'My friend!?' shouted Drake. Stress, pain, nausea and disorientation suddenly yielded to an enormous outburst of hate, rage and anger. 'My friend? How do you reckon? Man, you helped force me into the sea to drown! You tried to kill me!''That little thing between friends,' said Whale Mike.Drake was staggered by this bland assertion.
'You're twigged, man!' he screamed. 'You've gone to rust! You can't make friends by drowning people!'
'That not so smart,' said Whale Mike. 'You need friend real bad. So you have long swim. So what? You not drowned. You not dead, so why worry?''You sound as if I should be grateful!' said Drake.
'You get good swim,' said Whale Mike. 'You get out of water, you feel real man. Real proud. You get good story, tell many times. Joker buy you beer, hear story. That not so? Not all bad, that swim. You get plenty beer.'
That was true, up to a point. Drake had told the story of his deep-sea survival many times. He had got many beers out of it. But that was hardly the point.'You're mad, you crazy bugger!' said Drake.'No, you mad,' said Whale Mike, sounding hurt. 'You not right in head. I your friend. I try help. You not want help. Maybe you die, but that your problem, not mine.'
And he unhooked his fingers from Drake's collar. Drake began to swing. And Mike hauled him up higher into the blue blue sky.'Investigate,' muttered Drake.
And did his very best to see how and where the rope was tied off. Whale Mike was fastening it to a cleat on the deck. Drake's life now depended on the safety of a knot tied by a moron. Grief!He closed his eyes and tried to endure.After a while, he found endurance impossible.
'All right!' he cried, with what voice was left to him. 'I'll do it! I'll do it! Anything and everything! An'vory, sure. Even the captain, yes! Every man in the ship! Just let me down from here!'But if anyone heard, nobody took any notice.
And Drake soon left off crying, for his throat was far too dry to continue.
All day he dangled, utterly helpless. He had no knife. Even if gymnastic flair and a touch of magic had allowed him to untie himself and get to the deck alive, he would have faced a shipload of pirates more than ready to hang him right up again – quite possibly by his testicles.The wind got up.The sea thickened.
It was, of course, sheer torture to be suspended there, swaying in sickening arcs as the ship rutted through the rolling seas. The weather worsened toward evening; by dayfall, they were in a regular storm. But Drake, by then, was only half-conscious.
When the ship struck, he heard the panic-stricken shouts of pirates only as another thread of violence in the nightmares of delirium. When the seas swirled up around him, he thought at first that his head was being shoved into a bucket of salt water.
Then realized he was afloat on the turbulent seas of night. Afloat? He was drowning! Feet tied together.
Hands tied behind back. A wave wrecked him under. He tried to jack-knife to the surface. Failed. Then the seas slacked away. He was afloat upon liquid ebony, staring at blindness. He gasped darkness, found part of it breathable.Something was pulling on his ankle-rope.
Moments later, Drake was hauled right up out of the water and seized by something huge: by a monster possessed of inexorable strength. Throat moistened by sea-water, Drake screamed.'Why you scream?' said a voice. 'You safe now.'Who could that be?Drake thought he could guess.
'You cuddle close,' said the voice. 'You shy? Not good be shy. Sea cold. Share heat.'
'Can't cuddle,' said Drake. 'Can't anything. Hands tied.''That no problem. Knife made for that.'
And Whale Mike cut the water-swollen ropes which bound Drake's wrists. Drake's first thought was to seize the knife and kill his enemy. But he could not see the knife in the night. And, in any case, his hands were – for the moment -near enough to useless.'Can't hold on,' said Drake. 'Too tired.'
'Easy, man,' said Whale Mike. 'You not fall. I hold. You good friend, I not let you fall.'
And Whale Mike cradled Drake in his arms. The night was full of sounds of seething sea, of wave-wreck and surf-shatter . But they could not drown out Mike' s voice. He had started singing! He was crooning a song in some strange, strange foreign language which Drake did not understand. But, without understanding the words, Drake was fairly sure the song was a lullaby.
Whale Mike was still singing a lifetime later when the shroud-pale dawn illuminated the masts and rigging of the wrecked ship, the ragged white surf breaking on nearby rocks, and a huddling of pirates barnacled on those spray-lashed rocks.'Look!' cried Ish Ulpin.
And everyone looked, and saw Whale Mike sitting where yard-arm joined mast, with Drake Douay on his lap.
'Hey, Mike!' yelled Bucks Cat from the rocks. 'How's your baby?'
'He all right!' yelled Whale Mike. 'We sing happy song!'Drake had never felt so humiliated in his life.
He tried to untie the ropes which still secured his feet. But all he managed to do was break two fingernails. He began to cry with fatigue and frustration. His tears ran hot down his cheeks.
'You want free from rope?' said Mike. 'That no problem. I just leave rope in case wave take you in dark. Rope for safety. I cut.'
And he pulled out his sheath knife – which was almost the size of a sword – and liberated Drake's feet.'What now?' said Drake.'This!' said Whale Mike.
And threw Drake into the water.
'Hey!' shouted Drake, floundering in the slathering sea.Mike laughed.
'Swim!' he said, waving in the direction of the nearby reef. 'Swim!'
Drake, having no option, swam towards the reef, where barking surf chased yelping waves and devoured them in crevices and rock-traps. Then Mike dived, and swam after him. When Drake gained the rocks, he jammed himself between two of the largest and coldest and hung on tight against the threat of the surf.'Bring your slut-hole here, darling,' said Andranovory.
But, to Drake's surprise, the order was not followed up by a prompt attack. Even Andranovory was too far gone to be lusting in more than thought.
Whale Mike wallowed through the seas like something out of a bad dream. He gained the rocks.'You all right?' called Mike to Drake.'Fine,' said Drake.'You want cuddle?' said Mike.'I've cuddled enough, thanks,' said Drake.'Never enough cuddle,' said Mike.
And, shortly, Whale Mike, Slagger Mulps, Ish Ulpin and Bucks Cat were cuddling together in a big body heap. Drake saw most of the other pirates had also huddled into body-warmth teams. He realized it would be smart to join them, for it was cold; wind and spray were sweeping the exposed rocks. But he was too scared.
He humbled down as best he could, trying to make himself invisible. A gull winged low above the slipshod surf. How long would it be before he was too weak to save his eyes from the seabirds? The slubbering sea throttled amongst the rocks, hungering for his hot blood and his long white bones; if the storm got up again, the sea would surely claim him before the birds did.
Finding thought so unproductive of pleasure, Drake stopped the practice, and shortly fell into a fitful half-sleep punctuated by dreams and the voices of hallucination.
Meanwhile, Slagger Mulps, luxuriating in the warmth of Whale Mike's armpit, stared out to sea. Shadows smudged the far-distant horizon; he knew those shadows to be the Greater Teeth. They were shipwrecked, without a doubt, on the Gaunt Reefs; there was at least an even chance that they would be rescued before too long by a raiding ship or a fishing boat.And almost an even chance that they would not.
'We sing!' shouted Whale Mike, with invincible cheerfulness. 'Everyone sing!'
This command woke everyone who had managed to drift away into the land of dreams – including Drake. He listened with astonishment as Whale Mike started a song.
All the pirates knew it, and joined in, but Drake could not follow the lyrics, for they were so full of sea-talk, arcane slang, and dialect words native to the Greater Teeth. But the chorus was easy enough to understand: everyone howled like a dog, crowed like a cock, screamed like a cat then barked like a seal. Then clapped hands against thighs.