Pulling Together

For the first hour or so, sailing seemed like fun, like an outing on the water. The passengers breathed fresh air and watched the sea and sky bob up and down on the horizon. But all at once, the whole watery world turned traitor on them. A burst of perspiration hit their armpits, their hands went cold and clammy, and the blood drained from their faces, turning their skin a sickly shade of green. They clutched for something, anything, to regain balance. Some found their way below, closing their eyes in the cool, darker confines of the rowing pit, but the ceaseless undulations of the sea sent them back up on deck in search of a stable place where, alas, there was none. Saliva crept up the back of the throat and floated the tongue in the sour flavors of their semi-digested breakfast. No amount of swallowing could keep it down. They rushed to the stern, leaned out, and heaved the contents of their stomachs into the sea below. For a few minutes they felt perfectly fine, but as soon as they spied the unhinged horizon, they dragged themselves again to the stern.

The sailors made light of the seafarers’ misery, commenting loudly to one another.

“Well, brother, I see that the fish are eating well today.”

“Say, friend, have you ever tried jellied octopus?”

The tormented seafarers groaned and held onto their positions at the stern. Passengers who had already found their sea legs comforted them, pressing cool cloths against their necks and offering a slice of ginger root to tuck into their cheeks. In a day or two, they promised, everyone would feel much better.

With so few sailors—fewer than half the usual number—each had to work twice as hard to manage the ship. Most of the passengers—aristocrats, merchants, musicians, artisans—knew absolutely nothing of sailing, if, indeed, they had ever set foot on boat before in their lives. The sailors took delight in disrupting the social order. When the time came to set the big sails, for example, members of the royal household were called up to work alongside enslaved servants, and the elites didn’t dare object. Temple maidens who had never so much as chopped an onion, folded a square of cloth, or scrubbed a dirty cooking pot, were reminded to stop flirting with the sailors and get to work.

All of the jobs, even those that would have seemed uncomplicated, had to be taught. A simple mistake could turn a routine task into a deadly hazard. The sailors displayed the scars from the injuries they’d endured due to careless seamanship: a missing finger from a crimped rope line, a dented brow from a plummeting boom, a gimpy leg crushed by improperly stowed cargo. The sailors warned the seafarers to stay vigilant or they, too, might earn such a trophy. But not to worry, they added lightheartedly, if you slash yourself open, we’ll stitch you up with a needle and catgut. The passengers learned the basic skills aptly and quickly.

Under normal circumstances, sailors performed the domestic duties that on land were traditionally assigned to women or enslaved servants. They prepared meals, kept their sleeping quarters tidy, and washed and mended their clothing. On Elishat’s ships, the women passengers commandeered the familiar tasks from the sailors. Alternately, if a woman wanted to take a crack at hoisting sails or manning the tiller, necessity won out over old divisions, and her brawn was welcomed alongside that of the men. One of these was a gentlewoman who, reassigned from the Arbiter along with her servant girl, joined the sailors in the rowing pit on the Phoenix. The Oarswoman mastered the technique quickly and won favor among the novice rowers by inventing songs and chants that helped everyone pull together. The first of her musical diversions took almost as long to learn as the rowing technique itself. She called it, “The Fisherman’s Lament.” The sailors, who held themselves in higher esteem than they did the common fishermen complaining endlessly about their poor catch, took to the ditty right away, and sang along.

“Oh, there are no fish in the sea…

No sailfish, sturgeon, pompano, spinner,

Flounder, bluefish, dolphin, grouper

No! There are no fish in the sea!

Oh, there are no fish in the sea…

No boarfish, pupfish, oarfish, trout,

Killfish, garfish, dogfish, pout

No! There are no fish in the sea!

Oh, there are no fish in the sea…

No smelt, no sole, no eel, no shad

sardinella, stingray, chub nor scad,

blenny, mullet, morayeeee

sailfish, triggerfish, anchoveeeee…

Ohhhhh, there are no fish in the sea!”

Meanwhile, the sailors enjoyed trying their stale old jokes on a fresh new audience.

“Brother, how many Sidonians does it take to launch a boat?”

It was a good opening line because there wasn’t a Tyrian aboard the Phoenix—or anywhere else in the fleet—who didn’t enjoy a joke at the expense of their Sidonian rivals.

After a well-timed pause, the sailor said, “Two! One to push off from shore, and the other to stand on the beach guarding the oars.”

The passengers roared with laughter and returned to their work with a smile. Coiling rope, fishing for food, checking the ever-shifting cargo in the holds—no job was more or less important than the others. Even the children were put to task shooing the gulls from the deck and scraping dishes after dinner. Thus, the passengers became indispensable members of the crew. Everyone became a sailor in deed if not in name.

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