Page 64

CHAPTER EIGHT

I t was cold.

He was so wet and cold.

There was sand everywhere. In his mouth, on his face, in his ears and eyes. It was everywhere. He wasn’t aware of how long he had been laying there, his face half-buried in the sand, but when someone rolled him over and started fleecing him, he lashed out arms and legs, trying to chase people away. He could hear them all speaking in French, a very provincial dialect and difficult to understand, but he understood what they were saying. At least, a few words now and again.

Leave him!

Do not touch him!

Someone was calling off those who were grabbing at him. He genuinely had no idea what was happening and trying to open his eyes to see where he was turned out to be an excruciating venture, so we simply kept his crusty eyes closed.

God, what happened?

What happened, indeed. He could hear voices all around him as well as the crash of waves and the screech of the gulls overhead. His mind was muddled and he struggled to remember how he got there. And then there was someone tugging at him again, only far more gently. They weren’t trying to steal things off of his body, but rather help him. At least, he sensed they were trying to help him. They were brushing sand off of his face and rolling him onto his back. Someone poured water on his face to wash away the sand and he sputtered and choked, spitting out sand and whatever else he’d managed to capture in his mouth.

“Quel est ton nom?”

What is your name?

For a moment, he didn’t know. He didn’t know anything. They continued to gently ask him his name and ask him where he had come from, but he couldn’t answer them. The drag of unconsciousness was calling to him again and it was a struggle not to answer. He didn’t want to answer. He wanted to know where he was and what had happened.

What is going on?

Someone moved his left arm, which was holding on to something. As they pried his fingers loose, he realized that he had been clutching something. He didn’t even know what it was. But then, it hit him.

The ship.

He had been on a ship. He and a hundred other men had been on a ship heading for The Levant. They were answering King Richard’s call to arms, to chase the infidels from the Holy Land, on a ship heading for Vézelay. They had barely been out of Calais when a massive storm had swept in and as he lay there, he could still feel the waves tossing the ship around and crashing over the bow. He could still feel the fear of that terrible storm, tearing at the cogs that weren’t made to withstand that kind of power. Days and nights of being aboard those ships as they were thrown around violently by the wind and the rain.

And then, they had hit something under the water.

The ship sank in a few short minutes.

In fact, it probably hadn’t even been that long. It seemed to him that it had been instantaneous. One moment he was standing on the deck and in the next, he was underwater. His head managed to make it onto the surface and he remembered hearing the screams of those who were drowning. He remembered hearing the awful sound of the ship as it was smashed to pieces against the rocks that no one could see. He knew how to swim, although he’d never been very good at it, and he tried desperately to keep his head above water and swim in that dark, inky sea. The only time the water would lighten was when the lightning would flash and he could see all around him.

It had been pure devastation.

But it also gave him his bearings and he could see the white chalk cliffs in the distance. He knew that had to be his destination if he was going to survive. So, he swam as much as he was able even though the swells were gigantic and there were waves crashing all around him. At one point, the waves pushed him up against some of those underwater rocks and the force of it tore his boots off him. It also chewed up his legs because, even now, he could feel the sting of the salt on open wounds.

But still, he swam just as hard as he could.

When the lightning flashed next, he saw his salvation. Half of a broken barrel was floating in the water not far from him and he swam towards it, grabbing hold of it and using it for flotation. He gripped that barrel as tightly as he could and kicked his legs, kicking desperately through that churning water as he tried to head towards the shore. As he kicked, he saw one of his comrades, a good friend of his, and he tried to wave the man over to share his barrel, but the man was either too injured or he didn’t hear him.

He watched Gilbert’s head go underwater and never come back up again.

But somehow, he made it to shore.

He didn’t even know how, because he didn’t remember anything after seeing Gilbert’s head go underwater. His memory was muddled and the next thing he remembered was waking up to the sounds of Frenchmen all around him. As he lay there, the lull of unconsciousness pulled even stronger and it was becoming increasingly difficult to resist. But he also realized that, although he remembered Gilbert’s name, he couldn’t quite remember his own. He couldn’t remember his life before that disaster. It was almost as if he never had a life before that. That sinking ship had been his whole life.

He couldn’t recall anything else.

As he began to drift off into blissful darkness again, he could feel people brushing the sand off his injured legs. He could hear them debating what to do for him. Truth be told, he didn’t care if anyone did anything for him because he remembered nothing and he was nothing. He had no past, no present, and no future.

Darkness claimed him once again and he wasn’t sorry in the least.