First Blast of the Trumpet Against the Monstrous Regiment of Women by Eric McCormack Page A

cloth. He put the tray down and felt my forehead.
    “God’s oars!” he said, lowering his eyebrows fiercely. His strange oath made me afraid of him. “Now then,” he said. “We’ll have to do something about that fever.”
    As he was giving me some pills from the tray, I couldn’t help noticing on his right forearm a multicoloured tattoo of an anchor with the words
Anchora Spei
under it. He saw me looking and told me he’d had it done just before we left port, and that the words were Latin and meant “The Anchor of Hope.” He said he’d had it copied from an old book he’d brought with him. The more he talked, the less fierce he seemed. He stayed for an hour.
    That was the first of many hours I spent with Harry Greene, steward and medic of the SS
Cumnock
. Even after I was well, he’d drop by once or twice a day to talk. He seemed to have all the time in the world. He’d tell me about his other voyages or about books he was reading.
    I enjoyed listening to him, though at first I was cautious. I’d learnt from my mother that words weren’t trustworthy. She treated them as though they were the remnants of something that might once have made sense but now were generally misleading and to be avoided.
    Harry Greene, on the other hand, loved talking. His favourite time for visiting me was in the evenings after his work in the galley was done. He’d bring along his big cup of grog and sip while he talked.
    I can’t be sure now on which days we talked about particular things. All the days on that long voyage have blended together in my mind. But I do remember many of the things he said, they made such an impression on me.
    Harry Greene grew up in Ireland; traces of the accent were in his voice still, though he’d been at sea for thirty-five years. He’d begun his career as a cabin boy at a time when many of the ships still relied on sail, either totally or as an auxiliary to their engines.
    “Back then, ’twas a different life altogether,” he said. “Sailors had to depend on each other. Believe me, my boy, there’s no better way of getting to know yourself, or how much you can trust another man, than to be stuck out on a yardarm with him during a gale.”
    He said this one night, the rummy smell from his cup all through my cabin, as he was telling me about the very first voyage he made. It was an expedition to Patagonia, at the tip of South America, in search of the last of the dinosaurs.
    “Our ship was the
Mingulay
, as well found a little ship as ever I sailed on. We landed on the Patagonian coast and unloaded the equipment for the expedition. But even on shore, we didn’t stop being sailors. We used to sit around the campfire at night and tell stories, just the way we did in the fo’c’sle.
    “One story I’ll never forget was told by the Engineer. ’Twas a rainy night and the fire was blazing and bats were flitting in and out of the flames.
    “This Engineer was a man from one of the northern islands. He had eyes that were milky blue.
    “He said when he was a boy, a doctor and his wife and their four children came to live on the island. This doctor eventually murdered his wife, no one knew why. ’Twas most strange how he got rid of her body. He cut it up in pieces and buried parts of her in the bellies of the four children. He even buried her eyes and ears in the bellies of the family pets.”
    Harry Greene looked at me from under the battlements of his eyebrows.
    “God’s oars!” he said. “’Twas a scary story for a young lad like me to hear in that wild place. The other sailors just laughed. They said ’twas just a joke. But right then, the Engineer stood up in the firelight and pulled his shirt open. And what do you know? We could all see a big ragged scar across his belly. ’Twas himself was one of the children he’d been talking about.”
    The bushy eyebrows arched again.
    “Yes, I heard that story on our first night ashore. I’ll never forget the rain, and the bats skimming in