a port to dock, the hands began to tear up the floorboards and hammer them together. Nearly the whole upper deck had been salvaged, save for the skeleton of framing necessary to the ship's operation. The work was ceaseless, and while a glimmer of hope remained that the solution would work, it left those below deck bereaved of their shelter, so that all suffered with the workers equally.

Below, a circle of instruments stood idly by. Their musicians abandoned them days earlier to take turns straining their backs against the oars or raking the soils of the garden with their fingers, which were suited to such hard work better than most of the women. When they returned to play, their songs were cold and their audience too exhausted to dance. In the kitchen, women mixed more water into the stew to stretch it another day, while little boys too young for work stole spoonfuls of potatoes while they believed their mothers weren't looking.

When a man or woman was not working, they were expected to sleep, by direct order from Admiral Chelton himself. The order was intended to keep up the health of what population remained, but it also gave credence to the growing notion that nothing remained – no pleasure, no pastime, no love – nothing but the grindstone and one's own flesh, and the unquenchable need to satisfy either with the other on one day, and vice-versa on the next. Morale understandably plummeted, and Chelton, at his wit's end already on account of his great loss, began to lose his mind.

On this particular day, like on most others, Admiral Chelton stood near the helm, spyglass against his eye and what remained of the command deck against his bare feet. The gesture was useless – if there was any land to be found, the men in the crow's nest would spot it first and the announcement of triumph would be like fire on powder, and the noise of victory would be deafening – all his thoughts were bent on that inaudible, impossible echo. Despite the despair of his men, Chelton remained a symbol of the fleeting hope that the last of the human race was not yet doomed – that there was, as the late Captain Oliver swore, a vast land to the East.

While he stood in stoic devotion on the bow of his proudest remaining ship, a woman tiptoed over the skeletal frame with a cat-like balance that defied her old frame. It was “Granny,” the hag that had seized control over the kitchen, the garden, and indeed everything on the ship that wasn't an act of sailing itself. Chelton heard her approaching, but said nothing.

“Bad news, Cap'n,” she croaked. “Taters're run out, corn's run out, an' th' last o' the meat's in th' stew alreddy. We ain' got hardly 'nuff t' stretch.”

The admiral lowered his glass. “What of the garden?”

“Growin',” she replied. “But ain't fast work.” She sidled closer to him, stinking something uncomfortable, but Chelton didn't gag. “We 'ave too many mouths, not 'nuff soil t' feed 'em wit.”

“What are you suggesting?” Chelton demanded angrily, turning on her with a violent fervor that ought to have been terrifying, but his tired eyes lacked energy and his frame shuddered. Granny sidled closer, a malicious grin on her face that all but answered Chelton's question. “I won't.”

“Wouldn' be th' first time,” she crooned. “An' none could hardly hold't agains' ye... none alive, an'way.”

The stink of her breath and the horror of her logic repulsed the Admiral, and he turned aft with his back against the molded helm, supporting his bulk. “I should have expected as much from a pirate's bitch,” he spat. “The ones we can't use, we throw overboard... that's a hell of a notion.”

“Beg pard'n, Capt'n, but I'd ne'r waste the meat throw'n kids o'rboard.”

Chelton stared into her eyes – her smile had everything but humor in it. She was quite serious. “You're a demon, like the rest of your crew,” he said.

“Demons eat,” she hissed, leaning so close that her eyes came below his chin, and getting spit on Chelton's uniform. “Supper's't sundown. Don' be late. There ain' much... an' you ain' slept 'nuff t' get by starvin'.”