The Nor'Wester

by David Starr

All alone, the Sylph bobs on the swells, ropes and timbers creaking gently on the waves, seabirds wheeling and soaring in the blue afternoon sky. Before me stretches the English coast: cliffs and beaches, fields and towns spreading out as far as I can see.

  But I’ve no time to process the scene. A pair of strong hands pulls me out of the boat and tosses me down hard onto the rough deck of the ship. “Stowaway!” someone yells.

  I look up and see a compact man in his mid-fifties with a short cropped white beard and intense green eyes studying me. “It looks like there was someone hiding on my ship after all.”

  “Throw him overboard, Cap’n!”

  “Nae, Tom, we’re not criminals but if I’m to believe the dockside scuttlebutt, this boy is. And he must have done something quite terrible; five guineas is an awful lot of money for the life of one so young.”

  The sailor called Tom is a hulking bear of a man with thick black curly hair and large muscles. His scowling face and the wicked-looking knife grasped in his hand leave no doubt at all what he’d do to me if given the chance.

  “A stowaway and a felon? Sir! We don’t need his kind on board. Besides, we’ll be jammed solid when we pick up the Irish! Please, Cap’n, let me and the boys take care of him!”

  I don’t like the idea of being “taken care of” by Tom or anyone else, and am terribly grateful the captain ignores the suggestion. At least for now.

  The captain stares into my eyes. “Tell me your story and convince me not to take you back for the reward, lad. Don’t lie to me. I’ll smell it before it comes out of your mouth, and if I do, then Tom and the lads will have their way with you.”

  So this is how it ends: turned over to the army or tossed over the side of the ship into the waves. The truth won’t make much difference anymore, so I start to speak. “I was born in Loch Tay. I lived there my entire life until the men with guns arrived.” For the next ten minutes I tell my story. When I finish I wait apprehensively.

  The captain nods his head sympathetically. “My name is Isaiah Smith,” he says. “My father was a collier. He was killed in a mine explosion when I was six. My mother died two years later, and I was sent to sea. I know what it’s like to lose a family. I’ll not turn you over to the army, even for fifty guineas.”

  “Cap’n! You can’t let him stay on board!” protests Tom to the agreement of most of the other sailors.

  The captain’s reply is low but it carries the power of a gale. “This is my ship, and I’ll thank you to mind your place, Tom Jenkins, and the rest of you.”

  Tom mumbles an apology. The sailor has crossed the line, and he knows it, but that doesn’t stop his angry scowling, his eyes from burning a hole right through me. Then I remember the bag of coins. “I’m not a stowaway, Sir, I can pay my way.”

  Captain Smith counts the money and tucks the sack deftly into his pocket. “There’s not enough here to buy you passage to Dublin, let alone Quebec, so you’ll have to work to make up the difference. You’ll bunk in the mess with the cook and help him with his duties. Welcome aboard the Sylph. Now go with Tom. He’ll be happy to find you a blanket and some other things you’ll need for the voyage. Won’t you, Tom?”

  Without another word, the captain walks away, leaving me in Tom’s charge. “Come along, stowaway,” says Tom sullenly. “Your tale may have softened the old man’s heart, but don’t expect any sympathy from me.”

  He takes me below decks and drops a bundle of gear unceremoniously at my feet. “The bowl, spoon and cup are for your meals, the hammock attaches to the hooks in the hull for sleeping, and this oilskin jacket and hat will keep you dry when you work on deck.”

  “Thank ye,” I say gratefully.

  “Don’t thank me. They’re not mine,” snaps the sailor. “They belonged to a mate of mine. He’s dead, fell from the rigging and died a month ago. But dead or not, I ain’t sure he’d be happy to know the captain gave his things to the likes of you.”

  Tom reaches into his vest, removes a large knife and waves it menacingly in my face before handing it over. “It’s not a toy. A good knife’s the most useful tool you can have aboard ship, and you never know when you may need it for protection. After all, there are other things than storms that can kill a man out here.”

  Chapter 7

  At first the rocking and swaying of the Sylph is a pleasant sensation, but by the end of my first evening on board my stomach boils. I grow light-headed and am soon sicker than I’ve ever been before. I spend hours leaning over the railing, emptying my guts into the sea. The worst of all are the laughs and comments from Tom and the rest of the crew.

  “How art thee, lad?” asks Francis, the ship’s cook, the next day.

  “Horrible. Just the thought of food makes me sick. How am I supposed to help make breakfast fer thirty men?” The ship’s menu of salt beef and hard biscuits are not to my taste. Indeed, nothing about life at sea seems to agree with me.

  “Don’t worry, lad,” Francis replies in a thick Cornish accent, his mouth barely visible behind his white beard. “You’ll be right by ’n by. Every one of us has been sick at sea, even the lads who are teasing you. Thy body just needs time, so make sure you drink a lot of water and keep your innards as full as you can.”

  “How can I even think about food right now?” I moan.

  “Because if you don’t, you’ll start feeling all shrimmy, and then you’re likely to catch something far more serious than seasickness. When people are stuffed together on a ship, disease finds its way on board, and when we arrive in Dublin tomorrow you’ll see what I mean. We’re gonna be packed tight.”

  We reach the Port of Dublin just after sunrise. We tie up at the dock, and a few hours later I watch curiously from the deck as the Sylph’s Irish passengers come aboard. They are a mix of single young men, families and old couples. Once on board they huddle nervously on the deck, awaiting instructions.

  The Irish look utterly destitute, no doubt having spent every penny they had to make the trip, and it appears that the only thing of value they have is the hope that burns brightly in their eyes at the thought of going to Quebec.

  I still don’t know exactly where Quebec is. I’ve asked about it several times since leaving Liverpool, but all I’ve learned is that it’s a city in a place called Canada, far away on the other side of the Atlantic.

  “My name is Captain Isaiah Smith,” the captain says when all the passengers are aboard. “On this ship my word is law. You are no longer people but cargo, and ’tis my job to get cargo to its destination as quickly and as safely as possible. As such, my rules are few but absolute.”

  Captain Smith pauses to let the weight of his words sink in. “There are to be no fires on this ship. Ever. You’ll not interfere with my crew, and you’ll obey the orders of each and every one of them as if they came from me. Finally, in the event of bad weather, you’ll be locked in the hold and there you’ll stay until either the storm passes or we sink to the bottom of the sea.”

  A collective gasp rises from the deck as Captain Smith presses on, a grim smile on his face. “Some call these vessels coffin ships,” he says coldly, “but the Sylph will not be your casket. Should you die on your way to Quebec, so be it. If you do, we’ll offer up a prayer for your soul, throw your body overboard and continue on our way. Now make yourselves ready. We sail at once!”

  Pushed by a strong wind, the Sylph leaves the docks. As the ship bobs westward on the waves, I slowly begin to feel comfortable in my role of assistant ship’s cook, thanks in part to Francis’s patient tutoring.

  “I never set out to be a cook, and the men would tell you I ain’t so good at it,” Francis says as we clean up the breakfast dishes several days out to sea. “I used to be a grand deckhand though, spending my days one hundred feet above the deck until this happened.” Francis holds up his left hand and shows me three short stumps where fingers used to be. I’d noticed the injury earlier but had not thought it proper to ask.

  “Caught my hand between a spar and a rope; flesh an
d bone loses every time that happens. With my hand like this, I weren’t much use in the rigging anymore, but I’d sailed with the cap’n since I left Cornwall twenty years ago, and he found a place for me in the galley.”

  Work done, we walk up the steep stairs to the deck. Francis sniffs the air. “Look to the sky, lad; the clouds are banked up. It will blow a gale before evening so you’d best get some rest. It’s gonna be a long night.”

  By late afternoon the crisp wind that has pushed us far into the Atlantic is gone. The sea is flat and eerily still and the sails dangle slack from their spars. Black clouds hang overhead, swollen with rain, and thunder rumbles across the ocean, each peal perceptibly louder than the one before.

  Captain Smith soon confirms Francis’s fears. “We’re in for some nasty weather,” he announces to the hastily assembled migrants. “There’s not a ship more seaworthy than the Sylph, but for your own safety and that of my crew you’ll be locked in the hold until the storm passes. You will not for any reason come back on deck until I give my permission.”

  There is no argument from the scared passengers, and when the last migrant disappears in the hold, Tom slides a wooden beam noisily across the hatch and bars it shut. “Didn’t used to lock ’em in until a few years back when a migrant went crazy down there. He came back up on deck for some reason, tried to grab the ship’s wheel. We were rolling and pitching through waves thirty feet high. Had the lunatic managed to turn us we’d have been broadsided and foundered for sure. There was nothin’ else for me to do but throw him over the side.”

  An evil grin crosses Tom’s face before he leaves to complete his chores. “So if I were you I’d stay out of my way unless you want to go overboard, too.”

  Captain Smith raises his voice above the gathering storm. “Furl the sails, secure everything and extinguish the cooking fire. You know your duties, lads, and if you want to stay alive I expect you to fulfill them.”

  “Don’t worry,” says Francis. “The Sylph’s an ugly old coal barque but she’s survived worse than this.”

  “What do we do?” I ask nervously.

  “You’n me will batten the hatches while the men bring down the canvas. Having sails up in a gale is lunacy; the wind would shred ’em to pieces, or they’d hold and the force of the wind would snap the masts or pitchpole us, flip us stern over bow. There ain’t nothing we can do but run the wind.”

  My fear grows like the waves that smack harder and harder against the side of the ship. “Run the wind? What does that mean?” I ask.

  “We abandon our course, keep the wind at our back and go wherever the storm takes us. With a smidgeon of luck the cap’n will keep us in a straight line and we should survive. Hurry now, Duncan,” Francis says as a peal of thunder explodes overhead. “Things are about to get nasty.”

  Chapter 8

  When the storm hits, Francis and I are sent below decks, but we haven’t been below more than two hours when the hatchway is thrown open and a sailor, soaked with spray and rain, yells down. “We’re taking on water! Get to the pumps!”

  “Quickly, lad, don an oiler,” says Francis putting on a waterproof coat. “She’ll be wild out there.”

  We quickly climb the wooden steps to the violently pitching deck. Huge waves crash over the rails, and I stagger, nearly losing my footing. Francis’s strong hand shoots out and steadies me before I fall. “On the double! The pumps are this way!”

  Waves as high as the deck boil black and deadly, threatening to shatter the Sylph into pieces. “Hurry! She’s filling!” shouts a sailor. “Pump or we’re done for!”

  I take my spot at the pumps. The large hand crank is by the main mast and is connected to chains and buckets that run through wooden tubes down to the bilge where they pick up excess water and dump it overboard.

  “Enjoying yourself, stowaway?” asks Tom, one of several sailors already pumping furiously. But there’s no time for insults. With water pouring into the ship, we’re in serious danger of sinking.

  The sky, dark all day, grows darker still with the approach of night. I’m drenched from the rain and the cold spray of the Atlantic. My arms and back are numb with pain, but I keep pumping for what seems like hours. “Well done, lad!” says Francis. “Hang on just a little while longer — we’re sure to be relieved soon.”

  “Aye, not bad for a stowaway,” says Tom with what appears to be grudging respect. “I might not toss you over the rails after all.” Before I have time to reply, a sudden vicious gust of wind hits the ship. It lurches forward and a sickening cracking sound comes from the main mast high overhead.

  Above the wind a sailor screams: “Run! The top spar’s snapped!” The sailors leap aside as sails, heavy wooden beams and lines fall from the mast, but I’m frozen with fear and can’t move. Francis lunges and shoves me roughly aside just as a large mass of ropes and wooden beams hurtles down to the deck, landing with a crash on the very spot I’d been standing. Dazed, I get to my feet, looking frantically for the old man who has just saved my life.

  “Over here!” Tom shouts, standing over a misshapen jumble. “Hurry!” I rush over and help Tom tear frantically at the pile of sails, shattered wood and rope, desperate to get to Francis.

  “Nae!” I cry when I pull the last piece of canvas away to see the cook’s lifeless body, twisted and broken on the deck, his beard stained with blood. The gale gives me no time to grieve. The ship heaves and rolls violently to port as a large wave engulfs the deck, driving me into the main mast with terrific force. I feel something in my chest crack as the air is pushed out of my lungs.

  In agony and hardly able to breathe, I crawl back to my feet to find Francis’s body gone, the block and the lines swept from the deck, the man who’d saved my life taken with them as well.

  But Francis isn’t the only sailor who’s vanished. “Help!” I hear the faint cry. Clutching my aching side, I stumble towards the sound. “For God’s sake, help me!” It’s then I see Tom. He’s been swept off the deck and landed in the shroud, the network of ropes off the side of the ship that hold the main mast in place. He lies caught in the webbing, dangling helplessly above the cold sea.

  Fighting off the pain in my chest, I stagger to the side of the ship and stretch my hand out over the side. “Hold on!” I cry, but before I can reach him, the ship plunges downward into the trough of another large wave. Tom loses his grip on the shroud and falls. With a frantic lunge, he grabs hold of a stray piece of netting and dangles off the side of the ship, nothing between him and the waves but the spray-filled air.

  I wrap my hand around a line tied to a stanchion and step over the railing. Struggling for balance, I lean far over the side, trying not to look at the roiling sea.

  Before I can reach Tom, the ship swings again, I lose my grip and fall hard onto the deck. My ribs take the blow and explode in pain once more. I can hardly breathe, nearly passing out from the agony, but somehow find a way to stagger to my feet, stumble back to the ship’s side, grasp tightly on the line and extend my hand towards Tom, leaning farther and farther out until I can finally grab hold of his wrist.

  The rough hemp rope cuts deeply into my left hand and with the large sailor hanging on my right I feel as if my arms are being pulled out of their sockets. I squeeze hard on Tom’s wrist, desperate to keep the sailor from falling, but his skin is slippery and slowly, relentlessly, he starts to slip through my fingers. “Don’t let go, for God’s sake!” he pleads but there’s nothing I can do, and I know he’s only seconds from sliding out of my hand and into the black water below.

  Suddenly strong arms wrap around my waist. “Hang on, boy, I’ve got you!” A sailor holds me fast while another grabs Tom by his belt, drags him over the railing and pulls him to safety.

  Slumping on the deck beside me, Tom wheezes, “Seems the cap’n was right to keep you aboard, stowaway. You found a way to earn your passage after all.” It is the last thing I hear before my eyes close and the world goes dark.

  Chapter 9

  I try to s
it up from the bed where I’m lying but quickly abandon the attempt, my chest aching too badly to move. And then I see that Tom’s injured as well. The sailor’s right arm is splinted and bound tightly to his body, a frightful-looking bruise blossoming on his face.

  “Storm broke my arm. The ship’s surgeon knows his craft well and we’ll both heal nicely, but we’re going to be awfully sore for the next couple of weeks.” Tom grimaces as he shifts his arm. “The gale blew itself out just a few hours ago. You missed the worst of it, been out cold all night, you have. With my arm in this state I wasn’t much use on the deck, so the cap’n put me in here to keep an eye on you. He’s well impressed with you as well. Not many seasoned sailors, let alone a stowaway, would hang off the side of a ship in a storm like that for another man, especially in the state you were in. I have been told you have some cracked ribs, so you’ll have to move slowly for a while.”

  “Ye say I was out all night?” I ask, confused.

  “Aye,” says Tom. “Took that long for you to come round. I’m glad you did, though. I owe you an apology. I wasn’t very kind when you came aboard. You had no reason to risk your neck for me. Thank you.”

  Tom helps me to my feet and we step out into the grey morning light to see that the Sylph has suffered significant damage in the storm. The top spar has shattered and a network of ropes and sails dangle limp and tattered from the main mast. High above the deck, sailors are hard at work repairing the damage while others stand anxiously near the steerage hatch. I stand for a moment looking out over the sea, which is now rolling in quiet swells. I think again of my sister and wonder if she is all right, if she had, by any chance, been thinking of me during the storm.

  “It’s time to check on the Irish,” Tom says. “Lord knows what happened down there, but as bad as it’s been above decks, it will have been far worse below. With the storm, every man was needed to keep the ship afloat; we’ve had no time to see how the migrants fared.”