by Ross King
Then, of course, there had been the church bells. Their ghostly peals were heard on the upper deck as the Bellerophon slid past Cuxhaven-a sure sign, supposedly, that the ship and her crew would come to grief, for there was no omen so terrifying to a sailor as the sound of church bells at sea. Within a day the ship's surgeon had clambered up from the cockpit to report that three of the crewmen had come down with a fever. Two turns of the sandglass later came the news that another handful of men had fallen ill, but by then Captain Quilter had more serious dangers to worry about.
What, he later wondered, had caused the wind to blow this time, to twitch the dog-vane at the end of its line on the gunwale as the sun climbed overhead at the end of the morning watch? No notice was paid to it, however, for the sky was bright and clear, the wind steady, and most of the crewmen-those who hadn't yet taken ill-squatted on coiled lanyards in the messes below, peering at one another over hands of cards. But slowly a storm front appeared on the eastern horizon, implacable and bruise-black, and began edging its way across the sky like the shadow of an approaching giant. The deck-beams creaked noisily and water poured through the scuttles. Then the first of the spume broke over the bows and across the fo'c'sle deck, followed by stinging pellets of rain. Seconds later the ladders and decks were resounding with the boots of crewmen rushing to their stations. The midshipmen were already on their hands and knees on the waist, prising open the scuppers, while others who stuck their heads through the hatches were sent scrambling up the flapping ratlines. As they hastily struggled to reef the canvas-Pinchbeck was shouting orders at them from below-the first antlers of lightning split the sky.
The luck that saved the crew from the Scylla of the Dvina and the Charybdis of the White Sea had, it seemed, now deserted them. Pinchbeck clung with both hands to the mainmast, bellowing himself hoarse, until a heavy wave broke amidships and sent him staggering sideways like a drunken brawler. He righted himself only to be knocked down a second later as the stern plunged sickeningly downward and frigid water cascaded across the poop deck. Bodies scattered aft from the waist, knocked down like skittles. Then the stem dipped, the bowsprit sliced the water, and the bodies tumbled backwards. The familiar rituals turned to panic as a dozen desperate cries followed them across the decks. 'Helm astarboard!' 'Belay there!' 'Left full rudder!' Three men had lashed themselves to the tiller, which was rearing and tossing them about like an unbroken horse, its rope burning their hands and breaking one of their wrists. 'Hard alee!' 'Steady so!' And then, as one of the topmen sped spreadeagled through the air, his scream lost in the gale: 'Man overboard!'
But there was nothing to be done except to strike the sails, and pray. From the leeward side of the lurching quarterdeck, Captain Quilter watched in helpless anger as the sky rapidly unscrolled itself above the heads of the struggling topmen, above the tops of the masts that, as the sheets of rain thickened, were almost lost to view. He regarded the storm as a personal affront, as impertinent and enraging as the attack of a Spanish picaroon. There had been no warnings beforehand, not the treble ring round the moon at sunrise that morning, nor a halo round Venus at sunset the night before, nor even the flocks of petrels circling the ship a half-hour earlier-none of those things that, in Quilter's long experience, always presaged violent turns of weather. The elements were not playing fair.
Now, with the deck awash, he slipped on a board, fell heavily on to his backside, then was struck on the ankle by a rogue bucket. He pulled himself upright and, cursing again, hurled the bucket overboard. A sodden chart wrapped itself round his head before he could claw it away. It flapped over the gunwale like a mad seagull, and through the rain he suddenly glimpsed the coast looming to leeward-a hazard now more than a refuge. To survive the ice of Archangel and Hammerfest, he thought grimly, only to be dashed to pieces on your own shore!
And it appeared that the Bellerophon and her crew would not be the only ones dashed to bits. Two bowshots astern, on their starboard quarter, another ship was wallowing and plunging in the troughs, showing two distress lights in her main topgallant. A minute later she fired off a piece of ordnance, a brief spark and puff of smoke, barely audible above the rain and wind. Her bowsprit and foremast went soon afterwards, the latter struck, Quilter saw, by a bolt of lightning that knocked two of her hands into the sea. He had steadied himself long enough to raise his glass, and now he could see the Star of Lübeck, another merchantman sailing from Hamburg to London. Her ballast had shifted, or else she was hulled and making water-tons of it-for she was listing badly to port, with her masts bent at a low angle to the heaving water. He only hoped she would keep a decent offing and not drift any closer towards the Bellerophon and take both of them down…
For the next two hours the Star of Lübeck faded rather than loomed, however. Only after the worst of the storm had spent itself-at which point, perversely, the sun lowered pillars of light from between a parting in the clouds-did she reappear. By then the Bellerophon was scudding under bare poles and listing badly to starboard. The damage was much worse, Quilter knew, than in the White Sea. The sails were in rags and the tiller was cracked. The mizzen topgallant lay slantwise across on the poop deck, where it had skewered two deckhands and fractured the skull of a third. Who knew how many men had been lost overboard. Worst of all, the keel had dragged across the edge of a sandbar and then struck a rock with a deafening crack. She was probably bilged and filling with water at this very minute, giving them only minutes to plug the leak with a sail or a hawsebag. Something had to be done, he knew, or the rest of them would be lost too, turned into firewood and fishbait along the shore, which was rearing ever closer.
He made his way through the nearest hatch, beneath which, in the main and then the middle deck, the boards were slippery with provisions spilled from their casks and cupboards. The floors tilted at 45-degree angles; it was like balancing on the slope of a pitched roof. Soon the air thickened with a foul stench, and he realised, too late, how the pisspots had evacuated on to the floor. Then on the gundeck the smell grew even worse.
'The bilges, Captain.'
He had been joined by Pinchbeck, who was holding a begrimed handkerchief over his nose. The two of them were picking their way carefully across the littered boards. Water had surged through the gunports, and the floor, a litter of quoins and soaked cartridges, was a half-inch deep. Quilter could hear the cries of the sick men in the cockpit.
'Stirred up like a soup, I should think,' the bo'sun added in a muffled voice.
'Never mind that,' Quilter snapped. 'Get a team of men down to the pumps. And fetch some canvas from the sail locker. Also a hawsebag, if you can lay your hands on one. If there's a leak it'll have to be fothered fast or we're drowned.' The bo'sun shot him an alarmed look. Quilter waved an impatient arm. 'Go on-quickly now! And find every man you can spare,' he called after Pinchbeck's retreating figure, 'and send him to the hold. The cargo will have to be shifted!'
Quilter clambered down the next ladder alone. The steerage and the wardroom both were empty, their jungles of hammocks dangling limply from the beams. When he reached the orlop deck he was surprised to see that it, too, was deserted. He had been expecting to find his three mysterious passengers here-frightened out of their wits, no doubt-but they were nowhere in sight. So far they had kept to themselves; not once had he seen them on the upper decks. Greengills, he had reckoned to himself with some amusement a few hours earlier. But now he saw that their cabins were empty.
Not until he reached the ladder into the hold did he hear any signs of life. The stink from the bilges was stronger now, bile rose in his gullet as he descended the ladder. Voices from below. There seemed to be some sort of dispute in progress. He snatched one of the oil-lamps swaying from a deck-beam and picked his way down the ladder one-handed.
The cargo deck had suffered the worst of all. The trembling light showed Quilter a promiscuous litter of pelts among the scattered dunnage and crates, several of which had been upturned against the bulkheads. Other crates had broken apar
t and were sliding back and forth with the motions of the ship. He took a few faltering steps, straining to hear the voices at the other end of the hold, not wishing to think about the damage done to his furs. The way was blocked by a couple of crates, out of which a half-dozen books were spilling.
Books? He gave them a kick to clear his path, then hoisted the lantern and picked his way forward, feeling water seep through his shoes. Why should the firm of Crabtree & Crookes have been sending books to England? And why such secrecy about them? He had carried contraband a few times before, but never had a book crossed through his lading-ports. He peered at the scattered volumes in the wavering light. A few had already been damaged by the water, he saw. Their pages, sodden and swollen, looked like the pleats of a lace ruff.
He raised his eyes. Perhaps a dozen shapes were visible at the far end of the hold, their shadows quaking and darting across the dubbed planks.
'You there! What's happening?'
No one turned. He picked his way through the obstacle course towards them. More books. As he searched for footholds on the deck he felt his gut tighten. Was this some mutinous congregation? If so, Quilter had snuffed out more than a few kindle-coals of mutiny in his time aboard the Bellerophon.
'Get to work,' he growled at the motionless shapes. We've been bilged. Do you not hear me? The load must be shifted. The pumps must be rigged. Quickly now! Before we sink!'
Still no one moved. Then he saw a sword glint in the lamplight and heard a voice.
'Stand back, I say!'
It was a moment before Quilter realised that the command was not directed at him. The wall of figures shifted a few steps backwards amid unintelligible murmurs of protest. Quilter was close enough to see their faces in the arc of light: the three strangers had been backed up against the wall by a good ten of his crewmen. One of the strangers, the larger of the two men, had raised his sword. What sort of strange business was this? He took another step forward, gripping the edge of a bulkhead, but then recoiled with a gasp. What in the name of-?
His foot froze in mid-air. Beneath his shoe, spilling from its splintered crate, was what appeared to be an enormous jawbone, one the size of a crossbow, with a dozen teeth glowing wickedly in the lamplight. Quilter lowered the lantern, blinking in confused alarm. Where the devil had that come from? He stepped over it only to recoil again, for beside the jawbone lay an even more startling sight, the corpse of a two-headed goat, complete with four horns. The creature was emerging from the wreckage of a shattered jar whose liquid, puddled on the floor, gave off a worse stench than the bilges. What, in the holy name of God…?
Soon other strange creatures appeared, hideous monsters that his disbelieving memory would construct only much later and then weave into his nightmares for years to come. They spilled from their crates as he lurched towards them, their coils and tentacles askew, their mouths toothsome and horribly leering. Still more were represented not in the flesh but by carvings-grotesque and menacing creatures with two heads and dozens of flailing limbs-or in an enormous book whose pages were riffling back and forth with each heave of the ship. As he passed the spreadeagled volume, Quilter caught sight of a demon with horns the size of a bull's raping a young maiden with its enormous black pizzle. Then, as the ship rolled, a hag with shrivelled breasts biting the neck of a naked figure, a man, prostrate beneath her. He stared at the page, aghast, feeling his nape prickle under his soaked tarpaulin. Another roll. The demon reappeared.
But worst of all these sights by far-the image that Captain Quilter would carry with him through his tormenting dreams and into his grave-was a corpse-like creature that lay supine in one of the boxes nearest the wall, a man with a mask for a face whose stiffened limbs were jerking and thrashing as if the brute were attempting to rise from its coffin. Even the doll-like eyes were rolling frantically and the head was twitching and cocking like that of a curious bird. Several of the midshipmen were staring back with expressions of stupefied wonder, one of them was crossing himself repeatedly as he muttered a prayer under his breath. Quilter stood rooted to the timbers as if spell-cast. Why, even the grinning lips were moving as if the creature were attempting to speak, to deliver some ghastly threat!
'Ah! Captain! You choose to join us at last.'
The voice startled Quilter to life. He raised his eyes from the creature's mad gesticulations to see the man with the sword bow and then, straightening, inscribe a few initials in the air with the point of his weapon. The ring of crewmen edged a skittish step backwards.
'Do please call off your men, won't you, Captain? Otherwise I shall be obliged to cut their throats.'
'Devil,' sneered one of the midshipmen, Rowley, a veteran dockside brawler. He had armed himself, Quilter saw, with a bodkin from the sail-locker. What was happening? Several of the others were also gripping improvised weapons-priming irons, a serpentine, even a couple of broomsticks-that they now raised in menace like a pitchfork army of angry villagers cornering the local vampire. Rowley took a step forward. 'Have you not killed enough men already?'
'I assure you I have done nothing of the sort.'
'Sorcerer!' someone piped up from the back of the pack. The powder-monkey. 'Murderer!'
'How very like a play,' retorted the stranger with a kindly smile, whetting his blade on the fetid air. 'But do you think we might perform it later? In another place? You heard the Captain. Our ship is-'
Rowley interrupted, lunging forward with a guttural cry, bodkin out-thrust. But the ship chose that second to lurch wildly to starboard as more water flooded into the bilges. The crewmen tottered sideways into the crates and the luckless midshipman, unbalanced by his leap, fell to one knee, his bodkin uselessly plying the empty air. When he tried to rise he discovered the tip of the blade at his collarbone.
'Bastard,' he breathed through gritted teeth, leaning backwards on his haunches. The point followed him, pressing deeper, breaking the skin. A bead of dark blood appeared and then scuttled into his collar. 'Devil. Murderer!'
'Rowley!' Quilter was now pushing his way through the throng. 'For God's sake, we've been bilged.' He was trying to push them away from the wall, away from the backed-up trio. What was the matter with everyone? Could they not hear the roar of the water in the bilges? The breach was only a few feet below them, the inrushing sea deafening as rolls of thunder. Any second now the water would surge into the hold and the Bellerophon would sink like a stone. 'Do you not hear me? The cargo must be shifted! Now! Before we sink!'
Still no one moved. Then the ship gave a laborious shudder and heave as the keel scraped over a sandbar and tipped violently to starboard. The crewmen slipped across the cluttered deck and tumbled like lovers into each other's arms. Quilter, too, lost his balance and, before he could right himself, felt someone fall and brush against his leg. He turned to help but, saw a pair of sightless eyes goggling at him from inside a leering mask. The creature, dislodged from its coffin, had rolled to the floor. He kicked it in the belly, sending it into ever more frenzied throes. When he turned round he saw someone else-Rowley-also contorting on the deck.
It had all happened very fast. The midshipman had seized his chance a second earlier, lunging forward with a cry, the bodkin aimed at the stranger's belly. But his enemy was too quick for him. As his two companions dived backwards the man took a half step sideways and then with a few lazy flicks of his wrist inscribed another set of initials, this time in red across the midshipman's Adam's apple. Rowley coughed as if choking on a fishbone, spattering the front of his killer's coat with flecks of blood. Then he dropped the bodkin and toppled to the wet boards, where he lay twitching, pawing feebly at his throat and rolling his glazed eyes-the very twin of the hideous gargoyle thrashing and quivering only a few feet away.
Quilter was picking himself up from the floor, watching as the man stood over Rowley, cleaning the blade of his weapon and frowning at the blood on his coat as if wondering whence it had come. His companions still cowered in his shadow, while Rowley lay motionless, a vermilion
puddle enlarging about his head.
'Well? Any other arguments?'
The small crowd had taken a step backwards. The man was fitting the sword carefully into his belt. The sound from below was growing louder, like the growl of a beast clambering up from the bilges, fangs flecked and eyes aglow.
'No? Then I propose that we assist the Captain.'
Quilter was standing shakily erect by now, his incredulous gaze travelling from the weltered corpse to the figure standing over it. For the first time he forgot the in-rushing water, the fact that in less than a quarter of an hour all of them would be crushed to death or drowned.
'Assist-?' He was panting with exertion and rage. 'Who the devil do you-'
But no sooner had he opened his mouth than the deck teetered sideways a third time. Rowley rolled with the motion, flinging one limp arm through the air before flopping on to his back as if he too had been inspired by the malevolent sorcery of the man still straddling him. The bewildered sailors stumbled another pace backwards. Then the first of the water gurgled into the hold.
***
The precise nature of the dispute below decks Quilter learned only later, though he had guessed much of it already. It seemed that the men, seeing the books and specimens-these devil's relics, as Quilter was to think of them-had blamed Sir Ambrose Plessington (as the man later introduced himself) not only for the storm but also for the sudden attacks of fever. How else could these tragic fluctuations of fortune be explained except as the judgement of the Almighty on the devilish books and monsters in their midst? And how else could they be diverted, and the ship saved, except by tossing the offending crates overboard?