i kept rainwater and the water i collected from the solarstills in the locker, out of richard parker's sight, in the three50-litre plastic bags. i sealed them with string. those plasticbags wouldn't have been more precious to me had theycontained gold, sapphires, rubies and diamonds. i worriedincessantly about them. my worst nightmare was that i wouldopen the locker one morning and find that all three had spilledor, worse still, had split. to forestall such a tragedy, i wrappedthem in blankets to keep them from rubbing against the metalhull of the lifeboat, and i moved them as little as possible toreduce wear and tear. but i fretted over the necks of thebags. would the string not wear them thin? how would i sealthe bags if their necks were torn?
when the going was good, when the rain was torrential,when the bags had as much water as i thought they couldtake, i filled the bailing cups, the two plastic buckets, the twomulti-purpose plastic containers, the three beakers and theempty cans of water (which i now preciously kept). next ifilled all the plastic vomit bags, sealing them by twisting themshut and making a knot. after that, if the rain was still comingdown, i used myself as a container. i stuck the end of therain-catcher tube in my mouth and i drank and i drank and idrank.
i always added a little sea water to richard parker's freshwater, in a greater proportion in the days following a rainfall, ina lesser during periods of drought. on occasion, in the earlydays, he dipped his head overboard, sniffed the sea and took afew sips, but quickly he stopped doing it.
still, we barely got by. the scarcity of fresh water was thesingle most constant source of anxiety and suffering throughoutour journey.
of whatever food i caught, richard parker took the lion'sshare, so to speak. i had little choice in the matter. he wasimmediately aware when i landed a turtle or a dorado or ashark, and i had to give quickly and generously. i think i setworld records for sawing open the belly shells of turtles. as forfish, they were hewn to pieces practically while they were stillflopping about. if i got to be so indiscriminate about what iate, it was not simply because of appalling hunger; it was alsoplain rush. sometimes i just didn't have the time to considerwhat was before me. it either went into my mouth that instantor was lost to richard parker, who was pawing and stampingthe ground and huffing impatiently on the edge of his territory.
it came as an unmistakable indication to me of how low i hadsunk the day i noticed, with a pinching of the heart, that i atelike an animal, that this noisy, frantic, unchewing wolfing-downof mine was exactly the way richard parker ate.
