by Tim Severin
‘Thank God you’re safe,’ said Maria hugging him. She was half crying with relief.
‘We must wait for Jezreel,’ Hector told her. He looked about him. The scene of devastation came as a physical shock. Inside the prison there had been no way of knowing what was going on outside. The prison lay at the eastern, poorer end of town, and possibly two-thirds of the houses had collapsed. Their brick and plaster walls had fallen into the roadway, their roofs caved in. The houses that still stood were the humbler structures lightly built of wood, though several of these were askew and looked dangerously unstable. In several places the ground had split into jagged, random cracks, several feet across. Several large holes had appeared, as if the surface had suddenly fallen into underground caves. There were surprisingly few people about. Most were standing in shock, though a few were clawing at the rubble and fallen stone, trying to get back into their shattered houses. Whether they were searching for their families or merely to recover their possessions, was impossible to tell.
It was when he turned and looked in the opposite direction that Hector understood the full force of the tremor. The building adjacent to the Marshalsea was the courthouse. It had been designed to look imposing, with tall windows, a broad flight of steps leading to a door flanked by columns, and faced in imported stone. It was a total ruin. Beams and rafters stuck out of piles of rubble.
‘Looks as though we won’t be standing trial in there, at least for a while,’ said Jezreel. He, Jacques and Bartaboa had finally emerged from the prison. Behind them were five or six men, fellow prisoners. These were looking about themselves with a mixture of disbelief and optimism.
‘Come on!’ one of them muttered to his companion. ‘Let’s get out of here.’ The two of them scurried away.
Bartaboa was distraught. ‘I must go to see how my family are.’
‘Your family?’ said Jacques.
‘My sister and her children live above the Three Mariners.’
‘We’ll go with you in case you need a hand,’ said Jezreel.
The little group set off past the wrecked courthouse and turned out on the waterfront. They had not gone more than a few paces when they stopped short, unable to believe their eyes. It was Hector who first voiced what all of them could scarcely credit.
‘The sea! Where’s it gone?’ All along the docks, the water level had dropped far below anything that was natural. Vessels normally tied up with their decks above or level with the quayside, were now sunk almost out of sight. Gangplanks which had once sloped downward from the ships to the dock were now tilted the other way.
‘What’s going on?’ murmured Jacques in awe.
As they watched, the row of ships continued to sink downward. Gangplanks clattered and slipped. Mooring lines grew taut and snapped, or wrenched the bollards from the quays. The sea was disappearing beneath them, sucking backwards, recoiling from the land.
Suddenly there was a slithering, grinding crash, and a large section of the parapet of Fort Carlisle, the nearest harbour bastion, broke away and fell, landing into water now less than a foot deep, where once an ocean-going ship had been able to moor.
‘What makes the tide do that?’ asked Jacques.
‘That’s not the tide, but something else,’ said Hector. Puzzled, he was staring up at the outer wall of the fort. It appeared to be leaning outwards and at the same time sinking downwards. He dragged his attention back to the harbour. The water had ebbed so far that they were beginning to see patches of stinking mud, slime-covered boulders, the blackened ribs of old wrecks. Farther out, from where the merchant ships were at anchor, came shouts and cries of fear. The ships were grounding, touching the bottom with their keels. There was not enough water to keep them afloat. Their crews were scrambling to abandon their vessels or keep their footing on sloping decks. Several of the vessels began to heel over on their sides.
‘I’ve never seen anything like it,’ breathed Jezreel.
They stood transfixed, unable to comprehend what was going on. Before their eyes, fish wriggled and flapped in the damp mud, stranded by the receding water. Gulls and cormorants came wheeling down from the sky, calling and shrieking, to pick up easy meals. There was something uncanny and frightening about their gleeful bursts of gluttony in a harbour that was draining away and vanishing. All along the quay astonished observers stood and gaped at the sight. It was so extraordinary that even those who were salvaging goods from a shattered warehouse turned and watched.
Through the soles of his feet Hector felt a distant trembling. It was a very faint shivering. Something made him look at Fort Carlisle again. This time there was no doubt. The seaward wall of the fort was definitely leaning at an angle. The massive rampart, made of stone blocks weighing several tons, was tilting towards the sea as if the foundations had been undermined. Yet there was no water to gnaw away the foundations.
The vibration underfoot increased and, before his eyes, the massive structure of the fort began to slide slowly and unstoppably into the empty harbour. It was an appalling yet majestic sight.
He seized Maria by the arm. ‘We must find a refuge, a sanctuary, before the water returns,’ he blurted.
‘What do you mean?’ asked Jacques, his voice sharp with alarm.
‘I’ve a feeling that the sea will come flooding back. And I fear the consequences.’
‘First I have to save my family,’ insisted Bartaboa. He began to run, heading full pelt along the quay towards the ferry landing. The Three Mariners stood nearby. Hector and the others followed.
As they ran, the shivering of the ground grew stronger. It was accompanied by a low vibrating hum, which seemed to rise up into the bones. It was difficult to keep on a straight line and not weave from side to side. They were like drunkards in a tipsy foot race. An entire section of the quay ahead of them slid sideways, breaking away from the road. Sailors, longshoremen, potboys, serving women, who had already scuttled out from the buildings fearing their collapse, now looked about them in alarm. A nearby warehouse, a rope store, dropped downwards as if the ground had opened up beneath it. Farther along the waterfront two buildings tipped forward. A stack of large barrels which had somehow survived the initial shock disintegrated. The hogsheads tumbled, then rolled in all directions.
The trembling continued.
They ran on desperately and reached the Three Mariners only twenty paces behind Bartaboa. He dashed inside, calling for his family. They heard his voice, deep within the building, shouting frantically. Then, without warning, the entire tavern fell in on itself, burying everyone who was inside.
They pulled up short, out of breath and horrified. Jezreel was about to continue towards the ruined tavern when Hector shouted at him to go no farther. ‘There’s nothing you can do. There’s worse to come. Remember what happened when the hurricane hit us in Campeche.’
Hector turned to face the others and explain. ‘The sea ebbed away, and then came back over the land in a terrible flood that nearly drowned us. I fear that is about to happen here, only far worse. We have to get somewhere high enough to be safe when the sea returns.’
‘We should take refuge in one of the forts,’ suggested Jacques.
‘The forts aren’t safe,’ Hector told him. ‘You saw how Fort Carlisle fell, so can the others.’
‘I still don’t understand why it collapsed,’ insisted Jacques.
‘Nor do I,’ Hector admitted, ‘but we must leave the waterfront. It is too exposed.’
Cautiously they made their way into the town and along the High Street. Here they saw the first looters. A gang of toughs was scrabbling through the wreckage of a jeweller’s shop. The passers-by ignored them. Most of the townsfolk had glazed looks on their faces as they wandered aimlessly or stood in the middle of the street, well clear of the standing buildings. Women clutched their children to them, and on one corner a number of injured had been laid out on the ground and a black-clad surgeon was attending to their wounds. Most of the injuries seemed to be head wounds and broken limbs.
Hector racked his brains, trying to make sense of what was happening. He was beginning to detect a pattern in the trail of destruction. The waterfront had suffered the worst, and the poorer part of town. By contrast, fewer of the buildings near the central marketplace were damaged. There had to be a reason for the difference. But there was no time to stop and think. He was sure that the worst of the calamity was yet to come. The surface of the ground was still vibrating. It put him in mind of a great beast gently twitching its skin, as it prepared to rid itself of biting insects with a major spasm. Sooner or later that paroxysm would occur.
They were halfway along Main Street when the next strong tremor came. The ground shook violently, and several buildings on the side closer to the harbour began to disintegrate. Tiles slid off their roofs and thumped to the sandy ground. Their upper floors began to sway. A three-storey building which had a bakery on the ground floor collapsed in on itself. Hector felt a jelly-like sensation on the spot where he was standing. He looked down and saw a faint ripple disturb the surface of the ground. Water oozed to the surface as if squeezed from the depths. Before his eyes the ground on which Port Royal was built was turning to a substance like thick gruel. In a moment of gallows humour he wished that the Reverend Watson was still with them. The pastor would have appreciated the biblical explanation for the disaster destroying the city.
‘A house built on sand will not stand,’ Hector quoted out loud.
His companions gaped at him.
‘Port Royal is built on sand,’ he shouted at them. He understood now. ‘The sand under the foundations has become soggy and unstable. It slips away from underneath the city each time the earth shakes.’
‘How can the sand be wet when the sea is retreating?’ asked Jacques.
‘I don’t know. Maybe it has become saturated deep down, over the years.’
‘So what are we to do?’ asked Maria.
‘Go where there is rock, not sand, beneath us,’ he answered.
All of a sudden an image came into his mind: on a seaman’s chart the city appeared as a long thin curve extending out from the land. The curve finished in a hook on its seaward end. Strip away the buildings, and any mariner would recognize it as the outline of a reef seen from above.
‘Port Royal stands on the spine of a reef. We have to go where the reef is made of strong coral, not weak sand.’
Jacques frowned. ‘How do we know where that coral is? We haven’t got time to dig down and find out.’
Hector was very clear in his own mind now. ‘Remember the Vipers, and where we found the first salvage from the Spanish wreck? Downwind and downcurrent. That’s where the sand builds up, in the lee of a reef. Under Port Royal it should be no different. The coral will be on the side which faces the prevailing wind.’
He started to lead them away from the High Street, down Tower Street that led to the south shore. ‘The windward side of Port Royal is in this direction.’
Jacques was looking doubtful. ‘Surely that puts us into danger. When the sea comes rushing back in, we’ll be swept away.’
‘We must find somewhere that is higher up, but also strong and well protected.’ Even as he said it, Hector wondered if that would be possible.
Unexpectedly Maria spoke up. ‘There is a place. I was there on Sunday morning after church service. It’s right on the shoreline but quite high, and very strongly built.’
‘We have to hurry!’ said Hector.
‘It’s no distance – a high stone platform built for guns, called Morgan’s Line.’
They set off at a run and turning a corner they saw the fortification. About fifteen feet high it was solidly built from sizeable blocks of cut stone. On the flat top stood a row of heavy cannon, their muzzles jutting through the embrasures of a parapet on the seaward side. There was no sign of a guard or any artillerymen. They must have gone to either their barracks or their homes, or perhaps to loot. Morgan’s Line was deserted.
They climbed the stone steps to the top of the platform and Jezreel walked over and looked out through one of the embrasures in the parapet. ‘Hector, I hope you’re right in thinking that this is the place to be.’
Hector joined him at the embrasure. They could scarcely be closer to the shore. The high-tide mark was no more than ten paces from the base of the gun platform. Farther out was the same extraordinary sight that they had witnessed at the harbour. The sea had gone. It had retreated for at least a mile, leaving behind a dreary expanse of rounded boulders and hummocks of worn coral divided by narrow channels.
‘When is the sea going to return?’ asked Maria wonderingly. She had come up to stand at Hector’s shoulder, looking out at the eerie sight.
‘It’s returning already,’ said Jezreel quietly. There was awe in his voice, and fear.
Far, far out a thin white line extended right across the horizon. For a little while the line appeared to be stationary, but soon it became obvious that the line was advancing towards them. In another minute it was close enough to be revealed as a wall of water surging forward.
‘Oh my God!’ breathed Maria. Her eyes were wide with shock. Hector threw an arm around her. ‘When the wave strikes, shelter behind a battlement and hang on as hard as you can. Remember that the backwash may be as dangerous as the first onslaught,’ he said.
The wave appeared to accelerate. It was moving as fast as a horse could gallop, and growing taller. Where once it had been less than the height of a man, now it was double or treble that height. It was roiling and tumbling forward on itself, the leading edge smashing down on the coral shelf in a welter of foam, only for another wall of water to rear up and rush forward.
Maria stood, transfixed. ‘Get behind a battlement!’ yelled Hector and dragged her into shelter just as the giant wave roared up the foreshore and struck the base of Morgan’s Line.
A dirty white curtain of foam, spray, debris and solid water climbed the face of the battery and rose high above their heads. Then it toppled forward and came crashing down on them. They cowered, feeling the whole gun platform shake. A moment later the water was swirling around their feet and legs, threatening to sweep them away. They grabbed for the nearest cannon and clung on as the water plucked and pushed at them. Then the tidal wave reversed direction and began draining away almost as fast as it had arrived.
‘It didn’t overtop the battery!’ crowed Jacques, standing up. His shirt and breeches were soaking wet. He looked as if he had been thrown bodily into the ocean. They noticed a strange sound, a roaring, swirling noise like a great river in flood. They moved across to the landward side of the platform and looked down. The sea was pouring steadily into the town. Three or four feet deep it was swirling along the street, carrying everything before it. No longer the clean blue of the sea, the flood water was a dirty brown, stained with sand and slime, and covered with dingy scum.
Hector was staring across the town, towards the harbour. ‘Something terrible has happened,’ he said. It was difficult to be certain but Port Royal in that direction seemed different. The city skyline had changed. He could no longer make out the roofs of the taller buildings near the harbour. The great warehouses were gone. He remembered the bell tower of a church but it had disappeared. Oddest of all were the masts of several ships. They seemed to be much closer than before, almost as though they protruded from the houses.
The gun platform heaved up under their feet as another earth tremor struck. The surface of the flood below them leapt and pulsated in thousands of short, steep waves which slowly subsided.
‘This can’t go on! It feels like the end of the world!’ gasped Jacques.
They waited fearfully, silently counting the minutes, expecting another after-shock. But instead there was an uncanny stillness as if the earth had expended all its energy and lay exhausted. Very slowly the flood water began to recede.
‘We should go down and see if we can help out in the town,’ said Maria.
Hector shook his head. ‘We must wait a little longer. I think the
earthquake has disturbed the sea floor. It’s like a basin of water which has been shaken. The ripples slop back and forth until they settle.’
Scarcely had he spoken than the sea began to rise again. This time there was no wall of water suddenly crashing across the foreshore, but a steep swell that heaved in from the sea. The flood water in the street rose again.
It was mid-afternoon, three hours later, when they finally decided it was safe enough to leave the safety of the gun platform. By then they were hungry and fiercely thirsty. In search of something to eat they made their way down the steps of the gun platform and waded through water that came up to their knees. They found that the nearest houses had survived remarkably well. Many had cracks in their walls and ugly gaps where the plaster had fallen away. Window frames were out of true, and what glass remained was nearly always shattered. But as structures they were still intact. Householders who had taken refuge on the upper floors were emerging from their front doors. They treated Hector and his companions to suspicious glances, fearing them to be looters. Some ostentatiously fingered pistols and blunderbusses until they considered the danger past. Then they returned to taking stock of the damage or comparing stories of their woes. A few set their slaves and servants to the dreary task of salvaging furniture that had been inundated.
Crossing York Street, Maria caught sight of Captain Blackmore. He had managed to obtain a small dug-out canoe from somewhere and with the help of a servant was pulling it along. His three children were riding in the canoe and looking about themselves in wonder. Maria drew back into a doorway and waited until they were out of sight.
Hector had noticed her reaction. ‘Who were they?’ he asked.
‘The children I was teaching Spanish to, and their father,’ she replied.
