‘The lost treasure of William Dampier? A fortune in gold? I’ll ask them, but I bet you a guinea they all say yes,’ he laughs, ‘every single man jack of them.’ He takes a gold coin from his pocket and flips it in the air. ‘I’ll bet you ten guineas.’
It is not a winnable bet, so I keep quiet. I’ve already lost nearly two shillings betting on cards.
‘I’ll ask the rest of the crew at dinner.’ He looks about for the men on duty. ‘In the meantime, Mr Smith, Rowdy, Briggs, ready about! Mr Smith, north by north-west, if you please, sir, I’ll have the Bosun set an exact course presently and give you the compass bearing.’
Once more the boom swings across, the sails tighten again, and the motion of the Dragon changes as the bow surges deep into the swell, sending sea spray flying across the deck. I can’t help but smile as my face is splashed with cold water. It is strangely invigorating.
BATTLING THE WRECKERS
It is my turn on watch up in the crow’s nest. A decent breeze blows from the east, so the Dragon runs before it effortlessly, the mainsail boom as far to port as possible. The swell is low, and the breeze steady, so we make a fair rate of knots, and the mast swings in a regular motion. Even so, I sit well back on the small platform and hang onto a stay with one hand just in case of a jolt. It is a long way to fall to the deck. After a while, my legs start to get numb, so I stand to stretch them, but as I turn to face backwards, I see a grubby, pinkish sail on the horizon. I lift the Captain’s brand-new Carl Zeiss binoculars from the strap around my neck, put them to my eyes and adjust the focus. I see two more boats, and then another two not far behind them. They are on the same course as we are, directly astern of us.
‘Captain!’ I call loudly.
He immediately looks up and shouts, ‘Red?’
‘Captain. There are five luggers due east. Astern. On our exact course and going hell for leather, too.’
He turns and sprints to the stern rail.
Bosun Stevenson, who stands near to Mr Smith at the helm, hands over his telescope to the Captain, then shouts to me, ‘Get down here, Red, and tell us what you see’d.’
I slide down the stay in seconds and land smoothly on the deck. I hand back the Captain’s binoculars.
‘Well, damn me,’ he says, as he peers at the horizon. ‘It’s part of the fleet from Cossack. I recognise the dirty pink sails stained by the red dust in their town. What are those damnable wreckers doing all the way out here? There’re no pearl beds this far out. There’s nothing out here except the bottom of the sea, miles below us.’
‘Us. We’re out here,’ replies Bosun Stevenson. ‘That’s why. They are on a direct course for the Cocos Islands,’ replies Bosun Stevenson. ‘Did they find out where we’re headed and come after us, damn their hides? We did blood their noses pretty badly last time we met them. Perhaps the wreckers are seeking revenge.’
‘How in the blazes could they know where we are headed?’ asks the Captain.
‘That copper you met at the Freemasons? Or his constables at the door? They could have heard everything. You did mention William Dampier. And the word treasure can be heard from a long distance,’ says the Bosun.
‘Maybe you are right, Bosun,’ says the Captain, handing back the telescope, ‘have a look at this. On the bow of the closest lugger. What do you reckon?’
‘It’s a great ruddy cannon,’ says the Bosun. No, two of them. One on each side of the forestay. Wherever did they get them from? They are enormous.’ He puts his telescope to his eye again. ‘The others have them as well,’ he continues a few moments later, his voice sounding slightly worried.
‘Off a Dutch shipwreck, I’d bet,’ says Mr Smith. ‘The coast near Cossack is littered with the damn things. It’s them cliffs. Right shipwreckers they are. In the early days, the Dutch’d sail west until they saw the cliffs in the distance, then they’d turn north to Batavia. Sometimes they’d sail too far in the night and straight onto them cliffs. Not too many survivors when they did that,’ he finishes.
‘The Cossack luggers will all have pearl diving equipment,’ says the Bosun. ‘Pumps and helmets and the like to recover shells from the seabed. Why not haul up some guns and clean ’em up?’
The Captain nods in agreement and laughs. ‘Why didn’t we think of that? It could have saved us a fortune buying the damn things.’
‘What do you want to do, Captain? Alter course to a broad reach and outrun ’em?’
As he says it, there is a puff of smoke from the closest lugger, and, a moment later, the far-off crash of one of the cannons being fired. Several white splashes erupt in the deep blue water between us.
We all turn to watch, almost mesmerised, as a cannonball skips across the sea towards us, exactly like when I skip flat rocks in the shallows at Town Beach.
‘Where the ’eck did they learn that?’ shouts Mr Smith. ‘It’s an old Royal Navy trick from Lord Nelson’s time.’
The cannonball passes harmlessly to our starboard side but surprisingly close, considering it was fired from such a great distance.
‘They’ve got a real gunner on board,’ exclaims Mr Smith, almost in admiration.
‘No, we’ll keep on this tack, Bosun. If we go to a reach, we’ll expose the side of the ship to them and be a bigger target. We’ll get the hell out of here though. All the canvas she can carry, Mr Stevenson! Rowdy!’
All the crew are up on deck. The men scurry to their stations and begin to haul canvas up the masts. Within minutes, the flying jib, main topsail and the jumbo jib are all aloft and stretched against the wind. The Dragon lifts her bow and surges forward like a greyhound after a rabbit. Sea spray wets our faces with each dip into the swell and the wake trailing out from behind the stern narrows as the speed increases. I love it like this, even though we are being chased. Nothing afloat can catch us.
I scamper up the ratlines and am on about the sixth rung when Mr Smith yells, ‘Down! Everyone down! Chain shot!’
There is the thud of the cannon again, and this time two cannonballs joined with a thick chain hit the mast above my head, snapping it like a dry twig and showering me with splinters. The break is right at the crow’s nest, where I would have been in a few more seconds. I cling tightly to the ratlines as canvas and timber spars and ropes crash to the deck, scattering the crew as they run for their lives.
Seconds later, a different cannon fires and another chain shot shatters the rear mizzenmast at head height flinging the timber and sail overboard. The canvas drops into the ocean and instantly acts as a sea anchor. The Dragon stops dead in the water, wallowing like a duck.
‘Red!’ The Captain sees me clinging to the ratlines over the water, panicking as my feet kick about trying to find a foothold. He rushes to me, leaping over the debris and grabs me by my shirt. Instead of swinging me back on board, he throws me overboard in one swift push. I hit the surface with a hard splash and swallow a mouthful of salty water.
As I surface, I hear Mr Smith yell, ‘Into the water! Everyone in the water! If that gunner really is Royal Navy, the next one will be a clearing shot!’
The crew do not need telling twice. Splashes erupt all about me as the crew jump and dive into the sea. Mr Briggs is close by clutching tightly to a small barrel with a grim look on his face. I remember he can’t swim. ‘It’s fine, Mr Briggs!’ I yell, ‘I’ll hold you up. Just hang on tight.’
He nods, grateful but still uncertain and not at all happy about being in the ocean. He looks terrified.
The cannon shot arrives before the sound of it. It is like nothing I have ever seen before. A cyclone of bolts, nuts, screws, nails, and bits of broken glass blasts into the Dragon and instantly shreds every scrap of remaining canvas and tears hunks of timber into matchwood. Anyone still on deck would have been ripped into bloodiest mincemeat.
I look about at the crew treading water to stay afloat. The men are all visibly shocked at the sudden maelstrom of destruction.
‘I ’ate to have to say it, but that damn gunner is good,’ ex
claims Mr Smith, breaking the spell.
‘Six hundred seconds since that last shot, Mr Smith,’ says the Captain. ‘We have less than ten minutes to get back on board and drag Long Tom to the stern and put a shot in that gunner’s lap. Put him out of action, Mr Smith. Sink that lugger, if it is the last thing you ever do.’
‘Mr Smith,’ continues the Captain, as soon as we climb up the ladder and are back on board ‘Get everyone to help you. Move Long Tom to the stern. Or it will be the last thing we ever do!’
The wheels on Long Tom’s carriage squeal in protest as it is pushed along the deck all the way from the bow to the stern. The crew grunt and sweat with exertion as it is heavy and awkward to move.
As soon as it is in position, Mr Smith loads the gun and sights it in record time. He jerks the firing string, and the powerful weapon bellows out a long tail of flame from its barrel. By now I am used to the crash of its firing, but the blast still thumps me in the chest and sets my ears ringing.
Bosun Stevenson hands Mr Smith his telescope just as the shot hits the lugger.
Not far back from the stern of some modern luggers is the wheelhouse. They are usually the same shape and size as a small dunny but with a glass window in the front, and big enough for two people at the most. The one on this lugger is painted pale blue. My ears are still deaf from the shot, so I don’t hear our cannon shell hit, but the blue wheelhouse completely disappears in a shower of wood and glass fragments and a spray of red. I lift the binoculars to my eyes again and blink in disbelief.
With the wheelhouse shot away, and no helmsman, the lugger is suddenly without any steering. It immediately broaches into the wind, its sails flapping uselessly. Several of their crew have disappeared, and at least four have jumped overboard. To my surprise, two men are still at the bow working the old cannon. There is a mighty flash as they fire it again. I duck instinctively but then look back in amazement. The old gun explodes. Both gunners fall to the deck splashed in blood, not moving, and apparently dead.
The blast is so massive that the gun barrel spirals up into the sky, higher than the top of the mast. It seems to float in the air for a brief moment before it plunges back. It crashes into the deck like a spear. A giant spout of water, exactly like that from the head of a whale, spurts into the air.
‘Now that is a surprise,’ says Mr Smith, quietly.
We all stare in disbelief as the lugger slowly settles into the sea. Within a few minutes, seawater surges over the deck and then, more swiftly than I could have imagined, it sinks and is gone, leaving just a small mess of debris and a skim of oil floating on the surface.
Rowdy is the first to snap out of it. He takes several mighty swings with his axe, and the mess of sails, spars and ropes suddenly springs clear of the Dragon. She starts to move again, but only slowly.
‘We need to get out of here, men!’ cries the Captain. ‘Well done, Rowdy. Now try the sail locker. Find whatever canvas we have left. We’ll run a jury rig. A square sail with a boom across the top. The wind is at our stern, so we can keep ahead of those pigeon-livered lack galls. They won’t get too close, now they know Mr Smith can shoot away a wheelhouse like that from this distance.’
‘Good shot, by the way, Mr Smith,’ interrupts Bosun Stevenson.
‘I was actually aiming at their waterline,’ says Mr Smith, sheepishly.
I am not sure how serious he is, but I don’t have time to even think about it. Within minutes, the Captain has me back up the ratlines to the top of what is left of the mast to haul up ropes for the new makeshift sail.
Unlike the triangular sails the Dragon usually carries aloft, we haul up a horizontal spar to the top of the mast with a square sail lashed to it, just like on an old windjammer such as the Cutty Sark or the Star of India. Two ropes attached to the bottom corners are pulled in and tied to pulleys to control the flow of air into the canvas. It is not much, but better than wallowing in the middle of the ocean waiting to be blown to pieces.
‘Bosun,’ calls the Captain, ‘you and I can rig up some steering. We can use the long mizzen boom to make a tiller.’
I look back. The ship’s wheel has also been shot away. It is nowhere to be seen. The two men lash a paddle to one end of the long rounded spar and fix it to the rail about two-thirds along its length. It works, but takes a lot of effort to alter the ship’s direction by even a few degrees.
All through the day, the wreckers hold back just out of firing range but follow us relentlessly as we limp along. All the while they trim their sails, so they don’t get too close. Every couple of hours, one of the luggers will fire off a hopeful rifle shot, but they all fall well short.
‘Bosun,’ says the Captain, ‘we are now four against one, and though we are heavily armed, I don’t fancy an all-out battle with them. We can’t manoeuvre, and they could come at us from all sides at the same time. Even a single one of those massive cannonballs could do all sorts of real damage to us. What I propose is we keep heading east, reach the Cocos Islands, take shelter among the bays and coves there, do some proper repairs and then we come after them one a time, probably at night.’
Bosun Stevenson nods, not needing to say anything as it is a better plan than staying and fighting in the state we are in at present.
‘What’s to the east, Captain?’ I ask, trying to picture a chart of the Indian Ocean. ‘I know of Christmas Island and Cocos where we are heading anyway. But will we be able to navigate that far with just makeshift steering and a basic square sail?’
‘The Vikings managed well enough using just square sails, Red, and they discovered half the world.’
‘And plundered most of it as well,’ laughs Bosun Stevenson. ‘Remind you of anyone?’
‘And Lord Nelson only ’ad square sails, and look what ’e did. Saw off Napoleon’s whole navy,’ says Mr Smith.
Napoleon’s navy only had square sails as well in that fight at Trafalgar, but I think better of saying anything. We don’t need smartarses at a time like this.
‘Mr Smith,’ asks the Captain, ‘can you put a couple more shots their way. That lead boat looks like it might almost be in range. Remind them that your shot earlier wasn’t just a fluke.’
Five minutes later, Mr Smith fires Long Tom again. A huge splash of water explodes into the air right at the bow of the lead lugger. Surprisingly, it doesn’t seem to do any damage, but the crew immediately rush to shorten sail, and the lugger drops further back.
‘That would’ve loosened a few bowels, I’m thinking,’ laughs the Captain loudly. ‘You wouldn’t want to be scrubbing that deck anytime soon, eh, Red?’
‘No, indeed not, Captain,’ I call back, imagining it. Yuk! I still wonder how Captain Bowen and the crew remain so cheerful, or at least apparently unconcerned, about our situation. We are on a severely damaged boat, shambling along with four heavily armed luggers chasing us into the vast empty Indian Ocean. It is obvious they have come to kill us all, and meanwhile, the Captain is cracking jokes.
‘Red, back up to the lookout, please. Keep me informed of their progress, and not just how clean their deck is.’
THE SHIPWRECK
We make slow progress, not much more than a few knots above drifting, always heading due west. Rowdy and the Bosun work furiously trying to keep the makeshift sail filled with wind. The rest of us do our best to cut away all the shattered timbers and clean up the mess of rope and canvas and all the other damage. All the while, the Cossack luggers sit near the horizon, trailing us like dingoes hunting an injured bandicoot.
Day after day drags on and a whole week passes. I stand at the top of the ratlines again, hanging on with one hand. In my other, I have the Captain’s binoculars. ‘Captain!’ I call, but he is nowhere to be seen. ‘Bosun Stevenson!’
He looks up to where I am perched like a monkey.
‘They’re turning back. All except one.’
The Captain must have heard me as he runs up the steps from his cabin.
‘Heading due east. No, a few degrees south of
east,’ I call.
‘Heading home, eh. Alright, Red, come down.’
I reach the deck in seconds and hand the Captain his binoculars.
‘I’m afraid I have no idea of our position,’ says Bosun Stevenson, sounding embarrassed.
‘And how could you, Bosun? Me either,’ answers the Captain, ‘with the chronometer smashed, and no landmarks. I took a sun setting at midday and estimate we are about twelve degrees latitude, but that is as much as I know.’
It is just before dawn the next day and the sun not yet visible, though the sky glows red behind us. There is a slight breeze pushing us forward, but the sea is almost as calm as a millpond.
‘Everyone on deck! Now!’ the Captain suddenly yells, his voice loud and urgent.
Mr Smith is on the tiller and has pushed it as far to the right as he can. He looks anxious, clutching the spar tightly. Bosun Stevenson slashes the rope holding the cross spar, and the spar and sail tumble to the deck with a loud crash. Several of the crew from below deck rush up the ladder and look about. Why the urgency? It is such a calm night. Sam Chi, who has been in the galley preparing breakfast, takes moments longer. He still wears his apron, something he never usually does on deck.
I turn towards the bow. There is a large dark shape directly ahead, silhouetted against the sky, only a few hundred yards away, but it is still too dark to see clearly.
Usually, you can see waves on a reef. White in the moonlight. Not tonight. ‘Brace yourselves!’ the Captain yells.
Seconds later, the Dragon shudders violently. We have hit something. It is unlike anything I’ve felt while onboard. A low groan, long and disturbing and almost sad, rumbles beneath us as the reef of jagged coral tears at the hull. Timbers crack and split open, and I hear the roar of water gushing in. It is as if the very heart is being ripped out of the Dragon. I clutch at a stay with both hands as the bow rises and the deck suddenly leans sharply backwards. Heartbreakingly slowly, the beautiful ship grinds to a halt, her keel almost certainly broken. I am so shocked I can hardly breathe.
The Wreckers' Revenge Page 5
