To note: there were some brief revisions to the previous chapter in Englehorn's narrative about Kendrie and the Venture's First Mates since Hayes. Just so everyone knows.

I expect to get these guys to the Island in three more posts, so hang in there. Soon enough, they'll get to put their more physical skills to use.

Interlude Five: The Faces of the Sisters

"When the days were torment and the nights were clouded terror.
When the Powers of Darkness had dominion on our Soul –
When we fled consuming through the Seven Hells of Fever,
These put their hands to us and healed and made us whole."
– Rudyard Kipling, "The Dirge of Dead Sisters"

October 1st, 1934

She stands in a field in France, and the sky is heavy with clouds that are not clouds. The stench of death is so powerful she can taste it: a coppery splash of blood and fear. The maddening drone of the planes and the bombs grows louder and louder until it fills her head. Bodies fall from the sky, but they don't all wear the uniforms of the RAF. Some are from the infantry, and they are German and French and Belgian as well as British. She wants to get away, but her white skirt is heavy and stiff, caked with mud and blood. Her arms weigh so much she can barely lift them.

She looks down, and sobs choke her at the sight of her red-black limbs. Has she been injured? She feels no pain – yet, if she has no wound, whose blood is it? She raises one hand to scratch at the other arm, and the blood flakes off her in feathery dark chunks. The bodies are stacked so high she can't see over them. She sits in a charnel ring, the eyes and mouths of the dead gaping at her as great black holes. She tries to move again, but she has nowhere to go.

Something hard hits her shoulder, forcing her to the ground. She impacts with such force that it knocks the air out of her. The bodies are falling on her now, and she's gasping, trying to scream so someone will come for her – but nobody ever comes. She is always alone. Her mouth opens in the red-tinged darkness, but no sound ever escapes –

Laura awoke on the floor; the solid hit on her shoulder had been the collision when she fell out of the bed. She sat up and waited for her eyes to adjust to the darkness. Wrapping her arms around her legs, she drew her knees up to her chin, and she shivered despite the room's warmth.

A sliver of moonlight came in through the window, and eventually, she could see well enough to stand up and make sure Bridget's sleep continued undisturbed. She was curled up on her side of the bed, breathing in the gentle rhythm of a sound sleeper. Laura was pleased; she didn't want to explain her troubles to the girl.

She went to her trunk and checked her watch: just a little after four. Five hours of sleep would have to be enough for tonight. She'd functioned on less, and at least she didn't expect to exert herself much on the ship. For now, she'd take what she could get and not push the issue. Returning to bed was not an option, for fear of whom she might recognize in the charnel ring.

Dressing in the dark proved not much of a challenge, as she'd done it often enough in the past not to worry about buttoning her long-sleeved blouse wrong or tying her laces right. Matching didn't pose a problem either; most of her clothes were in neutral colors and tended to match without much effort on her part. She took care to choose a skirt with a little more give to it so her movement wouldn't be overly hindered.

While she pinned her hair up into a bun, she watched Bridget's restful sleep with a helpless sense of envy. She couldn't remember the last time she had slept all through the night. What peaceful thoughts had she to keep her company when she was seventeen? What waking nightmares had this pretty sleeping girl witnessed?

The answer to both questions: none.

She opened the door and exited the room, nearly stepping on John, who sat cross-legged against the wall in the hallway. He reached up and grabbed her arm to steady her unsure footing, closing the door with his other hand. They stared at each, an unspoken understanding passing between them: You too, huh?

"'I wake and feel the fell of dark, not day,'" he said, quoting a Gerard Manley Hopkins poem.

Laura knelt next to him and wrapped her arms around his neck, burying her face in the coarse fabric of his shirt. He smelled like whiskey and cheap cigarettes, and on his clothing lingered a hint of the English perfume that Saroja liked so much. He returned the embrace, and they sat like that for several moments as they fought off the ghosts of the past.

How many times – during that summer after the War when they had stayed in the Matheran house – did she lay awake and listen to him cry out in his sleep, when her own dreams left her sobbing into her pillow? How many times did they sit on the balcony in the pre-dawn hours, unwilling to speak of the images that kept them from returning to their beds?

It did not go on forever; it could not. John found solace in an Indian girl, unconcerned that his marriage ruined his reputation and threatened his claim to his birthright. Laura made a better marriage but received no comfort from it. Only on the hunt or working with the animals could she put her mind at ease and forget the sound of bombs overhead and the screams of dying men. In time, they had days when the War was long in the past, a memory and nothing more.

And they had days when the War was a ghost appearing in the darkest hours to remind them that it was still very much a part of them, even after fifteen years.

She pulled away from him and sat beside him, holding his hand. "'Oh, what black hours we have spent this night,'" she said, quoting the same poem.

"What a sorry pair we make," he replied, "hiding from our own dreams."

"We're only human, John."

"Sometimes, I wake up down there and forget where I am. I look at those sleeping men and think, 'Just one moment – one more moment, and the torpedo hits and they're dying all over again.' But not me. Every time, I'm spared, and I never understand why."

"You shouldn't blame yourself for surviving. That's just the way of war."

"It's a damned ugly way to live."

"At least you're alive."

He leaned over and kissed the top of her head, and then he got to his feet, offering a hand to help her stand. "I know where Vijay keeps the coffee; share some with me?"

Shaking her head as he pulled her up, she said, "Later, perhaps. I'm going on deck to get some air and clear my head."

"Until then," he replied, and he sauntered down the hallway, hands stuck in the pockets of his wrinkled dungarees.

She watched him go, and the last lines of the Hopkins poem came to mind: I see the lost are like this, and their scourge to be as I am mine, their sweating selves; but worse.

An hour later, she found herself in the hold, sitting among the cages and the boxes, staring at the tigress. In his corner cage, Carl Denham snored in soft slumber, and both females ignored him. Laura sat on a box, her feet dangling off the floor. Resting in the center of her cage, the tigress laid her head on her paws and watched the woman with eyes glowing like jewels in the shadows.

I have been where you are now, Laura thought. Sometimes I wonder – did I ever really escape?

Denham's guard had gone; he'd asked Laura to watch the sleeping captive while he went up to the deck to smoke a cigarette. By way of excusing himself, he explained that Englehorn didn't allow smoking in the hold because it upset the animals. Laura showed her disinterest by ignoring him.

In the hold, the ship's sway was more pronounced, but Laura thought it comforting, like a distant memory of her ayah rocking her to sleep. The tigress rumbled a little, as though feeling the same brief feeling of comfort. If Laura could touch her, she knew she would feel the vibration of that noise all through the big cat's body.

The tigress laid back her ears and half-opened her mouth. The guard's boots sounded on the steps, hurried and heavy. He avoided looking at Laura, moving to his seat near Denham's cage, and then she was aware that he hadn't come down alone. Another figure stood in the dark near the stairs, and she realized that it was Englehorn.

He watched his man settle back into his guard duty, and then he glanced at the tigress. She closed her eyes and pretended to be asleep; her muscles tensed, ready to strike at him if he took a step closer. He made no such move, instead looking at Laura, and she tilted her head back to meet his gaze. After a moment, he turned and took the steps back up to the deck.

Laura stood, and her knees ached from sitting still for so long. She smoothed the wrinkles from her skirt and gazed at the tigress as she passed the cage. Eyes slit half-open, the beast watched her go, the muscles rippling under the smooth, oily coat.

"Sorry, miss," the sailor said softly. "He caught me unawares on deck."

Without replying, Laura went up the stairs and into the cool pre-dawn air.

Englehorn stood near the rail, slipping a cigarette case into his coat pocket. "Was I not clear enough about people going into the hold?"

"I thought that only applied to your crew."

"It applies to everyone," he said, lighting the kretek cigarette. The heavy scent of cloves wafted over to her.

"Now I know." It was as close to an apology as she was willing to give him.

"I would consider it a personal favor if you would stay out of my hold from now on."

She dipped her head to him as a sign of her assent, and he returned with a brusque nod. For several moments, they stood facing each other without actually looking at each other, and then Englehorn crossed the deck and made for the wheelhouse stairs. Instead of watching him go, Laura stood and stared to the East as the first splashes of warm light began to break upon the darkened, cold horizon.

The poem quoted by John and Laura is "I wake and feel the fell of dark, not day," by Gerard Manley Hopkins.