Read Online A Stone's Throw by Fiona Shaw - Free Book Online Page B

said again.
    She was puzzled. They were on a lifeboat; there was nowhere to go.
    ‘Come with you where?’
    ‘We’ve been getting things organised. Supplies, blankets, and so forth. And it’s come to our attention that you’re the only …’ He hesitated. ‘You’re the only female on the boat.’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘Well …’
    There was something he’d rather not say. She waited, and after a moment he pressed on. ‘As such, as the only female, certain provision needs to be made.’
    Meg could feel herself blush.
    ‘So we think, Lieutenant Williams and I, that you’d be more comfortable in the stern. We think it’s more suitable.’
    Meg kept her eyes down as she followed Appleby but she knew the men were watching her, all of them but Mr Richardson and the dead soldier, laid out now on the boat floor.
    ‘Bad luck at sea,’ someone muttered, but loud enough for her to hear. When she looked up, every man but one averted his eyes. Every man but one. Meg stopped and stared.
    ‘Jim!’ she mouthed and the man she stared at put his finger to his lips.
    She looked away, her heart banging in her chest. He was alive. How had she not seen him before? There he was in the middle of the boat, and when she ventured a second look, she saw that there was a makeshift bandage round his brow and that his uniform was sodden, clinging to him. He must have been one of those rescued from the water in the dark.
    ‘Are you all right?’ she mouthed, putting a hand to her head, and she caught his nod before Appleby turned around.
    ‘Miss? Is there a problem?’
    She shook her head, and sat down at the back of the boat in her appointed place. Jim was here with her. She couldn’t speak to him, and she couldn’t touch him, but she could see him. Even out of the corner of her eye she could see him, his bandage like a flag.
    The sun rose into a cloudless sky and the day grew warm. Lieutenant Williams gave an order for the men in wet clothes to strip off to vest and trousers and spread their things to dry. Only Mr Richardson refused to do so, and he sat at the end of the boat like a black crow. Meg pinched her eyes nearly shut, so thatall she could see were shadows. She used to do that when she was a child. She was one shadow, and her mother was another. Now Mr Richardson was just one shadow, and Jim another, and she was alone on this boat, just like she’d always been.
    Crouched on the floor beside her the steward opened a large tin can. Dipping with his thumb and forefinger, he plucked out a peach half. Meg opened her eyes and watched him. His gesture was precise and delicate and small, in the middle of this lifeboat in the middle of the ocean, with a dead man on the floor only twenty yards away, and a huge ship sunk, and all these men soaked from the sea and injured, and all of them lost.
    With his pocketknife the steward cut the half peach into half again and offered one piece to Meg.
    ‘Breakfast,’ he said.
    She took it, and turned away so he wouldn’t see her tears.
    The pieces of peach were passed, one by one, from palm to palm, down the boat. Meg watched and saw Mr Richardson fling his piece to the waves. She watched and saw her lover eat. Then the syrup in the tin can – first to Meg, then the wounded men, then the rest. Again Meg watched, and again she saw her lover drink.
    ‘Just a sip; just a sip,’ went like an echo down the boat.
    After this there was a ship’s biscuit, hard as a brick, with a piece of sardine to wet it, and last of all the beaker of water. Each time the steward served Meg first, and each time she watched Jim eat and drink. She didn’t dare try to catch his eye; it was enough that she could see him. Enough that he was alive.
    The can was passed back to the steward and Meg watchedhim rinse it in the sea and give it to Lieutenant Williams. The lieutenant sat down beside Meg, jigging the peach tin on his knee. He was nervous, she could see that. After a long moment he set it on the floor and leaned in