Ocean's Justice

Part 4

Four

Once dinner was over, William escorted me back to my cabin. I noticed he braced his arms against the bulkheads as he walked, to maintain his balance as the ship moved in the stormy swell, and I found myself doing the same. The ship's motion made my stomach queasy, but the feeling soon passed as I learned to move with the ship. After all, my tiny raft had moved far more in the waves and I'd managed to sleep on that. I hummed quietly to myself as we walked, feeling my body relax further as the soothing song did its work.

When we reached my cabin, William closed the door and turned to face me. His face seemed paler than before. He covered his mouth quickly, as if he were attempting to mask the sound of his belch. "Beg pardon, lass." He swallowed a couple of times before he continued, "The captain and I agreed that it'd be best if I stayed here tonight. For your safety, of course."

Between his troubled expression, darkened eyes and rigid stance, I found grounds for a strong premonition of danger. Something was wrong and I didn't trust this stranger enough. I pointed at him, then extended my arm toward the door. "Go," I said.

He stood firm, shaking his head. "No go. Whether you like it or not, lass, you won't budge me. You'll be sleeping in the upper bunk tonight and I'll take the one below you." His pointed finger stabbed at me, the upper bunk, himself and the lower bunk, while his angry eyes challenged me.

I held his gaze for a few long seconds, before deciding to scramble up the ladder to the top bunk. I stretched out on the thin mattress, suddenly realising how tired I was. The ship moved in the waves, rocking me like a mother would a fretful baby. I opened my eyes to find William watching me.

"Rest, Maria. I swear you have nothing to fear from me. I'll be a right gentleman, here below you." With slow, deliberate movements, he lay down on the lower bunk, where I'd been sleeping only a few hours before. "I know you don't know a thing about me, but I'd change that if I could. How about I tell you a little about myself? Let me know if you grow bored, lass." His voice became gentler and more reflective.

Deciding I must have imagined the risk, I relaxed. I was hardly helpless – as he'd find out if he did pose a danger to me. In the meantime, I'd conserve my energy and listen to his melodic voice.

"I have two brothers and a sister. While all three of them were content to stay in Scotland, working, marrying and bringing up their children as McGregors have been doing for centuries, I was never content. I wanted adventure, like I read in my books. Too young to enlist in the Great War, I did my engineering studies with many other lads who were eager to work on all the new technological advances. Warships, weapons, vehicles that could travel further and faster than anything we'd ever seen. My best friend was a lad who'd lived in Japan for all his life – Japanese mother, English father. He was fascinated by improving land for higher crop yields – he said with all the new scientific discoveries in chemistry, we could grow enough food for everyone and no one would ever starve again. Crazy, I tell you – but it turned out his father was a partner in a shipping venture which shipped some of these miracle growth agents to Japan. The chemicals come from mines and extracting the raw material is quite an undertaking. So when he heard of a position on the other side of the world, he thought of me. He and his father wrote letters to some very important people and the next thing I knew, I was hired to run a guano mine in a place I've never heard of. But first, I had to be trained to represent Britain in its colonies, for that's what this place is. All it did was scare the hell out of me.

"A few weeks at the Imperial Institute in London, on the Tropical African Administrative Service training course and I'm supposed to be an expert at managing a new colony. I'm an engineer. I know steam and mining, like my father and my grandfather. There are so many insects that can kill you in Africa, I don't know half the names. And no one's ever heard of the place I'm going – except to tell horrible stories about it. They say there are crabs there – bigger than coconuts – that can crack your head open as you sleep…" The words faded as the man retched and I heard liquid spatter. He coughed and said, "Beg pardon, lass. No one told me I'd be sick as a dog on the sea. Give me land and I'll never leave it again. I imagine you feel the same way."

I peered over the side of the bunk, just in time to see him set the bucket on the floor and wipe his mouth with the back of his hand.

"One good thing about tasteless food is that it's not so bad bringing it back up again. I learned that in the North Atlantic, fresh out of Liverpool. Captain Foster said that the storm was something called a hurricane. The Americans can keep the damned things, I tell you, lass…"

His deep, purring voice continued, lulling me to sleep. I came to understand that "lass" was his name for me and I wondered what it meant. I slipped into a doze, feeling comfortable for the first time.

A creak and a clunk jerked me from sleep to alertness. The door swung open against the bulkhead and a shadow blocked the corridor lights.

"Women aboard ship is bad luck," a new voice growled. The sound was menacing and my eyes scanned the room in search of a weapon. The hulking new man grumbled some more, but his words meant as much to me as the rumbling steam engine beneath us. More worrying were the steps he took into the room – approaching the bunks.

I drew in a silent breath, steeling myself for whatever I'd need to do in order to defend myself.

The man leaned over the lower bunk and seized William. "Send you back to the ocean where you belong," the man grunted, trying to lift him.

In a flurry of blankets, William delivered a blow to the man – whether from his fist or foot, I couldn't tell – and sent him crashing against the bulkhead. William's fist caught the man under the chin next, jerking his head up before his whole body slid down the wall to slump on the deck.

"Get out of here, Barrett. If I ever see you near the girl again, I'll break your jaw and throw you overboard instead."

The man – Barrett, I presumed – scrambled to his feet and staggered to the doorway, holding onto the bulkhead as he struggled to remain upright. "The girl will curse and kill us all, McGregor. She's a siren, sent to seduce us and sink the ship. You're defending a monster."

"Shut your mouth before I break some more of your teeth. Maria's been through enough. She doesn't need to hear your superstitious nonsense and nor do I. Go make yourself useful and stoke the boiler. The sooner we get to shore the sooner you'll be shot of her – and me, too. Until then – if you have anything to say to her, you can say it to me and I'll decide if she needs to hear it or if I need to smash your face." I didn't understand William's angry words, but his meaning was clear – he pointed at the door and the other man left, spitting bitterly on the deck.

Strange – both here tonight and on the mess deck, I'd seen the other men regard William with an odd mixture of contempt and respect. Much like I regarded my elders, the women who had sent me so far from home. Yet this man didn't seem much older than I. I wished I could ask him how he'd earned a reputation that made the larger man back down, or the whole crew stand up, as they had in the mess.

I was surprised to feel William's warm hand over mine.

"Like I said, I'll make sure no harm comes to you, lass. I may be ill, but I'm still a match for any man on this crew."

I stared at William until I became lost in his liquid eyes and he laughed at me. His laughter lit a warmth inside me that I hadn't felt since Giuseppe – but Giuseppe was dead by my hands. He would never touch me again and I vowed no other man would, either. My heart and my love belonged to a dead man.

"Good night, Maria."

I didn't dare speak a word – I understood so little of what he said and needed to learn so much before I could communicate.