by Ben Hammott
My first voyage was also to be my last. By the time I returned to England a little over a year later, I would be a changed man with the thirst for adventure and excitement completely expelled from my being.
A warning to all who may come across this document in the future; what you are about to read is not for the fainthearted. If you are of this disposition and don’t wish to be plagued by similar nightmares as I have endured, then I implore you to stop, look away, and read no more.
What follows is my harrowing voyage aboard the Fortuyn and beyond.
CHAPTER 3
No Headway
The storm, formidable and ferocious, had appeared out of nowhere, as is often the case around the Cape of Good Hope, commonly referred to as the Cape of Storms. It tossed about the Dutch India ship, the Fortuyn as if it were a child’s toy. Brutal and savage, the gale-ravaged waves smashed against the hull as if determined to destroy the obstruction in its path, something its crew thought likely based on the disquieting creak of hull timbers. Spray continually washed over the deck from all sides and drenched the anxious sailors battling the storm. It had arrived so suddenly they’d had no time to reset the sails, a task they were now trying to undertake while it raged.
Tossed about by the erratic pitch and roll of the ship, the crew climbed the rigging whipped back and forth by strong gusts. Those working on rain-slick wooden yardarms with heavy, water-soaked canvases carried out their toil while trying to prevent themselves from being thrown off to be dashed to the deck far below or ditched into the cruel sea. Both would prove equally fatal. The air was thick with the angry sea’s pungent, salty stench that worked its way into every crevice above and below decks.
The Dutch captain of the stricken vessel, Bernard Fokke, steadied his stance against the swaying quarterdeck and peered through his telescope at the distant ship far beyond the bow. The Maira, his companion vessel for the voyage from Batavia to Amsterdam, was also a ship of the Dutch East India Company. Though both ships were of a similar design and size, and on the same tack, strangely the Maira had made better headway and was drawing quickly from their sight. The Fortuyn seemed unusually sluggish as if Neptune or the Devil held them back.
Fokke glanced up at the flapping sails and thrumming lines where men high on the stern mast’s yardarms furled the sails to prevent the ship from slewing in the gusts, which could prove disastrous in a storm this powerful. He switched his focus to the men on the foremast, occupied with double-reefing the mainsail and foretopsail, and then looked at the billowing jib as he pondered the notion of bringing more forward sail into play in the hope they’d make better headway against the storm. If they could round the Cape, they’d be out of the worst of it and might be able to reach the safety of the port at Cape Town. His gaze flicked to the stormy sky when the dark clouds flashed with internal lightning, illuminating their swirling masses. They gathered together, blocking any remaining daylight, blanketing the erratically tossed and rolling ship in the gloom as thick as the crew’s somber mood. As thunder rolled through the heavens, rain fell, adding to the crew’s misery.
“Light the lanterns,” shouted the boatswain from the mid-deck, his booming voice loud enough to be heard against the wind screaming across the ship like phantom banshees rejoicing in the ship’s distress and willing all aboard to their doom.
Fokke gazed the length of his struggling vessel. He could scarcely see the forecastle in the darkness shrouding his ship. Patches of orange light, barely adequate to chase away the shadows, appeared along the decks as the crew lit the lanterns.
The first mate, Collas Drasbart, gripped the rail when a powerful swell lifted the ship before slamming it back into the sea with a violent jolt. Men knocked from their feet slid across the sloping deck and grabbed at the rail to stop themselves from being flung into the swirling ocean. A man overboard in this weather wouldn’t survive for long.
“Perhaps we should consider turning about to seek a safe harbor until the storm blows itself out, Captain?” suggested Drasbart.
Fokke turned his head to his first mate. The captain was renowned for the speed of his trips to and from the lucrative Netherlands to Java trade route, causing some to suspect him of being in league with the Devil. His secret was that he took a different course to most, one that took advantage of favorable winds and currents, shaving weeks off the trip. “We press on,” stated Fokke firmly. “We’ve ridden through worse and survived, so I don’t expect us to falter this time.”
“Aye, sir.” Drasbart frowned at the huge rolling swells. Luckily, they had a full hold to give the ship some stability against the raging weather.
Fokke turned his head to the helmsman when the bow turned slightly and noticed him straining on the wheel. “Hannigan!” he shouted to be heard. “Straighten her up, man, before we turn side on to the storm.”
Hannigan was grunting in his efforts to turn the wheel, well aware that if the vessel turned broadside to the weather, the hull would likely breach. A capsizing was what all sailors feared, especially in a storm as ferocious and unforgiving as the one they were currently battling. “There’s something wrong, Captain,” he yelled back. “She’s fighting me.”
Shoving his spyglass into his first mate’s hand, Fokke crossed to the wheel and grabbed it. Struggling and with much effort, between them, they slowly turned the ship’s bow into the storm again.
The boatswain, Jozef Janzen, had felt the ship turn, and sensing something was amiss, he climbed the steps to the quarterdeck. Spying the helmsman and captain fighting the wheel, he grabbed a securing rope, slipped the noose over a handle and pulled it tight to take up the slack.
Letting go of the wheel, Fokke nodded his thanks to his boatswain. “She’s pulling to starboard for some reason.”
“Aye, I noticed, sir,” said Jozef, worry creased his sea-worn features. “Storm-damaged the rudder, you think?”
“Ain’t that,” stated Hannigan confidently. “Something’s pulling her.”
Hannigan was an experienced helmsman and one of the best he had sailed with, so Fokke trusted his judgment. “Could the current be responsible?”
Hannigan shook his head. “Unlikely. Feels more like a fouled rudder.”
“If that’s the case there’s nothing we can do to remedy it until the storm’s released us,” said Jozef.
Staring at the creaking rope straining from its efforts to prevent the wheel from turning, Fokke cursed his luck. “Let’s double-lash the wheel in case she goes the other way and get two men up here to assist Hannigan keeping us headways until the storm’s passed.”
“Aye, Captain,” acknowledged the boatswain, moving swiftly to double-lash the wheel before climbing down to the mid-deck to choose two men to aid the helmsmen.
Fokke crossed to his first mate and took back his spyglass, now useless in this light. “I’ll be in my cabin if I’m needed.”
“Aye, sir.” As the captain left, Drasbart walked to the front of the quarterdeck and peered down at men rigging safety lines and adding an extra rope around one of the large water barrels that showed signs of breaking free. He directed his gaze upon the cabin boy who suddenly appeared from below deck, rushed to the rail and spewed his dinner over the side. A flash of lightning lit up his sickly pallor. It was the boy’s first voyage. At seventeen years old, he was the youngest soul aboard. Drasbart descended the steps.
Tom Hardy retched until his guts were empty. When lightning flashed its stark light on the angry waves, he noticed something around the hull.
“Don’t worry, son; the sickness will pass.”
Tom wiped his mouth with the back of his hand as he turned to the first mate. “Sorry, sir.”
“No apology required, young Tom. This storm is rough enough to send the hardiest sailors to the rail.”
“I think I saw something in the sea alongside the ship.”
“Yer did?” Drasbart moved to the rail, and gripping it with his hands to prevent being launched over the side by the lurching ship; he peered down.
If there was anything below, the darkness concealed it.
“I think it was kelp, sir,” answered Tom, fighting down the bile his churning stomach hurled up his throat.
Drasbart gazed around the heaving deck. Spying the boatswain, he called out, “Jozef, a lantern.”
Jozef was at his side in moments with the requested lantern.”
“Hold it over the side. Tom said he saw weed along the hull.”
As instructed, Jozef joined Drasbart and Tom peering down at the mass of seaweed highlighted in the lantern’s orange glow. The thick leaves were about a foot wide and three times that long. Some of the broader, rounder leaves had stalks with strange, elongated flowers sprouting from them; their petals closed as if protecting themselves from the raging tempest.
“Storm must have dragged it free from the seabed,” offered Jozef.
Drasbart took the lantern and shone it along the side of the ship. The weed stretched out for a few yards from the hull, then continued sternward. On some of the leaves, attached by a finger-thick stalk, were pale objects the size of a slightly stretched ostrich egg. Translucent in the lantern light, there was something dark within. Tendrils sprouting from the stalks held the leaves together in a leafy net and had what looked like suckers on their tips that swayed serpent-like in the air. Whether the swaying was by purpose or put into motion by the storm was difficult to determine.
Jozef swept his eyes over the sucker tendrils nearest the hull to find they were attached to the ship. “The damn stuff’s holding on to us,” he exclaimed. “It must think we’re the seabed or a rock or something.”
With a creased brow, Drasbart looked at the boatswain. “You ever seen kelp like this before?”
Jozef shook his head. “The sea be full of strangeness and she ain’t none too quick to give up her secrets.”
“What’s that over there?” called out the sharp-eyed cabin boy when another lightning flash lit up the ocean.
Drasbart directed the light where Tom pointed, and all three stared at the dolphin snared by the seaweed. Its lack of struggles indicated it was no longer alive. Sucker-tipped tendrils attached to the dolphin throbbed as if they were pumping something through them.
“It seems to be feeding on the dolphin,” said Jozef, shocked by the revelation.
“Plants don’t eat animals, do they?” asked Tom, fascinated, his nausea temporarily forgotten.
Drasbart shrugged. “It seems this type does.”
When he held the lantern higher, the light revealed five more dolphins being feasted on by the flesh-eating plant. Some were little more than bones stripped of flesh.
Jozef pointed at one of the roundish, egglike objects. “What do yer think those things are?”
Drasbart shrugged. “Seed pods, I suppose.”
Jozef ran his eyes over the blanket of weed. “At least this explains what’s been slowing the ship down and likely fouled the rudder.”
“We’d better let the captain know.” Drasbart turned to the cabin boy. “Tom, go inform the captain of what we’ve found here.”
“Aye, sir.” Using one of the safety lines to steady his footing on the pitching deck, Tom headed for the captain’s cabin.
Drasbart turned to Jozef. “Let’s check around the hull to see the extent of the weed that has us in its grasp.”
Jozef grabbed another lantern, and together they walked along the rail intermittently shining the light over the side.
THE CAPTAIN SAT AT his desk writing up the storm in the ship’s log. Hampered by the lurching, wave-ravaged vessel that caused the lanterns to swing, constantly throwing moving shadows across his work, he finally gave up, closed the book and stowed it in a desk drawer.
Fokke turned to the door when someone rapped softly upon it. “Enter.”
“What is it, Tom?” inquired the captain, when the cabin boy entered.
“Mr. Drasbart sent me to inform yer there’s seaweed around the ship, Captain. Some peculiar kelp weed that eats dolphins.”
Fokke’s eyebrows rose disbelievingly at the inconceivable report as he scrutinized the lad. “Dolphin-eating kelp is it, me lad?”
The boy nodded. “It also has hold of the ship. Boatswain thinks it’s what’s slowing the ship and fouled the rudder.”
Finding it hard to believe but seeing no sign of deceit in the lad’s face, Fokke rose from his seat and crossed to the bay window almost stretching the width of his cabin. Wind and sea spray blasted him when he opened a window and poked his head out. His gaze down at the mass slightly darker than the sea proved the truth of the boy’s report. Pulling his head in, he unhooked a lantern and returned to the window. The lamplight picked out the tendrils attaching the strange kelp to the hull and stretched out behind the ship like a bride’s train. Some leaves and tendrils had climbed so far up the stern they were close enough to touch. He focused his gaze and the light on the nearest of the bizarre pods dotted across the kelp and wondered at the nature of the dark thing within. If it was edible, it might be a welcome source of fresh food—payback for the kelp inconveniencing them the way it had.
Fokke pulled his head inside and held his hand out to the boy. “You got your knife with you, Tom?”
Nodding, Tom pulled his knife from its sheath on his waist as he crossed the room and placed it in the captain’s hand.
Fokke handed Tom the lantern. “Hold it by the glass, so the light shines through.”
Tom did as he was ordered and pressing his nose against the cold glass, watched the captain stretch down and cut free one of the pods.
After bringing it inside, he crossed to the map table that sat in the middle of the room and doubled as a dining table when required. He placed the pod on it.
Tom fastened the window, crossed to the table and observed the captain cutting along one edge of the pod. Both he and the captain gasped when something flopped out with a squelch, filling the room with a stagnant stench.
Both stared at the small pale creature covered in a milky gelatin substance and tiny scales. On its back were what seemed to be short, thick hairs. After a few seconds of stillness, it jerked and began to squirm weakly. What appeared to be a sucker stem acting as an umbilical cord attached to its belly slipped out of the severed stalk and oozed a thick yellow liquid that pooled on the table. As if smelling the foul goo, the creature unfurled its two front limbs, dug talons that tipped each one into the table and dragged itself around to it. A long, thin tongue slithered from its pointed mouth and lapped up the yellow sludge. When that was gone, it started eating its umbilical cord.
“I’ve never seen the like,” stated Fokke, staring intensely at the strange sea creature ripping into its self-cannibalistic meal.
“It’s a strange beast, true enough,” observed Tom, a little scared of the vicious creature. “Will yer throw it back into the sea?”
Fokke dragged his gaze away from the feasting creature and looked at the boy. Ever conscious of making a profit, he had a better idea. The strange new species might be worth something to someone. “No, go find something to catch it in. Something we can seal.”
Though uncertain it was a good idea, Tom wasn’t about to argue and went to find a suitable container.
The captain’s voice halted Tom’s rush out the door. “You should find something in the hold. If not, ask the cook.”
Tom nodded and closed the door behind him.
Fokke poked at the creature with the knife and gasped, snatching his hand away when it reacted with such speed, its movements were impossible to follow. It leaped at its attacker, wrapped its limbs around the knife and clamped its teeth on as best it could. What he thought were hairs on its back proved to be thin tendrils that grew and stabbed at the knife, as if trying to penetrate it. When they failed to do so, the tendrils retracted. The creature released its hold on the thing that could not be killed or eaten and returned to devouring its cord.
“Will this do?” asked Tom, entering.
Taken aback by the creature’s viciousness and speed again
st an attacker, Fokke glanced at the small, wooden rum barrel Tom held and nodded.
Tom plucked his knife from the table, prized off the lid and looked at the creature. “How do yer want ter do this, sir? Will yer pick it up and drop it in?”
After what he had just seen, Fokke wasn’t certain he wanted to do it at all. He certainly wasn’t going to put his hands anywhere near the vicious thing. “We’ll put the barrel over it and then slide the lid underneath to trap it inside.” He took the cask from Tom. “We’ll have to be quick, though. It’s a fast bugger.”
“I assure yer, Captain, there won’t be no dilly-dallying on my part.”
“Okay, get ready?”
Concentrating on the creature that had returned to its feast, Tom held the lid ready.
Fokke stretched the open end of the barrel towards the creature and then suddenly lunged at it. He slammed it down on top of the creature. It screeched, angrily it seemed, at its imprisonment and scratched frantically at the cask.
“Quick, slide the lid under while I release the pressure slightly,” ordered Fokke.
Worried the enraged beast would attack if it got free, Tom placed the lid on the table beside the barrel and slipped it underneath. He felt the creature attacking it as he slid it in until only a slither of it remained visible. “That’s as far as I can get it. Yer needs ter come my way a touch.”
Fokke glanced at the askew lid and shifted the barrel until it dropped in place. Due to the recess in the cask top, they wouldn’t be able to secure it firmly until it was turned over.
“Stand back, Tom. I’m going to get a hand underneath and flip it over.”
Tom backed towards the door, prepared to rush out if the creature escaped and came anywhere near him.
Fokke took a deep breath, slid the barrel to the edge of the table, so it overhung slightly and pressed his fingers against the lid. Inch by inch he slid the cask off the table until he had his whole hand pressed against the top. In a quick movement, he flipped it over and put it on the table. Keeping it secure, he thumped the lid with the edge of his fist until it was seated firmly in place. As the creature scratched frantically at the walls of its prison, Fokke slowly released his hand and let out the breath he hadn’t realized he was holding. He smiled at his accomplice.