The Case of the Fickle Mermaid (17 page)

By the next afternoon, Gretel had to admit to herself that they were in something of a tight spot. Despite valiant rowing on Hans's part, and carefully chosen words of encouragement from Gretel—after severe blisters had forced her to down oars—they had found not so much as a rock. They had passed a cramped but tolerable night in the boat, time spent in their cabin having at least prepared them for sleeping in limited space. The weather had been mild, and the sky clear and star-studded, so that there was no fear of a storm to blow them farther off course, nor giant waves to swamp them. The next morning, however, these clement conditions had passed beyond pleasantly warm into horridly hot. The rations had provided a meager breakfast and a pitiful luncheon, and now only a flagon of ale remained. Hans had rebelled against rowing a stroke more without a nap. Gretel had attempted to persuade him into action, but he had become agitated and worryingly pink beneath the harsh sun, bandying about such words as “slave” and “galleon” so that she was forced to let him sleep. There was now not a whisper of wind, and the lifeboat merely sat upon the water, not even bothering to bob or pivot. The mer-hund kept itself cool by plunging into the sea at irregular intervals, returning to shake salt water over
its companions, who soon came to welcome the refreshment this provided.

As her brother's snores rumbled out over the open ocean, Gretel took stock of their situation. They were adrift on the wide, wide sea, with scant supplies, having informed no one of where they were going. Or rather, where they had intended going. They may well have missed the islands and now be rowing into a hundred leagues of empty water. Or they might be traveling in circles, given the disorienting effects of the wind of the previous day. It was sobering to realize this was their best hope. The heat was becoming an issue. So much so that Gretel had already removed her dress and corsets and sat in her petticoat and chemise. Her shawl she had fashioned into a surprisingly stylish headdress in order to keep her brains from boiling. The glare as the relentless sun bounced off the surface of the sea was making her squint. Sitting there, she wondered if there were not a less taxing manner in which she could earn her living; something that did not involve quite so much peril.

She thought briefly about Ferdinand. What would it be like to be the wife of an Uber General? She would no doubt be required to accompany him on formal occasions, to step out decoratively on his arm, to entertain minor dignitaries and army officers in their—one would hope—comfortably appointed quarters. He might expect children. That was a worrying thought. She could not call it an unreasonable expectation, but the resultant ballooning of her already capacious waistline, followed by, as she understood it, the withering of all parts previously full or taut, repulsed her. Altogether, this ruination of her embonpoint, and quite likely her nerves, and the years of caring for the baffling creatures that were children, did not hold a great deal of appeal.

She closed her eyes and let the brilliance of the oceanic light dance on her lids, forming restless blotches she recalled seeing
once before after overindulging in Hans's vintage plum brandy. Would she end her days thus? Would they be found months from now, dried to husks by the sun and salted like so much Nordic cod? Would they be found at all? The notion that their disappearance might remain forever a mystery filled her with despair. They would be written off as two more persons missing from the
Arabella
, nothing more. She refused to be lumped together with sailors and chefs and galley boys and spineless crewmembers afraid of mermaids. She simply could not let it happen.

She shook Hans roughly. “Wake up,” she told him. “We must row again.”

“We?” Hans asked pointedly as he dragged himself to sit between the oarlocks. “I don't recall the last several hours rowing having much ‘we' about them.”

Gretel tore off two strips of fine Moroccan cotton from the hem of her petticoats, wound them around her blistered palms, and picked up her oars. “
We
are going to row, and
we
are going to keep rowing until we find land, be it a mermaid-infested island or the very West Indies themselves. Now, pull!”

The hours crawled by. The boat crawled forward. Gretel began to have the sense that any progress was in fact an illusion, and that they were merely dipping their oars into the same patch of sea over and over again. At one point Hans became convinced that he could see a huge creature moving beneath the water, circling their boat in a menacing and purposeful fashion. Only after the mer-hund had dived in and swum about cheerfully would he accept that his eyes were playing tricks on him. The sun dipped toward the distant horizon, causing them to row all the more determinedly at it, their only marker in the vastness of the ocean. But even as it set, its colors bleeding into the darkening sky, still there was no sight of land.

That night they finished the last of the ale. With no food left, things took a turn for the morbid, with Hans so hungry
he began reciting tales of cannibalism among castaways. Gretel assured him that they were a long way from having to eat each other yet, but she did not care for the way he was sizing up her calves. Meanwhile the mer-hund seemed to exist quite well on sea water. Gretel wished the human constitution were so well adapted, and then sulked at the realization that she was now envying the wretched hound. The darkness provided at least a soothing respite from the beating sun, and exhaustion aided their sleep. When they awoke again at dawn, it was Hans who voiced the dark thought they were both thinking.

“No breakfast.”

It wasn't as if Gretel had not missed a breakfast or two in her life, nor that they weren't both sufficiently well fed and well covered to survive without a meal or several. What struck home was the doom behind these two simple words. He might as well have said,
No breakfast, nothing to drink, no chance of any lunch or supper or even so much as a light snack between us and the end of forever.

As if detecting the dolorous mood of its owner, the mer-hund leapt once more into the sea, disappeared into the depths for a gaspingly long moment, and then returned with a fish in its jaws. It clambered back aboard and released the thing, which flapped and floundered upon the deck of the boat. Hans, demonstrating a startling turn of speed, swung his oar inward and whacked the hound's catch on the head. It lay still. He picked it up and grinned at his sister.

“Breakfast!” he declared.

Gretel frowned. “You're welcome to it,” she told him grumpily. “I refuse to have anything to do with it unless I am provided with lemon and a napkin.”

“These are desperate times, Gretel. We have to make do.”

“I still have standards to maintain. We cannot allow ourselves to sink to the level of barbarians.”

She looked at Hans looking at her. His eyebrows shifted upward eloquently. Her state of undress, her outlandish headgear, her browned and flaking skin, her salt-encrusted hair . . . one might reasonably have concluded that any standards she once had laid claim to had hurled themselves overboard many hours earlier.

“I have no appetite,” she insisted, scowling at the fish.

“Come, come. You can't argue with its freshness. Think of it as smoked salmon. I'll slice it thinly. I could even light a cigar under it—that should give it a bit of smokiness, one might think.”

Whether or not this would have rendered the fish edible they were not to discover, as at that moment the sky darkened, with clouds scudding overhead appearing apparently from nowhere, bringing with them a wind that quickly stirred up waves. As if that were not excitement enough to manage, it began raining heavily.

“Quick!” Gretel shouted. “Catch the water. Use anything you can find!”

They both grabbed empty ale jars and the single tin cup that had been in the food basket, holding them up to the heavens to receive the blessed rain. The temperature dropped swiftly. It was a welcome relief to feel the cool rainwater washing over face and body, removing salt, sweat, and grime. Soon there was an inch of water in the bottom of the boat. Then two inches. Then several. It quickly became apparent that what at first had seemed to be lifesaving rain could well be the finish of them.

“Bail, Hans. Bail!” Gretel urged.

They set to their task, bent double, scooping the water out with cup or jar. The waves were of noticeable size now, so that every now and again one flopped over the side of the boat, adding to their problems, and infecting with salt what drinking water they tried to secure. Gretel straightened up, stretching
her aching back, cursing herself for a simpleton to ever have undertaken such an enterprise. As she did so, she saw something in the distance that caused her to yelp.

“Land! Look, over there. It is, it's land!”

Hans agreed. “Certainly looks solid enough. Trouble is, how do we get to it?”

He had a point. The conditions were such that their enfeebled efforts at rowing stood little chance of taking them anywhere at all, let alone to some specific and dauntingly remote point. Gretel set her jaw. She knew a Last Chance when she saw one, and she wasn't about to let it get away.

TWELVE

W
e need another sail,” she said.

“What?” Hans shook his head. “After what happened last time? And anyway, we don't have a spare.”

“Necessity, brother mine, is the mother of invention, the sister of resourcefulness, and the second cousin twice removed of ingenuity. Here, take hold of this,” she said, handing him the corset she had removed many long hours ago. Using the stays, they fastened the helpfully capacious garment to mast and boom. At once the wind caught it, sending the boat sculling across the sea. This time Gretel was ready for it. Feet braced against Hans, who was in turn wedged into the narrow pointy end of the boat, still bailing, she leaned back and hauled on the silken stays, bringing them about.

“Here we go!” she cried as they traveled with exhilarating speed in the direction of the land they could now quite plainly make out, even through the continuing rain. The choppy sea made their ride a bumpy one, causing the lifeboat to bounce and leap, and the mer-hund to fall more than once into Gretel's lap. The rain poured down her face, the noise of the wind filled her ears, but she let nothing distract her from her task. She kept her target in sight, shifting her weight in the little boat, heaving on the makeshift ropes to control the magnificently expanded sail, so that soon they were within clear sight of a beach.

“Hold tight!” she warned. “There may be reef or rocks in the shallows. We are about to make landfall, and at a fair rate of knots!”

There followed several moments of tumultuous progress, during which Gretel entirely lost her dominion over the vessel, the stays pulling free of her hands, so that the occupants of the boat were thrown this way and that as it turned and tipped and dropped into the gully of a wave, or leapt from the top of another. At last, with an almighty lurch, the lifeboat was cast up upon the shore. Battered and bruised, Gretel pushed at Hans, urging him to get out quickly and grab hold of the boat, which they then hauled as far up the blond sand as they could. Exhausted, the two lay on their backs, panting like sprinters, their heads swimming and stomachs knotting from the confusion of moving from fairground ride to static land so suddenly. Even the mer-hund subsided next to them.

It was a while before Gretel could summon the strength to sit up. Looking about her, she saw that they had come to a place depressingly similar to Amrum. Empty beach stretched away on both sides. Behind them lay dunes and then tufty tundra, fading to nothing in the distance. The rain had dwindled, the bulk of the storm clouds having either deposited their load or moved out to sea.

“Any notion where we might have been washed up?” Hans asked, still spreadeagled, his eyes closed.

“An island, I think. A fairly small one, by the look of it.”

“One of the ones we were aiming at, perhaps?”

“Perhaps. Or perhaps not. Too soon to tell,” she said, getting wearily to her feet. The sky was clearing, so that she was able to see the sun once more, and struggled to work out from its position what the time of day might be. A loud rumbling from Hans's belly offered a far more accurate measure. It was past the breakfast they hadn't had and heading toward the lunch they weren't likely to get. It would be all too easy to sink back onto the damp sand and give in to despair.

Hans shifted at last, rubbing his eyes with salty fists, which did nothing to improve his humor.

“Dash it all, Gretel,
a few hours
, you said.
No distance at all,
you said. We've been adrift, becalmed, storm-washed, sunburnt, and now marooned. I'm not sure I signed up for this.”

“Don't be such a defeatist, Hans. One cannot simply throw up one's arms after a few minor setbacks.”

“Minor? What would you consider major, I wonder? Must we be savaged by sharks? Stung by poisonous jellyfish? Devoured by a kraken?”

She narrowed her eyes at him. “You are drifting into a drama of your own imagining. We are safely delivered on dry land, and if I'm not very much mistaken . . .”

“Oh! That'd make a pleasant change!”

“. . . this looks precisely like the sort of place a mermaid might be found.”

“I'd rather find a good butcher's shop.”

“It's no good wallowing in self-pity. Get up, come along.” She grabbed his hands and pulled him to his feet. “This is your chance to prove yourself a man.”

“I was unaware there was any doubt in the matter.”

“I need you, Hans. Your hour has come.”

“What is it you want
this
time? I mean to say, first I must cook for the entire ship's complement, then I have to propel that blasted boat, now . . . what?”

“We need wood for a fire.”

“To what end? We've no food to cook on it, and I refuse to sing campfire songs to entertain you. There are limits, you know.”