Sea Robber

by Tim Severin

  Hector put down the compasses. ‘If the wind holds fair, it could take seven or eight days to reach Tidore. I doubt we can last that long. Sooner or later the water will gain on us.’

  ‘Then we should abandon ship before she sinks. Head for land in the skiff, once we are close enough to the Spice Islands,’ the captain murmured.

  ‘But there isn’t room for all of us in the skiff,’ Hector objected.

  ‘Leave the worst of the invalids behind,’ wheezed Vlucht. ‘You and I both know they’ll die anyhow.’

  Hector left the cabin without answering and made his way back to the main deck. What Vlucht had said about the invalids was true. With men so far advanced in the grip of scurvy, their chances of survival were slim. Yet Maria would never agree to leave the ship and abandon her patients. For that reason, if no other, Hector had made up his mind that as long as the Westflinge was afloat, he would keep her on course for Tidore.

  OVER THE NEXT few days progress was achingly slow. The ship advanced at less than walking pace, heaving and wallowing sluggishly on a sea that seemed determined to hold back their progress. They kept at the pump until muscles and backs were aching, hands blistered. From time to time they formed pairs and hauled buckets up through the hatches and dumped the bilge water overboard. Jezreel spent one entire morning lugging up ballast stones and dropping them into the sea. But it made little difference. On the second day they only managed to hold their own, and during the morning of the third day the water was gaining on them perceptibly. Dan stripped off and pulled up boards at various places up and down the length of the hold and wriggled in through the gaps. He held his breath, ducked down and groped in the noxious water, feeling between the frames and among the remaining ballast, trying to locate the source of the leak. But he found nothing – no eddy or current that indicated an obvious weakness in the hull. The water appeared to be seeping in all along the seams.

  It was after the last of these fruitless dives that he reappeared on deck carrying in his arms one of the wooden boxes that had been left in the hold.

  ‘I could do with some more kindling for the galley,’ Jacques remarked. He was scraping green mould from a piece of salt fish he’d discovered in a locker.

  ‘First, let’s see what’s inside,’ said Dan. Scratches and gouges showed that the box had been opened and loosely nailed back down. The Miskito took a marlin spike and levered open the lid.

  ‘This will make you happy, Jacques,’ he said, peering in. ‘There is a fine fat chicken nesting here in straw.’

  ‘All that pumping has turned your brain to soup, lourdaud,’ retorted the Frenchman.

  Dan reached into the box and took out several handfuls of packing straw. He lifted out a large, rusty metal cube. On top of the cube stood an eight-inch-tall model of a hen, with four chicks at her feet. They too were covered in rust.

  ‘What have you there?’ Jacques demanded.

  ‘Some sort of clock,’ said Dan. He brushed off stray wisps of the packing material and turned the cube to show Jacques that one side was inscribed with a clock face. He felt again inside the wooden box and found the hour and minute hands, which had become detached.

  ‘Pity we cannot get that hen to lay. Fresh eggs would be useful,’ Jacques commented, turning back to his work, his nose wrinkled in disgust at the rank smell of the putrid fish.

  Dan was examining the hen more closely. ‘The wings are hinged at the base, and the chicks are fixed to some sort of disc,’ he said. He put the clock down on the deck. ‘I wonder what it is supposed to do.’

  ‘Sweeten the Governor of Hoksieu and his chief of customs,’ said Vlucht. The Frisian had shuffled out of his cabin. ‘Give a Chinaman a fancy clock, and the happier he will be. They’re mad for those things. I purchased that hen-and-chickens in Batavia, and several other plain timepieces. Cost a fortune, but nearly got me flogged for insolence.’

  ‘What happened?’ Jacques was intrigued.

  ‘The device worked well enough when I bought it off a thieving Zeelander. Must have got damaged during the voyage. When I presented the clock to the Governor at a formal reception, he asked for a demonstration. Nothing happened except that it made a nasty sound like a slow fart. He took it as an insult. Did more harm than good.’

  Dan opened the flap in the back of the clock and inspected the mechanism. ‘Looks as though a mainspring was dislodged.’

  ‘So you think you know something about clocks?’ said Vlucht scornfully.

  ‘Looks much the same as an old-fashioned wind-up musket lock,’ said the Miskito. ‘Do you mind if I try to make it work?’

  ‘You can throw it overboard for all I care,’ grumbled the Frisian and stumped away.

  Tinkering with the insides of the clock was a diversion from the chore of pumping. Dan took most of a day to clean and replace the cogs and wheels, and to work out how they should mesh and turn. Jacques used his knowledge of locks and metal springs to advise, and provided dabs of rancid butter to grease the mechanism. Finally, when they were satisfied with their efforts, they invited everyone who was fit enough to climb to the poop deck at five minutes before noon, there to witness a grand inauguration of their handiwork. When their audience had gathered, Jacques held up the cleaned and polished clock to show it off. Dan wound the mechanism with a key, closed the flap and carefully positioned the two hands to show just before noon. Then Jacques placed the device on top of the helmsman’s compass box, stood back and waited.

  Hector entered into the spirit of the occasion. He stepped forward with his backstaff to take his usual noonday sight. When the sun reached the zenith he called out the time. Everyone turned round and watched the clock expectantly. There was a long pause while nothing happened. Then the minute hand jerked to the vertical with an audible click. Cogs and wheels whirred internally. The four chicks began to move around in a circle at the hen’s feet. The mother hen tilted forward and half-raised her wings, only for something to go wrong. Instead of flapping, the wings stuck halfway and vibrated with a grinding noise. Then, to a general burst of laughter, the automaton let out a false, rusty cockerel’s crow. ‘Even if the device had worked in front of the Governor of Hoksieu, I doubt he’d have been very impressed,’ commented Hector to Vlucht with a smile. ‘Surely even in China, hens don’t crow.’

  LATER THAT SAME afternoon the weather turned against them. The wind, which had been steadily in their favour, backed into the south-west and then rose to a half-gale with driving rain. The Westflinge lurched and shuddered on the increasingly boisterous waves. Vlucht shambled off to his bunk, leaving Hector in charge. Hector helped his comrades to hand the sails, then went with Dan to check the hold once again.

  ‘The vessel is working badly,’ Dan commented. Little jets of bilge water were now spurting up between the planks in the floor of the hold as the vessel rolled.

  They returned to the half-deck and Hector tried moving the whipstaff. He felt the ship barely respond under his hand. With each passing hour she was becoming more of a floating hulk. ‘I don’t know how much longer she’ll stay afloat,’ he confessed.

  ‘How much farther to Tidore?’

  ‘Another hundred leagues, maybe more.’

  Dan gazed downwind. A large grey seabird, an albatross, cruised back and forth, unconcerned by the gale, the tips of its immense wings skimming the surface of the sea.

  ‘The vessel will never make it,’ the Miskito said in a matter-of-fact tone.

  Hector thought back to the calculations he’d made, estimating and re-estimating the distance to the nearest land. He wasn’t confident the ocean currents had not affected their course, and he doubted the accuracy of the chart that Vlucht had on board. He marvelled once more at the way the Chamorro makhana had been able to navigate. ‘Our best chance is to try to beach the ship as soon as we sight land,’ he said at last.

  He was aware of Maria approaching up the companionway. She was bare-headed, and her bodice and working skirt were rumpled and stained. She’d found a man’s large shir
t, which she wore loose as a gown, and the sleeves were rolled up to her elbows. The expression on her face was infinitely weary, resigned. Since coming aboard the Westflinge, Maria had spent all her time with the sick in the forecastle.

  ‘There are two corpses to be dealt with,’ she said simply.

  ‘We must put them overboard without delay,’ he said, knowing he sounded heartless.

  ‘Then please do so,’ she said, turning away.

  He heard the catch in her voice and answered, raising his voice so that, without meaning to, he sounded harsh. ‘Maria, every hour we keep the bodies on the ship, we risk spreading the sickness. And depressing the surviving invalids.’

  She wheeled around. There were tears in her eyes. ‘This voyage began so well. When we set sail with the Chamorro, I was so excited and full of hope. But the last few days have been a nightmare. Everything we do seems so pointless.’

  A sense of helplessness swept over Hector. He dreaded telling her the full extent of their difficulties – that the ship was likely to founder. ‘Maria, we all have to be patient . . . as you were at Aganah. Things will change, I promise.’ He sounded so feeble, he thought. He was stating the obvious.

  She put a hand to her cheek. Hector couldn’t tell if it was to wipe away a tear or raindrops. He was aware that Dan had moved away to a tactful distance.

  ‘In Aganah it was different,’ she said. ‘I got used to waiting and had set myself a deadline. I knew it would all come to an end, one way or another. But now, I’ve allowed myself to hope, and that makes the disappointment and setbacks harder to bear.’

  ‘Maria, you’ve done all you could to save those two men. They were mortally sick when first we came on board. I promise you we’ll head for the first land we see. If you can keep your patients alive until then, they should survive.’

  ‘And how long will that be?’

  ‘One or two days at most.’

  ‘I pray you’re telling me the truth,’ she answered. She turned and made her way to the far rail and stood facing out to sea, her hands gripping the wet rail, her knuckles white.

  Hector nodded to Dan and together the two men descended quietly to the main deck and entered the cabin. It still reeked of sickness and damp, but it was much more orderly and cleaner than before. The invalids in their cots and on the floor rested quietly on mattresses. Hector looked around, wondering where to find the dead men. One of the invalids in a bunk struggled up on an elbow, watching him silently. He moved his eyes deliberately, looking across and down. Two long shapes lay on the floor, covered with blankets. Without a word, Hector took one end of the nearest bundle while the Miskito picked up the other. Together they carried the corpse out on deck. It was a few steps to the gap in the rail they had cut when they dumped the cannon overboard. The burden between them was very light. ‘Wait a moment,’ said Dan as they reached the gap. They laid the dead man gently on the deck.

  Jacques was nowhere to be seen, but Stolck had noticed what they were doing, and walked across and stood looking down at the corpse.

  ‘Would you care to say a prayer over him?’ Hector asked Stolck.

  ‘I’m no pastor,’ answered the Frisian in a defensive tone. ‘But I’ll help you carry out his companion.’

  With Stolck’s assistance, Hector brought the second corpse out from the forecastle.

  Dan had disappeared down into the hold and now he reappeared with several fathoms of cord and two of the remaining ballast stones. ‘We won’t be needing these,’ he said as he knotted a web of cord around each rock, then fastened the weights securely to the dead men’s feet.

  As soon as he was done, they slid the dead men overboard without ceremony. The whole business had taken no more than fifteen minutes. When Hector looked up, he saw Maria still standing at the rail, her back to the ship. She was drenched, her clothes plastered against her body, and she still gripped the rail with both hands.

  THANKFULLY THE RAIN eased early on the following day and the visibility improved. It revealed a dark smudge on the horizon to starboard. At first it was so indistinct it could have been a low bank of cloud, but as the hours passed it gradually became evident that land lay in that direction.

  ‘What do you make of it?’ Jacques asked Hector as they stood on the quarterdeck, gazing at the faint shadow. The sea had calmed, but this only served to emphasize that the Westflinge was almost dead in the water.

  ‘Difficult to tell. But my guess is that it’s one of the Spice Islands, possibly the north end of Gilolo.’ Hector turned his attention to a small, yellow-brown clump of floating seaweed. It was nuzzling against the side of the ship. ‘If I’m right, we’ve drifted farther south than I’d hoped and we have no hope of reaching Tidore, not with the ship in this condition.’

  The clump of seaweed had barely moved an arm’s length along the hull. The Westflinge was virtually stationary.

  ‘Is there a harbour on Gilolo?’ Jacques asked.

  ‘Not on this side, according to Vlucht’s chart. The east coast of the island is very little known. Nevertheless, I propose we run the ship aground there. At least we have a chance of getting everyone ashore, including the sick.’

  ‘And if we come upon a coast full of rocks and reefs?’

  Hector shrugged. ‘We have no choice.’

  Slowly, desperately slowly, the Westflinge edged closer to the land. The wind fell slack, barely filling the sails, and now only the current carried her along. The coast crept by, low and featureless and covered with dense jungle. There was no sign of a barrier reef, fortunately. The ship was so low in the water that she did not answer to the helm at all. Those on board could only watch and wait.

  By dusk less than a mile separated the ship from the shore and she drifted onwards through the darkness. A heavy overcast obscured any light from the moon. It was pitch-black though close to dawn when they finally heard the low, grinding sound as the Westflinge’s keel touched. There came a series of shuddering, scraping noises as she slid gently on to her final resting place. A last muffled groan of timber, and all forward motion ceased. The only sound was an occasional low thump and tremor as a slight swell lifted and dropped the vessel, still upright, farther on the seabed.

  They all waited on deck to see what daylight would reveal.

  The Westflinge had gone aground a quarter of a mile from land. The water around her was clear enough to see the wavering outlines of grey and brown coral heads on which she was stranded. Directly ahead was a long, straight shoreline where a solid mass of vegetation came right to the water’s edge, the branches of the larger trees overhanging the sea. The same dense green wilderness extended inland across broken country, and without a break as far as the eye could see. Except for the slow drift of pale-grey shreds of morning mist curling up from the jungle canopy, everything was silent and still.

  Hector pointed a little to the north. There seemed to be a slight break in the wall of trees.

  ‘That looks like a place where we could try to come ashore.’

  ‘And what then?’ demanded Stolck bluntly. ‘This is a wasteland.’

  ‘At least it’s dry land,’ Jezreel reminded him. ‘Let’s get off the ship while the weather’s calm. The ship’s so rotten she’ll fall to pieces the moment there are waves of any size.’

  They manhandled the skiff overboard, and Dan and Jezreel rowed off to investigate. They returned in less than half an hour to confirm they’d found that a small river emptied through a narrow creek and there was enough depth for the skiff to enter and unload.

  All that morning they laboured, making several trips with the skiff. Dan selected a level spot on the river bank suitable for a campsite and they cut back the undergrowth, leaving small trees between which they ran ropes and draped sails as makeshift tents. They worked fast because thunderclouds were building up, towering over the interior and, as the first raindrops fell, they ran for shelter in the newly erected camp. Water drummed on the canvas, the rivulets carving runnels in the soft black soil. The unaccustomed smell of
wet earth filled the air, and when the tropical downpour ended as quickly as it had begun, they heard the dripping and splashing from myriad leaves and branches as they shed the last of the deluge. While the others ferried the invalids ashore, Dan pushed his way through the wet thickets to investigate their surroundings. He came back to report that the river quickly dwindled into a stream and ran through rocky shallows, where he was sure they would be able to catch fresh-water prawns. He also brought back handfuls of small yellowish fruit the size of crab apples. They were full of seeds and had a sour, astringent taste, but Jacques thought he could use them in a stew that would help cure the sick.

  ‘Not a bad place to be cast away. Reminds me of my days cutting logwood on the Campeachy coast,’ observed Jezreel, slapping away an insect as he dug a small channel to drain away future downpours from the campsite.

  Hector watched Maria carry a pitcher of water to the tent designated as a sick bay. She appeared to have regained her composure.

  ‘Tomorrow we’ll take off anything else from the ship that will be useful,’ he said to no one in particular. Now that they’d abandoned the Westflinge, there seemed to be a general acceptance that Captain Vlucht had no further authority.

  ‘How long do you think we will have to stay here?’ asked Stolck.

  Hector looked out to the wreck on the coral shelf. The merchant ship lay slightly canted over on one side, her three masts still standing.

  ‘Not long,’ he answered encouragingly. ‘Anyone sailing along this coast will see the ship and come ashore to investigate.’

  ‘And what if no one passes this way?’

  ‘We’ll have to think about sending a scouting party inland or along the coast in the skiff. See if they can fetch back some help.’

  As usual Stolck chose to be pessimistic. ‘And what about the invalids?’

  ‘If they’re not well enough to travel, you might have to volunteer to stay behind to look after them,’ Hector snapped. He was becoming irritated by the morose Hollander.