The Coming of the Whirlpool

by Andrew McGahan

  Nor was there any hope of female companionship. In Dow’s observation only three women ever frequented the bar, and none of them were girls his own age. One was Boiler’s wife, Ingrid. She was as stout almost as her husband, and a friendly soul, but she seldom emerged from the kitchen, where she was the cook. There was also Boiler and Ingrid’s daughter, Inga, who served out the meals; but she was the opposite of her mother, a thin, stern-faced creature who appeared to disapprove of Dow’s very presence – and anyway, she was ten years older than Dow at least. Which left only Mother Gale, and even if Dow had not been afraid of her, the old woman shunned all company, preferring to hunch alone in her corner, a whisky glass at her side and her horrible eyes shut; but her keen ears hearing everything.

  Boiler and Ingrid in fact had another daughter, Dow had learned, much younger then Inga, and much prettier too by repute, but she had been sent away some years before to live with relations in Lonsmouth. A similar fate had befallen most of the village girls – like the boys, they had been packed off by their parents to more prosperous locations. Those few that were left in Stromner stayed hidden in their homes, affianced to men who were themselves absent.

  Dow was surprised at how acutely this lack of girls affected him; back in Yellow Bank he had taken their presence for granted, now he missed it sorely. Time and again, as the evenings lengthened in the bar, he found himself thinking of Clara, of their first kiss by the river, and of the further kisses, and other diversions, that had followed. If only she was in Stromner.

  Her, or someone like her, at least . . .

  But there was nothing to be done about such thoughts, other than to drown them out. So Dow would sit far into the evening, staring at the fire or studying the relics that hung on the walls, drinking mug after mug of Boiler’s ale until the ache in him at last went numb.

  He would sway up from the table then and make his way out into the night. By that hour a chill air would have crept in from the ocean, and dank mists would be swirling between the houses and across the sandy paths. But even in fog Dow knew his way now, threading through the dunes to Nathaniel’s tumbledown shack. A dim light would be in the window, and always the old man would be sitting up, drinking deep in his sullen solitude.

  The two would exchange no words. Dow would pass straight to his room, undress and climb between the cold sheets of his bed. Lying there in the stark blackness he would strive to suppress the memories of his home and of his family, and to fight the self-pitying tears that sometimes threatened. When sleep finally came it would be uneasy and brief, until he was woken in the grey pre-dawn light to live the same day all over again.

  Thus passed the summer. A few months only of his new life, but long enough for Dow to unearth in himself a profound and abiding boredom. Was this truly to be his lot now? Had it all been for this – his challenge to the Winter Council, the revelations of his heritage, his leaving of home and loved ones, his journey from the highlands, his fleeting moments of joy at the Maelstrom’s helm, and the desire that still burned in him for the deep sea? Was it all for the sake of catching and selling, day by day, a small, wretched heap of fish?

  There had to be something more.

  Then, on the very last evening before summer became autumn, as he and Nathaniel were nearing the Stone Port gate after the day’s fishing, Dow looked up from the ropes and beheld – emerging from behind West Head to poise itself at the entrance of the bay, masts tall and sails bright – at last, a ship.

  A ship, a true ship . . .

  Dow clambered into the Maelstrom’s bow to see better. Almost a year had passed since he’d last spied such a craft, and then only from afar, from the heights of the headland. Now here at last was a great ocean-going vessel up close, no more than half a mile away, gliding through the Rip towards Stone Port. In the westering sun its canvas glowed orange and its painted wood gleamed like dark metal, and it was so immense it seemed that a fortress as insurmountable as the Stone Port keep itself had risen from the sea. And yet it slid across the water with an almost delicate grace, its multitude of sails rippling in the slight afternoon breeze.

  Dow glanced eagerly to Nathaniel for confirmation.

  ‘Aye,’ frowned the fisherman, crouched by the tiller, ‘it’s the Ship Kings, sure enough.’

  Dow turned back. So it was really them. Finally, the lords and masters of New Island were at hand.

  But Nathaniel went on. ‘And not before time, either. They were due mid-summer, by rights. They’re late.’

  Dow was still marvelling at the ship, and it was a moment before the old man’s words sank in. ‘Late?’ he asked. ‘Late for what?’

  ‘For the tribute, of course. Don’t you know anything? Three times a year, every year, the Ship Kings send a fleet to collect the bounty they’ve gathered in the Stone Port warehouses. Early spring, usually, the first arrives. Then mid-summer the second. And the third at autumn’s end.’

  So a whole fleet was coming. Dow studied the ship with fresh excitement. It was all the more imposing the closer it drew – nevertheless, it was only a single vessel. And beyond it was empty ocean. ‘Where are the others?’ he demanded, looking around to Nathaniel once more. ‘How many will there be?’

  The old man rolled a jaundiced eye. ‘There will be eleven, because there are always eleven. And they’ll be along soon enough. That there is only an escort ship. One always arrives a day or two ahead, just to make sure we’ll be nice and friendly when the full fleet gets here.’ He stared over Dow’s shoulder. ‘See – that’s not any old vessel, boy. That’s a full-rated battleship, that is. A hundred guns and all. So we’d best be damn friendly indeed.’

  A battleship. Dow turned his gaze back to the ship again, remembering the fearsome tales he’d heard as a child of the Ship Kings’ great battleships with their thundering cannon and their murderous crews. Suddenly the vessel seemed an altogether more sinister thing. It was only a few hundred yards off now, turning side-on to reveal one long flank. And indeed, there were the gunports, three tiers of them, rising up from the waterline. Alarm ran through Dow – for he saw that the gunports had all been thrown open and from every dark hatchway there protruded a black barrel of iron, blunt and deadly.

  Cannon, rolled out and ready to fire. And while it was one thing to enjoy stories from far away of such guns blazing in battle, it was another thing entirely to be gazing into the smooth bores of fifty of them. For all Dow knew even now their fuses were being lit and their barrels were about to discharge a lethal hail that would strip the Maelstrom into a spray of blood and splinters. The blast could come at any instant. Unable to help himself Dow shrank down behind the bow . . .

  Nathaniel gave a mocking laugh. ‘Steady, boy. They’ll not be firing any broadsides today. Not at us. It’s just for show. They always come a-charging in with every gun run out as if to blow us all to the deeps, but they know the truth as well as we do – there’s no threat to them here and hasn’t been for eighty years. There won’t even be powder in those guns, I’ll wager.’

  Embarrassed, Dow straightened again.

  ‘Lower the sail and run out the oars,’ Nathaniel ordered. ‘We’ll have to hold off a while outside the gate until they go through.’

  Dow set to for a busy few moments. But here was a new puzzle – how could such an immense ship possibly thread the gate into the harbour? That gate was vast compared to a fishing boat, but for the battleship it seemed treacherously narrow – too narrow surely to run at full sail.

  Indeed, when Dow glanced back to the ship he saw that men were at work in the rigging, and that one by one the sails were being furled. The vessel lost headway and began to drift, a hundred yards off the sea wall and the gate. But then there came a bustle at the ship’s railing, and longboats were swiftly lowered from hoists there – eight boats in all, each easily larger than the Maelstrom, and each crowded with men bearing oars. Once in the water, these boats set off, trailing ropes behind them that were fixed to forward sections of the ship. The crew were going to
tow the great vessel through the gate.

  But now Dow had to bend his back to his own oars, so that Nathaniel could steer the Maelstrom safely out of the battleship’s path. They hove to finally in the lee of the sea wall, just to one side of the gate; a perfect position from which to watch the Ship Kings’ entrance. And they weren’t alone. Above them, on the wall, scores of Stone Port folk were peering over the parapet.

  But Dow had eyes only for the ship. It was advancing slowly toward the gate like some sea monster improbably caught and held by the boats that laboured before it. The boats themselves were close enough now that Dow could clearly hear the coxswains counting time, and could study the faces of the rowers – the Ship Kings revealed at last, even if these were only humble sailors, not captains or lords.

  Had he expected them to look different from New Island men? Perhaps he had – and in truth, there did seem to be something other about the men in the boats, even at a glance: a deep, weathered tan to their skin, a leanness to their faces, an unusual cut to their clothes and their hair. But then maybe this was just how ocean-going sailors always looked, Ship Kings or not. Dow didn’t know. But there was no doubting the strangeness of the coxswains’ voices as they called, their accents twisting even familiar words almost beyond recognition.

  The boats passed in. Then came the ship. Its bow rose up like an overhanging cliff, as high as the sea wall itself. A great beam extended forward of the prow, strangely carved and festooned with ropes that stretched back toward the masts. Men were perched out upon this bowsprit, scanning the waters ahead and to each side of the ship, shouting reports back to the stern. One of these sailors, a wild-haired figure, half naked and shining with sweat, stared directly down at Dow for a moment, but then the man’s gaze moved on, as if a little fishing boat meant no more to him or his vessel than a dead leaf floating on the water.

  The ship crept onwards. Its bow disappeared through the gate and now its side was presented to Dow, a louring wall curving back as it rose, fashioned from wooden planks that gleamed smoothly with nicre at water level, but which were painted a dark green higher up, trimmed with gold and black. One by one, the cannons protruding from the gunports paraded by. The lowest row of them stood a foot above Dow’s head, but even so he could catch glimpses of the gun crews leaning forward over the barrels. Maybe Nathaniel was right and the weapons were not even loaded, but once again Dow was unsettled by how ready and well-used the cannons looked, and how practised and merciless appeared the crew.

  High above, more sailors lounged at the railing. How many men did the ship carry? Two hundred? Three hundred? Dow couldn’t guess. His gaze continued upward, to the masts. There were three of them, each as tall – no, taller – than the tallest tree he’d ever seen. He had supposed, when first told that highland pines were used in the making of the Ship Kings’ masts, that each mast would be fashioned from a single tree. But he could see now that each was in fact constructed from two trunks bound stoutly together, one towering atop the other.

  And the profusion of rigging! When Dow had glimpsed, from atop the headland, the two ships beating against the storm, it had seemed that their sails hung almost magically free of any moorings. But close up he could see the hundreds – no, thousands – of ropes that affixed the masts and the spars and the sails to each other and to the deck, a vast web that he could not imagine untangling. And yet men were aloft there, moving about with ease, fastening this line or that to secure away the last of the sails, apparently unconcerned by the terrible plunge to the deck that awaited them should they slip.

  The ship eased onwards, halfway through the gate now. Looking toward the stern Dow could see a structure that rose like a castle to occupy the rear quarter of the main deck. A high upper deck stood atop it, railed off and presiding impressively over the rest of the ship. A great wheel was positioned there, taller than a man, with two sailors attending it, hands gripped to the spokes. And arranged about the wheel were a collection of men whose erect bearing, stiffened hats and fine uniforms, embroidered with scarlet and gold, marked them out even to Dow’s inexperienced gaze as the officers and commanders of the battleship.

  These men, surely, more than their crew, were the true Ship Kings. They exuded authority with every glance and gesture. One young officer in particular caught Dow’s eye; a tall, handsome figure, dressed in a black coat that bore gold bars on the shoulder. He was standing by the wheel, an eye to the men in the rigging, snapping out confident orders. Many of the other officers looked older than him, but Dow guessed that he must be the captain regardless. And in that instant he seemed the embodiment of everything Dow wanted in life; to be so young and to wield dominion over such a ship!

  Now the vessel was three quarters through the gate. Only the upswept rear section remained to pass in, and here, set high in the hull, were many windows looking out, tier upon tier of them, a profusion of glass panes and leaden framework and golden filigree. Even now, before dark, lighted lamps could be seen dangling ornately from the ceilings of the cabins within.

  ‘There,’ said Nathaniel suddenly, ‘do you see?’

  The old man was pointing to a broad panel of wood that formed the side railing of the high deck, directly above the uppermost of the cabins. A series of large golden symbols were painted there.

  ‘That’s writing, boy. That’s the ship’s name.’

  Dow studied the symbols, but unlike the images of animals or objects that the Stromner men used to name their boats, the strange shapes told him nothing. Writing was an art employed solely by the Ship Kings and their agents – common New Islanders were forbidden from learning it, by rule of the Settlement.

  ‘It says,’ Nathaniel went on, ‘Chloe.’

  Dow stared at the old man in surprise.

  The fisherman laughed. ‘Nay, I can no more figure the writing than you can. But I’d know this ship anywhere. Many are the times it has called at this port over the years. The Chloe it is, sure enough.’

  Dow looked back up, just as the last of the great ship was disappearing through the gate, its stern end revealed, looming very tall. Rising above the gigantic rudder were yet more windows of glass and lead and gold, and upon the rear panel of the high deck the ship’s name was once again spelled out in bold letters. But Dow’s attention was caught by movement in one of the upper windows. A face was suddenly there, staring out over the vessel’s wake.

  It was a young woman, hardly more than a girl really, and Dow’s first thought was one of surprise that she would even be allowed on a battleship; then he was struck by how proud and fierce she seemed, even in the simple act of glancing out a window. And yet there was something disturbing about her too. Maybe it was only a distortion in the glass pane, or a reflection from the water . . . but no, there was something wrong with her face. What it was Dow could not say, but disquiet stirred within him, even as he stared up in fascination.

  Then the ship was gone and the girl with it.

  ‘To the oars, boy,’ Nathaniel ordered.

  In the great vessel’s wake, they rowed in through the sea wall. Ahead of them the battleship was making its slow way across the inner harbour, its destination the main wharf, and all the little boats and barges were scattering out of its way. Dow, glancing eagerly to the stern windows, could see no face there now – but the image of the girl still burned bright in his mind.

  Nathaniel steered for the fishing wharf, and so stately was the progress of the Chloe that the Maelstrom was tied up at its landing before the battleship had even drawn close to its own. But as all the fish merchants had gone off to watch the docking of the new arrival, Nathaniel and Dow had little choice but to wait by their boat and watch the event themselves.

  On the main wharf a crowd of townsfolk had gathered likewise to view the spectacle. Suddenly there were yells from the back of the crowd, at the place where the main street led down from the Stone Port fortress. In a flurry of shoving arms and raised muskets a small phalanx of soldiers emerged, leading a party of richly dressed men and
women – none other, Dow guessed, than the resident Ship Kings of the town, come to greet their countrymen.

  Obedient, the crowd cleared a space for them. Dow – for all that he had been waiting for just such a sighting – studied the dignitaries only briefly. He supposed that one of the men must be the governor, but it was impossible to tell which, for all the men looked important; while the women, dark haired and tall, were dazzling in clothes far brighter and more outlandish than anything Dow had ever seen. But it was the great ship that demanded his true attention.

  It slid closer now to its berth. The tow ropes had been transferred from the boats and made fast to bollards upon the wharf. On the ship, men laboured in gangs to heave on the lines, warping the vessel slowly sideways towards its station. Dow sought out the handsome young officer once more. He was leaning over the high deck railing, shouting commands to those on the main deck below; then he straightened, hands upon hips, to survey the crowd on the wharf. White teeth flashed for a moment in his proud face, a smile.

  ‘Is he the captain?’ Dow asked Nathaniel, pointing the officer out.

  The old man, absently coiling a wayward rope, peered a moment and gave a snort. ‘Not he. That’s just a lieutenant, going by the uniform. Junior grade.’ He peered a moment longer. ‘There’s your captain.’

  Dow blinked in disappointment. Nathaniel was indicating a far less impressive officer than the first – an older man, round-faced and short-statured. He was leaning casually on the rear rail of the high deck, his coat unbuttoned to reveal a white shirt stretched over a stout belly. His shoulders were quite unadorned by any gold, and he wasn’t shouting a single order to anyone.