"Those poor Chinamen are one thing but these lot don't deserve any better," the bosun said, his voice surprisingly cold. "Let the crabs have them, the murdering sons of dogs."
Pam nodded, trying not to look at the sheet-wrapped body of their friend Fritjof lying nearby. Fritjof and the bosun had been close, sailing together for many long years. The injured look on the normally gruff but cheerful bosun's face was enough to make Pam cry. She briefly considered weeping again, but the tears wouldn't come. She was all cried out for this night. Maybe in the morning. Meanwhile, dark thoughts like "I've killed men with my own hands!" and "More good men have died for my cause!" tried to push themselves into her consciousness, but she was too tired and ignored them until their shrill accusations fell away. She knew they would return, demanding to be heard in the early hours of the morning when she would stare at the shadow-filled ceiling of her hut and remember. But not just now.
Looking around the deck, she saw that not all the men's faces were grim. Some were beginning to admire their prize and clap each other on their backs in celebration of a hard-fought victory. Pam made herself smile for them. She knew that for some reason they looked to her, so she allowed herself to share some of their pleasure. They had won, they had a ship, it was foreign and weird but definitely seaworthy. Now they were free and able to take action! Pam turned her gaze away from the orange glow of the torch-lit deck to peer at the dark mass of the coastline. Her colonists were out there, somewhere, and they were certainly in trouble.
"We'll come for you," she spoke into the night in a voice beneath a whisper. "We're ready now, hold on!"
A few minutes later Pam sat in the back of the pinnace as the exhausted sailors rowed through the tranquility of a wind-less night. She was heading back to the simple comforts of her bamboo hut with her most trusted friends, Gerbald and Dore, as well as young Pers, injured Rask and the earthly remains of Mard and Fritjof. Mard had been a shy fellow. Pam hadn't gotten to know him very well but she recalled that he had always spoken gently to Pers, even when the lad was being a teen-age idiot, and so she thought highly of the man for that. She would miss his face, and dear old Fritjof's. Their places would be empty at breakfast. These fallen heroes would be given a proper burial on the grassy mound beside the first mate in the morning.
Dore turned to see Pam looking at the shrouded corpses with an expression that held all the world's cares. She reached for Pam's hand and squeezed it. Pam returned the squeeze gratefully and the two of them looked back at their captured ship. The vivid colors of her lacquered woodwork and fanciful carvings in the flickering torchlight made her seem like something come sailing out of a dream, a phantasmagorical craft from beyond the edge of the world.
"What a day." Pam said, while Dore solemnly nodded in agreement.
Chapter Twenty-Five: Breakfast of Champions
Beach Camp of the Redbird Castaways, South Coast of Mauritius
Pam slept like a stone. The marvelous aroma of coffee brewing wafted through her little window and summoned her from slumber just half an hour after dawn, bringing her forth to blink at an already too-bright sky filled with enormous cotton clouds. She managed to stagger down to the cook-fire to join the men waiting for breakfast. The Swedish crew always treated her with deference but this morning they all leaped to their feet, except Rask who was still nursing his injuries but who looked much better as he smiled widely at her, and then made much fuss about finding her the most comfortable seat next to the fire. She leaned over to Gerbald and quietly asked him in German, "What's up with these guys? Since when do I get the star treatment?"
Gerbald smiled his best "You have asked the Fount of Wisdom" smile at her. "Pam, you really don't know? Think about what you did yesterday! It was you who lead them to victory! You even killed a number of the enemy yourself! You are their hero!"
Pam blinked at this revelation and then smiled, though her brow remained furrowed.
"Well, Howdy Doody," she muttered in English. "Now I'm a hero. I just wish I felt like one." Dore handed Pam her coffee but she just stared into its steaming darkness for a while, savoring the aroma along with a growing feeling of pride.
Dore seemed completely unfazed by the wild events of the day before and was going about her tasks with her usual efficiency. As Pam began to sip the wonderful native coffee from her coconut-shell mug, she was pleased to see that her friend had concocted some kind of culinary miracle from the final remnants of Redbird's food stores, ingredients Dore had been jealously guarding and doling out slowly over the months of their isolation.
"No point in saving all this now! Much longer and it all would have gone bad anyway," she said brightly, stirring a rich broth of salt pork, beans, dried onions, and butter, all thickened with the last of the flour and seasoned with a variety of herbs and spices. Everyone was beginning to crowd around the cook-pot, staring at it with hungry eyes.
"Stay back now, you fellows. There's enough for everyone and we need to save some for the men on the ship!" Dore chided them, but in a tone set at a less stern pitch than usual.
Pam, beginning to achieve caffeinated consciousness, now noticed that Dore hadn't put her beautiful burnished brass and silver streaked hair up in its usual severe bun this morning. Instead she wore it in a loose braid over her shoulder, tied with a string to keep strays out of her eyes. Pam smiled to see this development. Dore was definitely wound a bit less tight today. Evidently a little "harlot dancing" had been just the thing for her ever-serious friend.
After filling themselves with the delicious and hearty soup, they all stood up, stretched and made ready for the solemn duty they had to perform this morning. Singing a Christian hymn that was ancient even in the seventeenth century, many of the words of which Pam couldn't catch, the Swedes carried their dead down the beach with all the respect one might have afforded the kings of old.
The dodos followed along behind the procession, forming a peculiar kind of honor guard, cooing and chuckling softly but keeping a polite distance instead of engaging in their usual snack begging. Pam thought they must be able to sense the somber mood and once again was surprised at their intelligence. The dodos really were not dummies. They had just evolved in a place where there was no need to fear bands of roving carnivorous apes. The sight of what to Pam was almost a mythical creature, alive and thriving right before her wondering eyes, made her heart race yet again, and brought a modicum of good cheer to her heavy heart. All this fuss, all this trouble is really for you, funny birds! she thought at the exquisitely odd creatures.
At their lonely little seaside cemetery, Pam saw that two graves had been dug already. Getting up early for hard work was nothing new to sailors and Pam respected them all the more for it.
There were four grave markers now, all made of sturdy boards salvaged from Redbird, their epitaphs painted on with Pam's waterproof acrylics and further protected by a coating of amber-tinted tree pitch. Each bore the name and rank of their fallen and, if known, their birth date and birthplace, followed by their country, Sverige, the date and, lastly, the name of their ill-fated ship.