He sat Shipwreck Chippy back down on the raft and explained that the Radio Officer, Kiri Allan, had taken an axe and smashed the timbers of the raft, then thrown herself overboard.
“My God,” said Shipwreck Chippy.
McAnulty stared into the black night. “There is no god,” he said. “No god.”
TUESDAY
Shipwreck Chippy held a meeting with the crew. They huddled beneath a piece of sailcloth tied to four small poles, and shared their provisions - water, chocolate, milk tablets, barley sugar, fish paste and a bottle of lime juice.
They had been lost at sea since January. One day Captain Ardern abandoned ship, and the next day it capsized. Shipwreck Chippy swam to a raft, and pulled survivors out of the ocean.
The sailcloth had kept them dry and the provisions had kept them fed. But several of the crew had been lost at sea. Morale was low. Fresh storms battered the raft. Lashed to six drums, it stayed afloat, but days went by when nothing got done, and many of the crew lay in a torpor.
“Crew,” said Shipwreck Chippy, “good, loyal crew, be not afraid! Heaven seldom forsakes a sailor of endurance and willpower. I am confident we will make land. The winds are in our favour. But first, we must keep the raft ship-shape and seaworthy. Whose job is it to run up the flag?”
The crew remained silent.
“Whose job is it to scrape off the barnacles?”
Still no one said anything.
Shipwreck Chippy narrowed his eyes. He knew he was their best hope of salvation. Sucking hard on his ration of barley sugar and fish paste, he ran up the flag, then leaned over the side of the raft and began scraping off the barnacles.
WEDNESDAY
Shipwreck Chippy ran up the flag, then leaned over the side of the raft and began scraping off the barnacles.
THURSDAY
McAnulty gave Shipwreck Chippy a hand with the barnacles. An idea came to mind. He scooped out the barnacle meat and attached it to a hook he had made out of a length of spring that he had taken from a flare gun.
Within hours he had caught more than a dozen excellent fish. He gutted their entrails and washed them out in sea water. Then he tied a string around the four corner poles of the raft and hung up the sliced fish to dry.
“Eat,” he said to Shipwreck Chippy. “You need your strength. Eat.”
Shipwreck Chippy bit down on the fish and considered the First Mate. How practical he was. How dependable.
How admired, too, and how well-liked.
FRIDAY
Shipwreck Chippy found a length of wood.
The sea changed colour, and took on a reddish tinge.
He spent the day whittling it to a point.
A flight of small birds appeared, different to the prions they were used to seeing.
He pricked his finger with it to test its sharpness.
No one noticed a column of smoke to the west.
The Purser, Grant Robertson, asked Shipwreck Chippy what he was doing.
“You have to keep an eye on your enemies,” he said, “and an even closer eye on your friends.”
