Shark Island

by Joan Druett

  The Swallow followed under reduced sail, the slow passing of the miles punctuated by the regular swish of sea. Bright morning light bounced off the rippling surface, forcing Wiki to squint. When a flick of spray spattered over the taffrail onto his arms it dried so fast he felt stinging pricks of salt. The deck boards beneath his bare feet were sticky with warm pitch, and the locks of hair that straggled down from under his hat stuck to his neck.

  Because the mainsail and foresail were clewed up, he could see all the way along the sun-scorched deck to the bows. Captain Rochester, on the foredeck, was standing in a characteristic pose, his hands lightly clasped behind the seat of his trousers, which was tucked in, so that his well-muscled calves stuck out. The peak of Shark Island was lifting in the sky as they neared, towering high above the rock-girt shore. Ahead, the cutter was dodging back and forth on uneven tacks, evidently to avoid coral heads. Its silhouette was as triangular as the peak, only double. Then it disappeared into the shadow.

  Wiki frowned, and cocked his head—was that a distant shout? Others had heard it too, because heads were turning to look at George Rochester. He didn’t move. The world was full of the chuckle of water passing along the hull, and the distant splash of surf on rock. Otherwise—silence. Wiki waited for the cutter to reappear. Long moments plodded by, but it was as if she had vanished forever.

  * * *

  As the cutter entered the dark shadow of the peak one of the men in the bow let out a warning shout. Rocks lay ahead, so close to the surface that they made the water tremble. Anticipating Forsythe’s quick order, hands thrust out oars to shove the boat away. The headland slid safely past; the shadow of the pinnacle rock fell away from them—and the current in the channel carried them around the point before they could prevent it.

  A big topsail schooner lay at anchor in the cove. On the beach beyond, the wreck of a sloop was piled bow-up, so high that her bowsprit disappeared in a clump of bush. The beach ended abruptly in a high cliff crowned by some kind of fort. Forsythe could see the iron snouts of cannon protruding through crenellations in the massive stone ramparts.

  Jesus, he thought; no wonder Hudson didn’t want to come in any closer. He barked orders to tack about—orders that became urgent as he spied men scurrying over the decks of the schooner, a half-mile away, and two whaleboats being hastily lowered. The cutter came about smartly, but then the headland stole their wind, and the sails hung dead. Putting out oars made little difference, as the two whaleboats were pulsing fast toward them, their crews facing forward, wielding paddles like crazy goddamned Indians, their faces twisted up with effort.

  Closer they came—closer, closer. Forsythe spat more orders, and his men brought the boat around again, four of the hands sculling while the other two hastily took in sail. Then they got ready to fend off attack. Kingman crouched over the stern swivel, his expression a snarl of silent defiance, and Forsythe shouldered his rifle. The cutter’s crew felt in their belts for their pistols, and then, silently, they waited for the whaleboats to approach.

  The man standing at the steering oar of the first was a muscular-looking cove about thirty-five years of age, big-nosed and deeply tanned, with blond hair and whiskers. He was hatless, so that they could see that his head hair was bleached almost white by the sun. He barked out an order, and both whaleboats came to a stop.

  “Who the hell are you?” he demanded, while his men stirred the water with their paddles to keep the boats still. His voice was hoarse and unmistakably American.

  “Lieutenant Forsythe, U.S. Navy Exploring Expedition,” Forsythe answered. “And who the bloody hell are you?”

  “You’re navy!” echoed the other with obvious relief. Then he looked both puzzled and suspicious, and said, “Where’s your ship?”

  Forsythe jerked his head in the direction of the headland.

  “Well, I hope to God you have a carpenter on board.” Then the man finally condescended to introduce himself: “Joel Hammond, first mate, sealing schooner Annawan of Stonington, Connecticut, lying at Shark Island in distress.”

  A goddamn sealer? Forsythe wondered why the hell a sealing schooner would drop anchor at an uninhabited, equatorial island in the Atlantic, where he was pretty certain no seals were to be found. He demanded, “Distress? What do you mean, distress?”

  “We’re leaking a thousand strokes an hour.”

  Jesus, Forsythe thought; if that was the truth, the Annawan was foundering at her anchors—and yet these men had left the pumps in order to man two boats to chase down the cutter. The schooner did look ominously low in the water, but nonetheless he wondered if he was heading into a trap; it wouldn’t be the first time a buccaneer had blocked his scuppers and stopped his pumps to entice would-be Samaritans into his clutches. However, if he tried to make a run for it the whaleboats would be on him in a trice.

  So he said, “How did it happen?”

  “We was steering up the deep channel where she is anchored now, and sailed her onto a reef. Didn’t know it was there, not until we hit it.”

  “You don’t have a chart?”

  “There’s no goddamned chart.” Hammond’s lips thinned, and then he said, “We fothered a sail and got it over the hole, but she’s still leaking like a bloody basket.”

  Fothering was to reinforce a piece of canvas by thrumming it—matting it with bits of unraveled rope to make it thick and strong. When it was drawn over the hole, the inward pressure of the sea would stop the leak—with luck, but it seemed that Hammond had not had any luck at all. He said, “Believe me, you’ve come in the goddamned nick of time.”

  It was certainly a fact that the U.S. Navy was supposed to come to the succor of American vessels and crews, wherever they might be. Forsythe looked up at the fort. There was no sign of movement about the walls or the cannon, not even the flicker of a flag, so he jerked his head in assent.

  Five

  Hammond’s relief was obvious enough to be unfeigned. He leaned on his oar, and the two whaleboats spun round in the wonderfully quick way of their class of craft, and dashed off to the schooner. Casting Zack Kingman a warning look to keep his station at the swivel gun, Forsythe ordered his men to follow the two boats—but slowly, to give him time to think. They took oars and sculled gently, while he sat at the tiller and studied the two ships—one wallowing at anchor, the other wrecked high on the beach—with misgiving coiling in his belly.

  What he saw was reasonably reassuring, however. The manner of the sloop’s wrecking was strange—as if she’d been run up on the beach under full sail—but her name was still legible, and read “Hero of Stonington, CT.” So both craft hailed from the same port, Forsythe mused; maybe they had come in together. The name Annawan was plain on the stern of the schooner, and as she rocked in the backwash from the surf he could glimpse the top edge of the fothered canvas that had been bowsed up tight beneath the waterline on the starboard side. After the whaleboats arrived at the schooner and had been swiftly drawn up, the men who had crewed them spilled rapidly over the decks, and the silence was sundered by the rhythmic thud and suck of pumps. After a short pause a sick stream of water gushed down her side.

  He could see Hammond striding along the quarterdeck to the stern, obviously expecting to receive the cutter there. Doing the unexpected was always good strategic sense, however, so Forsythe gave instructions to work around to the bows. No sooner had they touched planking than he swiftly swung up the chains, balanced on the bowsprit, and ran lithely along it to the foredeck. Kingman followed, and they stood together brace-legged between the knight-heads, alertly studying the scene while Forsythe unslung his rifle and Zack Kingman loosened the two pistols in his belt.

  However, the appearance of the Annawan bore out what Hammond had said, too. Like almost all the merchant craft that streamed out of the ports of New England, the schooner had two deckhouses, one on the foredeck, and the other on the afterdeck. From experience, Forsythe deduced that the forward house would hold the forecastle for the seaman at the forward end, and
the workshops for the sail maker and boatswain at the sternward end; while the after house would hold accommodations for the captain and first officer, plus the steward’s pantry. The galley, where the ship’s grub was cooked, was set in a shed on the starboard side of the foredeck, which was usual, too. Savory smells issued from its sternward-facing door, and a thin plume of smoke drifted from its smokestack. The three masts were stout, as was the rigging—which was only to be expected in a vessel that plied its trade in stormy seas and high southern latitudes.

  Hammond was waiting on the afterdeck, but when he saw Forsythe and Kingman he started hurrying toward them—to be forestalled by an energetic figure who fairly leapt out of the door of the after house, waving a stick above his head. This, Forsythe immediately guessed, was the captain of the Annawan; a powerful-looking older man, he had gray hair that bristled all over his head, and skinny legs that were obviously lame.

  “My God, salvation!” this fellow shouted, and then set himself into a rapid three-legged dance along the deck, his stick tapping lustily, and his legs swinging out to either side like a metronome. Just three yards away, however, he stopped short, evidently having second thoughts, because he said suspiciously, “Navy? That damn fool Hammond informed me you are naval officers, but you don’t look like navy men to me. Where’s your uniform, huh?”

  Forsythe looked down at his frock shirt, a loose, shabby affair that was belted at his waist over well-worn duck trousers, and shrugged. He hadn’t expected to make any kind of official visit, and he was damned if he was going to apologize for his appearance.

  “And you ain’t even shaved,” went on the other, who was himself indecently stubbled. “What’s happened to our navy, huh? Is there no martial pride any more? You could be two of those goddamned privateers that prey on this coast—insurgents!—for all we can tell.”

  Forsythe snapped, “This is Passed Midshipman Kingman, and I am Lieutenant Forsythe. We’re officers with the U.S. Exploring Expedition.”

  “You say sir when you speak to me, son,” the other snapped right back. “That is, if you are indeed a confounded navy man. I pay my taxes, you know—and it’s no insignificant figure!—which counts me as your employer. And where’s your confounded ship? Or does the navy send its men out in boats now? Where the hell did you materialize from?”

  “We’re with U.S. Brig Swallow,” said Forsythe, thoroughly nettled, and again jerked his head in the direction of the headland. “She’s within call, believe me.”

  “So you command the brig’s tender?” the other said, his tone disdainful. “Well, that makes sense,” he allowed, and finally unbent enough to introduce himself. “Ezekiel Reed. Owner and captain of the Annawan—and owner of that poor wreck on the beach, too. An exploring expedition, huh?” His little eyes had gone very sharp. “You haven’t come to explore here, surely?”

  Forsythe paused, and then decided that telling the truth might do more good than harm. “We’re on a mission after pirates.”

  “You’re after those goddamned insurgent privateers? You’re a whole month too late, by God!” Reed stamped his foot, then jumped and cursed with the pain, which didn’t appear to do his temper any good at all. “Why couldn’t you have come four weeks ago, huh? Then you could have seized a prize, instead of me losing my sloop.”

  “The Hero?” Forsythe said alertly. “She was attacked by pirates?”

  “She was, indeed—though the captain had the common guts to sail her right up the beach to escape ’em.”

  “And they looted her?”

  Captain Reed let out a huge sigh instead of answering, and then turned and stumped off, waving his free arm and saying, “Come, come. Come and discuss a bottle in my cabin.”

  Forsythe and Kingman followed the old man along the deck, casting wary glances from side to side as they went. The crew was a weathered, surly-looking bunch; most were heavily bearded, and some had scarred hands and fingers missing, evidently the result of past battles with seals. Joel Hammond was standing by the mizzenmast, and Forsythe slowed as he came alongside him. He wanted to ask why the hell either he or Reed hadn’t sent a boat after the Peacock to beg assistance, but instead he cast a significant glance at the fort.

  He said, “What goes on up there?”

  “Nothin’.”

  “What d’you mean, nothin’?”

  “Exactly what I say,” the mate retorted. “It used to be a prison, or so I heard, but it ain’t been used for many years. The cannon have all been spiked, and the rest is in ruins. Go up there yourself, if you don’t believe me.”

  “And what about the island?”

  “It’s deserted, and it ain’t no use asking me more, on account of there ain’t anyone left here to tell the tale.” Then Hammond grimly advised, “You’d better get a move along. The old man is awaiting, and he gets uncommon angry when impatient.”

  The door to the after house companionway was open, and the uneven echoes of Captain Reed’s progress echoed in the short passage at the bottom. Forsythe negotiated the half-dozen steps easily enough because of a shaft of sunlight that dropped down there, but then he paused, because the captain’s cabin at the end of the corridor, where Ezekiel Reed had disappeared, was so dark he needed to wait while his sight adjusted. He did see that a stateroom was sited to either side of the corridor, because their doors had been left open. He glanced into the one on the larboard side; it was small and Spartan, with sea chests stowed neatly beneath the single berth. Then, when he was about to move on, Zack Kingman came up behind him, grabbed his arm, and hissed, “Bloody hell, look at that.”

  “What?”

  “Look at that, I say.” Kingman’s grin was loose, his whisper lascivious. He was pointing at the second stateroom, the one on the starboard side of the corridor, a relatively spacious affair which had evidently been enlarged by taking over the steward’s pantry and knocking down the partition between them.

  “Wa’al, I’ll be damned,” said Forsythe, equally sotto voce. “The old bastard’s got a woman with him!” This room had a double berth, the covers tossed and rumpled, and was otherwise cluttered with female garments. Hats and bonnets dangled from hooks, and frilly petticoats and lacy corsets trailed out of baskets and trunks. The air was dense with perfume, and the cleanest object in the room was the mirror. It looked and smelled like a bordello.

  Then Reed’s voice sounded out from the captain’s cabin. “What are you hanging about for?” he hollered, and the two men turned reluctantly away.

  Stepping over the threshold of the captain’s cabin, Forsythe saw why it was almost too dim to see a goddamned thing—the sidelights in the upper parts of the fore and aft bulkheads were all blocked off with heavy furniture. Jesus Christ, he thought; he had never seen the like in all his seafaring life. Walls were hung with heavy drapes, and side tables perched against them. Great jars of feathers stood in corners, and fancy lamps, a box of ship’s papers, and a large birdcage cluttered the top of the saloon table. The resemblance to an overfurnished New England parlor was astonishing—even to the stifling heat, because there was a low fire in the stove. The only evidence of male occupation was the collection of skinning knives, muskets, and cutlasses that hung on the forward bulkhead, with a rack of sealing bludgeons at the foot.

  Captain Reed was sunk deep in an easy chair and didn’t bother to get up as Forsythe and Zack walked in. They looked about hopefully, but the mysterious female wasn’t present. After getting them seated, Reed lifted his voice, and a portly, prissy-looking man trotted in—Jack Winter, they were told, the ship’s steward. A bottle of brandy and three tumblers were produced, and then the steward was ordered to go to the forward house, break out a bottle of grog, and entertain the cutter’s crew on the foredeck.

  The old man was acting surprisingly hospitable, considering he had lost one ship and was on the verge of losing another, thought Forsythe—but it was no skin off his nose, he ruminated on. Reed was the boss, and if he preferred sinking a bottle of brandy to getting the damage in the h
ull of the Annawan assessed, then that was perfectly fine by him.

  “Tell me again why you’re here,” the old man demanded after the steward had gone.

  “We was sent here by Captain Wilkes of the Exploring Expedition,” Forsythe said succinctly, after sinking half the glass he’d been given. Kingman, to his right, was smacking his lips as he gazed affectionately at his own tumbler, which he’d already drained, and Reed affably leaned forward and tilted the bottle again.

  “Exploring? Exploring for what?”

  “Wa’al, for the continent of Antarctica, for a start,” said Forsythe, who knew it was common knowledge and didn’t care that it was supposed to be a secret.

  “What? When most of America is still unexplored as yet?” Captain Reed shook his head in disgust. “So that’s what they do with the taxes I pay, huh? Madness! And, what’s more, it’s bloody pointless. Antarctica has been discovered already—by Stonington sealers!—and, what’s more, in that sloop of mine that lies out on the beach.”

  Forsythe didn’t bother to hide his total disbelief. It was Wilkes’s ambition to go down in history as the discoverer of Antarctica, and the idea that it had been “discovered already” was very amusing; Forsythe had never felt much love for Captain Wilkes, and having had the command of the brig Swallow whipped away from him hadn’t improved that sentiment in the slightest. However, it was impossible to credit that the old bastard wasn’t raving. The wrecked sloop on the beach wasn’t much bigger than the cutter.

  “It’s true—and I can tell you the date right down to the day,” Reed assured him. “It was November 17, 1820, when my neighbor Nat Palmer, in command of that sloop Hero, raised thousand-foot cliffs in a sea filled with ice. He wrote it in his logbook.”

  Jesus God, thought Forsythe. Just to keep this crazy conversation going, he said, “Neighbor?”