Centuries of June

by Keith Donohue

  Master Ravens, the pilot, himself stripped of waistcoat and blouse, called out to his boatswain over the thunder. “Speak to th’ men. Full to’t lest we turtle or split.”

  The swain, bald as a coot and red with exhaustion, turned to the crew and gentlemen united in the cause of life. He roared over the tempest. “Yare, ye salty dogs, make haste and heave to.”

  No sooner had the command left his lips, all was forgot. The engorged sea spat up a wall of water that like to fall upon their heads, and so it did, washing o’er the starboard rail, and swept the decks bow to aft, filling the Sea Venture from the hatches to the spardeck and knocking the helmsman from the wheel. The whipstaff swung like the tail of a dog and when he tried to grab and still it, the helmsman was batted nearly into the pitching waves and by the mercy of Jesu was not rent asunder. The cabin boy upon the deck bent like a crab and scuttled to grab the helm, holding on for dear life, and were it not for that quick action, the ship and all would have sunk to the bottom of the sea.

  She dipped a finger into the sink and twirled the water, making a whirlpool, and the tiny ship caught in the vortex spun like a top. I began to feel dizzy and wished she would stop.

  The admiral hisself, she went on, came dripping from the hold, drown’d as a cat and to his knees in the saltwater. Those who had gained their feet gathered round. “We are quenched but not besotted, and if I am to die, I shall not perish below as in a box but under God’s wide skies, in the company of these valiant mariners and my good friends.” He raised his fist to the thunderclouds. “Blow ye winds and crack, give us your best, and shew ye can best these fine Englishmen.”

  Straining against the wheel, Long John Long listened with wonder, thinking the man a bloody fool with his false pride spewing from his mouth like the black blood of a dragon. “Men,” she said under her breath, for the cabin boy was a girl, as surely you have guessed by now. She was on the cusp of the change and bound her wee breasts with a linen strap, but for ere else could easily be mistaken for a boy. “Men and their vanity, as if every jack was a stalwart son of the King. And where was he now? Could James himself still the heavens and escape such a storm?”

  That night, the fire came and danced across the waves, leapt upon the deck, and tarried upon the spars, slipping up the rigging not yet torn to shreds. What the Greeks called Castor and Pollux and the French name Saint Elmo’s, and every sailor knows the light foretells the changing of a storm and a shift in fortune. Friday, the sixth day of the storm, the morning revealed their fortunes had turned indeed, and for the worse. Listing to starboard, the Sea Venture groaned once and nearly all hope was dead. The captains and pilots clambered to the decks and bellowed orders to unrig the ship and throw o’er everything that threatened to pull them down. Trunks and other luggage were cast into the sea. Hogsheads of oil and cider and butts of small beer were staved and the barrels heaved away, and with a sigh, she lifted and righted.

  “Lad, we are near finished.” Ravens clapped a hand on Jane’s back. They stood side by side at the stern, watching a cask of wine bob over the waves. “Cap’n Newport would have us chop down the mainmast, and surely, without sail, we would founder should this wind ever abate.”

  Two gentlemen and a lady joined them for a moment’s respite at the rail. They were discussing among themselves how much of the sea had been pumped through the ship since the storm had begun, with Mr. Strachey arguing forcefully that the crew had quitted at least one hundred tons of water. The morning was nearly spent, and in the fabric of the storm clouds small holes and tears appeared, letting in a weak sun. One of the gentlemen passed an open bottle of spirits down the line, and even Jane drank deeply. This is my final hour, thought she, and I will take my leave of this world and steady on for the next. She cast her eyes upon her fellow passengers, all salt-sick and sore, hungry and thirsty, spent beyond endurance. As in a dream of no end, they had baled and pumped till the ropes and sinews of their arms and legs felt stretched and snapped. Even the crew, seasoned mariners all, wearied of the unending tasks and made ready to shut hope in the hatches and commend their souls to the sea. A pair of ladies sat in the corner and wept, and only Somers remained on watch through the wretched morning. ’Twas well after ten of the clock when the admiral leapt to his feet and cried out, “Land!”

  All rushed forward to see the spot he had claimed, and there beyond the waves, a lump of earth appeared, and soon enough the very tops of the trees danced in the breeze. Jane went up the rigging with Mr. Chard to unfurl the sail, thanking God the while that the captain had not prevailed in his unholy plan to chop down the mainmast. The lead line was thrown and seven fathoms called, and when next ordered, the depth had fallen to four fathoms. The Sea Venture barreled to the shore, and Somers itched to run her aground to safety, when the ship hit white water a half-mile out and crashed into a reef, and she braked. Men, women, and all not tied down lurched pell-mell about the deck to the terrible wrenching roar of timber caught fast in the ragged coral. She would not go now no matter which way the wind did blow. Jane raced belowdecks to see the water pouring through the gash like blood from new wounds.

  “We are bitten and will be chewed by the wind and the tide,” said Frobisher. “As sure as a dog fastens to a bone, this ship will never come undone.”

  “Murtherin’ God,” said Edward Chard. “To be so close and yet so far.”

  Great moaning prayers rose from the men and women, cries of despair and shock, and then as one, the company shoved aforedecks, bound for the ship’s boat, a panic racing from person to person, be they gentleman or sailor.

  Aready at skiff Master Ravens, saber drawn against assays. “We’ll none of that, my good cur, but wait for orders from the admiral.”

  Somers parted the crowd and restored order. Eight mariners were commanded to man the oars, and the passengers arranged by class and taken over the water to the shore, the gentlemen and ladies first. Those who stayed on board cursed their lot, but once the little skiff turned back and beat against the waves, a sense of relief accompanied it. Over the course of that afternoon, one and all were transported, and then the men came back for the ship’s stores, what seeds and provisions once bound for Virginia, the unspoilt food and drink, even the ship’s dog, Crab, tho he be anything but crabby, made safe. Jane was among the last, arms thrown around the mastiff’s neck as they were rowed the half-mile, but even with all her might, she could not stop the beast from leaping into the surf, desperate at last for land and deliverance from their deathly ordeal.

  “A dog,” the old man interrupted her. “A dog is the very man for displays of vertiginous exuberance. You can read their nature in their wagging tails.”

  Jane scowled at him, crossed her arms.

  “I have often wondered,” he said, “how much better off we humans would be with a tail at the end. An appendage that would betray our thoughts and feelings.” Dolly jabbed him in the ribs with her elbow, and he blushed. “But do go on, my dear, with your tale.”

  To say that they were grateful to be on terra firma diminishes the wonder found on those islands, which the navigators and more experienced seamen knew at once to be the Bermudas, which some call Brendan’s Isle after the Irishman who found it a thousand years ago, and what some call the Isle of Devils, so named for the rumours of monsters that linger there. Be that as it may, the company gave praise and thanksgiving to the Lord, and the Reverend Bucke led the evensong, reading from the Book of Common Prayer, while in the distance, beyond the breaking waves, the Sea Venture bucked, a sentinel in the ocean and symbol of all that had been abandoned, home and hope, a terrible monument to their ordeal and survival. Jane watched till the last light and the rising of the moon and stars, wondering what had become of the rest of the fleet bound for Jamestown, whether the other ships were lost, too, or lay at the bottom of the sea, or had somehow endured the tempest and rested safely in the promised land. Master Ravens found her alone on the strand and sat beside her in the moonlight.

  “We have been blown off
course some one hundred forty leagues,” he said, “but by Jove, we have endured all, and all shall be vouchsafed. You must have faith.” There was a note of disbelief to his words, a coloring that showed he was not above false promises. At the sound of his voice, she buried her face in her hands and wept. Ravens laid a fatherly hand upon her shoulder. “Come, boy, and sleep by my side. We’ll have work to do in the morrow. For if we are to quit this place, we must build ourselves a boat.”

  Having little prospect of a passing vessel, the crew set about salvaging what they could from the ruined ship, sending men in the longboat to pick clean the ribs of wood and sail, iron and goods, even the bell itself, in order to fashion from misfortune a smaller portion of luck. Carpentry on the new boat began in mid-August, just after the skeleton of the Sea Venture broke into bones and scattered or sank. The men had decided to transform the skiff into a vessel capable of traversing the week’s voyage over open waters to Virginia, and out of the remains of the old hatch, a deck began to take shape under the watchful eye of Mr. Frobisher, the ship’s carpenter, and those not thus engaged endeavoured to make a small village for their needs, for tho the days were fine if hot, there is no place like a house for a home, no matter the circumstance.

  The island was a paradise in every other regard, and for their feast and respite, fresh water and food were soon found. Fish abounded in the waters off the shore, and could be had by means of gigging a sharp stick, or later, a net was sewn from scraps of rigging, and when dipped into the water, it would return a bounty of mullet and rockfish and pilchard. Lobsters could be had by hand, tho quick hands were needed, so as not to be bit by their claws. In time, sea turkles arrived to lay their eggs upon the sand, and they could be plucked and eaten raw, and the turkles themselves, when stewed, produced a toothsome meat neither fish nor fowl tho never foule, and one large creature could feed them all for three meals in turn. Wild hogs, abandoned no doubt by earlier visitors to these isles, the Spanish or Portuguese or Irishmen perhaps, were rounded up in a most ingenious way. Mr. Chard had discovered a herd of swine rooting through the forest and that night, he lay down with them, next to the boar, and when the hog began to snuggle close, he grabbed its leg, held fast, and tied him with a rope, leading sire and sows and piglets back to our encampment as if Chard were the king of all hogs. Crab, the dog, kept his watch over the pen we built, and the hogs were bred and slaughtered in turn when the survivors tired of lobster or fish. Admiral Somers ordered a garden to be tilled with English seed, and within ten days, the first sproutlings shewed their green necks, tho the muskmelon and peas and onions never bore fruit, for the plants themselves were eaten by the multitudes of birds and creeping insects. But berries flourished on low bushes, and the fruit of the palm, when boiled, reminded many of English cabbage. Mr. Chard discovered that the palm leaves, when crushed and fermented, made a drink not unlike port wine.

  “Have a taste, boy,” he said one evening near the end of their first marooned month. Seated on the corpse of a felled cedar, they were enjoying a moment’s peace at the end of ten hours’ labor. Just at the waterline, they watched the rising of the moon, the appearance of the constellations one by one. Chard, like so many of the men, had failed to don his blouse, and his suntanned chest, brown as a beetle, glistened in the failing light. His whiskers and beard had grown so that when he spoke, he looked like a bear or some other fabulous beast. She took the cup from him and drank deep till the liquor spread across her belly and crept into her limbs.

  “That’s the stuff, lad, that will rid all cares and make you forget all about old England. Precious stone set in a silver sea, my arse.”

  The palm wine roared to her head.

  “I, for one, am glad we are here,” Chard said. “Glad of the storm. Glad to be off that ill-met ship. I don’t care if we ever leave here. I am sore sick of the sea, cooped like a rat belowdecks, never your own master but bound to serve men of no sense, men who sail into the cheeks of the wind at full sail. Half-wits and knaves who like to drown you in their vainglory. There’s them who pull the yoke.” He poured another cup of wine for John. “Fish aplenty, the sun on your back, no crowds jostling and bustling. If only I was my own master, then I would show them as fools they be. For want of coins in England, but here, lad, here there is no king, and all can be had by a man’s own labor. Here a Chard can be a lord, and a lord no better than a Chard. Here now, drink up, John, and be glad you are a free man. This mash will put a beard on you yet.”

  John nodded at the good sense of the argument, tho the wine toyed with her mind until all reason, indeed all feeling, escaped. The stars lost their places in the night sky and the white sheets atop each wave rolled in and then pulled away so fiercely that she feared the blankets would reach and drag her into the sea.

  Like a great bellows, Chard yawned and drew a deep breath. “No more talk of kings and knaves tonight, for such fancies sit heavily upon the soul, and hope is more tiresome than a day’s labor. I take my leave with my bottle and bid you good night till the morrow.”

  A crab emerged from a hole in the sand and began to fan the air with its great claw, its eyes twisting on their stalks, first one and then the other, and fascinated by its display, John laid her head upon the sand to watch more clearly. The little crab was the color of the sand itself and difficult to see in the moonlight, but she strained to catch every motion, and in so doing, fell asleep, rocked in wine-soaked slumber by the sound of the endless sea. How long she slept, she could not say, and when she woke ’twas as from a dream, or more than a dream, for the first thing she saw was the master, Mr. Ravens, seated beside her as the sun peeped over the edge of the Atlantic. And the first thing that she realized was that she had been stripped of her blouse and her bindings unwound, and then her shirts hastily thrown over her again. Bare-breasted, she knew, despite the thrumming in her head, she had been found out.

  In all modesty, without so much as a sideways glance, Ravens spoke as soon as she stirred. “I am sorry. When you did not come to our home last night, I worried for your safety and set about the woods looking for you. And finding you here on the beach in such disarray, I shook and shook to wake you from your stupor, thinking you ill at first, rather than in your cups. You lay here in a pool of water, as if washed in by the waves, soaked in your own drops from the drink and hot night. I thought it best to cool you when you would not wake, for some fever or ague was surely upon you, and when I saw.… Who are you really, girl, and why have you hidden your true nature?”

  Jane struggled to sit but every motion made her giddy and unwell. In time she managed to turn her back and dress herself. “Master Ravens, I have served you well these past months. I pray you not uncover me to all. Keep my secret. There was no other way to come to Virginia than in some employ, for my mother is but a serving maid in a house named The Moon and the Seven Stars, and my own dear father left this world when I was but nine.”

  “And how long have you played the boy?”

  “Cap’n Newport,” she said, “came into the inn where my mum keeps us in chambers overhead. I heard him talking to the mariners there, a joint of mutton in his hand, saying he needs a crew of able men for an expedition to Virginia to save the company settled there from their penury. I found these here breeches of my older brother who had left home and, being in the habit of listening to the sailors’ tales, was able to convince Newport I was fit for cabin and to wait upon the pilot or some other navigator. Had I known, Master, of your kindness and good nature such deceit I never would have parlayed, but I feared to be found out and thrown to the whales or sharks or shut up in the dark belly of the Venture.”

  “Foolish child.”

  “You will not uncover me now, Master Ravens, I prithee. I promise to make myself known in Jamestown.”

  He faced her, the light behind him creating a halo around his head. “You are a bold sprite. Tell me: is your brother soon to follow to reclaim his pantaloons?”

  She laughed, and in so doing, began to think that he would not
tell a soul after all.

  “I came to find you, John, if John you be, tho surely not so—”

  Brushing the sand from her arms, she confessed that her Christian name was Jane.

  “Long Jane Long,” he chuckled. “I came to find you for I am going away this very day. They have closed up and made safe the boat, and we sail on the tide. Had I not seen you thus, I would have asked you to accompany—”

  “But I can still join you. Nothing has changed.”

  Henry Ravens gripped her by the shoulders, forcing her to look him in the eyes. “No, you cannot go. Intrepid as you are, you are still a woman, indeed a girl. But fear not, I shall keep close your confidence until we are all joined in Jamestown. Now, give me a kiss, boy,” he said, “for good luck.” And she kissed him on the cheek for the first and last time.

  Eight men set out on a bark of aviso for Virginia on the twenty-eighth of August, being a Monday, to the great excitement of all those marooned, but the longboat returned on Wednesday evening, having attempted to find safe passage around the reefs from the north and from the southwest. They made to sea again on the first day of September, following the course that brought the Sea Venture into the bay, hoping to make way in open water. “If we live,” Ravens said to the assembled company, “and arrive safe there, I shall return by the next moon with a pinnace from the colony. Light beacons each night thence to guide our ship safely to you.”

  Four weeks later, Long Jane tended the bonfire on that first night and for many nights afterward from the highest spot on the islands. By day, she watched the horizon when she could, ever hopeful, all through October and into November till the December moon, but no bark appeared, and to no eye, nothing but sea and air. What became of Ravens and the seven sailors no one ever knew.

  During this time of waiting and watching, work began on another ship, tho divers mutinies took place among the mariners, some of whom were irreligious and of secret discontent, to spread disquiet regarding the colony in Virginia. Six men made themselves outlaws and outcasts by plotting to steal a boat and live by themselves on a nearby island, but no sooner had their conspiracy been hatched than the cock crowed, and all were banished from St. Catherine’s Beach. Only by their petitions through Mr. Strachey would they be readmitted to the company by the mercy of Sir Thomas Gates, the governour. In January, a Mr. Hopkins hatched a plot with others, and he was arrested and placed in manacles. Were it not for pleading his wife and young childers left behind in London, he, too, would have been ensconced forever. Lastly, a man named Robert Waters fell into an argument with a Mr. Edward Samuell over the matter of a poor-cut timber, and it ended when Waters struck a shovel behind Samuell’s ear and killed him. Gates ordered the two men, murdered and murderer, to be bound together and a guard of six attend them, but despite the horror of the sin, the guards cut the rope and led Waters into hiding in the woods beyond.