The Coming of the Whirlpool

by Andrew McGahan

  Except, where was the enemy? The Chloe charged headlong into the Rip . . . and found nothing and no one there.

  Back and forth the battleship prowled, a hunter deprived of prey, scouring the Rip and its approaches in an ever widening patrol. An hour passed. Eventually the Severe emerged from Stone Port harbour, and after shouted consultation across the waters, the two ships hunted together. Behind them the town burned without let, and distant Lonsmouth burned too, and the very air began to taste of fire and ash. Still the search went on, until the eastern sky paled with dawn.

  Dow watched all the while from the high deck, as eager and alert as any of the crew, but at no stage in the darkness did he or anyone else spy that strange, low shape again. Vincente and his officers grew ever more grim and silent as the hunt passed unrewarded. And when daylight came, dreary with old smoke, and as the fires at last died in Stone Port, the full reach of the ocean was finally revealed. It was calm and clear to the horizon, and innocent of any craft.

  Captain Vincente, I protest!’

  ‘Protest all you like, Chancellor, it will change nothing. Dow Amber will be aboard the Chloe when we sail.’

  It was mid-morning on the second day since the fire, and the Chloe lay at anchor in deep water at the inner mouth of the channel, a mile from the Stone Port gate. The ship would not be there much longer – it waited now only for the proper wind and tide before it departed for the open sea.

  'Upon the high deck a council was underway. Tables had been set up as three sides of a square; at the central table sat the senior officers of the Chloe, and to their right were seated the senior officers of the frigate Severe. The third table was occupied by a delegation of Ship King’s dignitaries from Stone Port, sent by Governor Balba and led by his chancellor – an individual Dow remembered well, recognising the man by his oily manner as much as by the tall staff he carried.

  Dow himself, the subject of the current debate, stood a few steps behind the Chloe’s officers, flanked by two marines.

  ‘Captain,’ insisted the chancellor, ‘this prisoner was placed under arrest two nights ago by order of His Grace himself. Due to the boy’s injuries we allowed your doctor to keep him in custody for that one night – but plainly he has recovered now, and you have no authority to withhold him.’

  ‘You are mistaken,’ said Vincente, seated at the centre of his table, his manner entirely confident and relaxed. ‘In New Island matters I have no authority, but the question of this boy is no longer a New Island matter. This is now a naval affair; indeed, a matter of war. And in that regard, as a fleet commander answerable only to the Lords of the Fleet, I outrank any governor.’

  The chancellor pursed his lips, insulted. ‘It is against our every law to take a New Islander to sea.’

  ‘Who knows it better than I? But so exceptional are the circumstances I will risk the breaking of the law.’

  ‘Circumstances? What circumstances?’

  Vincente was scornful. ‘You noticed the attack of two nights past, did you not? You noticed the destruction of Stone Port and Lonsmouth? In fact, I would have thought that the governor had more pressing concerns right now, than the arrest of a single boy. But in any case, in light of the momentous events that have taken place here, it’s vital that I return home to sound a warning of this new danger. Dow Amber will assist me in the delivery of that warning.’

  ‘Assist you? He’s a New Islander! Indeed, we suspect he is in league with the very rebels who conceived the attack, which is precisely why Governor Balba demands you surrender him to me immediately.’

  ‘I have already told you, have I not, that the attack was no deed of the New Islanders. They themselves are its primary victims. The assault came from elsewhere. A strange craft was sighted that hails not from these waters.’

  The chancellor sniffed haughtily. ‘A strange craft, you say, that somehow moved without the aid of sail or oar. And seen by no one else.’

  ‘Seen by myself, Chancellor, and by this boy. We two alone. And it is for that reason that I will take him before the Lords when we reach home waters, so that he can confirm a sighting so unusual.’ And here the captain’s voice went dangerously soft. ‘Or do you doubt what I saw, Chancellor? Do you accuse me of deception, or delusion, here on the deck of my own ship?’

  The chancellor glanced about then, at the frowning officers, at the sailors at work in the rigging, and at the marines standing guard – as if realising for the first time just how outnumbered his small party was.

  He inclined his head stiffly. ‘As you wish, Captain. I see I cannot prevent you. But be it on your own head.’

  Vincente bowed in return. ‘As is it ever.’

  And Dow, standing by, felt such a conflicting surge of emotions he was at a loss to decide how he should react. It was really going to happen. He’d known of the captain’s intentions – Vincente had forewarned him the day before – but Dow had scarcely believed it would be possible, that the governor could truly be overruled. And yet now the debate was done, and Vincente had prevailed. When the Chloe set sail, Dow would be aboard. He was going to sea. To sea.

  It should have been the greatest news of his life.

  However . . .

  He looked beyond the high deck, southwards to the Rip. A stream of boats and barges were making their way back and forth across the channel. The craft were ferrying refugees from Stone Port, and had been doing so since the previous morning. Most of the town’s population had survived the fire, but in the town itself barely a house was left standing. Thousands were homeless, and for now there was nowhere they could go – except to Stromner.

  Dow had never developed any fondness for the fishing village, but even so he was dismayed by the thought of what would happen to it now. Stromner could not hope to accommodate so many refugees. It would be overrun, turned into a crowded camp, muddy and squalid and full of misery, and through which would soon stalk hunger and disease – followed no doubt by anger and bloodshed. The villagers themselves would be helpless. Even Boiler. And how strange it was that Mother Gale had been proven right yet again. She had warned that the danger had not passed for Stromner, and certainly the danger had not.

  And what was Dow doing to help? Nothing. Vincente had forbidden him from leaving the Chloe, and he’d accepted that restriction all too readily. He hadn’t even tried to argue. And now he would simply be sailing away. In the time of New Island’s direst need, Dow was going to abandon his homeland to its suffering, and make off with the Ship Kings, New Island’s very enemies. It wasn’t right, he knew. And it was no use telling himself that he had no choice, that he was doing so only as ordered – because he also knew how desperately he wanted to go.

  Dow looked away from the Rip at last, and from the refugees. He felt too ashamed to watch any longer. And yet neither, he knew, would he speak up and demand, however vainly, to be left behind.

  In any case, the council had moved on to other matters. The captain of the Severe was now embarked on a long report, having only just returned from a voyage across the Claw to Lonsmouth. There he had found enormous destruction and death, with nigh on four fifths of the city reduced to ash. In his judgement, there was little doubt that the fire was the result of sabotage in the same manner as at Stone Port. Admittedly, no one at Lonsmouth had sighted the saboteurs or their deadly devices; nevertheless, at near to midnight – three hours before the Stone Port attack had begun – multiple blazes had flared up along the docks on both banks of the river, and spread to the streets. Mines were the only explanation.

  Unable to aid the homeless thousands in any way, the Severe had rescued the Ship Kings residents of the city – no more than three hundred folk – and ferried them to Stone Port to join their fellows. For although the town of Stone Port had been destroyed, the Stone Port fortress had survived unharmed, and with it all the houses and halls and gardens of the governor and his court.

  ‘Very well,’ said Vincente, addressing the whole assembly upon the report’s conclusion. ‘Let it be thus. T
he Chloe will sail within hours and make all haste for home, and we will sail alone. Severe will remain here to maintain order and to protect our folk at Stone Port. The four surviving merchantmen will stay behind also. Chancellor, the goods those ships carry will have to keep you and your people supplied until relief arrives. Go carefully. Even with fair winds, that relief will be several months in coming. Is that understood, everyone?’

  The captain of the Severe nodded firmly, and the chancellor inclined his head in regal acquiescence. But no one, Dow noted with another pang of guilt, not even Vincente, made any suggestion of sharing the supplies on the merchantmen with the hungry crowds at Stromner and Lonsmouth, or of opening up the Ship Kings’ fortress to accommodate any of the refugees.

  And yet still Dow was thankful that Vincente was going to take him along when the Chloe set sail.

  With that, the council broke up. The chancellor and his attendants swept off to their boats that lay tied up at the Chloe’s side, giving Dow dark glares as they went. The officers from the Severe lingered somewhat longer, and in friendlier fashion, talking with the Chloe’s officers, but then made for their own boats in turn. And all the while Dow and his two guards stood by, awaiting dismissal. Everyone ignored them – until Lieutenant Diego appeared. Dow had not seen him at the council, for the junior officers had not been invited, but now he strolled by, and then paused ostentatiously to peer at Dow’s forehead, no longer bandaged, but which displayed an ugly cut held together by black stitches.

  ‘It heals well, I see,’ said Diego airily. ‘I’m glad. But I must say it sounds rather clumsy of you, to trip over and hit your head – and while we were still tied up at the dock! It doesn’t say much for your sea legs, New Islander. How will you fare in a true ocean swell, I wonder?’

  Dow only stared back levelly, remembering the way the crystal goblet had come spinning towards him.

  Diego smiled. ‘We’ll know soon enough, won’t we, now that the captain has seen fit to defy all sense and tradition. I suppose I should welcome you aboard.’ But instead the lieutenant only leant closer, his voice low, dropping even the pretence of civility. ‘You don’t fool me, New Islander. Phantom boats, indeed – I know it was your own people who were behind this attack, and that you were in league with them. And the truth will come out, if I have anything to do with it.’

  Again Dow did not speak, but the accusation seemed an ominous foretaste of trouble. First the chancellor had doubted the existence of the strange boat, now one of Vincente’s own officers was doing the same.

  Diego stepped back. ‘And don’t expect any pleasure cruise, New Islander. I doubt you’ll be allowed to stay in such luxurious quarters as the sick bay for much longer. Nor will the marines want to waste their time standing watch over you all voyage.’ He glanced to the guards on either side of Dow. ‘Am I right, men? The brig is the place to keep this one, is it not?’

  The marines gave dutiful laughs, and at that Dow almost did break his silence; he hadn’t considered such a possibility, but suddenly it seemed only too plausible. And it would be the cruellest of all jokes for fortune to play on him – to be permitted to sail at last, but to sail locked away in a lightless cell.

  ‘That will do, Lieutenant.’

  Diego started, for Vincente had come up quietly from behind. But he quickly recovered, and even smirked faintly as he bowed. ‘Aye, sir.’

  ‘You’re dismissed, Lieutenant.’

  ‘Aye, sir.’ And with a salute, Diego was gone.

  Vincente appraised Dow a moment. ‘A word, if I may,’ he said, drawing Dow away from the marines and over to the rail. ‘For one, you need not fear that I’ll confine you to the brig. Indeed, once we’re safely at sea I’ll dispense with your guard altogether, and you’ll have free run of the ship, within reason.’

  Dow’s relief clashed with all his other confused emotions; he could not decide how he felt about the captain. He forced himself to remember that Vincente was a Ship King, and was taking Dow aboard his vessel not out of any kindness or friendship, but out of necessity.

  They stood at the rail, each in silence for a moment, staring north across the Claw. A haze hung in the sky; it marked the smouldering ruins of Lonsmouth. But with his mind’s eye Dow gazed further – he looked beyond the city to the wide lowland plains, and then beyond again, following the Long River for all its twisting length to a blue shadow that was the highlands, far, far away. He saw Yellow Bank in its deep valley, and his family’s little cottage. He saw his mother and father, and his brother and sisters too, gathered by the fire. In the chaos of this upturned world, he could think of no way to get a message to them that he was leaving New Island, and that he did not know when he would return.

  ‘You are strangely fated, Dow Amber,’ said Vincente at last, his eyes seeming to look as far afield as Dow’s. ‘Against all custom and law, both ours and your own, the moment is now come; you are about to embark upon the Great Ocean, the first of your kind to do so in generations. You have wished deeply for this, I think. And no doubt there are great wonders to be seen out there. Monstrous creatures and deadly storms. Realms of ice and cold, realms of heat and torpor. Realms where pale dead things walk on the surface to haunt the living, and realms where the very water itself behaves in ways near impossible to explain.’

  And Dow’s sight leapt beyond his home now, and went reaching to the headland, where he had first spied the ocean, and then went swooping out across the waves, and on to a storm wracked horizon . . .

  ‘But beware, Dow Amber,’ said the captain, so sombrely that Dow looked at him, all visions forgotten. ‘Beware of the sea. You have longed to voyage upon it, but I tell you the sea is not a thing for longing. We Ship Kings know this. It is not a thing to love or hate, nor to take as a friend. It is not a thing with which a man should presume to form any bond at all, no matter how well he thinks he understands it. The sea is a fool. It is witless and unthinking in its power, wayward in its kindness and cruelty, and beyond all appeal. Do not mistake that.’

  Dow made no response, but a disturbing memory came to him, of the maelstrom, and of the mindlessness of its strength, to pluck one man down helpless to his death, and yet to set the other free . . .

  Vincente turned, his grave gaze becoming sardonic as he glanced about at his ship. ‘However, it is perhaps the affairs of men that will endanger you more in the near future. Lieutenant Diego won’t be the only one who dis- approves of your presence on board the Chloe. There will be others – and many more in my homeland. There are wiles and plots of politics of which you know nothing as yet. You set sail into these waters blindly, Dow Amber, and it is I who have launched you there.’ He sighed, then straightened briskly. ‘But enough. It is decided, and there’s no going back. Already the tide is turning.’ He made to go, then paused. ‘You may remain up here as we get underway. It seems only fair, considering what lies ahead, that you’re allowed to bid a proper farewell to your home.’

  And so Dow remained on the high deck as the wind stiffened from the west and the Chloe readied itself to put to sea. He made no effort yet to understand the many commands shouted by the officers, or to decipher the meaning of the whistles blown and the bells rung, or to grasp the purpose of the manifold and mystifying tasks carried out by the hundreds of sailors on the deck or in the rigging. There would be time enough for all that in the weeks to come.

  Instead he stared over to the beach of Stromner, his home of the last four months, watching the boats delivering their sad cargo of refugees onto the sand. Or he stared north across the Claw towards his truer home, hundreds of miles away, thinking again of his family, and of the fate that had brought him so far from them. His strange fate, as the captain had called it.

  But what was fate? So many had spoken of it to Dow in this last year, but he felt no closer to knowing. His mother had feared fate. Nathaniel had defied it – to his doom. Boiler doubted it, and yet bent to its commands. Mother Gale seemed to commune with it and give it voice. Even the Ship Kings, it appeared
, paid it heed. But Dow himself had always struggled with the notion.

  After all, it was his own life that he was living, was it not? A life where his own desires and choices mattered, no matter whose blood might flow in his veins? Only as the maelstrom had loomed and he’d set off in pursuit of Nathaniel had he allowed himself to believe that perhaps he was ruled by fate – and look what had happened. Fate had tricked him and Nathaniel had died.

  And yet, had Dow not gone to the whirlpool, he would not now be where he had always wanted to be: standing upon the deck of a true ship at last.

  It was imponderable.

  ‘Weigh anchor!’ came the cry.

  A rumbling rose from below, and then the clanking of the anchor chain as it was winched in. Sails set, the Chloe moved in full state towards the Rip. On the left, the beach and dunes of Stromner disappeared from view behind the bulk of East Head. On the right, the ashen ruin of Stone Port fell away. Ahead, the ocean opened out before Dow in all its restless eternity.

  Farewell, he thought. But it had no meaning.

  And anyway they were not yet done with New Island. Clear of the Heads, the Chloe turned left to run with the north-east current as it flowed along the outer shore of the Claw’s eastern arm. For a long while they sailed within a mile or two of the coast, and Dow stood at the landward rail, watching the dunes slip by. It was a clear day, the wind fair in the battleship’s sails, and the ocean bright and blue. But Dow felt bound still by the land, and by the ties of all he had left behind.

  Then, late in the afternoon, the Chloe finally bore away from the peninsula, turning due east to sail into the coming evening. Behind, as the sun began to set over New Island, the land itself sank away. Dow saw it as a long black hump, diminishing steadily, until it had almost vanished along with the sun.

  And that was when the girl came to him.

  Dow was staring over the stern rail, lost in his thoughts, and suddenly she was there at his side, gazing west as he was. He had not glimpsed her since the feast, and then only from a distance; now she was close enough to touch. For a moment, in his surprise, he studied her unabashed. She was dressed again in men’s clothes, topped by an officer’s coat, her hands in its pockets. So absorbed did she seem as she gazed out – her face lit to a glow by the dying sun, her scars merely wisps on her skin – she might have been unaware of Dow’s very presence.