ICE BOAT

BY STEPHEN MAKIN

The chill slid in through the slit underneath the cabin door. Two men huddled in their bunks, clutching their jackets and blankets and trying not to make eye contact with their shadows in the bonfire’s glowing embers. The boat had stopped its rocking in the ice.

“Do you think we’ll be rescued, James?” asked the first man, a sailor out of Portsmouth.

“Someone’s looking, I’m sure,” replied the second.

“Well I’m not sure.”

“Although I suppose it depends,” James said. “Depends how far we are from land. But we can’t be too far, no?”

“I don’t know where we are,” the sailor retorted. “But I’m sure we’re in Hell, and the whole thing’s gone and got itself frozen over.”

“But even in Hell, I’m sure somebody would be snooping about for us. Satan has a business to run. I’d bet he just can’t stand seeing us poor, unfortunate souls milling about on a ship unaccounted for.”

“I honestly can’t tell if you’re being serious.”

“Well of course I’m serious, mate. Dire straits, and all. But I’m just saying there’s gotta be somebody out there trying to bring us home.”

The sailor coughed, and fiddled with his fingers against his chest. “Although I guess if we were in Hell,” he muttered, thoughtfully, “chances are my bastard brother would be looking for me.”

“Oh?”

“Well, I mean, he’d have every right, though he’s no better off himself.”

James sat up and smiled with intrigue. His face burned bright in the fire’s glow. He was actually rather handsome for a deep-sea fisherman up north. Or at least he had been once. The falling temperatures and rising tides had scorched his soul and blackened his eyes. He looked a hollow shell.

The sailor spoke solemnly. “Let’s just say there’s a reason I’m on this boat,” he whispered, “and not living with civilized people. It wasn’t always this way.”

“That’s how it is in this business, friend. World can’t all be saints.”

“Got that right. Otherwise, who’d run it?”

“That’s why churches are full of poor old ladies,” James laughed, “and hospitals charge a fortune.”

The old sailor cracked a toothy smile as he stretched and yawned a great big yawn, turning his face to glance at his only companion left in the world. “You misunderstood my question before,” he sighed. His smile didn’t match his tone. “When I asked if you think we’d be rescued, I wasn’t looking for hope.”

The cabin sat silent for a moment as the fire flickered and snapped. The wind howled loudly against the thick porthole windows.

“You know,” muttered James, breaking the silence with an eyebrow raised, “you’re not in Hell just yet.”

“See if I care. If somebody’s gonna rescue me, they’d better show up soon. Because if you think I’m letting Mother Nature take me ”

“ That’s a mistake,” James interrupted sharply. “Don’t make that mistake.”

But the sailor went on. “Wonder how I’d do it, too. Maybe stab myself with an icicle, or hang myself on a buoy-rope.”

“Ridiculous. You’re not going to do any of that.”

“Just watch. Give it a day, maybe two days, but no more.”

“You’ll have died by then anyway.”

“Piss off.”

“Unless you plan on eating ice and not freezing to death,” James laughed. “Face facts, won’t you? You’ll never kill yourself.”

The sailor grunted and turned back around. He listened to the sounds of the snowstorm outside the tin-can walls, and closed his eyes. “I’ll do it,” he grumbled. “Just watch. You’ll see.”

“Someone will find us long before you even need to worry.”

“I don’t want to be found.”

James’ mouth curled at the sides as he closed his eyes and exhaled. “We all have something to hide,” he said. “But you and me, friend, we’re survivors. We’ll survive this, too.”

“You don’t know me,” the sailor whispered. His voice grew thin, and scratched like sandpaper. Pulling a paper matchbox from his pocket, the sailor struck a single match and held the flame eerily close to his dark, unkempt beard. He stared at the flame with a lover’s gaze as the match burned down to his fingertips, as the foul black smoke began to tease his face.

But James protested. “I know more than you’d think,” he said, his tone scalding but professional. “I tell you, mate, I’m only trying to help.”

But the sailor went right on ranting as the flame caught hold of the wild tips of his beard. “I’m a royal screw-up,” he growled. “It’s bad, worse than you could fathom, and each time I’ve fallen, I’ve had to flee. Not smart enough to move to the city, or strong enough to move to some farm someplace, I drove to the docks to turn a buck. I’m from London, way back when. Bet you didn’t know that.”

A shadow grew long across James’ face, as his figure shrank back against his bunk. But the sailor raved on.

“From the docks,” he cried, “I got a job onboard a ship bound for America. But I got in a fight over something stupid, probably whiskey. I might’ve won, but they weren’t gonna keep me onboard. Captain dumped me off at some Scottish shithole-town to stew. This was the last boat out that would take me. This is my last stop.”

“Your last ride before oblivion,” James murmured. His body remained cloaked in shadow.

The sailor grabbed his beard to snuff the growing flame ahead of him, cursing his rotten luck, and crawled timidly out of bed. He shuffled across the little room and sat down beside the fire, sullen. Heartbroken. “I’ve nowhere else to go,” he chuckled. “And neither do you.”

“And neither do I,” James muttered. He smiled a quick little smile, warm as the dying flames, and joined the sailor on the floor. He draped a patchwork blanket wide across their shoulders. “Those words—they seem to resonate with me, friend.”

“I’m sure they do. Selfish bastard.”

“I don’t suppose I’ll wake up tomorrow to find you dead in the corner?” James asked, politely.

“You might. I haven’t decided yet.”

The next morning, James awoke to the sound of a foghorn outside. He raced to the porthole window, but the snow had clouded the glass and not even the light could come through. But there was a knock on the cabin door. A rescuer. James did not look back to wake the sailor, though. He’d been too silent. He was probably dead. James did not have the stomach to check.

Tearing open the door, he cried, “Thank God!” and threw himself into the arms of his savior. Lingering smoke from the nighttime bonfire wafted out into wide blue skies, and the sound of distant seagulls was near-deafening.

“Don’t thank God,” the rescuer chuckled. He was an American. “Thank the US Navy.”

“The US Navy? Where the hell did we drift?”

“You’re stuck off the northwest coast of Greenland. I’m assuming your captain tried to steer through the ice sheet, but that was never gonna work. Now this was supposed to be a real quick stop, but if anybody onboard needs medical attention, or anything else like that, please tell me now before we take you back to shore.”

“There’s nobody else,” James sighed. “Nobody who would’ve wanted saving, anyway. Now bring me to some hard, dry land, brother, so I can die in peace. I have a bet to win against my friend in Hell, and apparently, an angry sibling to outrun when I get there.”