The Dead Men Stood Together

by Chris Priestley

  ‘So, the Devil walks among us,’ the boy said.

  I laughed, but my uncle was clearly not amused.

  ‘There are demons all around him,’ he continued. ‘They fly about his head and swim in his wake.’

  ‘You dare call me the Devil?’ said my uncle, lunging towards him.

  I stood in front of him, blocking his way.

  ‘He means no harm,’ I said.

  ‘Should I give him leave to call me the Devil, then?’ he asked angrily.

  ‘He doesn’t know what he’s saying.’

  My uncle gave me a great shove and pushed me out of the way. I stumbled and fell heavily on to the pebbles.

  ‘Perhaps a thrashing will clear his head.’

  ‘You’d better thrash me first,’ said the pilot, trudging towards us along the beach.

  Years of rowing a heavy boat in the bay had made the pilot into a man that few would argue with.

  ‘Is this your boy?’ asked my uncle, weighing up the opposition.

  ‘It is,’ said the pilot.

  ‘Then teach him some manners,’ snapped my uncle.

  The pilot took a step closer and I thought he was about to strike my uncle down.

  ‘It seems like you are the one who could do with some education in that regard,’ said the pilot, putting his arm round his son. ‘He’s just a harmless boy. Shame on you.’

  My uncle was struck by the truth of these words, I could see, though he tried to pretend that he paid no heed. He waved the pilot away and set off towards the harbour. The pilot and his son both watched him go and I, with a nod to them, set off after him.

  My uncle’s mood did not improve as the crew gathered together in the harbour to be taken to the ship by the pilot and by the time we got into the boat he had become sullen and withdrawn. I feared a repeat of his earlier outburst when the pilot’s son climbed into the boat with us and spent the whole time staring at my uncle. But my uncle ignored him.

  Perhaps he accepted that the pilot was more important than he was at that moment. And the pilot was important. The bay was wide but dangerously shallow in parts. The pilot knew the channels and would take the helm as we cast off. Without him, few ships would enter or leave the harbour in safety.

  I looked back towards the harbour mouth and saw my mother standing at the head of the small crowd gathered on the jetty. I was filled with a terrible mix of feelings as I waved to her. I don’t know if she saw me at all, because she did not wave back.

  We climbed aboard and hauled anchor. The pilot took the helm and steered our course on the outgoing tide. I turned to look back once more and already we were so far away I could no longer distinguish one figure from the next standing on the jetty and soon I could not see any figures at all. My uncle walked up and put his arm around my shoulder.

  ‘Be of good heart,’ he said cheerfully. ‘The sea is your mother now, boy.’

  We dropped the pilot and his son in the bay and they bade us farewell. As soon as their boat was loose and they were rowing back to shore, we made sail and headed out to sea.

  Looking towards the flat horizon, the sea lit by the rosy glow of morning, I thought of the future and of the great adventures before me. My heart fluttered. I had waited for this all my life.

  VIII

  I wondered why I saw no sign of the rich adventurers my uncle had told us about, but he explained that they were going to follow in another ship.

  He had been sent by them to pay the captain to bring this ship. We would join them on the coast of Africa and then cross the rest of the ocean together.

  ‘Their ship will be full of fighting men,’ said my uncle. ‘I’ve served with some of them. Good men.’

  ‘Why aren’t you on that ship?’ I asked.

  ‘They thought it best that they had a presence on this one,’ he said. ‘Just to make sure we’re all rowing in the same direction, so to speak.’

  A sailor walked past, and spat on the deck near our feet. My uncle frowned and watched him walk away and disappear out of sight before turning back to me as though nothing had happened.

  ‘They thought it best to have at least one fighting man aboard,’ he said, patting his crossbow. ‘We may have need of this on the way. The seas are full of pirates.’

  ‘Pirates?’ I murmured.

  My uncle chuckled.

  ‘Don’t you worry about them, lad,’ he said. ‘I can shoot the eye out of a wasp with this.’

  The spitting sailor snorted as he passed once again. My uncle tapped him on the shoulder and he turned round.

  ‘What’s your problem?’ said my uncle.

  The sailor smiled.

  ‘No problem here, friend,’ he said. ‘Not unless you’re thinking of being the cause of one.’

  My uncle stepped forward and the sailor’s smile disappeared.

  ‘That’ll be enough of that,’ said the captain, striding towards them. ‘And that goes for the rest of you. There’ll be no fighting on this ship. Anyone who does will be flogged. No exceptions.’

  My uncle and the sailor stared at each other in silence.

  ‘Understood?’ said the captain.

  ‘Aye, aye, sir,’ said the sailor.

  ‘Aye,’ said my uncle, eventually.

  My uncle walked away and I saw the captain’s eyes narrow as he watched him go. He had the look of a man who saw a storm approaching.

  IX

  In time we did indeed hit some rough seas off Biscay. I had been out in bad weather before, but nothing like this. I should have been afraid had I not been so excited. What a fool I was then.

  As my uncle had promised, the captain was a good one and so was the crew. We were more than a match for the storm we travelled through and we bonded as sailors will in such circumstances.

  More to the point, I was not that bad myself. My father had taught me well and I found that busy hands made for a calm mind. I saw my uncle watch me go about my work as though I was an old sea dog, and nod appreciatively. I was proud.

  By the time the seas calmed, I felt a kinship with all the men of that ship, as we each of us knew we could trust the man next to us entirely. Trust him with our lives if necessary.

  When we didn’t work, we talked, and I came to learn the stories of each man and the many different routes that lead a man down to the sea.

  I came to know their characters: who was quick to anger and who was quick to laugh, who liked to tell a tale and who to listen. This was true of all the crew save one: my uncle.

  I grew no closer to my uncle than I already had. It wasn’t long before I felt more at ease with the cook or the captain than I did with him. They in their turn felt comfortable enough in my presence to tell me in no uncertain terms that they sympathised with me for being related to such a cold and unfriendly man as my uncle.

  I could see their point. He stood apart. No one worked harder aboard that ship, or with more skill or knowledge. You could not fault his seamanship. But he made it clear he had no interest in the other men of the crew.

  He carried his crossbow with him whenever it was practical to do so, even though it must have weighed him down. He seemed to wear it like a badge, a badge that, in his mind at any rate, set him above all the others. He carried that crossbow all over the ship and would sit, when at rest, cradling it like an infant, or examining it and checking it constantly.

  He did talk to the men, but not by way of normal conversation. When his watch was done and the men gathered to talk and play dice, my uncle would always have a story to tell of his adventures.

  The fact that he had largely ignored the others most of the day did not appear to dampen their interest though. He was a good storyteller and the men were glad of the entertainment.

  But I could see that, as the nights went on, they grew tired of stories in which my uncle was always the hero – though rarely a valiant one. They grew more sceptical too. If not of the tales, then of my uncle’s part in them. So, in time, did I.

  Seemingly my uncle had sailed in every m
ajor battle of the last twenty years and played a major part in every one. He had travelled everywhere in search of gold and spent what he had managed to find on drink and beautiful women.

  The sailors had seen his tattoos as I had and, when asked their meaning, he told them that treasure was often the property of religious houses and these marks were to ward off the bad luck that went with stealing from such places. I thought of the pilot’s boy seeing demons around my uncle as he walked to our house.

  And then one night something changed. When he was telling a story about raiding a remote island monastery, one of the listeners interrupted angrily.

  ‘You’d steal from the Church?’ he asked.

  ‘Aye,’ said my uncle without pause, fingering his cross. ‘What business does the Church have in treasure? They should thank me. Greed is a sin. I am saving their souls from damnation.’

  My uncle clearly thought this very amusing and laughed heartily. But he was the only one who did. His own laughter dried up and an uncomfortable silence took over, broken only by the angry breathing of those around him.

  He seemed to realise he had overstepped some unseen mark, though he had realised too late. The crew had never liked him, and now the first signs of actual dislike moved in like a dark cloud.

  X

  We arrived at the Cape Verde Islands and dropped anchor, loading up with supplies on the quayside at Mindelo. It was the first time I had set foot on foreign soil. I was excited.

  Strange trees towered above us and sheltered brightly coloured birds that flitted here and there and pecked at scraps behind the market traders, whose wares were wonderful and strange to my unworldly eyes.

  And here it was I saw my first Africans. I had never seen a black face in all my life, but here they were common. Slave ships crowded the harbour and some of the slaves were sold here. We saw them shuffle by: men and women, children too – their ankles and wrists chained in irons. Some had been bought by islanders and they alone toiled in the full searing heat of the sun.

  The people here spoke a language I did not understand and which I soon learned was Portuguese. My uncle surprised me by showing himself to be fluent. He said it paid to know the language of your would-be enemies and he knew a fair amount of Spanish, French, Dutch and Turkish too.

  I marvelled to hear him talk to the traders in this strange tongue. I stood there, grinning like a fool, looking from face to face, as he bargained over a stall filled with what I later learned were watermelons. The melon seller used a huge knife to cut us slices and handed them over with a grin filled with gold teeth.

  I took a little persuasion to try this strange fruit, but it turned out to be delicious and we sat in the shade spitting pips on the cobbles whilst the captain haggled over our supplies.

  The Portuguese soldiers eyed my uncle with suspicion. As always, he had the crossbow on his back, and one of the crew had told me that the soldiers were always on guard against the pirates who regularly attacked the islands. My uncle cared little about this attention or showed no sign of caring if he did. He ignored them. Very soon, he found some shade, settled down and ignored us all.

  I joined the others of a younger age from the crew and we explored the area whilst we waited for the captain to call us back to the ship. We looked for lizards on the hot stone walls and stared at the pretty girls who stood in a chattering group in the shade of the church.

  We stayed three days at Mindelo, making good the damage the ship had suffered during our voyage there and stocking up on provisions. Mainly though, we were waiting for the other ships – the ships with the sponsors of the expedition. We were to meet here and sail the rest of the journey together.

  But by the third day, their ships had still to appear. And my uncle had been right when he told me and my mother about the dangers of leaving a crew idle ashore. The captain had already had to buy the freedom of four men who got into a brawl and rescue another who was in danger of being killed by an angry husband.

  At sundown on that third day, the captain gathered the crew on the quayside.

  ‘We have waited long enough for our comrades to arrive,’ he said. ‘We cannot wait any longer. The food we have on board will perish and we will quickly exhaust what moneys we have buying more from these thieves.’

  Here he looked away towards the flock of hawkers and merchants who crowded on the quayside.

  ‘The leader of the expedition ordered me to return home if they have not made contact in three days and, as they have not, back we go,’ he said.

  ‘I was told of no such plan,’ said my uncle.

  ‘Well, then,’ said the captain, ‘perhaps they did not feel it of vital importance to tell you.’

  There was a ripple of laughter at my uncle’s expense.

  ‘Are we simply to abandon the expedition then?’ he said. ‘I thought you were made of stronger stuff.’

  ‘It would be insanity to continue,’ said the captain. ‘What purpose would be served? We are one ship, a supply ship. Without the others we are nothing. I am not taking these men to the Pacific for sport. I have a letter from my employers. Here.’

  The captain handed my uncle a letter. He read it quickly and handed it back.

  ‘I say again,’ he said. ‘I was not informed of –’

  ‘You’ve been informed now!’ said the captain angrily.

  The sailors nearby smiled and chuckled and muttered as they moved away to row back to the ship. I turned to look at my uncle. He stood alone, holding the cross around his neck, his face a picture of rage.

  We stayed at anchor that last night. There was a strange atmosphere. We had gone very quickly from the fearful excitement of heading into the unknown, to the knowledge that we were now to sail home, back to our loved ones. I thought of my mother and wished that I could wake up back in my own bed. If we were not to sail on, I wanted to be home right away.

  I was not alone in this, I soon discovered, once the men were below and talking. If there was no adventure ahead, then we were all for a fair wind to take us home as speedily as possible.

  I think I was the only one who voiced any disappointment at having the voyage cut short. An old sailor slapped his big hand on my back and said there’d be plenty more voyages ahead.

  I smiled and hoped he was right and looked to my uncle. But he was off in the shadows alone, polishing the wood of his crossbow and greasing the metalwork. We all flinched at the click of the trigger as he tested it and I saw his white smile glowing in the darkness.

  XI

  The storm, when it came, flew like a banshee out of the west and struck us full in the face. We were not more than a couple of hours out of port.

  I thought the storm we had sailed through in the Bay of Biscay was bad, but it was a gentle breeze compared to this tempest. And it hit with such speed. We saw it on the horizon, and then it was upon us.

  I had been sent aloft to trim the sails and I was forced to cling to the spar with all my might. The rain greased the wood and the wind seemed to pull purposefully, spitefully, at my fingers, trying to prise them free.

  Two men were plucked from the topsails: one thrown into the crashing waves to drown, the other hurled headlong to the deck, dashing out his brains. The ship swung this way and that. One moment the spar tips would be skimming the wave crests as we leaned so far that I felt most surely we were bound to capsize and all of us drown; then the ship would take the waves head on, climbing with the prow skyward, the deck tipped back, throwing all towards the stern. Then there would be a heart-stopping moment of stillness as the ship crested the wave and crashed down over the other side, the prow ramming the next wave with such force that it lifted the stern clear of the water, hurling us all towards the prow.

  The noise was deafening. The roar of the wind and the sea and the constant attack of the rain on our heads engulfed the voices of the men, who I could see were shouting out. Each of us, old and young, looked to our allotted tasks and did them the best we could. Our lives depended on it.

  But
more lives were lost all the same. I was working in the topsails when three men were washed overboard to be swallowed up by the ravenous waters. I saw them rise up atop a giant wave and then sink into its hungry darkness.

  I thought about what the hermit had once told me. He said the sea was one huge living creature. If that was true, we had encountered the ravening mouth and teeth. Three more men were swept overboard and devoured, one of them the old mariner who had told me I had many more voyages ahead. It didn’t feel that way.

  The sea was by turns black and dark green and slate grey, and it rose up like a range of mountains stretching into the distance. I had never seen the like of it. After a while, I had to stop looking into those waves, for it was as though I looked into the doom of the world.

  The sky closed in around us: if I’d reached out my hand I could almost have touched the soot-black clouds that swirled about the topsails. Sea and sky, sky and sea – it all melded into one.

  The storm flew past us and then turned about, chasing us from behind. It threw us forward and, though the helmsman did his best to steer, the storm was our pilot now. We went wherever the winds decided and we were spun about so many times none of us knew whether we were heading north or south, east or west.

  I saw the look of panic and despair written on the faces of older sailors who had seen storms before. They too had seen nothing like this. Any little pause in the storm’s roaring and all I could hear was the mumbled prayers of every man around me.

  I heard one man pray that the ship go down quick if it was going. My father had told me never to learn to swim. ‘If your ship goes down,’ he had said, ‘better to go down quick with it than to float about on the surface, waiting to die of thirst or be taken bit by bit by hungry sharks.’

  So I’d never learned. Nor had most of the men on the ship, I’d have wagered. Most thought it was bad luck. Learning to swim was like saying you thought the ship was going to sink. But that is what everyone now thought, regardless.

  The storm punched us and punched us until we were drunk with it, and then it punched some more. The whole ship reeled and everyone aboard staggered dizzily about, exhausted and battered.