The Voyage of the Dolphin by Kevin Smith

approval from McGregor for his knotting prowess. Overall, though, the ship’s captain, who had by dint of hard labour and sheer desperation hauled himself from the echoing squalor of a Glasgow tenement, remained suspicious, scornful even, of the half-millennium of unearned privilege he perceived in the sheen of the younger man’s curls. He was none too pleased either to discover Fitzmaurice’s pet. According to Harris, who had been in the galley at the time of the encounter, both parties had performed a double-take, a disk of dried banana halting sharply on the way to Bridie’s mouth, a teacup en route to the skipper’s. They had then stared at each other for a full minute before McGregor turned on his heel, muttering something about ‘Noah’s f---ing Ark’.
    The ship’s dog, meanwhile, long shunned by the crew, had attempted to ingratiate itself among the new recruits and, after much rejection (and many unkind words), eventually found Crozier’s resistance to be the weakest. It took to following him around and sat watching him from a distance while he worked. It scraped at his cabin door at bedtime, and each evening having been denied entry, snored loudly in the passageway. One night, the latch having failed to engage, Crozier awoke to find the beast’s gnarly snout opposite him on the pillow, its tongue lolling, its swamp-gas breath condensing on his cheek.
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    The port of Stornoway, with its dark stone buildings and looming church steeples, was their last land contact before the open sea. They dropped anchor in the deserted harbour – the fishing boats, according to McGregor, having pursued the shoals of silver herring north to Shetland – and the first mate and the cook rowed ashore. After several hours they reappeared, accompanied by two youths pushing barrows full of vegetables, and a man on a horse pulling a cartload of coal. Harris and Victoor between them also lugged rum, tobacco, milk, cured meats, strings of kippers, and another half-dozen chickens, tied by their feet, to replace those abducted for the pot.
    Later that afternoon the Dolphin cleared the Isle of Lewis, and with a fresh magnitude of wind in her sails, bore northwest into the marble-green sweep of the Atlantic. The new hens were acquainting themselves with the resident fowl (and a somewhat reassured cockerel); the Antwerpian was picking over his supplies and making plans; Doyle and the twins were fine-tuning the rigging. Having finished their scrubbing duties for the day, Crozier and Rafferty were lolling on deck and Fitzmaurice, tired of the endless sandpapering, was idly scanning the horizon off the port side.
    â€˜A whale!’
    The others rushed over.
    â€˜I don’t see anything,’ Rafferty said. ‘Are you sure?’
    â€˜Yes, yes, it was just there.’ Fitzmaurice indicated the middle distance. ‘It was half out of the water. I saw its fin and everything.’
    â€˜What size was it?’ Crozier said.
    â€˜Not giant, but big enough. And grey and shiny.’
    â€˜Probably a minke. Though it could have been a right whale.’
    â€˜As opposed to a…’
    â€˜Yes, indeed. Although, I suppose there’s also a chance it was a small sperm whale. Though I doubt it.’
    â€˜I’m not sure it was a whale. Probably the seals again.’
    â€˜It was definitely a whale,’ Fitzmaurice snapped.
    â€˜Or a sea cow.’
    â€˜Too cold for sea cows,’ Crozier said. ‘They prefer warm, shallow waters.’
    â€˜I wonder if sea cows’ milk is salty,’ Fitzmaurice mused. The other two looked at him and Crozier opened his mouth to say something, then didn’t.
    â€˜Imagine falling overboard and being swallowed by the brute,’ Rafferty said. ‘How dark it would be in there.’
    They pondered this and Fitzmaurice shivered.
    â€˜Makes you wonder how old Jonah survived.’
    â€˜Well, he couldn’t