Into That Forest - By Louis Nowra Page 0,44
on the ship I would find them both. I took his words for the truth. He ordered me to climb up the rigging to the topmast and onto the crow’s nest. I were nimble like a native cat, I have to say. I crawled up the rigging and then on to a spot on the topgallant crosstrees. They seen I had a head for heights and me sharp eyes could see for miles past Hobart town, past the harbour into the haze of the horizon a long way away. Down below the three men staring up at me were just specks like three flies stuck to sticky paper, and I knew, as if my father were whispering in me heart, that this spot up in the clouds were to be part of me job. It was me keen eyes that Captain Lee wanted.
When I returned to the deck, Captain Lee and Ernie and Mr Carsons were grinning. I pointed to the sea and asked as best I could where Becky and me father were and Captain Lee said aye, they were out there and I would find them after a long time. I had no idea of what a long time meant so I were happy to hear it. Mr Carsons and Ernie shook me hand and left the ship.
We set sail a few hours later. Captain Lee had me sleep in his cabin on the floor under his desk. He showed me pictures of whales and told me what to do if I seen one. He said I were never to eat with the crew but only with him. He told me to shit and piss in the early hours of the morning when there were hardly any crew on deck. He were real fond of maps and liked to show them to me. He pointed out where the ship had been before and where there could be whales. He had me learn the names of oceans and islands we were going to next.
The first few weeks the ship were bouncing, tossing, turning, rolling, jumping through wild waves and freezing wind that were like nails spearing me face. It were not til we were moving north into the Pacific that the seas calmed and the days grew warmer. Now I could spend me days aloft. I knew I were supposed to be gazing for whales, but after a time on the top of the ship you feel awfully distant from those ants below on the deck, and you dream. I dreamed of finding me father, maybe in one of those countries or islands I seen in Captain’s Lee’s atlas. Captain Lee always sent me up a few hours before dawn cos he knew I could see far in piccaninny light. I watched twice a day, before dawn and into the early hours of sunlight, and an hour or two before dusk when me eyes could see further than any other whale-spotter. I took a speaking trumpet with me cos me voice were light compared to the others on whale watch. So there I were, on top of the ship like a spider in the centre of a giant web of ropes, searching, searching, searching the horizon for a spout, ever so faint. Just a tiny puff and I knew what to yell out. Sometimes it were hard not to drift off in me head. The seas seem without end, the horizon is always the horizon and you never get to it, the ship rolling from side to side like a rocking chair putting me in some sort of trance, and I were not alone, behind me were another crewman on look-out duties and he - whoever he were, cos the men could only stand the job for two hours at a time - would be in a trance too and sometimes on sultry days when we were hardly moving, the ship swayed like a pendulum but it were as if time stood still. The regular rocking rhythm put we watchers on the main and mizzen mastheads into a daze where time, place and even our bodies did not exist.
When I looked behind me I seen a wake of water at the stern of the ship and I’d watch the wake slowly vanish, and it seemed to me our ship left no mark on the sea and even our ship did not exist. I began to see the ocean had many colours from bright emerald to a dirty grey. I’d