Then him grip loosen, the light in him eyes start to fade, till one final gasp, and Reid lay still, never to move again. Nothing more to be done, I put me hand over his eyes and close them. Then a strange thing happen. I hear loud and clear a rooster crow, him early morning call to the sun. Is like a whisper from the place we both come from. And I know Reid spirit struggling to find a way to return to the Ancestors so he can finally rest, be at peace.

I spend a few more days in the sickbay. Me throat slowly getting better. Watch as the sailors sew Reid body up inside a burial sack, still wrapped in the sheets him die in. Powell soon follow, expire in the middle of the night and him too get sewed up in one of them sacks.

‘Where the bodies going lay?’ I ask Surgeon McKay when him doing him rounds.

‘We’re passing close to the Canary Islands, satellites of Spain,’ he tell me. ‘But we won’t be stopping. They’ll be thrown overboard, get buried at sea.’

The saddest part is nobody to help Reid and Powell spirits make the crossing to the Ancestors. Nobody to lead the way, to speak the language of the dead like what Calla done for old cripple Jonnie when him finally took him last breath.

McDuff make all them that can stand to attention come up on deck while him say a few words shouting out above the sound of the waves.

‘We therefore commit these bodies to the deep to be turned into corruption, looking for the resurrection of the body, when the seas shall give up her dead and the life of the world to come, through our Lord Jesus Christ, amen.’

I hear the bodies go over the side, hear them splash into the water and a great sadness wash up over me. Me countrymen, once living, now just two lonely bodies sinking into the darkness of the deep. They travelled this far to end up floating on the bottom, to be picked at by fish.

Full Circle

We bout halfway through the voyage, Richard Peachy tell me, when I ask him how much longer, praying and hoping it will soon be over. Me spirits falling low when I hear it is not. Only good thing is that the weather start to turn, get dry, hot with the sun holding him head up high as him move cross the horizon. And it finally get warm enough to heat me bones and lift me spirits. One morning, I see a whole heap of porpoises swimming and jumping and moving swift past the ship. Then another time water spurting high up into the air, everybody pointing and looking at the whales as them leap and dive far off in the distance. Is a sight I never going forget.

Most times though is routine, routine, routine.