The two of us had a hard time keeping the tiller steady. From time to time, it swung free from starboard to port.
After one hour, the bosun appeared. The astonishing ease with which he advanced attested to his long experience with tempests. He shouted to Toine, ‘It’s my turn, commander.’
I shot an admiring glance to the cook who had managed to force his authority on the crew in such a short time. Back in our cabin, Toine told me he had to fire on a crewman who had refused to carry out the order of furling the sails. The man had tried to stab him. After this incident, all hands had obeyed him with no further discussion.
Our clothes were soaked, and we had to change into dry ones. It was a hard task. With each movement of the ship, I was sent rolling. Toine burst into laughter. ‘Son, you’ll never be a good sailor.’ He continued in harsher tones. ‘Sit down on the floor to get dressed, given you can’t do better.’
A wave broke over the deck, staggering us. Another followed with a terrible roar. Above us, we heard a crash of breaking wood.
‘Jesus Christ, it’s the deckhouse getting the hell off the boat. We’re going to take in water astern. We must change direction.’
After seizing a rope from under the lower bunk, he tied one end around his waist and threw me the other. ‘You’re going to follow me to the deck, but not right away. Stay on top of the ladder and hold me until I get to the helm. Then, I’ll pull you.’
We hastened to the ladder. Combining our efforts, we pushed the hatch to the companionway. Toine climbed on to the deck. Despite the storm roaring, I heard him bellow.
I stuck my head out of the hatch. ‘What’s the matter?’
‘That bunch of freshwater sailors! They don’t even know how to frap a sail. Take a look at the mizzenmast.’
And sure enough, the mast was bending like a young willow, the wind lashing at the spread-out sail with all its might.
Toine leant down and stuck his face close to mine. ‘Now listen carefully, son. You’ve already gotten me out of a tight spot. Here’s a chance to do it again. Have to go and cut down that mast. With that goddamned sail, all we do is go round and round. Water is washing over the sides. If I don’t stop this, we’ll sink in less than one hour. So go down and fetch me the axe from under the bunk.’
I ran down and was back in no time.
‘Good job, son. Now hold on.’
And he let a wave sweep him away with its foam. He tugged at the rope like a fish on a line.
The ship veered to one side and I caught the full lash of a wave. I tumbled down the ladder. Hands clutching the rope, I couldn’t break my fall. The shock jarred me. Had it jarred Toine even more? I clambered back up. There he was, pushed back to the starting point. At the sight of me, he grumbled.
‘Another like that one, and we’re done for.’ He struggled to his feet. ‘Come on. We try again.’
Where did this sinewy, wizened middle-aged man find his inexhaustible strength? He was extraordinary. Only an iron will could overcome the fatigue that plagued us.
This time he managed to reach the mast.
He had already cut the ties and was about to hack at the mast when two crewmen, yelling and gesticulating, bounded in his direction. No doubt they intended to stop him. But the bosun, who must have known that the mast had to be cut down, interposed himself. Both sailors threw themselves at him. Only I noticed the enormous wave breaking on the ship. I buried my head between my shoulders and gripped the rope with all my strength, my full weight balanced against the ladder. The entire ocean seemed to crash over me. When I was able to raise my head, I saw Toine hugging the mast while the three others rolled all the way to the bulwark. A bow wave dragged them the length of the deck. They lay astern, unmoving. Another surge lifted their bodies and yanked them overboard into the tempest.
In the meantime, Toine had been hewing at the mast. I heard a crack followed by a muffled noise and glanced at him. The old devil had managed to cut the mizzenmast down. But he was nowhere to be seen. Panicked, I tugged at the rope. But with every new receding wave I had to give way a bit more and I feared discovering a drowned man at the end of the rope. He finally appeared, his head bleeding. The sea had calmed a little and the ship forged ahead again. I succeeded in dragging Toine down to our cabin and hoisting him on to his bunk. He scarcely breathed but he was alive. The gash in his forehead did not seem to be serious. After fetching some rum, I lifted his head and had him swallow a few mouthfuls.
Several hours passed before he opened his eyes. As the ship entered the centre of the storm, the ocean doubled its violent dance, tossing and rolling the ship like a toy. Twice I climbed up to the deck but saw no one. The tiller, left to its own devices, spun at full speed. Not knowing how to steer, I had no intention to try. In such a sea, I might have broken my arms. I returned to the cabin and sat down by Toine.
He had not regained consciousness. His eyes, open, held a vacant stare. He did not seem to recognise me. I placed compresses on his forehead and forced him to swallow some rum but he remained inert. Helpless, I watched the day fade as I sat there, prey to melancholy. My hunger had become intolerable. After a while, all I could think of was food. I was ready to devour anything. I did not recall seeing Toine throwing away our rotting flour but neither did I remember spotting it in our cabin. Thinking it inedible, he had probably left it in the galley. Mildewed flour seemed a delicacy now. Without further hesitation, I headed for the galley.
The end of the day had brought no lessening of the tempest. When I poked my head through the trapdoor to the quarterdeck, an enormous wave beat at me. I withdrew and waited for a while before trying again. Nothing on earth could have deterred me. The fourth try proved successful. I carefully closed the door to avoid flooding the lower deck. Hanging on to whatever was within reach, I made my way toward the galley. It took me an incredible amount of time, every moment a further risk of being swept away. When I arrived there, I was in for a cruel disappointment. The cupboards had been ripped open and the interior ransacked. Even the boards on the floor had been torn loose. Traces of struggles everywhere. Blood smeared on the bulkheads. The surviving crewmembers, upon finding Toine’s stash of flour, had battled over it. I drank from our store of rainwater, which relieved my hunger a little. I resumed searching, in the hope that another hidden cache had escaped the looters, but I found nothing beside a little flour left at the bottom of a torn sack. In despair, I made it back to the cabin.
A pistol shot punctuated the noises of the storm. Through the porthole, I saw the last survivors locked in combat for the only remaining lifeboat. It was their ultimate battle for life, and they fought ferociously. A gigantic wave washed over them, carrying men and lifeboat away. The mainmast shattered on the deck with a tremendous sound. At once, the galleon, gathering speed, began to spin.
Although I knew nothing about seafaring, I was convinced the ship was caught in a whirlpool. I went back to the cabin, walking between two gigantic liquid walls. The seam had opened its mouth to swallow us alive. I finally opened the hatch and let myself slide down.
Toine was seated on his bunk. Thank Heaven he was quite alert. In a few words I told him what had happened and described the whirlpool that trapped us.
This last piece of information shook him out of his lethargy.
‘We’ve fallen into the very soul of the cyclone, son. Like The Flying Dutchman. Are you sure there’s no one else on board?’
‘Certain.’
‘Well, then. That’s too bad. We must manage to right the boat, if it’s not too late.’
He stood up and gripped the bunk to steady himself. He’ll never make it up to the deck, I thought.
I had misjudged him. Not only did he make it to the deck but, with some difficulties, the two of us got to the helm in one piece.
A liquid wall enclosed us, and we spun within it at breakneck speed. The watery mass formed millions of circles that reflected the grisly colours of the twilight sky. Toine grasped the tiller but let it go.
‘Too late,’ he said. ‘Even the combined strength of a thousand men wouldn’t suffice to resist the pull.’
The galleon was attracted to the centre of the storm. It spun ever faster and we had to lie on the floor. The centrifugal force became so strong we were pinioned to the deck. As the deck was vertical, we felt as though we were standing at attention to witness our own execution. The sky above us was as wide as the palms of two hands. We were sinking into the depths.
An explosion was followed by a sound like a long sigh. The pressure that kept us up against the deck decreased as the ship rotated more slowly and righted itself, although it continued to list dangerously. The mainmast rolled from one side to the other, smashing everything in its path. Now the ship listed low in the heaving sea.
Toine shouted. ‘We need to pass over the other side. It’s going belly-up, and if we get caught under it we don’t have a chance.’
We clung to ropes, using them to slide down the hull toward the water. Although I didn’t know how to swim, I wasn’t anxious because I felt as if this adventure was happening to someone else. Without Toine by my side, I would have drowned. He held my head above the water. When the mainmast floated within reach, he took hold of it. In a haze, I glimpsed the ship one last time, its keel sticking out of the water.
Then I lost consciousness.
VI
I opened my eyes but didn’t realise where I was. The deafening noise of the sea and the wind, which seemed to be blowing out of Hell, brought back all the ghastly memories.
Total darkness enveloped me as I lay stretched out on the mainmast, the cords that lashed me to it preventing any movement. And Toine. Where was he? I called out to him. The only answer I got was the sound of the wind drowning out my voice. Feeling alone in the middle of nowhere, I wept.
Cold and weakness sent shivers through my body, which vibrated like a violin string. The night dragged on. I was starting to think it would never end when a moon ray pierced the inky sky. It looked like death brandishing a light, but the ashen pillar comforted me all the same.
A storm broke. I opened my mouth wide to quench my thirst. Then the rain abated, the wind subsided and thunder rumbled – an evil omen. A galaxy of stars unfolded above. I was passing into another world, another life. I knew that until my last hour I would never forget this sense of transition.
The darkness that had once again conquered the sky became tattered, and then vanished, and the firmament appeared, filled with stars larger and brighter than those I had seen before.
Delusion sparked odd thoughts. God, tired of monotony, had reshaped the Heavens.
Once more, I lost consciousness.
When I awoke again, I was astonished to be alive and still tied to the mast. The dawn was turning into day, the sea becalmed. I raised my head as much as my restraints allowed it and saw Toine lying at the other end of the mast. He seemed unconscious. I called to him feebly. He did not answer. If only I could draw closer to him. Seawater had swollen my ropes and I could not untie the knots. Now that the dangers of the tempest had receded, I was trapped and did not know how to escape. Cramps and a terrible pain in my back made me suffer. My ribcage had been weighing down on the mast for hours and I could only breathe in gasps.
All around us was a liquid void. The day was growing brighter and, on the horizon, a strange red hue preceded the sun – like blood. It advanced slowly in the sky. I had never seen anything similar and I believed I was hallucinating. But when the sun rose, the same colour speckled its sphere, as though it had sustained an injury. I could not believe my eyes.
An exclamation made me start – Toine was also staring at the strange phenomenon. I called to him. He smiled.
‘I’ve lost my mind, son, or are you seeing the same thing?’
‘I see the same.’ A morbid thought occurred to me. ‘Looks like it’s bleeding–’
‘Oh, shut up!’ he said, cutting me off.
The bloodstained disk continued to rise. The light was taking on a shade of baked brick. The heat had increased. After a struggle, I was able to loosen my ties and went to sit beside Toine, dipping my feet in the water. We did not speak, torn between relief at being alive and superstitious fear inspired by that awkward sight – so contrary to the normal order of things. Heat already gripped us and poked us with hot irons. It became so unbearable we had to dip in the water to cool off. Weakened as we were, this exertion soon fatigued us. The same hopeless void besieged us.
Toward the middle of the day mysterious beasts appeared. Ten metres at least wide, they resembled giant jellyfish or octopuses. Tentacles as thick as tree trunks. Umbrella shells strangely speckled with red – a detail that made them even more repulsive. They swam all over the swelling waves, so numerous the water had become a bloodied sheet spread out to cover the ocean. As soon as we spotted these monsters, we stretched our limbs along the mast, avoiding any contact, ropes retied around our waists. The sun was sinking now. We prepared to face a fearful night.
As the day dwindled, the sea lost its transparency, becoming the colour of rust. We could see only the monsters that broke the surface of the water. They became iridescent in the crimson light in which the gathering dusk wrapped us.
‘It must be a reflection of that damned sun,’ Toine said.
Nevertheless, when the bleeding sun had sunken into the depths, the beasts continued to glow with a phosphorescent red under those unfamiliar stars.
Toine made a brave attempt to speak of the tiny noctiluca and protozoa that abound in the sea. ‘When the sea is rough, they seem phosphorescent.’ But this explanation could not account for the red hue that had enveloped us since dawn.
‘Son, I’ve never seen anything like this before. It’s like another world.’
We didn’t dare to fall asleep. The sea had become oil. The sky bore unseen depths, and a fearsome silence hung over us. Our mast remained still.
Something malefic hovered in the air, without a name but palpable. A dimensionless cavern was swallowing me alive, its vaults riddled with shining worms vitrified in death by their own lights.
The aquatic monsters continued breaking the surface of the water without the faintest sound.
‘Are we deaf?’ I asked.
‘No, son,’ he said in perplexed tones, ‘given that we can hear each other.’
Asking no more questions, I gave in to the torpor that possessed me.
‘Look, son. It’s starting all over again.’
Toine had crawled closer and was gently shaking me. I opened my eyes to his ravaged face, which looked like an old apple long forgotten in a barn. Only his eyes shone with extraordinary brightness.
I resented him for rousing me from a sleep that had banished thirst, hunger and fear. Now my belly felt painfully constricted. It was my sole preoccupation. I shot a distracted glance at the phenomenon that reddened everything. In my weakened state, thousands of golden dots danced before my eyes. The sight of all that undrinkable water only worsened my thirst.
Toine said, ‘Listen, son. Try moistening your lips with some seawater, but be careful not to swallow any.’
I followed his advice but could not help but swallow a mouthful. I was expecting a terrible burning sensation but the water was as sweet and fresh as any spring water. I dipped my face in it. Yesterday’s monsters had disappeared.
Toine gazed at me with a sad face. Of course, he thought I had gone mad. After watching me cup my hands and drink repeatedly, he succumbed and did likewise. To his astonishment, he quelled his thirst.
‘How is it possible?’ I cried.
He shrugged. ‘Oh, this at least can be explained. Sometimes, a big river enters the sea and pushes its waters far into it. But I don’t know about all the other odd things. No, son. I’ve travelled all the seas in my goddamned life and I’ve never seen anything like this.’
During the day, we managed to capture an octopus. The beast was a metre in diameter. Several times we were forced to follow it into the water. Cutting his sack open turned out to
be very hard, and when we finally succeeded, a black ink splattered us. When at last it lay still, we shared its rubbery flesh. To our famished stomachs, that filthy meal was a banquet. We recovered some of our strength, to say nothing of our shaken spirits.
The heat, as unbearable as before, produced mirages. Mountains appeared before us, then beaches. Boats approached. The first mirage did not disappear as quickly as the others. It persisted on the horizon – a disquieting sight. It was a formidable mountainous chain of volcanic origin, red and rising against the sky like the Tower of Babel. We expected to see it disappear, but at the end of the day it was still there. Hope formed in our hearts. Then our joy burst forth. Land. We were going to set foot on land. We wept like children.
A gentle current pushed us toward these mountains. As we drew closer, they looked like an infinite rocky wall. The effect was overpowering. Oppressive.
‘If only we could find something to eat there,’ said Toine. ‘I haven’t seen one bird flying around.’
‘We can always fish.’
‘Right,’ Toine said with a touch of reluctance.
As we arrived near the shore, evening came. For me the night promised to be euphoric. I hadn’t felt so light-hearted in a long time. Toine, on the other hand, kept muttering, ‘A world upside down. Yes. It’s a world upside down.’
I even had the impression that for the first time since I had met him, the old sea wolf was praying.
Part Two
VII
For the third time, scarlet light announced the rising sun. Our mast chose this moment to bring us ashore along a coast of small coves. A beach of rusty sand hemmed a tiny bay hacked into crumbly rocks. I was the first to set foot on land. I have no words to describe the joy I felt in finding myself on solid ground. I jumped, sang, laughed. As for Toine, he did not share my enthusiasm. He even wore a funereal face.
The Weird: A Compendium of Strange and Dark Stories Page 82