Seaflower

by Julian Stockwin

  They raced to the wardroom where a group of men stood staring at a wreckage of broken timber, blocks and a mess of rope. The whites of their eyes showed as the huge rudder thudded sideways, uncontrolled against the counter, and a thump of white spray shot up the rudder casing. The deck canted steeply, then reared up the other way, sending men stumbling and gear sliding. Kydd hesitated – but Capple thrust forward. ‘Clear that shittle for’ard,’ he roared, his finger stabbing towards two of the nearest men, who jerked into action. He pushed through the others to look at the rudder. ‘Get th’ fuckin’ chocks,’ he snapped at Kydd.

  The carpenter appeared, panting. ‘Chocks,’ he agreed quickly, and together, the deck bucking like a horse, he and Kydd eased the first shaped piece of timber into the octagonal opening down which the massive rudder creaked and groaned. ‘Th’ easy bit,’ grunted the carpenter. ‘Hold it there, cully, an’ I’ll scrag ye if y’ lets it go.’

  Kydd held the timber wedge as if his life depended on it. Through the opening he could see the terrifying white-torn confusion of seas hurtling up, tilting, then dropping like a stone. The rudder stock swung over ponderously, thumping and grinding into the rough chock under his hand with an appalling creaking. Capple and the carpenter tried to stuff the remaining chock into the other side, but the rudder spat it out and swung back to thud against the ship’s stern. Kydd knew to keep his chock steady in place, but his hands were perilously close to where he knew the rudder stock would return. It narrowly missed crushing his fingers, and this time the other chock slammed in, true.

  ‘Out of it!’ gasped the carpenter, and Kydd pulled aside as he swung a big iron-bound mallet in accurate, crashing hits. Miraculously, the rudder had now been jammed into its central position. On deck they could use a trysail aft to bring the bows back on course. The immediate danger was over.

  ‘Spare tiller, Chips?’ Capple asked.

  ‘Aye,’ said the carpenter, and inspected the immobile rudder head where the tiller had broken off inside. ‘Second mortice,’ he said decisively.

  With relief, Kydd saw that the spare tiller could be fitted in a lower mortice and, without being told, he had the men hastily ranging the tiller-rope and relieving tackles. When the spare tiller had been shipped, these tackles were clapped on, and they had a fully working rudder once more. It was amazing how quickly a neat, seamanlike scene could turn into a picture of utter despair – bedraggled ropes and anonymous timbers and wreckage – and how quickly return to a shipshape condition merely by getting to the heart of the circumstance and doing what was needed. He had seen Capple do just that and acknowledged the lesson.

  On deck again, and at the wheel, Kydd saw that the winds had grown marginally less frantic, were definitely more in the west. There was no change in the vista of white-streaked water, horizontal clouds of spume flying over the surface. Huge waves crested, tumbled and were blown downwind to spindrift. The master paced down the deck past Kydd, who flashed him a grin.

  Quist stopped, as if surprised in his thoughts. ‘Good lad,’ he said, against the wind noise, ‘an’ if it stays as is, we’re thrown clear o’ the blow betimes.’ He smiled amiably and paced on.

  So, it was only a matter of time. The old ship-of-theline plunged on before the relentless wind. The hours passed. Kydd remembered Quist’s words earlier. He mentally faced into the westerly wind and worked out that at nine points on his right hand, the centre of the storm was passing somewhere out there in the wildness to the north.

  He was relieved at noon, and took the lee helm again for the last dog-watch with Capple, wind to the south-west. By now his eyes were red-sore with salt and his body ached for rest; it seemed to Kydd a malicious cruelty of the fates when the dread cry passed aft, ‘Land hooo – I see breakers aheeeaaad! ’

  Lookouts forward had sighted land in their path. Large or small it was an appalling hazard for a vessel barely under control, flying before the wind as she was. Images of the death of his lovely Artemis crept remorselessly into Kydd’s skull. He shook his head and beat them back. Now Trajan needed him.

  ‘Wear ship – we wear this instant!’ Auberon bawled.

  Kydd and Capple threw up the helm, and the vessel answered grudgingly. It would be difficult to wear around with only the reefed course and staysails, but it would have to be done. The storm jib was thrown out at just the right moment and, with violent rolling, Trajan turned about.

  ‘Lie to, Mr Quist,’ Auberon ordered, as the Captain appeared, driven by the sudden change in motion.

  ‘Lying to, sir,’ Auberon reported, while Bomford studied the ugly dark line extending across the horizon. ‘We’ll never claw off, you know,’ he said quietly, gazing at the endless barrier of land ahead. Trajan lay over crazily as the low sails took the wind from nearly abeam.

  Bomford staggered but continued to observe, then snapped his glass shut. ‘Clear away both bowers. We anchor!’

  The veering crew in the cable tiers needed no telling; the cables would go to their fullest extent, and in the stink and dread of the near darkness in the bowels of the vessel they readied the cable. At the cathead in the bow the conditions for the seamen working to free the anchor for casting were frightful too. Kydd’s heart wrung at the white fury of the seas coming inboard, receding to reveal the black figures of men resuming their fight.

  First one anchor let go, then the other. The dead weight of the hempen cables, even before the great anchors could touch the sea-bed, heaved Trajan’s bows around, head to sea. The effect was immediate. Taking the seas directly on the bow, she pitched like a frightened stallion, at one moment her bare bowsprit stabbing the sky, then a fearful onrush of seas down her sides, before a heart-stopping drop downwards, ending in a mighty crunch and explosion of spray at her bows.

  Kydd stood ineffective: Trajan was now held by her anchor cables, meeting the hurricane head-on, and therefore his duty at the helm held no more purpose. It gave him time to look back at the line of land, which was nearer than he had thought. The constant mist of spume on the sea’s surface had obscured the lower half of the band of hard black, and he quailed.

  A perceptible yank and quiver: untold fathoms below, the iron claws of an anchor had come to rest in the sea-bed. The motion changed: the high soaring of the bows was the same, but after the lurch downwards, in the hesitation before the swoop up, the ship snubbed to her cable – a disorienting arrest of the wild movement for a big ship.

  ‘Off yer go, then, cock, get somethin’ ter eat, an’ I’ll see yer in an hour,’ Capple said. Kydd flashed him a grateful smile. He had not had anything since daybreak: with both hands on the wheel there was no way he could bolt the dry rations on offer.

  Stretching his aching muscles he followed the life-line forward and fell as much as stepped down the hatchway. ’Tween-decks was a noisy bedlam of swilling sea-water, squealing of guns against their breeching and a pungent gloom. His mess was deserted, the canvas screens not rigged, so he peeled off his wet shirt and helped himself to another from his ditty-bag, which hung and bumped against the ship’s side. Condensation and leakage had soaked into the canvas bag and it was a sodden garment that he had to drag over his body. He shivered but gave it no more thought.

  In the mess-racks he fumbled around and came up with some sea-biscuits. He pocketed three, then found a hard lump of cheese that he supposed had been left out for him. Munching the hard-tack, he glanced forward to where the patchy light of a clutch of violently swinging lanthorns played on dozens of huddled bodies. He assumed they were marines and landmen, hiding in the depths of the ship in the extremity of fear and exhaustion, racked by panic and sea-sickness.

  Kydd felt a warmth of sympathy. They were better off where they were, out of sight of the heart-chilling insanity of the storm. He would go to them and try to say something encouraging, the least he could do. Holding on to anything to hand, Kydd made his way forward in the noisome obscurity.

  But then his senses slammed in. The ponderous wrench at the beginning of the scend had d
isappeared, and a comparatively smooth rise completed the movement. There could only be one interpretation. With a constriction of his stomach Kydd knew that an empty cable was running now from the hawse. As if in confirmation, Trajan gave a fish-like wriggle as she careered astern. Kydd spun round. He hurried as fast as he could to make the upper deck, pulling along hand over hand. As he got to the base of the ladderway, a combined twist and jerk told him that Trajan had come up to her second anchor. ‘Clear away th’ sheet anchor!’ Kydd heard the boatswain howl into the violence, as he breasted the coaming and came out into the turmoil.

  Capple stared fiercely ahead to the foredeck where men fought and struggled. At every plunge they disappeared from view under an avalanche of white water. He noticed Kydd. ‘Coral bottom!’ he shouted. Coral was a deadly menace: it snarled and cut thick cables with razor-sharp edges and normally was never chosen for an anchorage.

  A few yards forward Kydd saw Quist. He was yelling something indistinct, but ended by stabbing a finger at Kydd, then pointing forward. Kydd grabbed the wet hairiness of the midships life-line and hauled himself along the bucking deck to the starboard fore-chains, joining the men at the sheet anchor.

  There was no immediate need for this last anchor they had, but they could leave nothing to chance. Kydd drew near and was nearly knocked off his feet by the green water sluicing aft. A cable to the sheet anchor had already been bent and seized in storm preparations, but anchoring in coral had not been foreseen.

  ‘Keckling – get goin’, Kydd,’ the boatswain yelled. A coil of three-inch line was thrown at him; it thumped heavily into his chest. The seas roared against the side, burying the channel, the broad base of the shrouds fitted to the outside of the ship. Kydd caught his breath: he knew they were telling him to climb over the bulwarks and down on to that channel, to work at the stowed black mass of the sheet anchor and its cable.

  He looked back resentfully at the row of men, who looked gravely back at him. They were older and more experienced but would be able to remain safely inboard. Then he understood: he had been chosen for this job because he was a better seaman than they.

  The realisation warmed him, proofed him against the elements and, with a jaunty wave, he swung over the bulwarks and dropped to the channel. It had crossed his mind to bend on a life-line around his waist, but if he was swept away then the sudden jerk at the end of the line might cut him in half. In any case the light line would get in the way.

  The sea-glistening sides of the ship dipped slowly, and Kydd hung on grimly to the tarry shrouds. The expected seas came, first his feet, thighs, and then above his waist. A rushing torrent bullying and jostling, tearing at his hold on life. It seethed around the lower rigging and fittings with a deep hissing and roaring – then began to recede.

  Kydd snatched a glance at the situation. His task was to apply keckling to the last yards of the cable as it came from the sheet anchor, wrapping his lighter line, and stout strips of canvas handed down to him, tightly about the strands of the cable. It was their only chance, the keckling their sole means to protect this last anchor from the deadly sharp coral and keep the ship from driving ashore.

  The sheet anchor was lashed outside the shrouds, outside the channel, and Kydd was exposed to the seas. Edging around the aftermost shroud he stood on the iron curve of the flukes of the big anchor, then swung to the channel and shuffled along. Trajan rolled, the seas rose and battered and tugged at him. He held the thick shrouds in a death grip, pressing his face to their rough surfaces, feeling their sturdy strength.

  The seas fell away as the ship began a laborious roll upwards. It was time to get to work. Kydd moved outboard of the anchor to the big ring beyond the stock. He waited for the surging seas to return and subside, then bent to begin. The rope had a mind of its own, snarling and writhing, but Kydd forced it round. More seas, but his work held, and when the dripping cable appeared, his keckling was still there. He worked feverishly, his arm hooked about the cable, but such was his concentration that when the next sea came it took him unawares – a momentary vision of the water within inches, then he was submerged, buffeted by giant forces while he hugged the cable, a maelstrom of roaring in his ears.

  He emerged, bruised and gasping, his eyes stinging, a salty burning in his throat, but he went on grimly. His first sea friend, Bowyer, a deep-sea mariner of the very best kind, came to mind, and memories of lessons in the sea crafts, and he responded. Every working of cordage and cable would be the best he could manage.

  Unexpectedly he felt a tug on his shoulder from above. Stirk’s hand came out, and Kydd was hoisted bodily over the bulwarks. He sank to all fours with exhaustion, hearing Stirk’s murmured words of encouragement – then noticed buckled shoes and silk stockings. He looked up to see the Captain gazing down at him, then his slow nod of approval.

  The second bower anchor gave way within the watch. It was terrifying to see the speed with which they were carried downwind towards the hard line of the shore. The sheet anchor, however, was ready and plunged into the sea almost immediately.

  Now down to her last big anchor, Trajan’s company were left with the bleak knowledge that if it parted then the ship would drive ashore – not on a sandy beach, but on the fringing reef a quarter of a mile offshore, its presence betrayed by wild breakers slamming high into the air. The vessel would break up fast on the massive coral heads, and when men struck out for their lives they would be slashed to ribbons in the breakers.

  The daylight ebbed and the deck filled with silent men staring across the seas to their last sight of the land. Kydd went below to find something to eat, to bring strength to his weary body. It was sheltered below, the manic howl of the wind muted, its wearisome plucking and battering no longer worrying at his body.

  The mess was deserted again, except for a small figure, head bowed, sitting alone at their mess-table. Puzzled, Kydd approached. It was Luke, a picture of misery. He did not look up as Kydd drew near.

  ‘Hey now, skinker – light along some clacker f’r a starvin’ mariner,’ Kydd said breezily. Luke didn’t respond.

  ‘How’s this? Messman f’r the petty officers, an’ can’t find ’em some vittles?’ Kydd came to sit next to him. The bass rumble of some loose gear slamming against the hull forward sounded ominous and loud.

  Luke said something in a low voice that Kydd was unable to catch. He leaned closer and saw that the boy had been crying. He hesitated, then put his arm round the lad’s shoulders. Luke tensed then swayed and rested his head against Kydd.

  ‘How’s this? Pipin’ the eye?’ Kydd said kindly. ‘Not as would be fittin’ f’r a sailor, you’ll agree, cuffin.’

  Luke’s muffled voice was certain. ‘Mr Kydd, t’night I will be in hell.’

  At a loss for words, Kydd could only squeeze his shoulders.

  ‘I ain’t been t’ church much – an’ that was only ’cos m’ mother made me,’ he continued, in stricken tones. ‘An’ – an’ I lied t’ her! See, I said as I’d go off t’ work fer Uncle Jonathan away in Hounslow, an’ I didn’t. I ran off t’ sea.’

  Kydd saw with guilty clarity an image of a dusty church, a droning sermon and fiery words of sin, sentence and torment. Luke lifted his face, bright with tears, and blurted, ‘I don’t mean t’ be wicked. When Mr Stirk gave me a grog, I didn’t drink it, Mr Kydd, I threw it away – God’s honour I did!’

  A moment’s hesitation, and Kydd withdrew his arm. ‘You are indeed a wicked dog, and will probably have t’ answer for it,’ he said, thumping his fist on the table. Luke stared piteously at him. ‘But not this night.’ He paused dramatically. ‘How dare ye have doubts about y’r ship? Is she dismasted? Is the mainstay in strands? D’ye see the Captain in despair? What sort o’ jabberknowl is it, says we’re on our way t’ Davy Jones?’

  Luke’s face brightened. ‘But we has one anchor out only, an’––’

  Kydd’s voice turned to thunder. ‘So now y’ questions m’ seaman’s skills? Y’ say that I can’t pass a keckling without i
t falls off? I should take a strap to ye, younker!’

  A hesitant smile appeared and Kydd pressed on: ‘First light an’ the wind ’ll have shifted two, three points, an’ then we’ll up hook ’n’ make our offing.’ He fisted Luke lightly on the arm. ‘Then it’ll go hard on any as were seen afore not havin’ trust in their ship.’

  A sniff, a shamefaced smile, and Luke’s cloud passed. ‘There ain’t much t’ eat, Mr Kydd,’ he said, ‘but I’ll find y’ some – fr’m them shonky lubbers who don’t want any,’ he added, waving at the helpless landmen forward.

  Kydd grinned. ‘I thank ye, but I’ll take a turn about the uppers first.’ He felt a guilty stab at the hero-worship he saw in Luke’s face, stuffed his pockets with anything he could find, and returned to the upper deck.

  In the last of the light he saw tossing white breakers, the anonymous grey coast behind. And then a desolate night clamped in. He hunkered down in the lee of the bulwarks, his feet braced against the loudly creaking carriage of a gun, and pulled his jacket around himself. The subliminal jerk of the anchor cable transmitted itself to him, and he thought of the keckling deep in the sea, his work the only thing standing between the ship’s company and their end in the loneliness of the night. He worried for a minute whether the canvas parcelling under the keckling was sufficient, but then decided that nothing was to be gained by that, and drifted into a fitful doze.

  ‘On yer feet, matey.’ A boatswain’s mate with a dark-lanthorn was shaking him, but not unkindly. ‘Larbowlines t’ muster.’

  Aching in every part of his body, Kydd staggered to his feet and lurched toward the quarterdeck, almost invisible in the darkness. There was no diminution in the wind-blast and the fierce motion of the sea was the same.

  The officer-of-the-watch had his orders: the hawse rounding would be inspected hourly, the mate-of-the-watch would make his rounds half-hourly and the quartermaster-of-the-watch and his mate would check the hold for stores broken loose. The rest would remain on deck, on immediate call to the pumps.