While You Were Here

He looked towards the sun as golden ripples of the evening sea swallowed its light. The horizon was aflame with the explosion of that shrinking, incandescent peach. Gulls circled overhead, crying their hurried goodnights to the dying orb. Will looked at the man’s silhouette: a shadow set in stone, not a muscle moved in those broad shoulders.

The man reminded Will of an obscure figure in a painting, an insignificant unmoving detail on a sweeping canvas. Every sunset a glorious performance by nature, the oldest of old Masters. Will watched from a distance, hoping his steps on that pebble-laden beach would not alert the real figure ahead.

What does he think about? Will always wondered but never knew the answer. Never dared to ask Algis, a strange mix of fear and respect always held Will back.

The absolute stillness of a man, so permanent, so final like a wraith, a shadow— already removed from this world of light, or awaiting it. All the time, the sun morphed: peach turning to orange turning back to gold. The water a mirror of gold, silver, violet, purple, blue. Everything in motion, a daily dance of the elements and yet the man himself seemed entranced, as if cursed by a Gorgon.

His thoughts move all the time, swirling around some unsolved mystery.

Will observed the man’s hands on his hips, shoulders wide, legs loosely planted on the heaving edge of the beach. From a distance, he could be mistaken for one preparing to run headlong into the sea. A chaser of the last light. Will shuddered to imagine anyone would plunge forth and end their own life, surrendering to the waters which consume even the omnipotent sun. At least Algis knows how to swim.

A rising cacophony of gulls tried and failed to break Algis’ reverie. Will watched as the pirate faded into the soft pink light seeping over shadows. Restive, the boy could no longer stand still. Will adjusted his weight carefully, noiselessly, on undulating mounds of stones and shells the waves knead into embankments. Unwittingly, he sent down a rain of pebbles on the crests of the banks below!

Nothing. Algis did not turn back to look at Will or reproach him, for his clumsiness, as he would have once upon a time on the deck. The Vierkant, their ship (well Algis’ ship) was now lost to them. Those on land called her a pirate ship, those morally upright, powerful and rich rulers of the world. For Will, she was home. In fact, the only one he had ever known.

There she lay now, in front of their eyes: battered, half-sunk, half-rotting above choppy seas that she once dominated. Left defenceless at the mercy of these primal waters that had carved continents and ravaged mighty mountains.

My home and Algis’ too, Will mused with a painful ache in his chest. A heaviness that never lifted. Slowly vanishing in front of our eyes, look —she’s copying the once-majestic sun’s disappearing act. In the space between purple skies and a white, ghostly beach, Algis and Will stood pensive. Both looking at the wreck, like chess-pieces fixed on a board.

The Vierkant had crashed into menacing rocks at the feet of the white cliffs, those old, ostensibly benign sentinels. The crew had been lost to the womb of the sea, leagues deep.

Does he miss them? All of them, like I do?

Skirving had claimed there would be gold on this expedition. A lot of it — enough to make them all rich, for the rest of their lives! A cabin-boy like Will had never have seen any loot or bounty with his own eyes but he trusted Skirvin, after all he was Algis’ first-hand.

A cool evening sea-breeze from the west whispered: Skirving is gone now, they all are. Doctor Swalmius, little Minch, smelly Squod…

The heaviness knotted his chest. Will turned away from the wreck and the spectre of an unflinching Algis. His eyes welled up. The crew were his family.

He remembered the day Algis plucked him off, outside one of the seedy brothels on the pirate routes many years ago, and brought him to The Vierkant. A brothel bursting with “too many children and not enough mothers”. So screamed the unkind ogress who ran it, periodically, at anyone who cared to listen. Algis had no particular affection for orphans. But Will had demonstrated untiring diligence in scrubbing the cold, grimy flagstones in the square outside the brothel and Algis needed a new cabin-boy.The last one had caught scurvy in Polynesia. Will would never forget the life of misery and deprivation Algis saved him from.

Presently, Algis moved a shoulder. Will’s heart jumped. He felt terribly exposed. I am not supposed to be spying on the Captain, Will muttered inaudibly. He had seen the wrath of the most feared pirate-lord to sail the Seven Seas since Blackbeard.

Will looked around hastily, it was getting dark but there was nowhere to run. At this twilight hour, the long winding beach of Deppeford was deserted apart from two souls.

The moon arrived shortly. A waxing pearl in the sky, the lunar torchlight discomfited the young boy. White cliffs, wreck, Algis, gulls, waves and Will. All bathed in a milky haze. His fear of discovery was kept at bay knowing that Algis did not seem in any rush to turn around.

Just then, the older man finally broke the spell that had petrified him. The pirate shove a quick hand into the pockets of his loose baggy trousers. Will shuddered — was Algis reaching for his pistol?

Despair led men to their doom. And there was no despair like loss. Will’s heart began to pound in his throat.

What can I do? Then he realised, maybe it was his presence that had alarmed Algis. I should have quietly slunk away to the village and he wouldn’t have noticed.

Will rued his own curiosity, scanning the incoming tide . Or, Will wondered, has Algis seen something I haven’t? He didn’t want to be there any longer.

But the pirate simply raised an empty hand, rubbing his forehead vigorously as if to erase a memory by sheer friction. After a moment, Algis stopped and continued to simply stand in the moonlight. Silent and staring, lost in thought.

What does he think about? Will wished he could know.