“The flames are less now, aren’t they, Lieutenant Tripp?” Watson asked him.
“Yes, I think they may be done for. There won’t be much need for us doing this blockade if there’s nothing but charcoal left of those ships. Look at those masts in there, all ahoo. Some must be sunk. Oh! That was a big explosion – a magazine, maybe.”
The captain was piped up the side, and stepped aboard with a strange look on his face: “We are finished here, lads. They have taken back the city and sent us packing. The admiral sent Captain Smith in to start that fire. At least they can’t come out and fight. Mr. Graesson, set a course for Port Mahon.”
A cheer rose from the crew.
“Aye, aye, Sir,” Graesson replied very enthusiastically, “Port Mahon.” Mumbling to himself, he added, “If I can even remember how to set a course longer than twelve miles.”
7 - “ Simoom”
HMS Castor was a day out of Toulon when Captain Troubridge called his officers together and read orders that did not contain the word ‘blockade’: “HMS Castor is to sail to the colonies for convoy duty – to St. John’s, Newfoundland, to be specific. We are done with Toulon; thank you.”
Castor remained at anchor in the spacious bay of Port Mahon, Menorca a short two weeks to take on everything from water to wood, cheeses, biscuits, and wine. After months on blockade, stores were low.
Troubridge’s order, “Heave the anchor short, Lieutenant Froste,” arrived with the new year. By mid-day, Castor ran west by southwest with both wind and seas on the starboard quarter, making twelve knots under all plain sail. Port Mahon was already fading into the haze behind, while the ship leaned to a winter breeze that felt as if it had caressed the snow-covered Alps scarcely an hour before. The motion was easy.
“Will we see Jamaica or Nevis, Mr. Graesson?” Daniel queried excitedly when they had got him aside to ask him about navigating to America. “How will we go? What’s our route?”
“Oh, slow down. Wait ‘til I get the chart on the table,” he grumped. “Remember those new pilot charts? That’s these, with all these rows of circles and arrows, yeah? They tell us what winds ships before us have seen, and it tells us we have a long way to go. See the Azores, here, just out from Portugal? There’s a high glass out there all the time. Makes the islands nice, to be sure, but we can’t sail much. We cannot go north of them to go west, either – and, believe me, you wouldn’t want to try. Calms and variables, day upon day for months. We have to go all ‘round this way,” he said, sweeping his finger from Gibraltar hundreds of miles south, down into thirty-five degrees north latitude, then west and north up the eastern coast of North America. “We must sail south into the ‘horse latitudes’ to get our westing.
“Our route should pick up the Trade Winds somewhere below Madeira, and we will cross the ocean just south of the Tropic of Cancer, coming back north here, in about sixty-five degrees west. It does increase our distance immensely, to about fifteen hundred leagues rather than nine hundred, but we should have the wind for speed – and currents, as well.
“If the captain’s got orders to touch anywhere or just to crack on straight to Newfoundland, I don’t know. You might get your palm trees, but probably just snow and ice. He’ll tell us when he wants.”
“It feels different out here in the Atlantic, don’t it, Neville,” Daniel asked as they sat on the crosstrees of the mainmast watching the coastline of northwestern Africa recede into the mist off their larboard quarter. “It feels a long, slow roll. It’s easier up here than it was in the Med, for sure. It don’t whip you so smartly at the ends of the roll. As much as I had looked forward to seeing the Mediterranean Sea, it’s good to get away from those nasty square waves. And what’s that, anyway?” he asked absently, pointing to the distant African shore.
“I have noticed it these two hours past,” said Neville, “but I don’t know what it is. It looks to be mountains.”
“Not mountains. It’s brown like the rest of that whole coast, yes, but it wasn’t that tall an hour ago.”
“What do you make of what Dr. Mills told us yesterday about our French lesson, then, Daniel?” Neville asked. “Do you want to go on with it? I would, but you don’t seem so keen.”
“Oh, it’s all right, but now we’ve left the Med, and I dunno when I’d use it. You seem to get on with it much better than I.”
“It got me thinking back in Toulon when I went ashore with Mills, you know. There we were, run up against some soldiers from Sardinia or Spain, or wherever, and we couldn’t even ask our way without we had Mills along. I have certainly known that they speak other tongues in other countries, but I guess it didn’t sink in to me thick skull that you can’t always just walk up and talk to anyone you see. Remember when we finally understood Graesson’s navigation when we was first out of Spithead, and he looks to us and says ‘Where are we, lads?’ We couldn’t see land at all, at all, and we understood right then why we need the sextant. So, we need French if we’re going to speak to a Frenchie with any more than waving our hands. It don’t seem so difficult to me. We just say the same things differently. It’d be a help to me if you stuck on with it so I had a mate to practice with.
“You know,” he continued, “that brown stuff over Africa does seem higher now. Just fifteen minutes ago, it was only as high as the thickness of my thumb; five degrees up, maybe. Now it’s what – ten or fifteen? Breeze is comin’ up a bit, too, and it feels – dirty? Let’s go down and get our wine.”
They slid to the quarterdeck, each on his own backstay. Daniel arrived there first. Not seeing the captain, he hollered, “First!”
Mr. Graesson, only a few feet away, stopped him: “Mr. Watson. If you’ve time for games, then you’ve time to recon ….”
“Deck there, squall!” bellowed Seaman Partridge from atop the main.
“Where away?”
“Point abaft larboard beam,” came the reply.
“That must be it,” interjected Watson. There’s a brown fug rising over Africa. There’s a dirty wind as well. We saw it and came down for grog.”
“Dirty?” Graesson asked.
“Yeah, like fine brown chalk or musket powder in your teeth.”
Graesson’s eyes suddenly snapped wide. He screamed up to Partridge: “Partridge, there, is it bigger now?”
“Aye, sir; and darker.”
He turned, facing the bow of the ship, and screamed with all his might, “All hands! Furl sails! Brail up! Brail up! All hands! Call the captain! Lieutenant Ratcliffe, have them furl sail in a body! In a body! Now! Tell them tight as ever they can! Watson! Burton! Get on with it!”
Troubridge came running up the companion from the after-cabin, shaken awake by the thundering of four hundred human feet and the shuddering of the rigging as they swarmed aloft. His hair was untied and it whipped in the wind. Even as he reached the helm, the foot of the main course was being brailed to reef.
“What is the meaning of this, Mr. Graesson?” he shouted straight in the man‘s face. “My orders are that I am to be notified of any sail change!”
“That!” replied – almost yelled – Graesson, visibly shaken and pointing west. “A ‘simoom.’ ”
Staring there, Troubridge saw that the sun, still fairly low over Africa, had become partially eclipsed from below by a large brown cloud. It grew to cover the sun in the minute he stood watching, captivated.
“I’ve heard of this – never seen it,” he said, quickly subdued. “Get another man on the helm.”
Troubridge turned to Mr. Tillman, just arriving: “Get the hatches battened. Tell your men to wear wet kerchiefs over their mouths and noses when that batters us, or they’ll be eating dirt for dinner. Mr. Graesson, get her before the wind! Now!”
Five minutes of eerie, anxious silence passed. The ship continued forward under bare poles on her own inertia before it struck. In one moment, they had sunshine and, in the next, a cloud of Saharan sand howling around their ears and grinding at any exposed skin. In the first instant of striki
ng, Castor heeled almost to her beam ends and the main topgallant, still not completely furled, was carried away, taking the main topgallant mast and six maintopmen with it. Horrified, Neville watched them go just before being caught below the futtock shrouds, having his face mashed into the rough hemp by the force of the wind from behind. His bare hands and feet stung fiercely from the impact of thousands of grains of sand, but he dared not let go to protect them; at least his face was saved the pain of it by the protection of the futtock shrouds. He dared not open his eyes and could do nothing but feel the ship lean more and more. Then, just when he feared for his life, it began to rise. There was a lull in the wind. Not calm, just less. He tried to open his eyes, but it felt as if he had a small pile of dust on each eyelid. Pulling his face out of the shrouds, he shook his head violently to clear the dust, wiped one hand across his face, and tried his eyes. They opened, but they hurt with fine dust. He could see, but it was quite dark – like dusk just before the sun is gone. Men were clinging desperately to the rigging everywhere; nobody was moving. On deck he could just make out that the quartermasters were holding the wheel steady, but almost lying down while they did so. The captain and Mr. Graesson were both down, lying against the lee rail, but alive and struggling to get up. The entire deck looked wrong – soft.
The quartermasters had managed to turn the ship almost downwind as the sandstorm struck, probably saving the ship from foundering. The waves were suddenly higher, one enough to send spray forward across the quarterdeck. Scuppers spouted brown water far to the sides, and the ship wallowed widely.
Again, the sand screeched, packing into his ears and nose and filling his pockets, but he hung on. That was all he could do. This continued for a quarter of an hour, and he could hear things being carried away below, but the ship wallowed on in eerie quiet. No man could be heard, nor bird, nor even the creaking of the ship.
Eventually, he felt lessening of the wind. He tried again to wipe his face and see, and was rewarded with the most improbable scene. It remained almost dark. He was looking forward, away from the wind, and could see the deck, or what passed for it, undulating in what seemed to be brown snowdrifts. There was a man standing in it, shin-deep. The ship rolled heavily to starboard and the sand slid, taking him with it. He stopped heavily against the rail, and much of the sand went through the gaps and over the side, but not all. The sand behind him buried him as he fell, leaving a large mound against the rail for a few moments while the ship shuddered. Sand was on the decks everywhere – sliding. The ship rolled ponderously back to larboard, feeling a touch lighter than it had been. The man began sliding to larboard, but a hand shot out and caught hold of the foremast bitts. He stopped. He was alive, at least.
Shaking his head to clear some sand, he became aware that men were yelling; he just couldn’t hear them for the grit that had been packed into his ears. That man on the foredeck had gotten up. It was Daniel. He shook himself all over as violently as he could, the way a wet dog does when it comes in out of the rain. He looked about the mainmast rigging for his division. Some were recovering as he was. One man below him hung upside down like a limp rag doll some child cast aside, his foot tangled in the remains of the topmast shrouds. There was nothing above him but a tangle. Blood trickled from his head; he had probably been banging against the mast. Calling two others in off the topsail yard where they had somehow managed to remain clapped on, he directed them, mostly with hand signals, to secure their unconscious mate to the end of a free halyard. Then he went below to arrange lowering him. His usual method of getting down to deck quickly proved a dangerous exercise. Packed with fine sand, the backstay was far more slippery than normal, and he landed very hard on the quarterdeck, taking a painful twist of the ankle. It might have been worse, except that he landed in a foot-thick pile of sand. The captain and Mr. Graesson were both sitting up, watching him as if they had just seen a man from another planet land. He looked stupidly from them to the aft rail, where a piece of it, along with the swivel gun that used to be there, were gone. Graesson had stood to help one of the quartermasters get up, and was shouting something.
Still having to yell over the wind, which had far from died, he made a shoveling motion with his hands and hollered to the captain, “We’ve got to get the sand off!”
The captain said nothing, offering only a dazed look. Then Neville noticed a trickle of blood from the left side of his scalp. “Sit, Sir,” he ordered. “I think you’ve knocked your head on the rail,” and motioned violently for Graesson to come help. The two of them wrestled Troubridge to a sitting position and gave him a turn of rope to hold him there against the mizzen bitts where he could be close to the helm.
The ship began surging forward, roaring downward and flinging brown foam far to each side. Forever she seemed to sleighride ahead, and then slowly leveled, and the stern began to sink. Another spray from a large wave striking behind wet the sand on deck, and Neville and Graesson looked at each other in horror. Graesson yelled to him, “You’re right. We’ve got to get the sand off! She can’t bear so much weight on the upper deck. I can hold this with two helmsmen. Go shift the sand.”
Going forward, he found Lt. Tripp and Mr. Tillman lowering the seaman from aloft.
“We’ve got to sort the topmast, Mr. Burton,” howled Tripp.
“Begging your pardon, Sir, but not now. Captain’s orders,” he lied. “We’ve got to get the sand off before it gets wet.” As if to underscore his point, the ship rolled heavily again, this time waiting at the extreme point of roll long enough for them to glance at each other. Dry sand squirted wide from the scuppers, but the wet sand stuck and did not move.
With any thought of argument gone, Tripp yelled, “Waist first. Larbowlines will get everything center for’ard, and I’ll have the Starbowlines clear from there aft. Wind might clear the poop and foredeck for us. Lively, now.”
Neville urged his men to push, dig, and scrape sand overboard with any tool they had handy, working furiously. He could see hands and faces that had been sanded almost raw, men working with one eye closed, some drooling, and most favoring some bruise or cut.
After twenty minutes, the ship felt lighter. She did not roll so slowly, nor sink so low at bow and stern when the waves passed under. She continued to roar forward on each wave, sometimes surfing for several minutes under her bare spars. His section of the waist cleared of sand, he set two of the men to continue sweeping, even though the storm had not finished depositing more upon them. Neville started up the quarterdeck steps to check on progress aft. He found O’Hanlan had organized the afterguard, what he could find of them, to the sand-clearing duty, and had made substantial progress shifting the sand overboard. Graesson and two other men were still at the wheel.
Having no more to do there, he set off to find Lt. Tripp and assist in securing the main topmast. He found him, together with Colson, directing a party rigging gaskets to hold the fallen stick to the main- mast itself and prevent it from hammering anything near it to splinters. Neither spar was useful to hold sail as it was, wrapped in tangles of halyard, sheet, shroud, and brace.
Lt. Froste appeared, his bloodshot eyes peeking over a red kerchief tied ‘round his face.
“We have this in hand,” he yelled. “Get a party to take cap’n below to the doctor.”
With a quick “Aye,” Neville moved aft again, catching a man here and there until he had four, and motioned them to accompany him. Movement was slow. There had not been time to rig manropes, and it took some time to reach the poopdeck. He lost one of his number to Graesson immediately as he was recognized; an experienced quartermaster to replace one of the exhausted crewmen at Graesson’s side. It was impossible to tell how long the ordeal had lasted already – one hour? Four? The wind was less, but the storm had not run its course; it still shook the stays and carried waves of grit. He blew a wad of sand from his nose. Graesson was indicating with his hand that he could continue with this new man to help.
“We’re taking the captain below,” he yel
led into Graesson’s ear, leaving him to steering.
He and the remaining three seamen untied Troubridge, who seemed barely conscious, and slid him to the after-cabin hatch. One of the marine afterguard held it open for Neville to descend into the darkness. It was customary at night to leave a few lanterns burning in order to find one’s way about in the absence of even the slightest light from above, but there was none. It had not been dark when this began. Having lived aboard for close on a year, Neville was usually able to find his way in almost total darkness, but not so easily here. This was the captain’s private cabin, and he had never been there. Calling for one of the men to follow him down, he told the other two to put the rope around the captain’s chest and lower him. He groped a while to find the captain’s cot. Once he located it, he directed Troubridge there feet first.
“You two stay with him. Keep him from falling out, even if you have to cover him and tie it all down. See if you can find a light. There should be a lamp swinging here somewhere. I’m going for the doctor.”
Neville moved forward in the ship, feeling for the hatch that would lead down to the doctor’s domain.
As he felt his way past the captain’s pantry, his hand felt a face in the dark. It was clammy and almost soft – not gritty. With a shudder, he instinctively jerked it back, as if he had touched a corpse, asking, “Who’s there? Who is it?”
“Fredericks. It’s Fredericks, Sir,” was his whining response.
“Fredericks!” he almost screamed. “You’ve stayed below? Catching himself, but still furious, he yelled into the darkness somewhere near Fredericks’ face, “Captain’s injured in his cabin. You go light a lamp there. I’m going for the doctor. Bring another for this passage. Lively now, you miserable simpering cove. Lively!”
More forward he went, and down yet again, heading for the Orlop. The ship growled around him, plank upon plank. Here, below the waterline, the sea could be heard more clearly, racing aft with a hissing sound. He could see a glimmer ahead around a screen, and hear voices. The light was not much brighter after he stepped around the screen into a small circle of men who had been brought here. Broken limbs, he expected; probably worse, before it’s all over. Dr. Mills was splinting one.
The Glorious First Of June (Neville Burton: Worlds Apart Book 1) Page 10