BRAMBLEBONE

As a boy he had pattered across puny dunes on a simmering beach in San Diego lined with conch shells, and occupied by crabs and slaters and barnacles, making ephemeral depressions on the soft sand bed, and into an old wooden skiff to leave Bird Rock and venture into the great Pacific Ocean in 1912.

Bramblebone, presently a man in his late forties, was pale with an obsidian beard that reached down to his bellybutton. He had hair bunched in deadlocks thick as the ropes supporting the masts of the gigantic ship, Griffin Slayer, he now possessed and captained, and despite his age was the most feared fighter in the World Ocean. Among his crewmates, none noticed this because perhaps they were the same, but he perpetually ranked of alcohol, body odor, and tobacco.

In his time at sea, he had seen the wonders of the ocean’s ecosystem and its vastness, and the terror the gargantuan size and mercuriality of the ocean poses. His face had hardened with harrowed wrinkles, and had a nascent cataract clouding his right eye. He looked young because of his lithe and muscular build, yet his eyes and face told a story that not even the oldest face in modern times reflects.  

From spinner dolphins twirling and arcing and spraying water drops in a helical rainbow as they plunged into the ocean and smoothed back out of it, to tempests so violent and loud that only a dissent among the Gods could create them; from Humpback whales who created aquatic quakes as they snapped and clapped through the water and wailed into the clear sky, to the sucking sensation as he looked all around him and saw bluish-black ink gulping into the horizon; from a school of lanternfish making a dark circular shadow on the water surface as they raced beneath it, to great white sharks that circled the keel as the ship cut through rocky waves to escape Mexican patrols when he was just a crewmate himself, and when Jack Berry had died and entrusted Bramblebone with captaincy, Bramblebone had experienced joys and tragedies in their most potent and unique manifestations.

That night, the first mate had a through hole in his torso as a cannon had eviscerated him. Bramblebone, then only an assistant to the chief cook, had fought valiantly with the ravages of the ship: broken wooden panels, shrapnel’s, splintered shrouds. He had taken the helm and helped them escape the Patrols’ fusillade of torpedoes and broadside shots, as the captain had been floored and the crewmates were panicked and most injured. In his last breaths, as they had somehow drifted far off the Gulf of Mexico and into the Southern Pacific, Jack Berry told Bramblebone: “You...Bramblebone. Take them,” pointing a wavy finger at the mere five crewmates who were remaining and had surrounded Bramblebone who was hunched over Jack Berry and was holding his head. Jack Berry never completed his sentence and died in Bramblebone’s arms.

“Where to next, Captain?” Said the newly assigned first mate, the day following the exchange with the Mexicans. Salty sea breeze fluttered and fluffed the ship’s masts. Seagulls cawed. The captain’s cigarettes’ smoke swirled windward.

“Onward,” said Bramblebone.

They traversed oceans as deep as mountains, they ravaged ships armed with such artillery that they could only be described as death creatures. They contoured the earth as they swept across the Pacific, the Atlantic, and the Indian Ocean.       

Bramblebone never forgot about Jack Berry’s dying words. “Take them,” he had said. Did that simply mean that he had to lead the remaining crew to safety and accumulate strength and materials and mates for the ship? In other words, was captaincy all that Jack Berry was assigning him? The crewmates certainly thought so. Now resplendent in their soft linen shirts and fine leather boots, with the finest ship in the waters, they were in pirate heaven – their jovial shanties certainly indicated this.

Most of the crew now was new, recruited or taken in under duress (they were now more than happy, of course). Only the first mate, Rudolph Grover remained from that eventful night. The ocean is cruel, people are fragile, and the job description is lethal. The others had died in subsequent battles, or from illnesses.

Bramblebone himself did not want for much anymore. But he remembered Jack Berry as a deep and insightful man, in so far as pirates can be such. He also remembered how he had overheard him talking to the then first mate, Craig Baron, about venturing into the Southern Ocean, whilst they were sitting by the helm one pleasant day.

“The waters grow warm, the days become longer, captain,” said Baron.

“Aye,” said Jack Berry, “But we must be patient. Another year or so. We need more men. More supplies, maybe more firepower. Though me doubts the latter will help.”

“We may never have the numbers you desire, captain. It is perhaps unnecessary to wait.”

Jack Berry spat a thick red ribbon of paan into a tiny metallic pail. He looked far across the ocean. An albatross flew south overhead. Baron’s eyes followed it.

“Is it really there, captain? Do you believe?”

“Hah…my fellow buccaneer, it is not whether me believes. It’s whether me can let it go even if me does not. Even if the Ocean bordering the white lands in the South does not hold the Griffin’s Bracelet, should me let it go?” He turned to Baron. “Are ye ready to let go?”

Baron did not reply. After a floating pause he said, “Ayeh.” Jack Berry spat into the pail.

Eight months after that, the Mexican attack had happened when they had drifted too close to Yucatan and had been spotted by patrol ships. When they had refused to provide information about their status a fight had broken out. One in which Jack Berry, Craig Baron and many others had lost their lives to cannons, or swords, as the patrolmen who had boarded the ship overpowered them. Bramblebone had fought tirelessly on the deck, using wooden sticks and discarded knives against pointy swords. They had been able to dispel the ones on board, and then they rushed away, and the Mexican ship let up when they broke from the Gulf.

Griffin Slayer. The name derived inspiration from the treasure that Jack Berry mentioned – the Griffin’s Bracelet. Though Bramblebone did not know what it was, he knew where they would find it. Not just from the conversation he hearkened, but from his travels where he had heard fragments and rumor's about a treasure buried deep in the Southern Ocean bordering Antarctica. No ship dared go there.

But perhaps now…

***

They had been informed. Many were reluctant, but none were brave enough to protest. After speaking with Rudolph Grover, Bramblebone had decided that if they were going to make the voyage, there was no time better than now. April, the ice would have receded the farthest, and the storms would be more merciful.

And so, they had started off on their journey to procure this treasure.

From the Southern Pacific, they began.

***

“Captain!” shouted Simon Kipthorn, the helmsman.

Bramblebone, who was pacing the main deck, came up to the prow.

“Look, Captain! Ain’t she a beauty?” said Kipthorn, gesturing toward south west, starboard. 

At first, Bramblebone did not see anything but the rippling ocean. Which was a beautiful sight, no doubt, but unimpressive for a man who had been at sea for over three decades. Then he saw it. Vertical machine gun shots of water gushing out of the ocean in a spectacular fountain. A blue whale, exhaling. 

Bramblebone smiled. Kipthorn looked rather proud of pointing it out to the captain. They reached closer to the Blue Whale, as they were moving south towards the white lands, as Jack Berry had put it, and the Blue Whale appeared to be going north. The Blue Whale trumpeted into the purple sky and let out another fountain. It timely closed its nostrils as they water layered over it. A rare sight indeed, these beasts were. Bramblebone had only seen two others in his time, and this one seemed the most majestic. It was a sign from Poseidon himself.

Bramblebone patted Kipthorn twice and went back to pacing the deck. 

***

They saw albatrosses, always alone but frequently, flying southward. They were much faster than the ship.

They docked on desolate islands from time to time, these were small and wouldn’t show up on the map. Rudolph Grover would shout: “Arrrgghh! Come on! Get those bastards!” Whenever he would see animals that they could skin and eat. The men had twin knives in leather scabbards wound around their thighs and they had pistols, too. They would shout in unison and rush out at poor animals with their bandanas ruffling in the wind and their empty holsters vibrating against their sweaty linen. They would cook those, and the ocean would churn around their ship, seagulls and petrels and albatrosses would fly overhead. They were getting closer.

Then the air was colder, and they didn’t see any seagulls or pelicans anymore, nor the islands. Giant Petrels raced above, eagles of the south.

Three or four days after that they started seeing animals they never had before, not even Bramblebone had. The icy wind was so cold that it burned. They cut through unsteady waters for hours and hours, but the nights never came. Shanties were not sung, no one wanted to be out on the deck. They eventually did come out, under Bramblebone’s censure. But no one sang. The Southern Ocean was beautiful and ugly at the same time. They started seeing Ice mountains in the distance. Naked rock shyly draped in ice. White slabs floated by intermittently. They worried about glaciers capsizing the Griffin Slayer.

Unicorns clustered around their ship. Whales with tusks as long as the pirates were tall. Narwhals. They chattered by the keel, sometimes even ramming into the ship. What they talked about, no one knew, but everyone had a feeling of unknowingness descend upon them in those days. The ice mountains, the strange animals, and the cold wind that went straight from their pinna to their ear bowls and to their heads, made everyone fidgety. Bramblebone worried about the crew. They had trusted him, but what if they didn’t find anything? Where should they start, even? All he knew was that the treasure was buried somewhere deep in the ocean bordering the white lands. Jack Berry had talked about a larger number of men being more helpful.

But what help would they be? He thought looking out at the crew one day when the sun was shinier, and he was by the helm. They had made the decision wearing good clothes, drinking exotic wine. Now, look at them. Most were in the lower levels; some were working on the ship on the deck, but they looked miserable. The men had turned soft and the ice was cutting.

The Griffin Slayer voyaged on.

Whales white as the ice, Beluga Whales, tittered. These were rare. They could turn their neck in all directions like an owl and smiled perpetually. They saw penguins hobbling about clumsily on the ice. Then they would jump into the ocean and become different creatures. The first plane was invented in 1903, when Bramblebone had been a boy. He figured that the penguins were live airplanes of the sea. They would stay away from the ship and would go deep, then come ashore with squirming fishes in their tented beaks. Then the poor shits would start hobbling slowly again possibly to share the meal with their partner.

The killer whales were the fiercest. They starkly contrasted with the white backdrop and they would purposefully ram into the ship. They came in groups, and even the unicorns seemed to be afraid of them.

One night as Bramblebone was sleeping, he heard something. Those black cunts, he thought of the killer whales. But the sound was different, as he realized when he came into consciousness. It was still unusual to see daylight when he was sleeping. The voice was a man. He couldn’t see any man. But the voice was gone then. He had only heard one word: Southeast.

The next night the voice returned. And the next. Each night it would tell Bramblebone a direction. They would go in that direction and the voice would calibrate a new direction the next night for him. Bramblebone was a man possessed. The Helmsman asked how he knew where to go. Bramblebone told him to shut up and do it. Dissension among the crew and Bramblebone was growing. Everyone liked their life before, and three men had died. One of frostbite, one of liver failure, and one had tipped off the side and killer whales had tattered him up.

But they kept going.

Then the day came. That night Bramblebone was told: “You’re close,” and he jerked upright in his cot. There was no one, nothing but the voice. “Tomorrow, come to me. Southwest till you hit the shore. Anchor there and come on down.”

Bramblebone told them to dock the ship when they reached the shore. In the distance, a Polar bear lugged itself sluggishly across the plain. Its cub was running behind it and turned to look at the enormous Griffin slayer docked by the shore. Then it ran to catch up with its mother. They anchored it to the bummock of the vast ice plain. They attached a spare anchor to the surface.

The entire crew was on the deck. Teeth chattered. Bramblebone was standing at the prow looking at everyone. The pirates looked more like eskimos now. Clinkers of ice punctuated Bramblebone’s hair and beard. A thick layer of ice rested on his brows and he seemed so pale that if not for his hair he could have camouflaged perfectly.

“Me Hearties!” Said Bramblebone.

Some of the crew nodded, some stood there. A few ‘Aye’s.’ No one wanted to compromise the warmth of their oral cavity.

Now came the problem: How were they to reach the seabed to procure the treasure? They didn’t know how deep the water was, nor the exact location – if it was there at all. 

Bramblebone believed they would find the answer. The voice would know.

And the voice did know.

“Do you feel it?” shouted Bramblebone. “Do you feel the GOLD running through your veins?”

The men looked at each other clutching their sides and rubbing their arms. Bramblebone was gesticulating feverishly and his hair was flowing chunkily in the wind. Rudolph, who was standing a little way away from him at the base of the mizzen, thought the cold and the brandy had gone to his head.

But then they did feel it. Everyone on the deck felt it. And they saw it, too. The water beneath the Griffin Slayer glowed a yellowish-white. Like the water was on fire. Everyone was mesmerized by it. They leaned over the railings.

Bramblebone was pleased. The voice was there, and it was right, and the treasure was here.

The water was glowing ever brighter now, brighter than the sun.

The treasure was a bracelet. But not the kind anyone expected. As it bobbed and floundered out of the water, a huge glowing circular bracelet surrounded the ship’s keel. Water fell in thick strands, then thin ones, like someone pulling on a stuck chewing gum. Then it started levitating. It levitated up to the level of the deck and everyone was looking at it as it surrounded the ship: a floating bracelet with the diameter greater than the distance between the stern and the prow, and with multiple beads strung together, all shining brighter than the sun. Each bead had a Griffin embossed on it. Some were tearing prey, others were sitting, others flying.

And then it was gone. Darkness. Darkness like they had never seen before. Close your eyes, and the light will still leave an impression upon your eyelids. A color.

But they saw none.

A few men, discombobulated with the cold, and the bizarreness of the treasure, in their blindness tipped over the sides. With their vision lost, they died. They did not understand what happened and why they could not see. They simply gave up.

Others were confused and shouted.

“Avast!” shouted Bramblebone, but no one cared anymore. Like the ones who met Davy Jones’ Locker, they were simply too stunned. Bramblebone himself was, but he had the responsibility of managing them.

“Rudolph! Kipthorn!”

“Captain!” they shouted simultaneously. All three came towards each other, listening.

“Lift the anchors Rudolph! Kipthorn, bring a wind upon her!”

A fierce man even in the face of danger, Bramblebone was not going to give up just because he had lost his eyes. Meet death only after forgoing everything, if you don’t, you won’t have lived. Scars, amputated limbs, overworked livers, and rhinoceros’ eyes were trophies.

They lifted the anchors and somehow broke away from the shore.

They waded away for days, trying to get to some form of land. Ironically, now it was always night.

Days turned into weeks. The only constant to everyone’s ears was the water around them, the wind around them. And the cold. The cold was the worst. They fought. Valiantly, like Bramblebone had on that fabled night when he became the captain.

In the end they died near the Continent itself. They were even edging into the Pacific once, but they turned around. The ship never sank. It floated and floated. But the men on it were frozen and rotten.