“Dear God, I want a dry death, any death but this. Dear God, save me from the sea,” I implored over and over. “I swear I will never listen to the whoosh and flash of wickedness again.” I clung to the chest. But the wind and rain only grew more violent.
Fence hurtled down the ladder, tripping over a rung in his haste.
“We were sleeping on deck,” he said, “until the tempest grew right wild. Then I was sent high into the rigging to help furl the sails. Another sailor up there toppled into the ocean.”
“There was no rescuing him?”
“We passed him in a second as the ship was driven on.”
“Not Piggsley?” My heart skipped. “It wasn’t Piggsley?”
“I saw little. The gale lashed my face, blinding me.” He was drenched and trembling.
“Perchance, with a bit of luck, it was Proule.” As the words left my mouth, I felt shamed. I hugged Fence. “Hell’s Bells and Cockle Shells, thanks be that you’re safe.”
“Thanks be,” he echoed, his blue eyes dark and wild.
He and I clung to each other, true it is, through the dark hours, though I could barely see him. We were violently shaken and sick. In spite of the heat, my teeth chattered, sure that we were on our way to hell or already there. God and all his angels were elsewhere, if they were anywhere at all. There was no creature, neither earthly nor magical, to ease us through the hideous commotion of the tempest. Would we even live till morning? I didn’t think so.
CHAPTER 11
NO HOPE!
Finally day arrived, though it hardly grew lighter. I pinched myself to make sure I wasn’t dreaming. It hurt, so I decided I wasn’t.
The cipher, soaked though it might be, was still under my shirt. But what good could it possibly do me? The wind dropped a little, but water was streaming through the timbers and rising in the hold. I could feel it around my ankles and splashing onto my knees. And then, quite suddenly, it was at my thighs. Cold, cold water. I gasped. The hatch opened and the sea and rain poured in from above too. Jagged lightning lit the hold. Two sailors rushed down the ladder. I’d seen them many times before and named them after Oldham’s lapdogs, Trusty and Ruffles, because they looked like twins and were always together, and because I didn’t know their real names. One of them at least looked trusty. The other was walleyed.
“The caulking is forced out from the ribs,” cried Trusty.
“The timber never set,” shouted Ruffles, managing to look every which way except at the rising water. “The ship was too new.”
“Damn the Company,” cried another mariner, who had just come to join them. They set to work mending the leaks with anything they could lay their hands on. The passengers sometimes helped, other times yelled or fought with the crew as their clothing or linens were seized and squeezed into the spaces between the wooden ribs.
One sailor found pieces of salted beef in a fardel to stuff in the holes and sop up the liquid.
“What shall we do without food?” screamed a woman.
“How will you eat when you’re dead?” asked the man I knew by now to be the boatswain, descending with a candle to find more leaks in the ribs. Others followed. Candles, although protected by hands, blew out faster than their owners found seepings. Meanwhile the sea continued to pour through an undiscovered hole, and the rain, huge swathes of it, blew in through the open hatch till someone slammed it shut. Now the weather below had changed. Now the hold was cold as ice. Both Fence and I were up, helping to stem the leaks. I fought a man for his loose kerchief, and shoved it into a hole. He pushed hard against my belly and I stumbled and fell into the whirling liquid, swallowing a mouthful of its foul ingredients before scrambling up again, brine pouring through my nostrils. The water was still rising.
“Man the pumps,” cried the boatswain. “Fetch the buckets. Every man to work, crew and passengers all. Ladies, hold back there. Look to your children.”
And indeed almost every man did set to work. So, to my surprise, did Mary, her long hair dripping like seaweed, her red skirt floating around her, as she tried with a pail to rid the hold of water. Her skirt would buoy her up, I thought, if we were all cast into the sea, though she would look like a huge scarlet jellyfish. I got a turn at the pump, and pumped till my arms were numb and like to break. She took over from me without a word. She wasn’t laughing now. Afterwards I filled buckets and ran up the ladder with them, emptying them into the sea, until we set up a long line of boys and men who passed the full buckets up from one to another, emptied them, and passed them back down. For the most part, shirts had come off in the wet, though I kept mine and my jerkin about me. They were all I had, and besides, the cipher key was still safe beneath. I would need it now, if we ever reached land. I had, in my fear, forgotten everything about it I had ever learned.
We pumped and emptied buckets for hours. But it seemed hopeless as the water rose and rose. Then, in the middle of the day, when it seemed the storm could not worsen, blackness descended completely, and I could hardly see my own hand directly before my eyes. We were lost and forsaken by God in endless storm, endless cold, and everlasting night.
It came to me that there was no way out. A single lantern still cast a dim circle of light in the hold, but many had stopped bailing, though the pumps were still in operation. We would all drown in this huge and empty sea.
The sky continued black all that day. We were besieged on all sides. Water still poured from the heavens and was yet discharging into the hold. I took another turn at the pump, though my arms were failing. Then the pumps failed too.
“They are clotted with bread,” yelled a sailor. “Bread from the bake room.”
The blackness above afeard us all. People were crying. Men were praying loudly. Women were shrieking as they held their children out of the rising waters. Some had already climbed to the deck, but it was probably as dangerous there as anywhere, as the huge waves could knock them into the ocean. Suddenly Admiral Winters was before us, barely visible but shouting over the wind and tumult. The ship’s minister accompanied him.
“Calm yourselves,” cried the admiral.
There was little response.
“Calm yourselves, I said.”
His voice was so commanding that soon all voices were quieted, and in their place there was only the howling of wind and the driving force of water. Although the admiral was thought by many to be a good man, his face, a sinister pattern of shadows in the dark hold, belied that belief. But at least he didn’t seem mad, like Boors. He had the rock-hard voice of sanity.
“We will ride out the storm, I do believe and trust to God,” now spake the minister. “But we must all pray.” He got down on his knees in the water and began to give thanks, although for what, I was not entirely sure. A few voyagers, mostly the loud prayers of the last few hours, joined in.
“Where do we make for?” shouted a woman with a small child in her arms.
“We travel southwest if ’tis possible. We make for wherever the storm drives us and will hope for land,” the admiral replied. There was a long groan from his audience. Had Boors spoken to him? It was impossible to tell.
“But I come to tell you that to save ourselves we are obliged to lighten the ship so it rides higher in the water.”
A mariner nodded, but the colonists, surrounded by all their earthly goods, some of which were now floating, grabbed hold of whatever they could, cradling as much as possible in their arms with their babies and children.
“Take your possessions on deck.They must be jettisoned.”
“No,” yelled Scratcher, emerging from a dim corner. “I shall not.” He was the only man who had not made any effort to help bail the ship. But now he was the first man forward.
“A possession, whatever it is, cannot be worth a life. Carry your possessions to the deck. This is a direct order.”
“No,” shouted Scratcher. “I shall not yield my chest. It is full of important documents.” He hauled it up, dripping as it was, and hugged it to him.
“We have to unburden the ship. Your sea chest is going overboard. The papers inside are likely already destroyed by brine. If you do not wish to be separated from it, that is, of course, your decision and your right; you will be thrown overboard with it.”
“I am on the King’s business,” screamed the enraged Scratcher.
“The King is not in charge here. I am. And I have no time for displays such as this. You will not get your way no matter how loud you scream.” Sir George Winters sneered faintly before turning away from Scratcher. He motioned to his crew.
They moved in, grabbing possessions from others and the chest from Scratcher. He made a last desperate effort to fling the top open and retrieve his papers, but it was slammed on his hand by a burly mariner. He cried out.
The minister prayed ever more forcefully, and began to sing a hymn.
“You, boy,” shouted Winters, “take this box up on deck.”
I complied, more afeard of Winters than of the tempest and Scratcher combined. My feet slipped on the rungs, and the chest was a great burden as my arms were so stiff and cold, but I managed to get to the deck, pushed aloft by those behind me, all scrambling to quit the hold.
Scratcher’s chest was taken from me, heaved up by a crewman, and tossed overboard. There was finally a dim light emerging from a break in the clouds, so I could watch the chest as it reared and circled with other boxes and bundles on the roaring spume once, twice, three times, before sinking, its precious secrets lost. I yawled at the loss of it. Barrels of beer went into the water too, and many other fine casks of drink and foodstuffs went under. I didn’t care. I felt so sick I was sure I’d never want to eat again. There was much wailing and cursing, but apart from that one yawl as the chest went down, I was silent, defeated, half-blinded by rain. Meanwhile I held on to the ship’s icy rail very tightly, not wishing to disappear into the ocean myself. Even now I didn’t want to be swallowed up a moment before I had to be.
“Then I looked on all the works that my hands had wrought, and on the labor that I had labored to do: and behold, all was vanity and vexation of the spirit, and there was no profit under the sun,” cried the minister, who had climbed on deck himself and was watching, almost smugly, or so it seemed to me, as the sea swallowed our goods.
“Cheerful fellow you are,” a man called out to him.
The admiral had been right, though he told his version of the truth differently from the minister. Life was worth a good deal more than chattels, even treasureful ones. All my wicked efforts to retrieve Scratcher’s emblems now seemed stupid. And I could also see that they had been useless. Fence and I were left with a cipher key but nothing, it would seem, to bing my arm and looking mournfully over the side. Despite everything, courage began to return to me because he was there. And praise be, next to Fence stood Piggsley, who I’d feared drowned. At first I thought he was grinning, but his face was set in a hard and salt-drenched scowl.decipher. Fence, thank goodness for Fence. As if he’d heard my thoughts, he popped up next to me, grab
The minister was yelling above the gale again. “Let us then hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God, and keep His commandments, for this is the whole duty of man.”
“Oh, go blow your nose,” the same man called out, clearly willing to risk eternal damnation.
“Hell’s Bells, we’re in terrible trouble, aren’t we?” I asked Piggsley. I wanted him to contradict me.
“I s’ll tell you, Ginger Top. We’s not looking good. We’s not looking good at all.”
Scratcher had not followed me up though the hold was filling rapidly. No doubt he didn’t wish to risk being sent for an even bigger swim. But my courage, which had spiked for a moment, had already begun to wane. I believed we should all be drowned soon. And that would be the real end of the matter.
CHAPTER 12
OVER THE RAIL
We were everyone of us on deck now, despite the danger, hanging onto spars, to rails, to rigging, and to one another. The hold, in spite of our best efforts to bail, was full of bilge, a dusty fog rising from it. Even worse, the ship was listing very badly, to starboard, as Fence would have it. For some reason I’d always thought starboard meant the left side. It sounded left-sided to me, as if the meaning were in the word itself, but Fence had put me right, so to speak. I had been so wrong about so many things, both big and little. I had thought life a bad but funny jest, but it wasn’t a jest at all. It was deadly serious. It was all I had of value. And true it is, soon our ship’s right side would be beneath the level of the ocean, and we should all slide across the deck and tumble to the bottom of the sea.
The bottom of the sea. The words haunted me. I could only think over and over of the drowning men I’d seen off Plymouth shore, their arms thrust up, their voices thick with fear. But numb with cold and shock, I was quickly losing my own fear. I was so tired I began to wish only that our disaster be played out, as theirs had been, and for us to be lying thoughtless and careless on the ocean floor. I worried no longer about the Isle of Devils. We could never reach it, or any other island, even if Boors had so instructed Admiral Winters. And even if Winters had listened to him, which was most doubtful. Nobody, just about, really listened to Boors.
Scratcher stood by a railing, his face grey in the dimness. He clipped me round the ear hole as I went by, just for good measure. He had given up shouting about his precious chest but was mayhap still searching for it in the rolling waves. In the end he took the emblem of the three-masted ship from under his jerkin and pitched it into the ocean, where in a trice it became waterlogged and disappeared.
“What are you doing?” I shouted, but it was too late.
“Useless it is now,” he mumbled.
“Cut the ropes of the starboard cannon to free them,” shouted the boatswain, whose own face was as pale as that of a hanged man. “It’s our only hope. Throw all them ordnance into the sea.” Out came knives of every sort. Ropes were severed, and half the cannons, our only protection, were heaved overboard. They sank immediately, the ship straightening somewhat before beginning to list slightly to larboard.
“S’ll we free the larboard cannon too?” shouted a seaman.
“No, sirrah. Release the mainmast from the shrouds, and cut her down by the box to relieve the pressure, or we’ll still be done for.”
“And you boys, get rid of the bluebottles that are sent to plague us, for the love of God,” said Boors, who had come from his room to see what was going on. He was still wearing his night cap. “I can’t hear myself think for the roaring of the flies and the shifting of the furniture.”
“Aye aye, Sir Thomas,” responded Peter Fence. No one else took any notice except Admiral Winters, who was standing close by watching the men follow orders.
“Get to your cabin,” he hissed through his teeth at Boors.
“But the flies are Devil sent. Punishing. Whizzing like whirligigs all over the place.”
“Get to your cabin, I said.”
“I am in charge here. I am Sir Thomas Boors. You cannot tell me what to do.”
“I can and I will. I am in charge at sea. You are creating a disturbance. Do as you’re told.”
Boors stuttered as if about to protest, but then peered into Winters’ face. It was set and stern. “Very well,” said the knight, staggering off into the wind like a drunken man. “But mark my words, I shall be in charge on land.”
“If the ship ever gets there, we will decide,” Winters called after him.
No one else appeared to be watching them. The men, sailors and colonists both, were too taken up with managing themselves and the ship in the tempest, and that might be for the best. Our situation was terrifying enough. Who needed to know that except for Winters, if he could prevail, our fate was in the hands of a complete madman?
The crew were busy unknotting the shrouds, while we cleared a path for them by crushing ourselves into a yet smaller area. A great cry went up from the exhausted passengers as the mainmast toppled like a huge tree in a night fore
st. It hit the rail, slid by the board, and vanished instantly, together with its sail yards, as the hurricano shrieked and whistled around us. The ship almost overturned as the mast went down into the deep, and as it tipped back with a great creak, waves rose over the side and flooded the deck. We went reeling. Boors, further down the deck, was yelling again about the furniture. Voyagers, struggling back up, were promising to light candles, to go on pilgrimages, to enter monasteries, if only they might be saved. As wind and voices rose in a crescendo, a rat skittered by me and leapt into the sea. He was, I thought, sager than any of us.
CHAPTER 13
THE VISITATION OF ST.ELMO
Quite suddenly, there appeared on the foremast, which was still in place, a trail of small glowing lights, yellow and white, dancing along the cross made by the mast and its yards, following their leader. They flew from shroud to shroud, streaming past Winters, who had mounted to the poop deck and was on the watch.
“St. Elmo,” Fence said with awe. “I never thought to have seen it.”
“What does it mean? What can it mean?” I clamoured, as a sigh went up from bone-tired passengers and crew.
“It means we be’ant like to die, Ginger Top,” said Piggsley, who was standing near. “Look up, boys. There is more lights aloft. St. Elmo, St. Helen and St Nicholas. Castor and Pollux as they’s named by we mariners in the old times. Heaven be praised.”
“Aye, Praise be. Like bright candles in the night,” said Fence, in wonderment. “Like little balls of fire.”
But my own wonder was mixed with disbelief. Could I be dreaming? Or even drowned dead in a shipwreck but imagining still? The phantoms of St. Elmo and St. Helen, as I now thought them, divided and burned on the rigging and around the rails, before vanishing into the cabins, through the hatch and into the hold, as well as across the deck and over the side of our vessel. I watched them flaming on the sea for a short while. Soon they extinguished, leaving faint round lights in their wake.
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