There was a general agreement with our master that they would be able to successfully row across this vast ocean.
And so, with the fatalism of all slaves who served a master, we rowed towards home.
Again, Sam skimmed through the journal until he reached what he was after — the final chapter in the fate of the Mahogany Ship.
I watched as the days went by, and my master struggled to maintain our latitude with the strong winds and currents continuously pushing our ship further south. With all but one of our masts destroyed, we struggled to maintain a northern latitude as we headed east. Instead, we were forced past the southern land.
Our supplies were not going to last with the increased effort caused by the constant rowing.
After three months at sea and the death of one third of the crew to malnutrition, my master made the decision that we would have to come ashore in the new land.
We had no identifiable lands from which to take a bearing, but the temperature suggested that we had deviated much further south than our homeland. By this stage it didn’t matter. We were going to have to find some fresh water, food, and some means of repairing the decimated masts.
The shore was edged by a rocky cliff, making it impossible to land.
We followed it for three days before finding a place that allowed a ship to anchor. It had a rocky bottom, but the anchor held in the calm weather. Although it would most likely be useless if the swell or wind picked up at all.
A rowboat was dropped, and my master ordered several of his advisers to come ashore with him.
“You’d best come ashore, too, Rat Catcher — I may need your advice.”
I beamed at the praise from my master and dutifully took my place, as the smallest man, at the very front of the rowboat.
The enormous shoulder muscles of the slaves swelled while they rowed towards the alien land. Once we reached the shore, the slaves pulled the rowboat up on to the beach and I scurried up onto the beach.
Our weary group followed my master over the large sand dunes and into the land beyond. It was flat and the flora sparse. This would not be the place to fell trees and rebuild our masts. A large river could be seen up ahead, running towards the ocean. Somewhere it would become fresh and drinkable.
Men went ahead to find it.
And my master paced.
After hours, my master stopped and said, “All right men — what do you make of it?”
“Do you mean where we go from here or if we can even provision at this place?” the chief advisor and oldest person in the party asked.
“Where do we go from here?” my master clarified. “We have already spent nearly a week just trying to find an adequate place to make landfall. Our men are weakening, and we have no way of knowing whether or not this will be our best chance.”
“My best prediction is that we are almost due south from the homeland. If we could somehow cross this landmass, we would be in a perfect position to reach north towards home.” The navigator spoke.
“Then we should row around this land mass,” The leading engineer said. “This land offers little with which to repair your ship, master.”
“Do you think it will sail much further, given its long list of wounds?” my master asked.
“No.”
“Then the decision has been made for us.”
“Tell me, master, what that decision is,” the lead engineer asked.
“We’re going to carry the ship across this body of land,” my master ordered.
It was the sort of stubborn solution that my master would come up with. Something that he knew was as entirely unreasonable as it was necessary, its success a certainty in the giant’s mind. I knew that I, along with all the men aboard, would happily follow my master in his belief — towards our certain deaths.
Again I stood at my post on top of the remaining mast.
At two hundred feet, I was in the best position to ensure that the ship wasn’t heading directly for a large reef or rock bed. The rowboats had been used to scout the area, but the eagle’s nest offered the best vantage point. From there I could immediately see any changes in the water color and by now I was well accustomed to determining what those changes meant.
On my master’s orders the men rowed the ship at full speed towards the sandy beach with the fatality of men who served their master at all cost. I watched as the color turned from a dark blue to a light green, and then finally the sand could be seen below the keel.
There was a loud crunch as the flat bottom of our wooden ship came into contact with sand, followed by a series of vibrations that resonated throughout the ship, causing the eagle’s nest to sway ever so slightly.
For a moment I was worried it was going to tear the hull in two.
Then the bow of our gigantic ship reached the sandy beach.
Riding its own wave — which must have been twenty feet high at least, it continued to move high up the first of the shallow sand dunes as if there had been nothing in our way. Her momentum carried her forward like the monster she was.
We passed all four sand dunes as though they weren’t even there.
The ship finally came to rest more than a hundred feet along the new, flat, earthy land. So much water had come with us that our massive ship now appeared to be resting in a small lake of its own creation, several feet deep and as much as a mile wide.
My master seemed invigorated by the progress we were making.
He stood on the highest hill in the distance and examined his ship. It had been a week, and still it rested in a small lake. It appeared bigger, if that was even possible, out of the water.
Men were working in all directions. Tasks had been set and teams had been formed to achieve specific purposes. My master confided in me that they were already looking much better for their efforts. Men needed tasks. Idleness often bred poor health. So did a lack of nutrients, but that too was in the process of being rectified.
A great foraging party had been sent for miles in all directions to return with provisions. Strange new animals had been found and slaughtered. A great variety of berries had been located and those rich in nutrients were identified, compared with those that were lethal. The men followed their orders and tested the new foods until the ship’s master doctor had a long list of edible, difficult, and lethal plants and animals.
The engineer had used more than two hundred men to make changes to the ship. Large parts of the rigging, oars and weaponry were cannibalized in order to build a system by which the monstrous ship could be carried by an army of loyal men.
Today, the master engineer had ordered a party of three hundred men to remove the remaining water from the lake so that he could make the final adjustments to the base of the ship.