The Ship on the Horizon

Robert awoke adrift. Everything hurt: his head, his limbs, his spine. As he raised his head, something red dripped into his eyes. He touched the top of his head and looked down: blood.

Gazing around, he saw only debris afloat on the glistening waves. Flotsam and jetsam were all that was left of The Fruitful Isle. They'd been making the return leg of the Clipper Route, flush with wheat from Australia. They should have taken the Cape more slowly, but the Great Grain Race had gone to the Captain's brain. He'd commanded the crew to sail straight into Drake Passage despite the darkening clouds. The storm had caught them not even halfway through the Passage. The sky had turned to night, the waves topping 25 meters tall. They tried their best to make the ship storm-ready, but they'd never had any chance at all. Robert remembered the tossing, the crashing, the screaming, the prayers to God, finally cut short by unconsciousness.

Something must have hit him in the head. He had no idea how he survived. He called out, "Ahoy, can anyone hear me?" Silence. Nothing disturbed the sea or sky, not even a gull. He was too far out from land.

He found a plank that was long enough to support him and hauled himself atop it. The sun was climbing the sky rapidly, bringing blinding glare and searing heat. He quickly fashioned himself a bandanna from the leg of his torn pants and wet it with seawater before wrapping it around his head.

He was already parched. He quickly felt for his belt. Still there, and his flask was still attached. He unhooked the flask from his belt, testing the heft. Nearly empty, just a few swigs of rum left. He barely wet his lips. That would have to do for now.

The currents had returned to normal but remained fierce. He was still in the Passage, after all. They pulled his plank steadily to the east, toward home but also away from any hope of land.

The sun had moved past the midpoint when he saw him. The figure of a man, adrift on his back, just at the edge of his field of vision. He shouted, but the figure didn't stir. He slid off the plank into the water and used it to float as he half-swam, half-kicked his way to the man.

As he drew near, he realized the body must have started face down and flipped over on the waves at some point; the fish had already taken his eyes. He steeled himself to search the body, but there was nothing of value, not even a crumb of hardtack.

The hair on the back of his neck stood on end suddenly. Sensing movement from the corner of his eye, he quickly got back on top of his plank just as a fin broke the surface of the water. He tried to paddle away from the dead man, his hands gingerly breaking the water and rapidly retreating, fearful of others drawn to the feast. Suddenly, the shark breached, taking an entire corpse arm in one bite. The force of the breach pushed his makeshift vessel further away, much to his relief. He clung to the plank as the waves came faster and faster as more sharks came to join the frenzy, lured by the smell of blood on the waves.

It was a fitful night. The board was barely wide enough to support his frame. At one point, he awoke in horror when he rolled off the board. He thrashed, fearful that he had lost his only means of support, only to slam his hand into the hard wood, wedging a splinter under the nail of his middle finger. He'd never been so thankful for a splinter.

After that, he stayed in the water and used his belt to lash his hands around the board. He would not lose it again.

The rising sun stung his dry eyes. He reached to rub them but then realized he would have to unlash himself first. He did so and rolled back on top of the plank.

There was nothing to do but stare at the sky. The clouds were high and white. They reminded him of fried eggs, which reminded him of his empty gullet. He took a small swallow of rum to quiet the rumbling of his stomach and his mind.

As the sun rose higher, the water practically steamed beneath him. It was at the height of the sun's zenith when he saw it: the hint of a ship on the western horizon. He blinked his eyes, fearful the image would vanish, but there it was: a barque, clear as day.

He began to wave and scream, but the ship was still too far away to notice him. The waves steadily pushed him ahead of the ship, but he knew it would have to catch up to him eventually. That night, he slept deeply in the arms of the sea and dreamed of rescue.

The next day, the ship seemed no closer. Nonetheless, he knew there was no way he could be moving faster than it. He allowed himself 2 sips of rum and continued to wait patiently, regularly rewetting his bandanna to protect his face and head.

On the fourth day, he was so weak that he could barely move. He was dying of thirst, surrounded by water. He finished the last of his rum and hoped his saviors would arrive soon.

As the sun began to sink beneath the waves, the ship seemed to take flight, floating several feet above the water. His addled brain tried to process what he was seeing.

Despair crushed the wind from his lungs and the hope from his soul as he realized the terrible truth: the ship was a trick of the sea. Any ship behind the illusion, if it even existed, was still too far away to ever find him in time. He'd been awaiting rescue by an illusion. Tremblingly, he lashed himself to his plank for what was likely to be the last time.

The Percival had been passing wreckage from the The Fruitful Isle for days. They'd narrowly missed the same storm that shattered its sister ship, but The Percival's Captain had sailed the Cape far too many times to grow careless. 2 days out from Drake Passage, they came across yet another corpse. They brought the dead man on board so he could receive proper rites. As they pulled the body from the sea, the plank he had lashed himself to came with him. On it, the man had inscribed a message in his own blood, "Hope is a Fata Morgana, the ship that never comes."