Pierced by five saber wounds, Huggins staggered toward Dorsett, a large splintered board in an upraised hand. “You bloody traitor!” he hissed.
Dorsett hunched and held the knife out in front of his body. “Step forward and die,” he said calmly.
Infuriated, Huggins yelled back. “It is you who will feed the sharks, highwayman!” Then he put his head down and charged, swinging the board like a scythe.
At the instant Huggins lunged at him, Dorsett dropped to his hands and knees. Unable to check his momentum, the enraged Welshman stumbled over him and fell, crashing heavily to the deck. Before he could raise himself up, Dorsett had leaped on the immense back, reversed the knife in his hand and slashed Huggins’ throat.
“You’ll not be dining on the ladies this night,” Dorsett said fiercely as Huggins’ body stiffened before going limp in death.
Dorsett killed three more men that fateful night. At one stage of the battle he was assaulted by a small group of Huggins’ followers who were set on ravaging the women. Foot to foot, man to man, they struggled and labored to murder each other.
Betsy appeared and fought at his side, screaming like a banshee and clawing at Dorsett’s enemies like a tiger. Dorsett’s only wound came from a man who gave out a fiendish yell before biting him cruelly in the shoulder.
The bloody brawl raged on for another two hours. Scaggs and his seamen, Sheppard and his infantrymen, fought desperately, beating off every assault and then counterattacking. Again and again the mad rush was pushed back by the ever-thinning ranks of the defenders who desperately clung to the center of the raft. Sheppard went down, garroted by two convicts. Ramsey suffered severe contusions and Scaggs had two ribs broken. Sadly, the convicts had managed to kill two of the women and toss them overboard during the melee. Then at last, having been decimated with dreadful casualties, one by one, two by two, the mutineers began ebbing back to the outer perimeter of the raft.
By daylight the dead were seen sprawling grotesquely around on the raft. The stage was set for the next hideous act of the macabre drama. As the surviving sailors and soldiers looked on incredulously, the convicts began cutting up and devouring their former comrades. It was a scene out of a nightmare.
Ramsey made a rough count of the remaining survivors and was shocked to see that only 78 out of the 231 were still alive. In the senseless battle, 109 convicts had perished. Five of Sheppard’s soldiers had vanished, presumably thrown overboard, and Ramsey counted 12 of the Gladiator’s crewmen dead or missing. It seemed inconceivable that so few could have subdued so many, but the convicts were not trained for combat as were Sheppard’s infantrymen, or as physically toughened by hard work at sea as Scaggs’ crew.
The raft rode noticeably higher in the water now that its passenger list was sharply scaled down by 126 or so. Those parts of the corpses not eaten by the mob, crazed by the agony of hunger, were thrown to the waiting sharks. Unable to stop them, Scaggs restrained his revulsion and looked the other way as his crewmen, also maddened by the demands of shrinking stomachs, began cutting the flesh from three of the bodies.
Dorsett and Betsy and most of the other women, though weakened by the relentless torment of starvation, could not bring themselves to survive on the flesh of others. A rain squall came up in the afternoon and slaked their thirst, but the hunger pangs never let up.
Ramsey came over and spoke to Dorsett. “The captain would like a word with you.”
The highwayman accompanied the first officer to where Scaggs was lying, his back against the aft mast. Surgeon-Superintendent Gorman was binding up the captain’s rib cage with a torn shirt. Before the dead were rolled into the sea, the ship’s surgeon stripped the bodies of their clothes to use as bandages. Scaggs looked up at Dorsett, his face taut with pain.
“I want to thank you, Mr. Dorsett, for your timely warning. I daresay the honest people who are still left on this hellish vessel owe their lives to you.”
“I’ve led a wicked life, Captain, but I don’t mingle with foul-smelling rabble.”
“When we reach New South Wales, I’ll do my best to persuade the governor to commute your sentence.”
“I’m grateful to you, Captain. I’m under your orders.”
Scaggs stared at the small knife that was shoved into Dorsett’s belt-sash. “Is that your only weapon?”
“Yes, sir. It performed admirably last night.”
“Give him a spare saber,” Scaggs said to Ramsey. “We’re not through with those dogs yet.”
“I agree,” said Dorsett. “They’ll not have the same fury without Jake Huggins to lead them, but they’re too unhinged by thirst to give up. They’ll try again after dark.”
His words were prophetic. For reasons known only to men deranged by lack of food and water, the convicts assaulted the defenders two hours after the sunset. The attack was not as fierce as the night before. Wraithlike figures reeled against each other, recklessly clubbing and slashing, the bodies of convicts, sailors and soldiers intermingling as they fell.
The convicts’ resolve had been weakened by another day on the raft without food or drink, and their resistance suddenly faded and broke as the defenders counterattacked. The enfeebled convicts stopped and then stumbled back. Scaggs and his faithful seamen smashed into their center as Dorsett, along with Sheppard’s few remaining infantrymen, struck from the flank. In another twenty minutes it was all over.
Fifty-two died that night. With the dawn, only twenty-five men and three women were left, out of the seventy-eight from the night before sixteen convicts, including Jess Dorsett, Betsy Fletcher and two other women; two soldiers and ten of the Gladiator’s crew, including Captain Scaggs. First Officer Ramsey was among the dead. Surgeon-Superintendent Gorman was mortally wounded and passed on later that afternoon like a lamp that slowly runs out of oil. Dorsett had received a nasty gash in his right thigh, and Scaggs had suffered a broken collarbone to add to his broken ribs. Amazingly, Betsy had emerged with only minor bruises and cuts.
The convicts were thoroughly beaten; there wasn’t one who didn’t suffer from ugly wounds. The insane battle for the raft of the Gladiator was over.
By the tenth day of their grisly ordeal, another six had died. Two young lads, a cabin boy no more than twelve and a sixteen-year-old soldier, decided to seek death by throwing themselves into the sea. The other four were convicts who perished from their wounds. It was as if the rapidly dwindling number of survivors were watching a terrifying vision. The sun’s blazing torment returned like a burning fever accompanied by delirium.
On day twelve they were down to eighteen. Those who could still move were in rags, their bodies covered with wounds from the massacre, faces disfigured by the burning sun, skin covered with sores from scraping against the constantly moving planking and immersion in saltwater. They were far beyond despondency, and their hollow eyes began to see visions. Two seamen swore they saw the Gladiator, dove off the raft and swam toward the imaginary ship until they went under or were taken by the ever present Executioner and his voracious friends.
Hallucinations conjured up every image from banquet tables laden with food and drink, to populated cities or homes none had visited since childhood. Scaggs fancied he was sitting in front of a fireplace with his wife and children in his cottage overlooking the harbor at Aberdeen.
He suddenly stared at Dorsett through strange eyes and said, “We have nothing to fear. I have signaled the Admiralty and they have sent a rescue ship.”
In as much of a stupor as the captain, Betsy asked him, “Which pigeon did you use to send your message, the black or the gray?”
Dorsett’s cracked and peeling lips curled in a painful smile. Amazingly, he had managed to keep his wits and had assisted the few seamen who could still move about in repairing damage to the raft. He found a few scraps of canvas and erected a small awning over Scaggs while Betsy tended to the captain’s injuries and showed him the kindest attention. The sea captain, the highwayman and the thief struck up a friendship as th
e long hours dragged on.
His navigational instruments having been lost over the side during the fighting, Scaggs had no idea of their position. He ordered his men to make an attempt at catching fish using twine and nails for hooks. Bait was human flesh. The smaller fish completely ignored the offer of free food. Surprisingly, even the sharks failed to show an interest.
Dorsett tied a rope to the hilt of a saber and thrust it into the back of a large shark that swam close to the raft. Lacking his former strength to fight the monster of the deep, he wrapped the free end of the rope around a mast. Then he waited for the shark to die before dragging it on board. His only reward was an empty saber blade that was bent into a ninety-degree angle. Two sailors tried attaching bayonets to poles as spears. They punctured several sharks that did not seem at all disturbed by their wounds.
They had given up attempting to catch a meal when later that afternoon a large school of mullet passed under the raft. Between one and three feet long, they proved far easier to spear and throw on the deck of the raft than the sharks. Before the school swam past, seven cigar shaped bodies with forked tails were flopping on the waterlogged planks.
“God hasn’t forsaken us,” mumbled Scaggs, staring at the silvery fish. “Mullet usually inhabit shallow seas. I’ve never seen them in deep water.”
“It’s as though he sent them directly to us,” murmured Betsy, her eyes wide at the sight of her first meal in nearly two weeks.
Their hunger was so great and the number of fish so meager that they added the flesh of a woman who had died only an hour before. It was the first time Scaggs, Dorsett and Betsy had touched human flesh. Somehow eating one of their own seemed oddly justified when mixed with the fish. And since the taste was partially disguised it also seemed less disgusting.
Another gift arrived with a rain squall that took nearly an hour to pass over and provided them with a catch of two gallons of water.
Despite having their strength temporarily renewed, despondency was still painted on their faces. The wounds and contusions, irritated by the saltwater, caused unending agony. And there was still the sun, which continued to torture them. The air was stifling and the heat intolerable. The nights brought relief and cooler temperatures. But some of the raft’s passengers could not endure the misery of one more day. Another five, four convicts and the last soldier, quietly slipped into the sea and perished quickly.
By the fifteenth day, only Scaggs, Dorsett, Betsy Fletcher, three sailors and four convicts, one a woman, were left alive. They were beyond caring. Death seemed unavoidable. The spark of self-preservation had all but gone out. The mullet was long gone, and although those who died had sustained the living, the lack of water and the torrid heat made it impossible to hold out for more than another forty-eight hours before the raft would float empty of life.
Then an event occurred that diverted attention from the unspeakable horrors of the past two weeks. A large greenish-brown bird suddenly appeared out of the sky, circled the raft three times and then lit with a flutter on a yardarm of the forward mast. It stared down through yellow eyes with beady black pupils at the pathetic humans on the raft, their clothes in shreds, limbs and faces scarred from combat and the scorching rays of the sun. The thought of trying to snare the bird for food instantly flooded everyone’s mind.
“What kind of strange bird is that?” Betsy asked, her tongue so swollen her voice was like a whisper.
“It’s a kea,” Scaggs murmured. “One of my former officers kept one.”
“Do they fly over the oceans like gulls?” asked Dorsett.
“No, they’re a species of parrot that lives on New Zealand and the surrounding islands. I never heard of one flying over water unless ...” Scaggs paused. “Unless it’s another message from the Almighty.” His eyes took on a distant look as he painfully rose to his feet and peered at the horizon. “Land!” he exclaimed with joy. “Land to the west of us.”
Unnoticed in their apathy and lethargy until now, the raft was being pushed by the swells toward a pair of green mounds rising from the sea no more than ten miles distant. Everyone turned their eyes westward and saw a large island with two low mountains, one on each end, and a forest of trees between. For a long moment no one spoke, each suspended in expectation but fixed with a fear that they might be swept by the currents around their salvation. Almost all the haggard survivors struggled to their knees and prayed to be delivered on the beckoning shore.
Another hour passed before Scaggs determined that the island was growing larger. “The current is pushing us toward it,” he announced gleefully. “It’s a miracle, a bloody miracle. I know of no island on any chart in this part of the sea.”
“Probably uninhabited,” guessed Dorsett.
“How beautiful,” Betsy murmured, staring at the lush green forest separating the two mounts. “I hope it has pools of cool water.”
The unexpected promise of continued life revived what little strength they had left and inspired them to take action. Any desire of trapping the parrot for dinner quickly vanished. The feathered messenger was considered a good omen. Scaggs and his few seamen set a sail made from the tattered awning, while Dorsett and the remaining convicts tore up planks and feverishly used them as paddles. Then, as if to guide them, the parrot took wing and flew back toward the island.
The landmass rose and spread across the western horizon, drawing them like a magnet. They rowed like madmen, determined their sufferings should come to an end.
A breeze sprang up from behind, pushing them ever faster toward sanctuary, adding to their delirium of hope. There would be no more waiting for death with resignation. Deliverance was down to less than three miles away.
With the last of his strength, one of the sailors climbed the mast shrouds to a yardarm. Shielding his eyes from the sun, he squinted over the sea.
“What do you make of the shoreline?” demanded Scaggs.
“Looks like we’re coming to a coral reef surrounding a lagoon.”
Scaggs turned to Dorsett and Fletcher. “If we can’t make entry through a channel, the breakers will pile us up on the reef.”
Thirty minutes later, the sailor on the mast called out. “I see a blue-water passage through the outer reef two hundred yards off to starboard.”
“Rig a rudder!” Scaggs ordered his few crewmen. “Quickly!” Then he turned to the convicts. “Every man and woman who has the brawn, grab a plank and paddle for your life.”
A dreadful fear appeared with the crashing of breakers onto the outer reef. The waves struck and burst in an explosion of pure white foam. The boom of water crashing into coral came like the thunder of cannon. The waves grew to a mountainous height as the seafloor rose when they neared land. Terror replaced desperation as the occupants of the raft envisioned the destruction that would occur if they were dashed against the reef by the crushing force of the breakers.
Scaggs took the jury-rigged tiller under one arm and steered toward the channel as his sailors worked the tattered sail. The convicts, looking like ragged scarecrows, paddled ineffectually. Their feeble efforts did very little to propel the raft. Only with everyone paddling on the same side at the same time, as Scaggs ordered, could they assist him in steering for the channel.
The raft was overtaken by a wall of churning froth that swept it forward at a terrible speed. For one brief moment it was elevated on the crest, the next it plunged into the trough. Two of the male convicts were swept into the blue-green turbulence and never seen again. The seaworn raft was breaking up. The ropes, chafed and stretched by the constant rolling of the sea, began to fray and part. The framework of masts that supported the deck planking twisted and began splitting. The raft groaned when inundated by the following wave. To Dorsett, the immovable coral reef looked close enough to reach out and touch.
And then they were swept into the channel between the jagged edges of the reef. The surge carried them through, the raft spinning around, pieces of it whirling into the sun-sparkled sea like a Roman candle. As
the main frame of the raft disintegrated around them, the survivors were thrown into the water.
Once past the barrier reef the blue, contorted sea became as gentle as a mountain lake and turned a bright turquoise. Dorsett came up choking, one arm locked around Betsy’s waist.
“Can you swim?” he coughed.
She shook her head violently, sputtering out the seawater she’d swallowed. “Not a stroke.”
He pulled her along as he swam toward one of the raft’s masts, which was floating less than ten feet away. He soon reached it and draped Betsy’s arms over the curved surface. He hung on beside her, gasping for breath, heart pounding, his weakened body exhausted from the exertion of the last hour. After taking a minute or two to recover, Dorsett looked about the floating wreckage and took count.
Scaggs and two of his sailors were a short distance away and still among the living, climbing aboard a small section of planking that was miraculously still tied together. Already they were ripping off boards to use as paddies. Of the convicts, he spotted two men and the woman floating in the water, clinging to various bits and pieces of what remained of the raft of the Gladiator.
Dorsett turned and looked toward the shore. A beautiful white sandy beach beckoned less than a quarter of a mile away. Then he heard a nearby shout.
“You and Betsy hang on,” Scaggs hailed him. “We’ll pick you and the others up and then work toward shore.”
Dorsett waved in reply and gave Betsy a kiss on the forehead. “Mind you don’t let me down now, old girl. We’ll be walking dry land in half an hour—”
He broke off in sudden panic, his joy short lived.
The tall fin of a great white shark was circling the wreckage in search of new prey. The Executioner had followed them into the lagoon.
It wasn’t fair, Dorsett screamed inside his mind. To have endured suffering beyond imagination only to have salvation snatched from their fingertips by the jaws of death was a foul injustice. Few were the men and women to have been more unfortunate. He clutched Betsy tightly in his arms and watched with morbid terror as the fin stopped circling, headed in their direction and slowly slipped beneath the surface. His heart froze as he waited helplessly for the jagged teeth to snap shut on his body.
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