In the morning I could not move. I was pinned byweakness to the tarpaulin. Even thinking was exhausting. Iapplied myself to thinking straight. At length, as slowly as acaravan of camels crossing a desert, some thoughts cametogether.
The day was like the previous one, warm and overcast, theclouds low, the breeze light. That was one thought. The boatwas rocking gently, that was another.
I thought of sustenance for the first time. I had not had adrop to drink or a bite to eat or a minute of sleep in threedays. Finding this obvious explanation for my weakness broughtme a little strength.
Richard Parker was still on board. In fact, he was directlybeneath me. Incredible that such a thing should need consentto be true, but it was only after much deliberation, uponassessing various mental items and points of view, that Iconcluded that it was not a dream or a delusion or amisplaced memory or a fancy or any other such falsity, but asolid, true thing witnessed while in a weakened, highly agitatedstate. The truth of it would be confirmed as soon as I felt wellenough to investigate.
How I had failed to notice for two and a half days a450-pound Bengal tiger in a lifeboat twenty-six feet long was aconundrum I would have to try to crack later, when I hadmore energy. The feat surely made Richard Parker the largeststowaway, proportionally speaking, in the history of navigation.
From tip of nose to tip of tail he took up over a third of thelength of the ship he was on.
You might think I lost all hope at that point. I did. And asa result I perked up and felt much better. We see that insports all the time, don't we? The tennis challenger startsstrong but soon loses confidence in his playing. The championracks up the games. But in the final set, when the challengerhas nothing left to lose, he becomes relaxed again, insouciant,daring. Suddenly he's playing like the devil and the championmust work hard to get those last points. So it was with me.
To cope with a hyena seemed remotely possible, but I was soobviously outmatched by Richard Parker that it wasn't evenworth worrying about. With a tiger aboard, my life was over.
That being settled, why not do something about my parchedthroat?
I believe it was this that saved my life that morning, that Iwas quite literally dying of thirst. Now that the word hadpopped into my head I couldn't think of anything else, as ifthe word itself were salty and the more I thought of it, theworse the effect. I have heard that the hunger for air exceedsas a compelling sensation the thirst for water. Only for a fewminutes, I say. After a few minutes you die and the discomfortof asphyxiation goes away. Whereas thirst is a drawn-out affair.
Look: Christ on the Cross died of suffocation, but His onlycomplaint was of thirst. If thirst can be so taxing that evenGod Incarnate complains about it, imagine the effect on aregular human. It was enough to make me go raving mad. Ihave never known a worse physical hell than this putrid tasteand pasty feeling in the mouth, this unbearable pressure at theback of the throat, this sensation that my blood was turning toa thick syrup that barely flowed. Truly, by comparison, a tigerwas nothing.
And so I pushed aside all thoughts of Richard Parker andfearlessly went exploring for fresh water.
The divining rod in my mind dipped sharply and a springgushed water when I remembered that I was on a genuine,regulation lifeboat and that such a lifeboat was surely outfittedwith supplies. That seemed like a perfectly reasonableproposition. What captain would fail in so elementary a way toensure the safety of his crew? What ship chandler would notthink of making a little extra money under the noble guise ofsaving lives? It was settled. There was water aboard. All I hadto do was find it.
Which meant I had to move.
I made it to the middle of the boat, to the edge of thetarpaulin. It was a hard crawl. I felt I was climbing the side ofa volcano and I was about to look over the rim into a boilingcauldron of orange lava. I lay flat. I carefully brought my headover. I did not look over any more than I had to. I did notsee Richard Parker. The hyena was plainly visible, though. Itwas back behind what was left of the zebra. It was looking atme.
I was no longer afraid of it. It wasn't ten feet away, yet myheart didn't skip a beat. Richard Parker's presence had at leastthat useful aspect. To be afraid of this ridiculous dog whenthere was a tiger about was like being afraid of splinters whentrees are falling down. I became very angry at the animal.
"You ugly, foul creature," I muttered. The only reason I didn'tstand up and beat it off the lifeboat with a stick was lack ofstrength and stick, not lack of heart.
Did the hyena sense something of my mastery? Did it say toitself, "Super alpha is watching me – I better not move"? Idon't know. At any rate, it didn't move. In fact, in the way itducked its head it seemed to want to hide from me. But itwas no use hiding. It would get its just deserts soon enough.
Richard Parker also explained the animals' strange behaviour.
Now it was clear why the hyena had confined itself to such anabsurdly small space behind the zebra and why it had waitedso long before killing it. It was fear of the greater beast andfear of touching the greater beast's food. The strained,temporary peace between Orange Juice and the hyena, and myreprieve, were no doubt due to the same reason: in the faceof such a superior predator, all of us were prey, and normalways of preying were affected. It seemed the presence of atiger had saved me from a hyena – surely a textbook exampleof jumping from the frying pan into the fire.
But the great beast was not behaving like a great beast, tosuch an extent that the hyena had taken liberties. RichardParker's passivity, and for three long days, needed explaining.
Only in two ways could I account for it: sedation andseasickness. Father regularly sedated a number of the animalsto lessen their stress. Might he have sedated Richard Parkershortly before the ship sank? Had the shock of the shipwreck– the noises, the falling into the sea, the terrible struggle toswim to the lifeboat – increased the effect of the sedative? Hadseasickness taken over after that? These were the only plausibleexplanations I could come up with.
I lost interest in the question. Only water interested me.
I took stock of the lifeboat.
The day was like the previous one, warm and overcast, theclouds low, the breeze light. That was one thought. The boatwas rocking gently, that was another.
I thought of sustenance for the first time. I had not had adrop to drink or a bite to eat or a minute of sleep in threedays. Finding this obvious explanation for my weakness broughtme a little strength.
Richard Parker was still on board. In fact, he was directlybeneath me. Incredible that such a thing should need consentto be true, but it was only after much deliberation, uponassessing various mental items and points of view, that Iconcluded that it was not a dream or a delusion or amisplaced memory or a fancy or any other such falsity, but asolid, true thing witnessed while in a weakened, highly agitatedstate. The truth of it would be confirmed as soon as I felt wellenough to investigate.
How I had failed to notice for two and a half days a450-pound Bengal tiger in a lifeboat twenty-six feet long was aconundrum I would have to try to crack later, when I hadmore energy. The feat surely made Richard Parker the largeststowaway, proportionally speaking, in the history of navigation.
From tip of nose to tip of tail he took up over a third of thelength of the ship he was on.
You might think I lost all hope at that point. I did. And asa result I perked up and felt much better. We see that insports all the time, don't we? The tennis challenger startsstrong but soon loses confidence in his playing. The championracks up the games. But in the final set, when the challengerhas nothing left to lose, he becomes relaxed again, insouciant,daring. Suddenly he's playing like the devil and the championmust work hard to get those last points. So it was with me.
To cope with a hyena seemed remotely possible, but I was soobviously outmatched by Richard Parker that it wasn't evenworth worrying about. With a tiger aboard, my life was over.
That being settled, why not do something about my parchedthroat?
I believe it was this that saved my life that morning, that Iwas quite literally dying of thirst. Now that the word hadpopped into my head I couldn't think of anything else, as ifthe word itself were salty and the more I thought of it, theworse the effect. I have heard that the hunger for air exceedsas a compelling sensation the thirst for water. Only for a fewminutes, I say. After a few minutes you die and the discomfortof asphyxiation goes away. Whereas thirst is a drawn-out affair.
Look: Christ on the Cross died of suffocation, but His onlycomplaint was of thirst. If thirst can be so taxing that evenGod Incarnate complains about it, imagine the effect on aregular human. It was enough to make me go raving mad. Ihave never known a worse physical hell than this putrid tasteand pasty feeling in the mouth, this unbearable pressure at theback of the throat, this sensation that my blood was turning toa thick syrup that barely flowed. Truly, by comparison, a tigerwas nothing.
And so I pushed aside all thoughts of Richard Parker andfearlessly went exploring for fresh water.
The divining rod in my mind dipped sharply and a springgushed water when I remembered that I was on a genuine,regulation lifeboat and that such a lifeboat was surely outfittedwith supplies. That seemed like a perfectly reasonableproposition. What captain would fail in so elementary a way toensure the safety of his crew? What ship chandler would notthink of making a little extra money under the noble guise ofsaving lives? It was settled. There was water aboard. All I hadto do was find it.
Which meant I had to move.
I made it to the middle of the boat, to the edge of thetarpaulin. It was a hard crawl. I felt I was climbing the side ofa volcano and I was about to look over the rim into a boilingcauldron of orange lava. I lay flat. I carefully brought my headover. I did not look over any more than I had to. I did notsee Richard Parker. The hyena was plainly visible, though. Itwas back behind what was left of the zebra. It was looking atme.
I was no longer afraid of it. It wasn't ten feet away, yet myheart didn't skip a beat. Richard Parker's presence had at leastthat useful aspect. To be afraid of this ridiculous dog whenthere was a tiger about was like being afraid of splinters whentrees are falling down. I became very angry at the animal.
"You ugly, foul creature," I muttered. The only reason I didn'tstand up and beat it off the lifeboat with a stick was lack ofstrength and stick, not lack of heart.
Did the hyena sense something of my mastery? Did it say toitself, "Super alpha is watching me – I better not move"? Idon't know. At any rate, it didn't move. In fact, in the way itducked its head it seemed to want to hide from me. But itwas no use hiding. It would get its just deserts soon enough.
Richard Parker also explained the animals' strange behaviour.
Now it was clear why the hyena had confined itself to such anabsurdly small space behind the zebra and why it had waitedso long before killing it. It was fear of the greater beast andfear of touching the greater beast's food. The strained,temporary peace between Orange Juice and the hyena, and myreprieve, were no doubt due to the same reason: in the faceof such a superior predator, all of us were prey, and normalways of preying were affected. It seemed the presence of atiger had saved me from a hyena – surely a textbook exampleof jumping from the frying pan into the fire.
But the great beast was not behaving like a great beast, tosuch an extent that the hyena had taken liberties. RichardParker's passivity, and for three long days, needed explaining.
Only in two ways could I account for it: sedation andseasickness. Father regularly sedated a number of the animalsto lessen their stress. Might he have sedated Richard Parkershortly before the ship sank? Had the shock of the shipwreck– the noises, the falling into the sea, the terrible struggle toswim to the lifeboat – increased the effect of the sedative? Hadseasickness taken over after that? These were the only plausibleexplanations I could come up with.
I lost interest in the question. Only water interested me.
I took stock of the lifeboat.