The next morning it was hot, with no trace of wind. Garibaldi and nine other sailors from the Reliant sat facing backwards in a rowboat, pulling on their oars. Otis was in the back of the boat, shouting, "Stroke," every three seconds or so. The sailors pulled their oars in time with his shouts. He had one hand on a pole he called the tiller. He used the tiller to steer the boat.
Tied to the back of the boat, behind Otis, was a rope that reached across the water to the front of another rowboat, which was in turn tied by another rope to the front of the Reliant. Six sailors sat in the second rowboat, pulling at their own oars.
The Reliant had only one rowboat of its own. The rowboat that Garibaldi sat in belonged to another ship in the harbor. In exchange for some money, the other ship had agreed to lend their own rowboat to the Reliant for the day.
Even with two rowboats and sixteen sailors rowing as hard as they could, Garibaldi could barely tell that they were moving at all. Nevertheless, when he looked past Otis, the other rowboat, and the Reliant, he saw that the city was now far enough away that he could not tell which of the people walking along the waterfront were men and which were women. The people on the waterfront looked like little stick-things moving back and forth. No sound of the city reached across the water, except for the occasional whistle from a ship.
But Prudence Harbor was large, and they still had a lot more rowing to do until the Reliant could hope to catch a breeze in the sea-channel. Right now, the hills to the west blocked whatever wind might be blowing from that direction.
A hundred paces across the water to the left, two rowboats full of women were towing the Endeavor. The Endeavor had two rowboats of its own, which were large enough together to hold the entire ship's crew if ever the ship sank in the sea.
Garibaldi pulled on his oar and smiled. He remembered Sallina arguing with the Captain the night before about how dangerous it was for the Reliant to have only one rowboat. The Captain told her he had thirty life-jackets in boxes on deck. Sallina said people floating in the water could be eaten by sharks, and she certainly hoped she would not be one of the people in the water if the ship sank. The Captain promised her that she could sit in the boat, and Harry said he would float in the water instead of her. He was not scared of sharks.
Otis said, "Stop rowing!"
They lifted their oars out of the water. So did the rowers in the boat behind them.
"Everyone drink ten mouthfuls."
This was the third time Otis had ordered them to stop rowing and drink. According to Otis, it was a bad idea to drink too much when you're exercising in the sun, but also a bad idea not to drink at all. Most of the sailors in the boat were drinking as much as they wanted. But Otis did not seem to notice.
Garibaldi picked up his metal water-bottle, which the sailors called a canteen. He unscrewed the top and drank five mouthfuls of water. Sweat dripped from his hair and into his eyes. He picked up his shirt from the bench beside him and wiped his forehead. He was sitting bare-chested in the boat, like the rest of the sailors.
"Water break!" Jacqueline shouted. She was steering the rowboat farthest in front of the Endeavor. She had a loud voice. Garibaldi could hear her clearly. He watched the women picking up their canteens. They must be hotter than he was. They were all wearing shirts and hats.
The sailors in his boat were panting and tired. They complained to Otis about the heat and how long they had been rowing.
"The Captain's playing a merry joke on us, letting us row for two hours instead of one."
"I think he blew the whistle, but you didn't hear it, Otis, you deaf old bugger."
"Ten mouthfuls? Why not nine, or eleven? You're making this up as you go along, you are."
Garibaldi took another five mouthfuls of water, screwed the lid on, and put it down at his feet.
"Resume oars!" Otis said.
Garibaldi pushed the end of his oar forwards and up. The tip went backwards and down into the water.
"Stroke!"
Garibaldi pulled his oar. It slipped out of the water and bumped into the other oars on his side of the boat.
"Have a care, boy!" Otis said.
Garibaldi frowned. The other sailors stopped rowing and raised their oars out of the water. None of them complained.
"Stroke!"
This time Garibaldi did it right, and they pulled together.
Although the rest of the sailors were complaining about the rowing, they were all smiling. Garibaldi was happy too. He had done nothing but walk around for the past two weeks. Even before that, he had done very little exercise. Now his heart was beating hard and his entire body was dripping with his own sweat. He could not stop smiling. His head felt clear and free of any cares.
Sallina waved at him from the fore deck of the Reliant. He nodded at her, and nearly lost control of his oar again. She waved at the women in the Endeavor's boats too, but none of them noticed. They were too busy rowing, and very good at it they were, too. The men rowed in time, but the oars went into the water like this, "Splosh, splosh-a-splosh, splosh." The women's oars all went in at the same time, like this, "Splish."
And it must have been their better rowing that allowed them to keep up with the men. There were sixteen women towing the Endeavor, the same number as there were men towing the Reliant. Garibaldi was certain that the men were stronger than the women. And on top of that, the Endeavor was larger than the Reliant. The Endeavor was thirty-five meters long, while the Reliant was only thirty meters long.
The only way Garibaldi could explain how the women kept up with the men was that they were better rowers. Their skill made up for their lack of strength. Certainly, that was how it was with wood-cutting. Good form could double the power of your stroke. That's not to say that Garibaldi did not value strength: a strong man with perfect form could cut more wood than a weak man with perfect form. But the technique had to come first, so that the strength you built up in the chopping would be the right kind of strength.
Garibaldi's father believed in chopping equally from both sides. Most wood-cutters chopped over the right shoulder, some over the left. But Garibaldi and his father alternated strokes, ten over the left shoulder, then ten over the right. That way you built up muscles on both sides, and your body would be the same shape on both sides. "Symmetry, Garibaldi," his father told him, "It is good for your bones. And your mother likes it too."
"We should change places," Garibaldi said out loud to Otis, "Left side for right side."
"Quiet, boy!" Otis said, "Stroke!"
"So we don't get sore on one side only."
"Stroke!"
"He's got a point, you know," one sailor said.
"Stroke!"
"I'm sure getting mighty sore on my left side here."
"Stroke!"
"And you should change sides, too Otis," another sailor said.
"There's no seat at the front, man," Otis said, "Stroke!"
"I'm not talking about front and back, old fellow," the sailor said, "I'm talking about switching you from the side with the bench in to the side that's in the water."
Garibaldi and the sailors laughed. Otis smiled and shook his head.
"And why ain't you rowing anyway, Otis? Are you too feeble to do your share?" the first sailor said.
Otis smiled. "I'm all worn out, youngster, from a week of good loving with Captain Alicia. Stroke!"
"Aw! You can't be serious!" the first sailor said.
"You're too old for that kind of thing!" the second sailor said.
Otis smiled. "Stroke!"
Garibaldi saw Sallina waving from the fore deck. Why was she waving again? He could not wave back, with both hands on his oar. Did she expect him to wave? He smiled at her instead. But he could see that she was not smiling. She had been unhappy yesterday, and unhappy this morning. She said it was nothing to do with him, but he had worried about her all the same. He was not worried now. He should row more often. He didn't like worrying.
The crews of the two ships rowed all morning and into the afternoon. They changed rowers every hour. Most of the sailors took three turns in the boats. Sallina took one turn in the morning. While she was rowing, Garibaldi watched her from the fore deck. Her oar was going in at the wrong time, and she often bumped oars with the other sailors. Whenever the rowers pulled, the boat turned a little because Sallina was not pulling as hard as the rower next to her. After a while, the rower next to her stopped rowing so hard, so that the the boat would stay straight. He, at least, was happy to have Sallina sitting next to him. But the rest of the sailors kept looking over at the women pulling the Endeavor. During that hour, the women got ahead of the men. The men pulled hard on their oars, and frowned.
When Sallina climbed back up on deck again, she had blisters on her hands from holding the oar. Otis looked at the blisters and said, "No more rowing for you."
The other sailors agreed. "No more rowing for her."
"But I'm not tired!" Sallina said.
"You're a passenger," the Captain said, "You row only if you want to."
"I do want to," she said, "I want to do my share of the work."
The sailors stood around looking at the deck or at the Captain. Garibaldi smiled. He would not want to tell Sallina that they didn't want her to row because she slowed them down, but somebody was going to have to tell her.
Dan pushed his way through the sailors and took Sallina's hands in his. He turned them palm up and looked at her blisters. He shook his head and clicked his tongue. "No, no, no. You can't row again today, nor tomorrow either." He let go of her hands and looked into her eyes, leaning forward a little. "If you want to get hands for rowing, let them rest. The blisters will turn into calluses." He held his fist in front of her and clenched it. "Tough."
Sallina took a step away from Dan. She raised one eyebrow. Garibaldi had noticed her doing that in the past week or two.
"Okay," Sallina said. "Just as long as nobody thinks I'm trying to get out of my share of the work."
The Captain put his hand on her shoulder. "Nobody would ever think that, my dear."
Baat took one turn at the oars. He was strong for a boy of sixteen, but not as strong as the older sailors. He was a better rower than Sallina, but he still slowed down the boat. After his turn in the rowboat, he spoke to the Captain. After that, he did not row again. When Garibaldi asked him what he had said to the Captain, Baat said, "I tell him I row all day for him, but I know I do not row well."
Garibaldi took four turns at the oars. He was in the first rowing crew of the day, and the last, which was at three o'clock in the afternoon. When the last crew climbed down into the boats, the Reliant was a five hundred paces behind the Endeavor. The men climbed down quickly. Jacqueline and a new crew of women were climbing down into their own boats.
Jacqueline's call of, "Stroke!" drifted across the water. The women were already rowing.
"Come on boys!" Otis said.
One of the sailors was wrapping a cloth around the handle of his oar. The palms of his hands were covered with blisters. The cloth was supposed to stop his blisters getting any worse. The cloth was soaked with a smelly liquid that Dan called white spirit.
"Stroke!"
They pulled. The rowboats moved out in front of the Reliant. The ropes tying them to the ship rose up out of the water and stretched. The rowboats stopped moving. The rowers pulled hard. After ten strokes, the Reliant was moving.
The sun was shining upon Garibaldi's left cheek. Prudence Harbor was far away. Garibaldi could not see the city any more. It was hidden behind a bend in the channel. Even if it were not hidden around a bend, Garibaldi figured that the city would be almost too far away to see anything but the largest buildings. The Captain said they had rowed almost ten kilometers, which was two hours walk along level ground. Perhaps he would be able to see the huge building they called the Stadium. The stadium had no roof. It was the place they held their circus.
Garibaldi was glad Prudence City was far away.
"Stroke!"
Garibaldi looked over his shoulder. The women were far ahead of them. The men pulled hard. Their backs were red from the sun. Their faces were drawn tight as they pulled. Muscles stood out on their legs and across their backs. Some of the sailors had scars on their backs from being flogged by whips. The sailors were proud of their scars, and how they had got them. None of them had scars from being flogged on the Reliant. They received their scars aboard other ships, when they were younger. The scars stood out on their red, shining, backs as if to say, "I have felt more pain than you, and I'm still laughing."
Garibaldi wondered if he would be able to endure being flogged like some of these men had been flogged. Would he be able to keep himself from crying out in pain, bursting into tears, or begging?
The sailors felt sorry for people who cried when they were flogged. Brave women cried, they said. They laughed at those who screamed. Brave men screamed. But they spat over the rail when they talked about the ones who begged the Captain to stop the punishment. The sailors had all kinds of names for people who begged, names like wretch, sissy, and wimp.
When one sailor looked over and said, "Jacqueline is calling a fast stroke," and another sailors said, "Ah, she's a wimp," Garibaldi knew what the second sailor meant. He meant that Jacqueline was the sort of person who looked brave and full of courage, but when it came to a flogging, she would get down on her knees and beg. He wondered if she was really like that. How could they know for sure? Had she ever been flogged aboard the Endeavor?
The Endeavor and the Reliant were running a long, slow, race. The two captains agreed that morning to stop rowing four hours after noon. Whichever ship was farthest south in the channel when they stopped would be the winner. The crew of the losing ship would prepare supper for the crew of winning ship. But it was not the free supper that made the men want to win. It was the fact that they did not want to lose.
The women all wore hats. They still had their shirts on. Garibaldi began to wonder if it was a good idea to row on a hot day without a hat or shirt.
"Damn it, boys," one of the sailors said, "We've only−"
"Stroke!"
"−half an hour left."
Otis called the stroke every two seconds instead of three. The sailors pulled as hard as they could. Garibaldi looked over his shoulder. They were catching up with the women, he was sure of it.
At fifteen minutes to four, Garibaldi could see the stern of the Endeavor to his left.
"That's right, boys," Otis said, "Stroke! We're going to get 'em."
At ten minutes to four, they passed the Endeavor's bow, with its painted figure-head of a mermaid.
Jacqueline shouted the stroke for her own boat, and Garibaldi had to try to ignore her. He had to pull in time with Otis's voice, not Jacqueline's. But Jacqueline's voice was hard to ignore. She was almost screaming the stroke. She sounded angry.
The backs of the sailors in front of Garibaldi shone with sweat. He pulled hard on his oar. He wanted to win the race.
At five minutes to four, they caught up with Jaqueline's boat.
"Come on girls! Stroke! Stroke!"
The women's oars entered the water one after the other, sploosh-splash-sploosh. The men were no better, but they were stronger. Maybe it was Jacqueline's voice that spoiled the women's rowing. Maybe the women were too tired to row properly. Maybe they were too hot in their shirts and hats to care about the race any more.
The Reliant pulled ahead of the Endeavor.
Alicia blew a whistle. It was four o'clock. The crew of the Reliant cheered. They were twenty paces ahead of the Endeavor. The women leaned on their oars or lay back upon the rower behind them. They closed their eyes and took deep, loud breaths. Jacqueline sat scowling at the men's rowboats. Otis took out his pipe and put some tobacco in it. He lit a match on the bottom of his bench. Rich blue smoke drifted across the water. He turned around and stared back at the Endeavor with his hand over his eyes. Whether he saw Alicia looking back at him or not, Garibaldi could not tell, but Otis was smiling when he turned around again.
Garibaldi was proud. The Reliants may be clumsy with their oars compared to the Endeavors, and they may have been lazy at the start of the race, but they were strong and they did not give up. They were smart, too. Their captain knew who to put in the rowboats to call the strokes. He knew Otis would never scream. Otis was always ready to laugh, and be laughed at.
"Well rowed, boys," Otis said. "It's been an honor to call the stroke for you."
The Reliant drifted up next to the rowboats, and the rowers climbed out and up the sides of the ship. Garibaldi hugged Sallina. He hugged Baat. Sharpy slapped him on the back and congratulated him. He smiled and nodded.
The ships had left behind the hills on the west shore. A slight wind blowed from that direction. The wind was strong enough to move the boats. But they could not leave yet. They had to return the rowboat that the Reliant had borrowed that morning. Garibaldi watched while the Reliants set up a mast in the middle of each of the rowboats, and a sail of of thin, dry linen.
"Captain," Garibaldi said, "May I go with the rowboats?"
"No, lad, you may not. We'll teach you to sail a small boat one day, when we have some time for it. But until then, you won't be any help to them. You'll just be extra weight in the boat, which will slow it down."
"I could row," Garibaldi said.
"You've done enough rowing for the day," the Captain said.
Garibaldi flexed his hands. They were covered with blisters. The Captain was right. He leaned on the rail and watched the rowboats move off with their sails filled by the breeze. Off they went, sailing most of the time, but rowing whenever the breeze failed them, until they were out of sight around the bend of the channel.
Meanwhile, the women on the Endeavor prepared a meal. They barbecued an entire pig on their deck. They grilled the fish both crews caught during the race. They brought out strawberries, raspberries, and peaches. The sailors tied the two boats together with ropes, so that you could jump from the rail of one ship to the deck of the other. The crews of both ships stood on the deck of the Endeavor, looking at the food, smelling it, and getting more and more hungry. They were waiting for the four sailors to come back from the harbor.
The sun was setting when they saw the Reliant's rowboat in the channel to the north. Its white sail was full of the breeze. The mast they had used in the other rowboat lay half in her bottom and half over the side. The sailors on the Endeavor cheered.
Ten minutes later, the rowboat pulled up to the Reliant. The four sailors climbed aboard and jumped to the Endeavor as best they could. They were exhausted. They had been rowing most of the time, when the wind was too light to move the boats. But they had made it back before dark, and now that they were here, everyone could eat.
And so they ate. After that, they sang songs, played music, and danced. Baat did a dance that made them all cheer. He crouched on the ground and kicked his legs out one after the other, with his arms crossed, to the beat of Jacqueline's drum. At midnight, they went swimming in the cool water of the channel. Shortly before the sun came up, they went to bed. Men and women curled up together on the decks, or squeezed together in hammocks. Garibaldi and Sallina lay in one another's arms in their cabin and listened to the sailors in the two ships whispering, laughing quietly, or snoring in their sleep.
Garibaldi smiled. It had been a good day.
Sallina closed her eyes tight, and tried not to think about the man from Chiin in the hospital bed, with the picture of his wife and children in his hand.