(1/3) Go Saddle the Sea

by Joan Aiken

  Having tied up his arm, the captain came on again—I had to admire his courage—and landed a vigorous blow on the head of Shaemus, who, shaking his head as if a bee had stung it, growling with fury, now picked up the smaller man bodily, and, bellowing, "We shall see now, Ferdia, who can leap the farthest!" he bounded like a stag into the air.

  The ship, under the handling of Matthieu, who, it was plain, was by no means so skillful a helmsman as the captain, had been slewing nervously from side to side like a balky horse, and at this moment she chanced to give a particularly violent, shuddering heave to starboard, as she staggered between two fierce gusts of wind. The result was that both combatants, still grappled together, were hurled headlong over the rail into the crisscross waves, and both disappeared from view without a sound or a cry.

  "Diable!" said the captain, and flung a rope toward the spot where the men had sunk. But no hand came up to seize it. No sign of a living form could be seen.

  Now the Doctor, for the first time since the start of this strange duel, showed signs of concern.

  "Put the helm about!" he called sharply to Matthieu, and, to the captain, "Lower, the boat!"

  "In this wind? In this sea? Impossible," said the captain shortly, leaping back to take the helm, for the ship was falling away from the wind, and seemed in near danger of capsizing. "We'd lose the vessel and all of us would drown, not just those two fools."

  "How shall I do my work without Jaca?"

  "Train another helper," growled the captain. "I'll miss that mad Shaemus, too—he was a handy sailor. But I rate the ship above men's lives."

  "Jaca was no common sailor; he had many skills!"

  "He was also a murderer and a dangerous hothead. Why did he have to fight that drunken Irishman? Now we are two men short and shall be in a bad way if the weather worsens. Got back to your slumbers, Doctor, and leave the management of the ship to me."

  Muttering angrily to himself to the effect that the Irishman had blood on his head and was no loss but that Jaca was irreplaceable, the Doctor went below. The captain, in an equally bad humor, summoned old Luc to bind up his arm more firmly, and then shouted to Matthieu and Abdullah to reef the topsails.

  By now day had come, but the light brought little cheer; for the skies were low and thick, the sea evil and crpased-looking, while the wind came in wilder and wilder gusts, causing the mast to bend like a blade of grass. Although, as Sam had prophesied, my queasiness had diminished, and I no longer had the urge to vomit after every lurch of the ship, I was not at all happy in my mind at the captain's curt words "If the weather should worsen." How much worse than this could it grow? I wondered to myself.

  By now, too, there seemed a sense of brooding depression about the Guipuzcoa, which was understandable enough. Two men had been lost in an outbreak of stupid, wasteful violence: What did this portend?

  We went into the caboose, for a little shelter from the incessant tugging of the wind, and found old Luc muttering to himself, "The Estadea are angry with us; yes, they are angry!"

  "Good morning, old father," Sam said to Luc. "Can you give us a mouthful of breakfast?"

  "All I can give you is dry bread," grumbled the cook. "That mad pig of an Irishman came and finished off the potaje while I was asleep in the early watch. Much good it has done him! What a waste of good soup! Now he has taken it to the bottom of the sea.—You are a friend of the Estadea, young lord, and I think they are looking after you," he said to me, breaking me off a piece from a great round loaf. "Can't you please tell them to leave me alone, at least? I am a poor old man who only does what he is told and means no harm to anybody."

  The captain at that moment bellowing that he was hungry, and where was his breakfast?, Luc picked up the rest of the loaf and went out.

  "What did he mean?" Sammy asked me in a low voice. "Why does he think you are a friend of the spirits?"

  "Because I was reading my book in here, and he thought it must be some book of wizardry."

  I did not tell Sam the rest of the dark and frightening thought that had possessed my mind. I had poured most of the contents of that flask into the soup. Shaemus had drunk it, thus getting the draught that was meant for me. He was a grown man, of large stature; perhaps the draught that would have stupefied me had merely made him wild. By my deed I might have saved myself, but I had robbed two men of their lives. One of them was a murderer, true, and the other had decoyed me to this ill-omened vessel—. but still I feared that the results of what I had done would haunt me for years, if not to my dying day.

  I decided, however, that I would not burden Sam by telling him about it, for he was saying, cheerfully enough, "At all events, we're rid now of two possible enemies—an' that's no bad thing! Now the cap'n's short-handed, he'll likely value our company higher!"

  And indeed, during the day, as the weather steadily worsened, the captain approached Sam and, in a more friendly tone than he had used yet, said, "I have heard that you are a sailor, Inglés. If you are a better helmsman than those two idiots who are left to me, I will remit your passage money and give you a free berth to Ireland, for my best steersman was the maniac who went overboard; he had a feeling for the ship which those two have not."

  Sam, always obliging, said he would show what he coüld do, and gave me a nod to follow him—"In case," he muttered in English, "these raskills might do 'ee a mischief while I'm fixed at the tiller. So keep by me, lad."

  I did so, but it seemed at present the captain had no other thought but to supplement his reduced crew, for after watching Sam's handling of the tiller for a while, apparently satisfied with his skill, he went off to survey the damage that Shaemus had done before his sudden and violent end. There was a charred patch on one of the two mainsails that gave the captain much anxiety.—"If the wind would but drop, we should exchange that sail for the spare, but I dare not try that in this gale," he muttered, scanning the burned spot uneasily.

  Worse still, it seemed that Shaemus, in his madness, had dragged the spare sails out of the lockers and slashed up one of them to provide himself with his flaming flag, while others of them had been hacked, and one at least was lost entirely, probably fallen overboard before his crazy activities were detected.

  Grinding his teeth with rage at this discovery, the captain set everybody to work, stitching rents and sewing on patches—everybody except the Doctor. I and old Luc spent most of our day stitching with sail-makers' needles, and the two remaining sailors helped whenever it was possible for them to do so.

  I thought that the captain should remit my passage money, too, in return for my services, but did not dare suggest this, for, as the day drew on, and the wind blew harder and the sky darkened, his brow, too, grew blacker and blacker, as if it reflected the murky bank of cloud to the east of us. The cloud was like a huge, slow-growing pyramid, lying over the invisible coast of France: lurid white round the edges, then gray, then a deeper gray, almost steel-blue, in the center. Even Sammy's ugly cheerful countenance became puckered with worry as he glanced over his right shoulder at the ominous pile, and at the hurrying scud behind us.

  "Yon's a snow cloud if I'm not mistook," said he. "And I'd as lief not meet a snowstorm in mid-Channel in this little bucket of a hooker; even in one o' His Majesty's men-o'-war I'd as lief not face it, if the truth be told! Still, there's this to be said, the wind is helping us on our way; I've ne'er crossed the Gulf of Gascony in quicker time! We oughta pass Le Conquet and the Ile d'Ouessant during the night, at this rate; and though the English Channel is no friendlier than the Gulf in bad weather, there's more chance o' meeting other shipping."

  He did not explain these ominous words, nor did I ask for an explanation. Up to now, we had seen no other shipping at all, but the low-flying clouds and high-whirling spume kept the view from the Guipúzcoa down to a cables length around us. It was a wonder to me that the captain could grope his way through this cauldron of cloud-wrapped seething water without a sight of the sun; but Sam seemed confident in him and said that he was a g
ood navigator. As the day drew on, the captain seemed more and more absorbed in his battle with wind and water and his care of the ship; he paid little attention to the rest of us.

  By now the motion of the ship was far too violent to permit a fire, or cookery—all we had to eat that day was more bread, wet with salt spray, and some dried figs and goat's cheese. Sam and I agreed there could be little risk in eating our share of this, for the food was divided among all, though we had to pay for our portion.

  Night came early, with an increase of the bitter cold; the captain, relieving Sam after a long spell at the helm, advised him to go to rest at once and take what sleep he might as soon as possible—"For," said he, "I don't care for the feel of the wind; I may have to call on you during the night."

  Sam and I therefore settled in the caboose. Water was now continuously bursting through the hawseholes and over the gunwale, so that our previous perch up in the prow would have been too wet for comfort—quite apart from the hazard of being thrown off into the sea as the ship bounded up and down.

  I had intended to ask God whether it was His purpose that those two men should be drowned, or whether I had erred in supposing it His will that I should pour the contents of the flask into the soup. All day, sewing patches on the sails, I had been very distressed in my mind about this. But when it came to the point, so wearied was I from the long, frightening day, and the unremitting howl of the wind, that as soon as I laid my head on the deck, I fell instantly asleep. Perhaps God intended me to do so.

  I was awakened, not by any sound, but by a bright, knife-like glare, which blazed through my closed eye-lids as if they were made of tissue.

  At first, in terror, I believed that some spark from the Irishman's wild fire dance must have remained hidden, and that the ship was now ablaze. Confusedly crying out, "Where's the fire? Quick, we must put it out!" I started up and sprang to my feet.

  "Easy, lad!" said Sam's voice—and what a comfort it was to hear him, for the light had died again, and I could see nothing at all in the black dark. "Be easy, there's no fire! Or at least," he added in a thoughtful tone, "only in heaven."

  Next moment the cabin was illuminated again, down to the last breadcrumb, cobweb, and curl of onion peel, by a wild red pulsing light.

  "What is it?" I gasped out. "Where are we?" wondering if we might be near some lighthouse with its flashing beam, or if a savage sea battle was raging close at hand.

  But Sam said, "It is lightning."

  "Then why is there no thunder?"

  "Because of the snow," he said gravely.

  I was not then aware of the fact, but electrical storms at sea, if there be snow also, are seldom accompanied by thunder.

  We went out into the well, where the captain was calling loudly for Sam.

  "Here! You, Inglés! Come and take the tiller. We must reef the mainsail."

  Once out of the cabin I felt as if I were being stung all over by giant bees. Snow, mixed with hail, was hurling itself at the ship, pouring down so fast that it lay like a white quilt on the surface of the sea. I could hear its hiss and crackle as it struck the water, mixed with the whine of the wind, while overhead, against the repeated red-brown glare of the lightning, the snowflakes appeared black like a cloud of grasshoppers, a million sooty whirling dots. The ship was all coated with snow, and slippery with ice; the ropes wore a silvery coating and whenever the lightning glared out, the whole ship sparkled as if made from crimson glass. It was most beautiful but frightening.

  Sam, looking calmly about him at all this turmoil—the white, curdled, snow-covered sea and the massive piled mountain of cloud in the sky, copper-colored in the glow of the lightning—said to the captain, "Señor, I think you had best make straight for Falmouth. It should not take you too long to get there, with this wind behind us, even after you have reefed the mainsails. I am a Cornishman, and I do not think it advisable to sail round Land's End in weather like this."

  "Of course I shall make for Falmouth!" snarled the captain. "Do you take me for a fool?"

  "But—" I began. Sam shook his head at me and laid a finger on his lips. When the captain went to see to the reefing, I said to Sam, "But you must not go to Falmouth—'"you might be sent to prison!"

  "Felix," he said gravely, "the way things are, I'd think myself as snug in Falmouth jail as in the King's palace! We must put in to Falmouth; in the state they are, his sails would never take him across the Irish sea. Ah—look—"

  For, as the sailors shook the mainsail, trying to wrestle its frozen breadth into the folds necessary for furling, the wind put black claws into the burned patch and tore the sail into shreds, which whirled' away into the darkness like the shredded petals of a poppy. The shrouds blew out, and were dragged away from their fastenings; one of the sailors, Matthieu, was carried away likewise; I had a moment's terrible view of him, spread-eagled in the sky like an angel, dyed red by lightning, his mouth a round black O of horror—then he was gone, God knew where.

  With a fearful curse, the captain called to the Doctor to come and take Matthieu's place.

  Now I noticed the Doctor for the first time since I had been awakened. He still, with immovable gravity, maintained his position at the foot of the mast; but I saw that he had passed a rope through his leather belt, and taken several turns of it around the mast behind him, so that he was fastened there. He shook his head calmly in response to the captains summons, and replied, "No. It is my duty to preserve myself as long as possible, for my brain contains secrets unknown to any other in the world. I must not hazard my life in such a manner. Yours is the responsibility of the ship; it is not my concern."

  "You fool!" screamed the captain in a passion. "If it were not for your persuading me to this insane trip we should now be safely berthed in the Ria de Laredo; look what you have done to us! And now you will not even stir yourself to help, though I have lost my two best men; you will be drowned through your own obstinacy, and we shall, too!"

  "I shall drown if it is the will of Fate," replied the Doctor. "You will receive no help from me. I am a man of science, not a sailor."

  Cursing him again, the captain called me. In response to Sam's nod, I went to help him and, mastering my terror as best I could, received instruction from the captain and Abdullah on how to brail up, furl the sails, secure the clew lines, and put preventer shrouds on the block straps, so that they might serve as back stays. Like a sardine in a net, I dangled and struggled among the black, frozen ropes; again and again I thought my last moment had come. We battened down the ports and the hatch to the hold; we removed every needless bit of gear from the deck, so that the ship might offer the least possible resistance to the wind; we hurried as if the devil were after us, we sweated and struggled like slaves, while the captain cursed us and urged us to work faster, and toiled alongside of us.

  That night seemed to last for a lifetime. My fingers, wrists, and arms were numb and black with bruising, my nails torn; my feet were frozen, and every inch of my clothing was soaked by spray and snow; the snow lay in folds of my collar and under my hair, it poured into my mouth; nose, and eyes, so that at times I could hardly see; yet I was not cold; we were kept too busy for that; and, strangely, in all this frenzy, and facing the imminent risk of death, I did not find myself afraid, but rather filled with a wild cheerfulness and gaiety, as I battled to carry out the captain's-instructions, and even felt that I was doing not too badly, earning from time to time his brief commending nod.

  Oh, I thought, if Bob, if Grandfather, if Aunt Isadora could see me now!

  And when I remembered my great-aunt Isadora, by whose contrivance I was here, in this danger, I could almost have thanked the old vulture; and I thought that probably never in the whole of her miserable, envious, spite-filled life had she known anything like the joy of this crazy struggle to keep the ship watertight and battened against the gale, trimmed to take advantage of the pursuing wind and not be overwhelmed by it. We secured the compass and binnacle; we lashed the ship's boat more tightly to the b
owsprit, where it hung, Basque-fashion, like a cocoon dangling from a twig; we pumped, by turns, to reduce the water in the well; and we bailed with leather buckets when the pump jammed.

  Sammy, at the helm, said once, laughing, "Eh, lad, 'ee'll make a sailor yet! If your kinsfolk are not to be found, 'tis best ye go back to sea!" and I felt pride rise in me as high as the towering waves.

  Morning brought no relief from the gale; indeed, the wind blew harder still; but we could see more easily what had to be done. The wrack of cloud grew thicker as die day advanced; and the snow fell faster. Hailstones like pebbles rattled about the deck and caused us to slide and stumble.

  Then I heard Sam say quietly to the captain, between two gusts, "Look: There are the two lighthouses on the Lizard Head."

  "You have good eyes," the captain answered, in a tone of disbelief, screwing up his own eyes against the whirl of snow. "I see nothing."

  "I could not be mistaken," Sam said. "I know this coast like the palm of my hand."

  A few minutes later I thought that I, too, could perceive a low, wrinkled coastline, white as the sea, but separated from it by a thread of black cliffs.

  And then, when hope had us suddenly quivering, our hearts beating faster than they had all through the terrors of the night—suddenly there came a terrible crash. In one instant the topsails were blown clear off the ship, the shrouds were carried away, and the mast flew off on the back of the wind, like a piece of straw, carrying the Doctor with it.

  Dismasted, the ship at once became wholly helpless. She would not answer to the helm.

  Sam was steering at that moment, but the captain leaped to take his place.

  "Lash me here!" he shouted. We tied him to the tiller, but even he, with all his skill, could not keep the Guipuzcoa under way. A wave carried away part of the rail, as the ship wallowed, aslant to the wind. Another, following, took off the figurehead.