Words for Wednesday - Mary and Allan revisited - 6

The story of the people from the Wieliczka salt mine continued - every evening beween 9 and 10 pm.

Words:
Wardrobe
Silhouette
Sergeant
Dispensation

Placebo
Displeasure
Sympathy
Discretion

Used here: Sympathy.

  Next day they turned east instead of west a couple of hours after dawn. The village again manned with as few as possible kept at long distance from the plane. The manoeuvrability of the floating huts were not great and the incident in Wieliczka had taught them even more caution. Almost everyone were distributed in the boats to keep the time for changing of oarsmen at a minimum. The smallest boat taxied to and fro between plane, the pulling boats ant the village bringing snacks, tea, cold water, even lunch so that progress could be as fast as possible. True to his words Tom manned an oar in one of the rowing boats, and had Francesco take the other at his side. Francecso was rather fit for a Wieliczkan, but he was soon sweating and groaning softly, favouring his left hand in the strokes. After an hour Tom had pity with him and called for replacement. Hank and Mona at the next pair of oars kept on rowing but Robert and Cordelia took the oars from Tom and Francesco.
  "Now undress," Tom said. "It's time for a swim."
  "What!" Francesco said. "Swim!" I''m exhausted, I'm hungry and hurting all over."
  "Yes," Tom said, "and your hands are filled with blisters. We need limbering and a washing off. you did not wash yesterday. Get in!"
  Francesco understood that Tom meant it, and were not going to relent. Still tied to one another, but by a long rope they swam in only underwear. Then they hung in a rope washing and splashing in the lukewarm waters.
  "Mary made this soap," Tom said. "Soon we'll have no more until she figures out how to make more. Now wash your shirt and trousers. You'll have to borrow some of Hank's while they dry."
  Francesco scrubbed and scrubbed, wincing as the coarse fabric raised even more blisters on his sore hands and the soap got into them. Finally they were clean and together they wrung the pants. Inside the plane the clothes were hung on a line in the tail end of the plane, and Hank came with towels for both and some clothes for Francesco. They dressed and until lunch Tom planned the course and checked the plane with Francesco either sitting on a chair nearby or trailing after. He ate a normal ration for lunch, and emptied three mugs of hot, sweet tea in a very short time.
  After lunch work began anew. Tom rowed one of the small boats with Mona to the floating village. There they put stakes to the runner beans and watered the sunflowers and the flax. "They need to be planted in something bigger," Mona said, "But everywhere plants are growing. We need land."
  "Yes we need land. We also need more people. One more week. Then we settle," Tom said, he felt cramped, same as the plants, but sympathy with plants and people alike did nothing to change the need for more people, which Mary's words had instilled inside their brains.
  "One more week," Mona said. "I just hope we find someone in that place or in Goslar."

  When the sun was at its highest Tom measured the height with the sextant and compared to the map. "We should be there in less than an hour," he announced. "Everybody keep a lookout for anything at all!"
  Once again the rowers and lead line throwers changed places. Francesco had the lead line in Tom's boat with Tom, Hank, Mona and Robert rowing. Danuta stood in Tom's boat and Thomas and Lech in the other, where Allan sat with the megaphone in the stern.
  All clear the two lead liners called in a monotone rhythm. And then "Bottom here" from first Allison in the other big boat and then from Francesco in Tom's boat. It got more and more shallow and then deeper again.
  "That was the mine, I suppose," Tom said. "We found something like it in Wieliczka."
  "Yes all the non-salt, dug out from the mine made a mound outside," Francesco said.
  Danuta added: "Yes, that's true. And the hill in Bochnia was larger, more not-salt down there I think, and that mine actually older."
   "But not a trace of people here," Hank said. "Where would they have gone?"
  "We could not know. The Tatry are not visible from here, They go a bit south, and we are more to the north. Not much, but enough," Danuta said.
  "We need not go any further," Francesco said sounding both sad and disgusted.
  Tom stood up and saw what Francesco had seen. A row of bodies, kept together by a rope lay in the water, gently swaying as so many strange boats.
  "Let's  get away from here!" Sarah called from the other boat. "If some disease got them they could still contaminate us"
  "Turn left," she said, and all rowers to the right stopped rowing, lifting their oars. The boats and the plane swung in a wide arc, clearing the connected bodies by only a few metres."Keep rowing," Sarah called, and they all did. The lookout crews sat down and the plane sped on to the west, away from the grisly scene. Allan alerted the village by means of the megaphone, and they too swung left.