In the middle of the night Bardin thought he heard a pig grunting outside the cabin door. He sat up in bed and looked around him at everyone else, who were, irritatingly, fast asleep. The pig carried on grunting, sounding as though it was in distress.
Bardin got out of bed and sprinted across the room, unbolting the cabin door. In the gloom he saw an enormous black-and-white pig lumbering around the corner by the heads. He followed it, he followed it all the way to the galley, where he next found it standing up at the table, its trotters placed there, as though it was waiting to be served a meal.
A man advanced out of the gloom, a man with piercing eyes. Bardin stared into them as though in a trance. The walked up behind the pig and placed his hands over the pig’s eyes, his fingers strategically placed.
“No!” said Bardin, unable to believe what the man was trying to do.
One of the pig’s eyes was slowly gauged out and then rolled down it’s face. The truly strange thing was that it made no sound, no squeal of agony or whimper of pain.
Bardin was seized from behind and carried out of the room by Julian. Bardin was vaguely aware of Ransey appearing as well, and then Kieran. Soon after that, Ransey evicted Kieran from the galley by dragging him along the corridor by his long hair.
“He’s shown himself at last”, said Julian, talking to Adam on the forward deck the following morning “Crowley. I was wondering if he ever would”.
“Was it all some kind of mirage, Jules?” said Adam, pulling his oilskin jacket around him for warmth “An hallucination he had created. Bardin said it all felt like a dream”.
“Bardin would claim he was hypnotised just to spare himself from being punished!” said Julian “It was stupid what he did, following the creature on his own”.
“Exactly!” said Adam “So I can only assume he wasn’t himself when it happened”.
“How is he now?” said Julian.
“Bengo’s taken him some breakfast in the cabin”, said Adam “I’m going back to the galley. It’s too cold up here. I’d forgotten what such coldness was like, living in tropical places for so long. I haven’t known it like this since that ghastly winter up at the Big House”.
“Don’t shovel it down me so fast”, said Bardin, pushing away the spoon which Bengo was thrusting at him “I can’t keep up. Whoever heard of having chicken soup for breakfast anyway?!”
“We thought it would comfort you”, said Bengo, and then dropped his voice to a whisper “You’ll need I when Julian comes down”.
“He won’t be too hard on me will he?” said Bardin.
Bengo shrugged.
“All the oldies are furious”, he said “So I guess he will be”.
“Oh thanks!” said Bardin “So much for you and your comforting words!”
When Julian entered the cabin he grandly gestured for Bengo to leave. Bengo shot past with Bardin’s breakfast tray, narrowly avoiding the newly-lit paraffin stove. Julian tipped Bardin upside-down, until Bardin was trapped inside his own nightshirt, and paddled his behind until Bardin thought it would break.
When the beating was over, Bardin somehow got dressed and, putting on his new heavy-duty leather cap, went up on deck. He tried talking to Ransey at the wheel, only to have Ransey (who had noticed Bardin’s jerky walk) say that he had felt like belting him too! Bardin went below to the warmth of the galley.
“Nonsense”, said Adam, when Bardin had told him what Ransey had said “Ransey’s never threatened to hit any of you. He always accuses me and Julian of being too slap-happy in fact”.
“Well he did this time!” Bardin retorted. He went to sit down at the galley table, but found it easier said than done.
“I’ll fetch the cream for you in a minute”, said Adam “You can’t spend all day like that”.
“I spent all day like it yesterday and you didn’t care!” said Joby.
“You didn’t ask me for any help!” said Adam “You insisted on being all stoical, so I left you to it! Take this tea along to Patsy in the hold. He’s sulking too. I’ve made it strong and sweet so it should cover his nerve endings, hopefully!”
On his way into the hold Joby stopped to chat to two of the horses who were nuzzling each other in a stall.
“It ent much fun for you two at the moment is it?” he said “All trapped below deck like this. No fresh air”.
“You’ll soon find out what it’s like for yourself now”, said Kieran, who had been distributing buckets of water round the hold “To be shackled in the darkness, as I have been”.
“Ah shaddup and drink your tea”, said Joby “Adam made it special for you, he’s put about six sugars in I think”.
“Any news what it’s like topside at the moment?” said Kieran “It certainly feels colder”.
“Real brass monkey weather”, said Joby “Tamaz was saying earlier he couldn’t get over how the light’s changed. It’s gone all twilighty”.
“It’s the beginning of winter down here that’s why”, said Kieran “We’ll have to watch the old cabin-fever doesn’t get to us all”.
“We’d better start hiding the meat cleaver in that case!” said Joby.
Adam, Bengo and Bardin trooped into the hold. The object of this little expedition being to rub cream into Bardin’s behind, it not being considered hygienic to do it in the galley.
“Have you left the galley unsupervised?” said Joby.
“It’s no problem”, said Adam “There’s nothing on the stove, and we didn’t want to leave Bengo in there on his own, not after last night”.
“That must have been some kind of joint hallucination”, said Bardin “One that we all had. There’s no trace of it in there today”.
He dropped his trousers and leaned over the edge of one of the stalls. The others gazed closely at his behind with something like awe.
“Now you know what I’ve endured”, he said.
“It’s a good job Julian gave you such a spanking”, said Kieran “It’s taken your mind off last night, stopped you brooding on it”.
“Perhaps we should do the same to you then, Patsy”, said Adam “You complained a great deal earlier about Ransey pulling you along by your hair last night. I thought you were going to go into a sulky decline about it”.
“Not as if you haven’t got plenty left is it!” said Joby, flicking Kieran’s long yellow locks.
The conversation turned to Aleister Crowley and his rumoured powers of hypnotism. It was a valid subject to raise at the present time, but Adam got tense about it and said that if they chewed over the previous night’s events too much, he would send them all to Julian.
Bardin felt he couldn’t risk another such hiding twice in one day, and sought sanctuary back up on deck. The calm desolation of the whole area as they approached the Horn unsettled him. He had expected turbulent seas and high winds, but not this eerie, and increasingly icy, doldrums. He told Ransey that it felt as though they were sailing into oblivion.
“Best place we can be”, said Ransey “Now that Kieran has been officially proclaimed ‘dead’, there is nothing to stop Codlik and/or the Church going after him and doing the job for real, and no one in the outside world would be any the wiser. That’s the sort of thing that used to be done at the Ministry. I know I don’t need to tell you some of the less savoury aspects of my misspent youth, when I was trained to be a killer, not a normal human being”.
Bardin couldn’t think of a suitable answer to this. Ransey could seem austere at times, but that was largely because he lacked the flamboyance of Julian and Adam. But it was still hard to think of him as a cold-bloodied hired killer.
“I don’t know what to say”, said Bardin.
“One of you clowns lost for words?” said Ransey “Things must be looking up! Don’t brood on it. It was all a long time before you were hatched”.
Adam gave no let-up in his ban on Kieran and Joby going topside. He didn’t like the look of some more caves which had appeared on the coast of the frozen Horn. The whole area was stagnant with gloom and the threat of unseen things lurking in the vicinity.
“If there’s nothing up there, why can’t we go and see for ourselves?” said Joby, aggressively polishing the knives and forks in the galley a couple of days later.
“Joby, do stop going on about it”, said Adam “You’re like an inquisitive little boy who thinks he’s missing something”.
“Because I do think I’m missing summat!” said Joby “Here we are in one of the most desolate places on Earth, and I’m not allowed to see any of it!”
“You’ve seen it before!” said Adam “There is very little of note between here and Brimstone Point. Now go into the food-hold and help Bengo unpack some of the tins”.
“Into the bloody food-hold!” said Joby, stamping in that direction “I dunno why you don’t just lock us in there and have done with it!”
“Neither do I!” said Adam “It sounds a remarkably good idea to me!”
Hillyard came down the galley steps from above.
“Ransey says can he have a mug of cocoa”, he said “He said he knows it’s the middle of the afternoon, but he’d still like a mug of cocoa”.
“The way the light is at the moment”, said Adam “It could be midnight for all I know!”
Hillyard warmed his hands in front of the stove.
“Why aren’t you wearing gloves?” said Adam “If you get frostbite all your fingers will drop off, you silly arse!”
Adam rummaged about in one of the drawers for a spare pair, all the while muttering under his breath, basically something along the lines of “God, what fools these mortals are!”
“You need to calm down a bit”, said Hillyard “Relax those tense muscles”.
“Hopeless!” said Adam “I haven’t been able to do that for quite some while, and since we were shown Patsy’s ‘funeral’ on television I have felt permanently angry inside. That’s not healthy I know. But don’t Codlik and his merry men realise what the impact of their selfish, insensitive actions will be on the rest of us?”
“I don’t expect they know or care, knowing that lot”, said Hillyard.
Joby and Bengo had been listening on the other side of the food-hold door. At this point Joby decided they had heard enough and motioned Bengo to the back of the room, to finish unpacking some tinned goods from a tea-chest.
“Just in case he comes in here suddenly”, said Joby “I think the cocoa tin might be getting empty”.
“Bardy’s been permanently angry inside too”, said Bengo “He’s had a knotted stomach for ages. And I’ve been getting bad dreams”.
“What kind of bad dreams?” said Joby.
“Always the same sort of thing”, said Bengo “People being tortured. They’re so real. I’ve never had dreams like that before! And they all seem to happen in some dark, underground place. Perhaps I’m picking up on what happened to Brother Iggy more than I realise. Perhaps I’m seeing Hell”.
“Back in our time”, said Joby “I once read an interview with a bloke who’d had a Near-Death Experience. He said he thought he’d seen Hell, a black tunnel with dead people being dumped in plastic bags … you don’t wanna be hearing all this. It’ll get easier when we’re beyond Brimstone Point, then there’ll be the whole East Coast to explore. We haven’t seen anything of the southern part. We might even find somewhere remote we could hold up for a while, like several decades!”
“Another Bay perhaps?” said Bengo.
“It’s hard to believe we’d get quite that lucky again!” said Joby.
“The Bay is our place, Joby”, said Bengo “That lot don’t belong there. I think it senses these things. You know how it used to feel alive sometimes, in its own unique way. It accepted us, because it had nothing to fear from us. It won’t accept them. They’ll ruin it with their selfishness and their hatred”.
“We’ll go back there one day”, said Joby “I know we will. I feel it in my bones. Just it might not be for a very long time that’s all. But we’ve got time, they haven’t”.
“And the Castle too?” said Bengo “We’ll go back there?”
“Who’s to say?” said Joby “Perhaps when Codlik’s poison has been removed, Kieran’s exorcisms might work!”
“He’ll be able to calm the supernatural forces then”, said Bengo “They were in turmoil too, and things got out of hand. Does that make sense to you?”
“Yeah, it does”, said Joby.
The door opened, and Adam’s shadow appeared in the pool of light thrown on the floor.
“Are you two little rats going to be all day at that?” he exclaimed “Bengo, come out and get started on the pastry”.
“Are you leaving me in here on me own?” said Joby.
“We’ll leave the door open”, said Adam “Just give a little scream if you get spooked”.
“Sarky bugger!” said Joby.
He had barely been left alone when Josh emerged from the gloom at the back of the food-hold. He was shivering with cold, and had pulled a bit of old sacking around his shoulders for warmth. He tried to look menacing at his younger brother, but it was a half-hearted effort, as though he was just going through the motions. Joby would have stood his ground anyway. Face-to-face with Josh held no terrors for him now. He had led too adventurous a life with Kieran to be afraid of Josh, and it was only now, seeing him again in person, that he fully realised this.
“Meet me here”, said Josh “After all that lot have gone to bed. I’ve gotta talk to yer”.
“I can’t”, said Joby “I’ll never get away from ‘em. They’re all jumpy at the moment”.
“You have to!” said Josh, and he slipped away back into the gloom.
In the event Joby managed it by offering to sleep in the hold with Kieran and Tamaz (both oblivious of Josh’s latest visitation). Another paraffin heater had been put in the hold to stop the animals getting too cold, but it was deemed too hazardous to leave it unattended. Joby, Tamaz and Kieran elected to sleep in there on a couple of mattresses.
Before turning in Joby put on an extra show of grumpiness so that the others wouldn’t talk to him too much, and somehow suss out what was going on with him. He then feigned sleep to encourage them to do it for real. He heard Josh moving around in the food-hold a couple of hours later and went to find him.
“Well you can’t be a ghost then”, said Joby, lighting a lamp in the galley “I’ve never heard of a ghost with a hearty appetite!”
Josh was ravenously shoving a crust of bread into his face. By the mellow light of the lamp he looked filthy.
“I’m fucking starving!” he cried, between mouthfuls “You have no idea what’s it like”.
“What are you doing here?” said Joby “In this time I mean, how did you get here?”
“This bloke came to see me, back home”, said Josh “Said he could do me a good turn if I did him one. Said he could get me away from it all, I could disappear like you did. I used to get really jealous of you disappearing. Our Nan cried for ages after you went, said you could be lying in a shallow grave somewhere, murdered. But I didn’t think you were. I thought bloody good luck to our kid, he’s got away from this shit-hole, and he ent never coming back. I never got away, you see”.
“You could’ve done”, said Joby “There was nothing stopping you”.
“No, nothing to stop any of us”, said Josh, now attacking a lump of goat’s cheese “But you’d be amazed how many don’t. We just give up I think, don’t see the point. What’s the point of going to all the effort of leaving, just to end up bloody disappointed and miserable somewhere else! So I stayed, til one day I woke up old. Old, sick and pathetic, like one of those old geezers you see shuffling down to the shops that we used to laugh at when we was kids. And then there I was, one of ‘em meself! I couldn’t take on anyone who laughed at me anymore, I couldn’t have knocked the skin off a rice-pudding as Nan used to say. And then one day I got mugged … by two little girls”.
Joby laughed.
“It’s alright for you to fucking laugh!” said Josh “I gave up then, I’d had enough. I didn’t leave the flat for days. Then this bloke came to see me. He was a bit weird, but I was beyond caring by then, and he started talking about you, told me where you really were”.
“Two thousand years into the future”, said Joby “That must have given you a bit of a turn!”
“Not really”, said Josh “I said to him, whatever it’s like, it’s gotta be better ‘en here! No sooner the word than the blow really. He brought me over, to that town up on the coast, where you first saw me”.
“Aspiriola”, said Joby.
“Yeah”, said Josh “It was like fucking Christmas! I had me youth and me health back, and I was in this town which had warm sunny weather, bit like being on the Med, you know? It was all like a dream. I had to keep pinching meself to see if it was real. I’d heard of people doing that, pinching ‘emselves, but I never thought I’d have any reason to do it! But of course I’d forgotten I’d made a deal with this Angel fella, a business arrangement he called it. He had done all that for me on condition I get at you, drive you mad, make you turn on Kieran”.
“He never bloody gives up he don’t!” said Joby.
“Well I couldn’t be bothered really”, Josh continued “I had a go, but I wasn’t interested. What you were doing was nothing to do with me. He kept on that you were going round with a bunch of perves, arse-bandits, but I didn’t care. Live and let live’s what I say”.
“Since when?” Joby exclaimed.
“I always thought you might end up going a bit that way”, said Josh “When you used to bring that skinny little Mick round, the one with all the yellow hair. Didn’t come as any surprise to me to hear you’d ended up with him! Do you go all the way? You know, have it up your arse like?”
“Mind your own business!” said Joby.
“You do don’t yer?” said Josh “Dunno how you can, makes me squirm just thinking about it!”
“I sued to say things like that at one time”, said Joby.
“Then you got converted, eh?” Josh gave a laugh that sounded more like a growl “Mind you, I heard for a while here, like you didn’t have much choice. No totty on the scene to speak of, I can’t imagine that. Must’ve been like being in prison”.
“So what are you doing appearing here now?” said Joby “Has Aspiriola thrown you out?”
“I got sent here by HIM, Angel”, said Josh “He’s getting impatient. Says I ent doing enough to honour my side of the agreement. I tried telling him where to get off, but he took me somewhere below ground and showed me things. Horrible things. I saw a woman have her eyes put out with a red-hot poker. I’ll never forget the way she screamed, never”.
“Who did it to her?” said Joby.
“Dunno who they were”, said Josh “They looked a bit like sorta Mafiosi mobsters to me, yer know, all long black coats and suits, and dark glasses. All crowded round her. She begged ‘em for mercy, but they didn’t show her any. I thought I’d seen some rough things in my time, but nothing like that. It was sick! And this Angel fella says if I don’t get to work on you right away, that’s where I’ll end up meself, and he’ll see to it personally I never get out”.
“So why are you talking to me like this then, all cosy like?” said Joby “Why aren’t you trying to drive me nuts?”
“I want him off my back!” said Josh “He’s leaning on me”.
“Serves you right for doing a deal with the Devil don’t it!” said Joby “At least he didn’t ask for your soul I spose, mind you he’d have had a hard job finding it!”
“I want your friend, partner, boyfriend, whatever he is, to help me”, said Josh “Kieran. He’s sposed to be the Vanquisher of Evil ent he? He’s beaten Angel before, I know all that, ‘cos I heard people talking about it when it was put about that he’d died. Well he can get this Angel off me back can’t he?”
“What makes you think he’d want to?!” said Joby “You weren’t ever exactly nice to him in the past were you!”
“I thought he was sposed to be all-forgiving!” Josh protested.
“He might be, but that don’t mean to say I am!” said Joby “I ent forgotten the way you used to get all your so-called mates to pick on him down the pub, just ‘cos he was different”.
“That was ages ago!” said Josh “We weren’t much more ‘en kids then, you can’t still hold that against me after all this time!”
“Yes I can!” said Joby “And how do I know all this isn’t a trick anyway? You give me all this bleeding hearts stuff to get Kieran on side, and it’ll turn out you was doing it for Angel all along, setting a trap for Kieran to walk into! I wouldn’t put anything past you! You’d have sold our Nan if you thought you could make summat out of her!”
“No I wouldn’t!” said Josh “She was fond of me and all you know, it wasn’t all just you! She was the only person in my entire life who ever did show me any bleedin’ genuine kindness, ever, and that’s a fact!”
“What’s going on here?” said Kieran, coming through from the food-hold.
“You haven’t left Tamaz on his own?” said Joby.
“He’s got me best crucifix, as well as Lonts’s”, said Kieran “And Bardin’s whistle … and those eyes of his, if anyone gives us real trouble”.
Joby recalled the description of the woman Josh had seen, and angrily told him not to talk about Tamaz. Kieran felt like pointing out that Joby had mentioned him first, but instead he picked up the plate holding the scanty remains of Josh’s snack.
“You’re very much alive then”, he said “In spite of what you said in the bathroom at Aspiriola. It was you I take it, who said that he was from the dead zone, and scared the bejaysus out of poor wee Bengo?”
“I had to do summat!” said Josh “I had to put the heat on you all somehow, I was under a lot of emotional pressure”.
“He’ll be asking for counselling next!” said Joby.
“He’ll have to take a rain-check on that one for the time being”, said Kieran “We’re not in the 21st century now!”
“Will you help me?” said Josh “That’s all what I wanna know, I’m a lost soul in need of guidance, I need saving from the Devil!”
“For fuck’s sake Josh, you’re not at a revival meeting!” said Joby “God, and people think I watched too many old films!”
“Well I thought he might understand more if I spoke to him like that!” said Josh.
“Thanks!” said Kieran “But plain English does me just as well! I’ll have to think about it, Josh. I can’t answer you right now. We need to get out of this place before I can think straight”.
“If I end up in Hell”, said Josh, as a parting-shot “It’ll be on your conscience, on your bleedin’ conscience, mate!”
The worst part of the journey so far came soon after this. Added to the intense cold, the eerie half-light, and the general gloom, came the distant wailing of disembodied voices. This dreadful sound pursued them for days. Bardin became so unnerved by it that he dictated that they were not to stop for anything. Taking it in shifts they kept the Indigo moving as constantly as they could through this bitter wailing wasteland.
Anyone going up on deck had to wear ear-muffs to try and block out as much of the sound as possible. When Bardin returned from one visit aloft to find Bengo peering (ears unprotected) from the galley hatch, Bardin pushed him down the galley stairs. At the bottom Bengo recovered himself and clouted Bardin across the face.
With expertise born out of long practice, Adam separated them and ordered Bengo to make a pot of tea. He then went into the hold to see why Joby was taking so long to fetch some more milk from one of the goats. Joby had been visited again by Josh, that’s why he was taking so long. Josh had developed an annoying habit of “dropping in unexpectedly”, and always skulking around in the shadows below-deck, hoping to catch Joby on his own. Josh was desperate to secure Kieran’s promise of help, and was upset that Joby was refusing to use his influence on him. Joby took the line that he wasn’t going to do anything that would put Kieran in any more danger.
“It’s alright for you, having someone to care about yer”, said Josh, falling back on his time-honoured ‘nobody-loves-me’ routine “You’ve got it all worked out haven’t yer? All safe inside yer little womb of friends”.
“I wouldn’t say we was safe!” said Joby “And don’t give me all that ‘oh I’m so lonely’ routine. You’ve brought it all on yourself”.
“You’ve become a right hard uncaring bastard you have”, said Josh.
“Maybe”, said Joby “But I’ve never gone round beating up other people just for summat to do! You could never just go for a drink down the pub could you? You had to start a bleedin’ fight all the time, ruin some other poor bastard’s evening! You deserve to be bloody lonely!”
“You have no idea what real loneliness is like”, said Josh “To have no one in the world who gives a stuff about yer. To know that when you die it’ll be the environmental health people who sort out yer cremation …”
“Alright alright pack it in!” said Joby “You’re doing my head in! All I know is that I’m not taking any risks with Kieran’s safety, and certainly not for you who never had a good word to say about him!”
“I keep telling yer, I was young then”, said Josh “I didn’t understand the situation. I still don’t understand how you have sex with another bloke, get all beasty like, but there we are, each to his own”.
“Strewth, we’re gonna have to give you your own problem page at this rate!” said Joby.
“Hey, that hermaphrodite creature”, said Josh, dropping his voice to a whisper “The older one …”
“Mieps?” said Joby “What about him?”
“Have you ever seen it completely naked, undressed like?” said Josh.
“Of course I have!” said Joby “We live together!”
“Have you given it a poke?” Josh went on.
“You’re a right nosy bastard you are ent yer!” said Joby.
“Are you going to be all day in here fetching the milk?” said Adam “Come along at once, Bengo’s made a fresh pot of tea. You’d better come too, Josh. I really see no point in you hanging about in the dark”.
“Why not?” said Joby “Best place for him if you ask me!”
They all went into the galley.
“What happened to you?” said Joby, on seeing Bardin’s bruised cheek.
Bardin nodded his head in Bengo’s direction.
“He pushed me backwards down the stairs!” Bengo protested. He stopped in wide-eyed alarm when he saw Josh.
Joby felt he’d better introduce everyone.
“Bengo, Bardin, this is my horrible brother Josh”, said Joby “Josh, this is Bengo and Bardin, the world’s most annoying clowns!”
“I saw you two on stage back in Aspiriola”, said Josh “At that charity gig”.
“You were there?” said Bengo.
“You didn’t exactly make yourself known to us”, said Bardin.
“I couldn’t”, said Josh “At the time”.
“Too busy trying to be menacing instead!” said Joby.
“It was you in the bathroom that time wasn’t it?” said Bengo to Josh.
The others watched with a kind of stupefied awe as Bengo tore off his pinny and stamped on it.
“I’m not working with him here!” he said, and he stormed out of the galley.
Adam and Joby looked enquiringly at Bardin, as though awaiting some divine revelation.
“I’m not going after him when he’s in that mood!” said Bardin “I’ll end up getting clouted again!”
He picked up his ear-muffs purposefully.
“You’re not going topside again?” said Joby “With all that racket up there?”
“It’s quieter than down here!” said Bardin.
Bengo had gone along to the cabin where Kieran was massaging Mieps’s bare foot, as Mieps complained he couldn’t get any warmth into it. Brother Iggy sat nearby, looking like a broken corpse that had been morbidly propped up in an armchair for display. Bengo burst into tears and said it was all too awful for words. Kieran was furious that Joby now seemed to be practically inviting Josh round for tea these days. Hillyard, who had been trying to have a nap, got out of bed and said he was going to the boiler-room for some peace and quiet. Julian returned from the heads, was appraised of the situation, and went in search of Adam.
“How dare you order me in here?” said Adam, when the two of them went into the hold “We’re not back at school now you know!”
“You came in here readily enough when I told you to”, said Julian.
“To put a lid on your autocratic behaviour!” said Adam “No doubt you were about to give me a list of all your grievances, well don’t bother! I’m stressed out too you know! I would like to be back at the Bay, in the sunshine, listening to Lo-Lo telling me about the Happy Bears latest adventure, but instead I’m here, in the dark and the cold, with that dreadful noise outside. And I don’t think I can stand much more of it!”
“Touchy!” said Julian, after Adam had gone.
Bardin went topside a couple of mornings later, feeling apprehensive, bracing himself for another dose of the icy darkness and the screaming of the souls in torment. Up above though he found a tinny sunshine, and the only screaming was of a few gulls whirling overhead, evidently attracted by the animals on-board, and anticipating some of their left-overs.
Clutching his ear-muffs in his hand Bardin walked up to Ransey, who was steering and eating a crust of bread at the same time. He looked round at Bardin, clad in his nighshirt, bed-socks and oilskin raincoat, and winked at him.
“W-what’s happened?” said Bardin, giving out over the vast stretches of ocean ahead of them.
“We’ve got past Brimstone Point”, said Ransey “We’ve made it round the Horn”.
“My God!” said Bardin. He collected himself firmly in hand. “We’re never going round there again!” he said “We go up all the East Coast, round the top and down the other side, and I don’t care if it takes years! I never want us to go there again!”
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