by Eric Brown
I glanced into the sky; Loi hovered low, her wings a blur of gossamer. Blackman flew fifty metres ahead of the Golden Swan, ready to scan the river and call back instructions to Gastarian.
I exchanged glances with the rest of the crew; on each face was an identical expression: the grim determination to succeed, belying the fear that each of us felt.
A profound silence settled over the phalanx of ships. My heart pounding, I looked up at Loi, who saw me and waved. The official starter counted down from twenty. At zero, the ropes were released from the bridge and the thirty-odd ships surged forwards. It must have been a stirring sight - so many sailing ships abreast and hurtling downriver in search of an early advantage. I was aware only of our increasing speed, the sun hot on my back, and Gastarian’s shouted instructions. ‘Okay, and here we go. Stay central, boys! Move only when I give the word. We’ve started well!’
After five minutes my hands were sore from gripping the holds, my knees abraded by the wood of the deck. The muscles of my back ached already from holding so hunched a posture. I tried to relax; we had three or four hours of this to endure.
We had little to do for the next fifteen minutes. Gastarian adjusted our course with minimal turns of the wheel, and the crew in the rigging trimmed the sails from time to time, but we were not called upon to effect a swerve away from projecting coral. As the other crewmen relaxed and looked about them at how the other ships were faring, I did the same. I was surprised by how many vessels had fallen behind. I roughly estimated that we had outpaced twenty ships; another five or six were alongside us, and the three or four which had outstripped the Swan were no more than a boat’s length in front.
‘Hard to port!’ The command was so sudden and unexpected that several of us delayed, before throwing ourselves frantically at the gunwale and swarming up the timber crucifixes. The ship yawed, spray soaked us in a cool shower. ‘Faster next time. The coral nearly bit us deep! Faster!’ Gastarian called. ‘Now central, boys, and be ready for the next command.’
I chanced a glance astern. Only a dark discoloration in the blue of the river, an elongated smudge, showed the position of the deadly coral.
As the minutes passed, so our speed increased as the river narrowed and the water surged ever faster. Our passage became turbulent, so that we had to grip the handholds to remain in position. We were flashing past cultivated farmland, with the occasional small figure of a farmer cheering us on. Perhaps twenty-odd ships straggled in our wake. Two maintained positions alongside us, and another two were out in front.
‘Remember this: relax and we’re dead. This is the easy part. Another hour and you begin to earn your money! Steady, now. We’re doing well.’ Gastarian manhandled the wheel, and in the rigging tiny figures adjusted the snapping sails.
My thoughts were interrupted by a cry from the sailor behind me. To port, the ship in fourth place surged towards us, the intentions of its master clear: three great beams projected from its foredeck, a crude and ugly method by which to scupper an opposition boat.
Alerted by the cry, Gastarian turned. ‘Evasive action! Man your port frames!’ As one we surged in response, and only as I flung myself upon the crucifix, legs wrapped around the timber, hands desperately gripping the cross-beam, did I realise the danger we were in. The bellicose boat was barely five metres from us, and bearing down remorselessly. The projecting beams raced towards us like battering rams, threatening to tear the very timbers upon which we twelve clung. A second after diving on our crucifixes, the manoeuvre had the desired effect. The Golden Swan yawed tremendously and we brave souls flew beneath the rams of the neighbouring ship. The Swan cut across its bows - our wide stern timbers ripping a great rent in the aggressor’s flank. As we swept on triumphant, the other ship limped to shore, its Messenger and Blackman circling despondently. We cheered as we returned to our handholds.
Ever the vigilant shipmaster, Gastarian warned us against complacency. ‘Minds on the job!’ he bellowed over his shoulder. ‘There’s corals ahead! Ready, now ... To starboard!’ Like trained monkeys we leapt as one to the frames, feeling the ship tip as the port side left the water, hopefully clearing the corals spotted by the signalling Blackman. The boat tipped, and I was doused with a cool slap of water. I gripped the cross-beam with all my strength, my ribs grating against the timbers. ‘And back! Well done. We’re doing fine.’
The ship in fourth position, however, was not so lucky. From upriver came the terrible, rending screech of torn timbers, and I glanced back to see the ship founder upon a projecting reef of rock. As we watched, horrified, the deck of the ship parted company with its hull and sheered off into the river where it sank in seconds. Those crewmen able to leap free did so, but the unfortunate hands buckled into the harnesses were not so lucky. I stared and stared at where they had gone down, willing them to surface, but to no avail. I was reminded of our own precarious safety, the danger should we go down: how nimble would our fingers be at unfastening our buckles then, with our lungs full of water and the dangers of carnivorous fish ever present? Then, miraculously, I saw two or three heads bob to the surface, and a Messenger and a Blackman swoop down and with difficulty drag the sodden bundles through the river, deposit them without ceremony on the shore, and return in a bid to save more lives.
We passed through a narrow stretch of water between two forested glades, a scene that might have been idyllic but for the speed of the river and the knowledge of what lay ahead. Behind me, a sailor muttered, ‘Ready yourselves, lads. Two minutes, that’s all we’ve got. Then it’s either nimble be or a watery grave. Hark Gastarian and be ready to leap like fleas!’
‘The first two boats are still in sight,’ someone said, ‘which at this stage is welcome indeed. By God, if fate shines on us and keeps us dry, we can win this one!’
‘Don’t speak too soon. We’re not even halfway there - more die between here and the sea than anywhere else.’
Ahead, the two leading ships were weaving this way and that through a stretch of boiling rapids, their masts rocking to and fro like metronomes. At times they were almost on their sides as their deckhands scurried from port to starboard and back again in a frantic effort to avoid the lethal corals.
I was struck by a sudden trembling panic - soon we would be in their position, fighting for our very lives! I was almost sick with apprehension. Glancing around at my team-mates, I saw my fear reflected in their faces, and I was torn between relief that I was not the only coward aboard, and fright that these hardened sailors should so fear what awaited us.
‘Be ready...’ Gastarian growled at us. ‘This is it! We enter the rapids!’
‘Nimble to it lads,’ said the sailor behind me.
‘To starboard!’ Gastarian yelled, and to starboard we leapt. I clung to the timbers, shaking in every limb. The ship tipped alarmingly and we were submerged. I gasped, drenched and breathless. It was fortunate that there was no coral on this side of the ship or we would have been ripped to death in seconds.
‘To port!’ came Gastarian’s yell, muffled in my water-filled ears. I flung myself left, slipping on the wet timbers, and somehow, miraculously, found myself clutching the timber port frame as we were doused again, for so long this time that I thought we had gone under for good. All was a chaotic maelstrom of silver bubbling water and filtered sunlight, a roaring of the churned river and a protracted creaking of straining timbers.
‘And to starboard!’
‘Starboard, lads,’ called the sailor behind me, for the benefit of those deafened by the dunking.
We charged across the deck, launched ourselves at the frames, and clung on for dear life as the ship tipped quickly like a spinning top, waltzing between the underwater hazards.
This set the pattern for what seemed like hours. Not once did we rest, not for more than fifteen seconds at any one time did we stay on our frames before we were ordered off again. I lost all track of time. I seemed to have been performing this manic dance for all my life; in minutes I had become experienc
ed, my concentration honed. I no longer felt fear, but a kind of head-spinning, ecstatic excitement. No longer did I worry at what might become of me if we went under. I lived for the second, charged with an insane confidence in Blackman, in Gastarian, in my crewmates and myself. We worked as one, for each other and for the ship. I realised, after what seemed like an age, that each of us was shouting like a man possessed, echoing Gastarian’s commands, a synchronised chant that bonded us into a well-drilled, efficient unit.
Each second, I realised in retrospect, brought ever more near-death experiences; every metre of water presented us with perils. I was hardly aware of individual incidents at the time - they were over so rapidly, and the next one upon us, that we had no time to dwell on what had been. Now I recall the highlights, and marvel that we ever survived.
At one point a crucifix with a sailor upon it struck an outcrop of coral and was instantly snapped. The crewman dropped over the gunwale, and then, thanks to his secure rope, was tossed back onto the deck, shaken and half-drowned but otherwise uninjured. From then on he doubled up on the timber frame of his neighbour. Repeatedly our projecting frames scraped the corals, shaving fragments from the living rocks that blasted us like shrapnel. Soon our arms and bodies were slick with our life-blood as well as water, and the deck would have been awash with blood but for the regular dousings that washed it clean. I recall, vividly, a fish flying towards us, its great mouth a thicket of barbed fangs, a lethal man-trap that would have severed a leg in seconds. One of our number fell upon it and clubbed it to death with his bare fists.
And, most remarkable of all, was the wreckage of the ship we overtook. We must have passed the stricken vessel in a matter of seconds, but so indelibly was the picture of carnage imprinted on my mind’s eye that it seemed we dawdled by long enough to fill our eyes with the gruesome horror. I made out the remains of a dozen bodies impaled upon projecting spurs of coral as if for our inspection. I swear we were washed by water tinted crimson with the blood of the dead, its rusty iron taste filling my mouth and nose. Above the carnage, lodged precariously on the reef like some hopeless, makeshift memorial, was the deck of the forlorn ship with its upright masts and pathetically flapping sails.
Someone behind me cursed, and I fought not to be sick. Then Gastarian yelled a command and we concentrated on the task at hand.
And then, incredibly, the sound of his voice did not come again, and the raging water no longer drenched us, and the Golden Swan kept an even keel. We knelt amidships like exhausted sprinters, our blood gathering and running down the cracks between the timbers. I managed to fill my lungs with air for the first time in what seemed like hours, and then I laughed in relief and joy, and this was taken up by the others. And what a sight we were! To a man we were blood-soaked and cut about, scrolls of skin hanging from our bodies, bruises beginning to bloom on arms and shoulders.
Only once more after that were we called to man our frames, something of an anticlimax after such hectic action. I realised then that in our fight to survive we had overlooked our position in the race.
‘Are we ahead?’ I cried.
Gastarian indicated forward. ‘Not quite. But look.’
Perhaps three ship-lengths ahead of us was the leading ship, a white-painted vessel with blood-red sails. A cry of triumph arose from my team-mates - and then I realised the reason for their joy. The leading ship was damaged. A hole gaped in its starboard flank and it was taking in water, listing badly though still maintaining speed.
‘The open sea!’ Gastarian called, and sure enough we were fast approaching the widening estuary that gave onto the ocean. Ahead, I made out the low landmass of St Benedict’s island. I noticed for the first time the crowds on the headlands, cheering and waving flags in the bright sunlight.
The damaged ship hit the open sea ahead of us, and I judged that the island was only two kilometres away. It was now up to the crewmen in the rigging, as they trimmed the sails to catch the available wind.
We exhausted dozen could only sprawl across the deck and stare impotently. Bit by bit we seemed to be gaining on the limping ship, but the island, and the finishing line strung out across the facing bay, were drawing ever closer. Metre by metre we gained, and it came to me that all our good work would count for nothing, that we would come home in second place. With less than two hundred metres to the line of bunting that indicated the race’s end, the Golden Swan surged alongside the opposing boat. I stared across at the hapless ship, its exhausted crewmen a mirror image of ourselves.
Miraculously, the opposing boat gained speed. As I watched, appalled, little by little it edged in front. Gastarian called out to the men in the rigging, who adjusted a sail. Again we drew alongside, and, hardly daring to hope that we might win the race, I looked ahead. The finishing line was but metres away, and fast approaching.
Then, as if the Golden Swan itself wished to win the race, from nowhere the ship found speed and inched ahead. Seconds later we hit the line of bunting barely two metres ahead of the stricken vessel, and the cries that went up from the crew were deafening.
We unbuckled ourselves and embraced, crying tears of joy and triumph. It seemed that only now could I consider the danger we had passed through, and a kind of retroactive dread coursed through me. Shipmaster Gastarian came among us, returned to his quiet self now, and with tears in his eyes thanked each one of us in turn. Loi descended and embraced me, her kisses smothering my face. When she finally pulled away her tunic was imprinted with my blood.
The Golden Swan drew alongside the harbour wall, and we carried Gastarian ashore on our shoulders. I found my land-legs with difficulty. The quayside was crowded with islanders, a reception committee of local dignitaries and a clan of Blackmen beside them. The Mayor approached Gastarian and escorted him across the cobbles, Blackman at his side. Gastarian was called upon to say a few words. I feared that soon I too would be forced to add my views. I whispered to Loi that I needed a few minutes to myself, then slipped from the crowd and up the hillside towards the township.
* * * *
I asked directions to the Race Museum and found it on a high greensward overlooking the strait, a single-storey weatherboard building painted white. I climbed the steps and pushed open the door. There was no one else inside, and I was thankful for the privacy.
The single room was long and low, with a polished timber floor and a plate-glass window looking out to sea. The room had the hushed air and stillness of all museums, as if the events of the past which it exhibited were sacrosanct. On one side of the room were scale models of every ship that had won the race for the last fifty years. On the wall above each ship was a roll-call of their crews, and above them portraits of their victorious shipmasters. Below the lists of the triumphant crews were, in smaller print, the names of all the many sailors who had perished.
I walked slowly along the length of the room, counting off the years.
When I came to the model of the ship that had won the race six years ago, I read the names of the sailors who had succumbed to the many dangers of the river Laurent. I was aware of a constriction in my throat. I expected at any second to come across the name of my father - but, to my surprise, it was not among the two hundred names of the dead of that year. Very well ... I moved on to the next year, and began the laborious process again, reading off the names of the dead. The more names I read without arriving at my father’s, the more I considered the possibility that he might have survived.
If I located his name, and he was indeed dead, then all would be explained. But if he had survived - then what had become of him? Had he eluded me yet again, a cruel second time?
His name was not among those sailors who had died three and four years ago, so I tried the list from two years ago ... to no avail.
Was it possible, then, that his ship had won?
I was moving back to the list from four years ago, when I happened to glance up . . . and what I saw stopped me in my tracks.
Staring down at me from the wall was a portra
it of my father, the Shipmaster of the Flying Prince, the championship boat of the year 1516.
Beneath the portrait was a long caption outlining his achievement. My heart hammering in my ears, hardly able to believe what I was seeing, I read.
I came to the end of the caption, stunned, and looked up into the eyes of my father - not the jubilant eyes of a winning master, but eyes dark and haunted by past events.
For perhaps the fifth time I read the final paragraph of the caption. ‘Gregor Singer was a criminal captain, who faced the death penalty for deserting a private army if he refused a Shipmaster’s commission. He accepted, won the race in true style and, as is the custom, applied to join the Guild of Blackmen. He was accepted, and taken . . .’
I read no more. I backed away from the photograph of my father and stood in the centre of the room as if paralysed.
He was accepted by the Guild of Blackmen . . .
Only slowly, by degrees, did awareness overcome me.
I sprinted from the museum and down the hill. The crowd was still gathered on the quayside, arranged to view some spectacle. Only as I joined them and pushed my way through the press, did I see the focus of their interest. A dozen Blackmen in coloured leathers were already rising into the air. To my despair I saw that among them was the Blackman in jet leathers, my father.
