The corpse was brought in to the ship’s side and cut loose. The sharks closed in and tore the body to pieces. Coffin indicated the pool of blood on the deck. ‘Have that mess cleaned up,’ he ordered Duarte.
‘You see, few of my men try to thwart my will,’ Madison told Killigrew. ‘And no one does it more than once.’
‘You should be careful,’ Killigrew told him with a beguiling smile. ‘There’s a first time for everything.’
Madison’s own smile did not falter, although he knitted his eyebrows. ‘Not on this ship, Mr Killigrew.’
Killigrew knew he could not afford to look too shocked by what had happened so he remained on deck for a while, fighting the urge to go below and wash the taste of bile from his mouth. After about half an hour had passed, he went down to his cabin, stopping off at the ship’s barometer to check the atmospheric pressure. It had dropped alarmingly in a short space of time.
‘Looks like we’re in for a storm,’ he remarked to no one in particular.
Chapter 12
Force Twelve
If Killigrew had had a farthing for every old sea dog who had told him that the sea was like a woman and needed to be respected by those that would earn their living from her, he would have had enough money to buy himself several pounds of sea salt. He could only presume that they had known some pretty frightening women. He had known plenty of women – and men, for that matter – whose wrath could be unnerving, but he had yet to meet the human being whose ire could even begin to match that of an angry sea. If Congreve had been right when he had claimed that Hell had no fury like a woman scorned, then Hell was an afternoon boating on the Thames on a sunny summer’s day compared to a storm at sea.
He had endured cyclones in the Indian Ocean and typhoons in the China Seas, and the one thing his experience had taught him was that the sea did not care if you respected it: when it made up its mind to destroy you, you were going to go down whether you liked it or not.
But there were certain precautions one could take to stave off the worst, and as the sky became overcast and the wind backed from south-east to north the crew of the Leopardo battened down the hatches, cleared the decks, made fast everything that could be made fast, and took in all canvas except the foresail and the main topsail, both of which were close-reefed.
The wind hovered around ten knots – force three on the Beaufort scale, barely a moderate breeze – with a gentle swell running under the Leopardo, but it was the calm before the storm and Killigrew knew it could not last. ‘What do you think?’ Madison asked him and Coffin.
Killigrew knew that a seasoned mariner like Madison would already have made his mind up about what to do next, but was looking for confirmation. ‘It looks like she’s coming up out of the south-east,’ he said. ‘If we’re not careful we’ll get caught in the dangerous quadrant.’ A tropical revolving storm in the northern hemisphere revolved anti-clockwise, and a ship caught in the dangerous quadrant was in danger of being blown into its path.
Coffin nodded without reluctance, his hatred and mistrust of Killigrew and everything to do with him held in abeyance in the face of the coming danger. ‘There’s a slim chance we might make it back to São Tiago, but I wouldn’t risk it. Best we run with the weather and try to get on her good side. If she catches us all we can do is turn into the seas and hope for the best.’
Madison nodded. ‘Steer south-west,’ he told the helmsman. ‘Better break out the oilskins,’ he added to Duarte. ‘When this bitch hits she’s going to hit fast and heavy.’
Even though Killigrew was on the lookout for clues to the coming storm’s ferocity, he was caught out by the abruptness with which the sky turned dark. All of a sudden leaden clouds boiled up out of the south-east, and the first spots of rain fell on the sea, fat drops which pattered heavily on the oilskins they all wore. The sky was so dark it might have been twilight, although it was barely five o’clock and at that time of year in those latitudes it should still have been bright. Then the wind hit them, snapping at the sails and driving the rain hard against their backs. The creaking of the timbers grew ever louder as the masts and spars laboured under the incessant pressure, and the wind screamed through the thrumming rigging.
‘Reduce sail,’ ordered Coffin. ‘Reefed foresail and reefed mainstay sail only.’
The wind increased steadily over the next two hours while the sky grew blacker. The gravid clouds were so low it seemed as if one only had to shin to the very top of the mainmast and reach up to touch them. The Leopardo scudded along with the wind full behind her. At first the gentle swell seemed unaffected and the brig rode the waves easily, but by seven o’clock the seas increased in size and she started to pitch. Killigrew watched the compass and the dog-vane: when the wind started to come from due north he would know they were clear of the dangerous quadrant.
The wind whipped Killigrew’s oilskins against his limbs and forced him to lean back into it to maintain his balance. Its noise rose to an ear-splitting shriek for a while and then all at once fell to a low, eerie moaning, although its speed continued to rise: sixty knots gusting to ninety, force twelve – a hurricane.
‘Furl those staysails!’ Madison had to shout through his speaking trumpet to make himself heard above the wind. Killigrew was not the most imaginative of men, but even he could not help thinking it sounded like the souls of mariners drowned at sea singing a dirge for those soon to join them. As the hands struggled to furl the staysails, one of them was ripped from its fastenings and whipped out to sea. A stay slashed across the face of one of the topmen and he fell to the deck with a scream which was sharply cut short.
‘Cut it loose!’ Coffin roared to the men trying to furl the other staysail. They would lose that one too, but better that than lose the whole mast. The topmen gladly complied and climbed down from the rigging.
The man who had fallen to the deck was not dead. Duarte ordered two of the men to take him down below to Pereira in the sick bay, although what that gentleman was supposed to do for the seaman – whose back was clearly broken – was beyond Killigrew.
The seas rose to forty feet and started to break over the Leopardo’s stern. Killigrew braced himself as the water on the deck surged between his legs. It ran out through the scuppers, but not quickly enough for his liking. ‘All hands to the bilge pump!’ he ordered.
As the seas increased in height they came closer together, thus steepening between crest and trough. As each wave broke over the brig’s stern she laboured to rise over the crest. As the waves passed under her she slipped easily down the back of the wave, her stern pounding the trough with a shudder which ran the whole length of the ship; then the next sea would break over her and they would go through it again, each time worse than the last. There was nothing they could do now but keep pumping out the bilges, hang on for dear life, and pray.
Forked lightning shattered the sky, like bright limelight behind cracked, black-painted glass, but the rumble of thunder was masked by the wind’s ululating threnody. The gale blew the rain at such an angle it was impossible to tell where the rain ended and the spume began. Water foamed and boiled across the deck. After a while it did not even break, remaining grey as it slid waist-deep the length of the ship. Killigrew could only marvel that such a delicate vessel still floated under the onslaught, although he knew it was only a matter of time.
He began to consider the possibility of his imminent death. He found he could face it with an equanimity which surprised him. He felt a pang at the thought of never seeing Eulalia again in this world, but apart from that he had little to lose. He thought of the Chinese he had met, with their philosophy of ‘joss’: either he would survive the storm, or he wouldn’t – it was as simple as that. There was little he could do about it and no point whatsoever in worrying: now his fate was in the hands of the gods.
The Leopardo was lifted on another crest and exposed to the full fury of the wind. It was like a living thing, full of rage and hatred and determined to sink this ship which defied its capri
cious will. It slammed into Killigrew’s body and would have knocked him off his feet if he had not been gripping the rail tightly. He heard a shout behind him and turned his head, tears coming at once to his eyes as the wind stung them.
Coffin had raised his face to the black, lightning-slashed sky and shook his fist at it. As the brig slipped down into the next trough, sheltering them from the worst of the wind, Killigrew could just catch his words: ‘Come on, you bastard! Do your worst! I’m ready for ye!’
‘Don’t you think that’s rather asking for trouble?’ Killigrew asked with a wan smile. But Coffin could not hear him above the noise.
Incredibly, conditions worsened. More incredibly, the Leopardo stayed afloat. But she could not take much more of this pounding. Killigrew remembered an old rhyme he had heard as a child from the fishermen of Falmouth: ‘Long foretold, long last; short notice, soon past.’ Experience had taught him there was truth in those words whether one encountered a storm off Lizard Point or a typhoon in the South China Sea. This tornado had risen quickly, yet after four hours it still showed no sign of abating.
His exposed skin was numb from exposure to the wind and spume and every limb in his body ached with the effort of simply remaining upright. Another wave lifted the Leopardo dizzyingly high – he would have said the waves were seventy feet from trough to crest if he had not known better – and then a sudden gust of wind slammed into her like a giant fist. There came an horrendous crack like the firing of a sixty-eight pounder. At first he thought it must have been the thunder, but then he realised that thunder would not have made the deck shiver so.
He looked at the foremast and saw it topple. It was broken clean through close to the deck, the snapped windward rigging flapping in the gale. It pitched forward as the next wave lifted the brig’s stern, and would have toppled had not the rigging held it upright. When they reached the crest, the full weight of the wind hit the mast once again, and the stays attaching it to the mainmast made the latter bend perceptibly.
Killigrew pointed to the masts and had to cup his hands over Coffin’s ear to make himself understood. ‘If we don’t cut it free we’ll lose the mainmast as well!’
Coffin nodded and the two of them at once went forward to the mainmast. It was at moments like this that one could understand what the brotherhood of the sea was all about: Killigrew might secretly despise Coffin as a slaver, while Coffin openly detested him as an Englishman, but the two of them were instantly ready to put their differences aside and work together to save the ship; their lives depended upon it.
They hauled themselves hand over hand along the rail as the seas crashed over the deck. Killigrew indicated the stays which ran from the top of the mast down to the dead-eyes on the starboard gunwale, and made a slicing motion with the edge of his hand. If they cut the starboard forestays and timed it with the pitching of the deck then the mast would topple forward and sideways overboard. That was the theory, at any rate.
Coffin shook his head firmly and pointed up to the stays which ran between the foremast and the mainmast. The important thing was to cut those first; but it would be impossible to cut them without ascending the rigging.
Killigrew nodded, jerked a thumb at his chest, and then pointed up into the shrouds.
‘You’re crazy!’ bellowed Coffin.
‘Got any better suggestions?’ Killigrew yelled back.
‘You’ll never make it! You’ll be killed!’
‘Then you’ll be happy, at least.’ Killigrew gazed up into the shrouds once more. Coffin was right: he was crazy. Still, it was a sensible exchange: one life for two dozen.
One honest man for the life of two dozen slavers, he reminded himself. If you’re going to die, wouldn’t it be better to take the bastards with you? Was it his place to judge these people? Surely that was the Lord’s decision. But he had taken that decision into his own hands when he had executed da Silva. Perhaps this storm was God’s way of punishing him. One murderer and two dozen blackbirders, Killigrew told himself. No wonder God wanted this ship sunk with all hands. Watch it, Kit my bucko: you’ve been spending so much time with Madison you’re starting to think like him. You’ve never been a Jonah before now, and this is hardly the time to start! He found himself grinning as some of the defiance Coffin had expressed earlier infected him with its violent energy. ‘Come on, then!’ he roared at the heavens. ‘Take me, if you want me!’
And with that he hauled himself up into the ratlines.
He ascended a step at a time. It seemed to take all of his strength just to cling to the sodden rigging, never mind to pull himself up at the same time. The rain hammered him and the wind sought to tear him away. He was glad it was so dark, for he could hardly see the mountainous seas around him and the deck pitching below; occasionally a flash of lightning would pick out the white caps of the wave crests, but Killigrew had enough to do without worrying about that.
The mainmast creaked threateningly. It was the only thing keeping the foremast up, and soon it too must snap. Killigrew forced himself to climb faster, throwing caution – literally – to the howling winds. The rain soaked clean through his oilskins and seemed to slice into the skin underneath.
Before he realised it, he had reached the doubling where the topmast reached the topgallant mast. Up here the wind was even stronger. He lost his footing and slipped, dangling from his arms. The strength of the wind seemed to make gravity irrelevant: everything span around him and he no longer knew which way was down. The wind blew him forward at an angle, and nothing he could do would get his feet back on to the ratlines. He thought about pulling himself across the shrouds hand-over-hand, but knew that as soon as he released the grip of one hand, the other would be broken by the strength of the wind.
Then the Leopardo sank into another trough and the mast swung backwards, swinging Killigrew with it until he could entangle his legs in the ratlines once more. Just a few more inches, he told himself. He climbed up: one step, two, and then he could see the stay less than a foot away through the stinging rain.
He wrapped both legs and arms around the shrouds, clinging on with all his might, then eased a hand into his pocket and took out his clasp knife. Whatever you do, don’t drop it, he thought to himself with a grim smile. The rain was like a thousand white-hot needles against his flesh and his hands were so numb he could barely open the knife. But at last the blade snapped into view. He reached across with one hand and started to saw at the thick rope which ran from the mainmast to the foremast. The blade was razor sharp and quickly parted the strands. It was hard work nonetheless, and it seemed to take for ever before the weight of the foremast was enough to break the strands which remained. There was a snap like a pistol-shot and the rope snaked away into the night.
Killigrew closed the knife and began to descend, grateful for every step which took him a foot nearer to the safety of the deck. Only one other stay ran between the foremast and mainmast, where the topmast met the lower mast. He swung himself underneath the ratlines and lowered himself to the maintop. He missed his footing in the darkness and the wind, and his sea-boots slipped on the rain-washed planks. He scrabbled desperately at the boards, his numbed fingers searching for a grip. He felt his feet slip out over the leading edge, then his calves and his knees, and then he had hooked one arm around the mast itself. Half dangling over the edge, he braced himself where the mast itself afforded him some protection from the murderous wind.
He risked a glance down to the deck. He could just make out pale faces staring up at him, while the deck itself was awash with soaking waters which sloshed between the bulwarks. Each time a wave broke over the Leopardo’s stern the faces would be buried beneath a maelstrom of white water, but they were still there when the waters receded. Coffin was at the foot of the starboard forestays, already hacking through them with a hatchet.
Killigrew took out his clasp knife once more and reached down towards the stay with the blade. His arm was just an inch too short. He withdrew it and altered his grip on the haft of
the knife so that he held it between his fingertips. That way he found he could reach the rope, but the amount of pressure he could apply was negligible. The strands parted, but slowly, far too slowly.
The rope snapped so suddenly that Killigrew lost his grip on his knife and it was whipped away; only the lanyard tying it to his belt saved him from losing it altogether. Coffin had hacked through the forestays and as the ship was lifted on another wave the foremast toppled forwards and then swung sideways as the port-side forestays took up the strain. There were still plenty of stays running from the foremast to the bowsprit, but Killigrew could not cut those in time and could only hope that they snapped. There was a chance the bowsprit itself would be ripped away, but better that than losing the mainmast.
The foremast crashed into the sea and was swallowed up by the blackness at once. Coffin lunged through the knee-deep water on deck to hack at the port-side forestays which still attached the mast to the ship’s side. A moment later there was a great crack as the jib-boom snapped off the bowsprit, and then the last of the ropes snapped and the danger from that quarter was gone.
Killigrew descended to the deck feeling shaken and used-up. He crossed to where Coffin hacked through the last of the forestays, but the job was done by the time he got there. Coffin did not even acknowledge him.
As the brig descended stern-first into the next trough Killigrew turned aft and then froze in horror.
A rogue wave rose up behind them, towering, mountainous. An immense wall of water a hundred feet tall if it was an inch. Such a wave could not support its own weight and Killigrew saw foam at its peak as it began to topple forward on to the poop deck. Either it would snap the ship clean in two or else flip it stern over bows: either event signalled the death of the Leopardo.
Killigrew of the Royal Navy Page 23