Artemis k-2

by Julian Stockwin

  Kydd smiled broadly - all was right with the world.

  ‘Yair, second time fer me, mates,’ said Crow, his face animated at the memory, ‘an’ that’s twice too many fer me.’ He pushed his pot forward. ‘Worst place in th’ whole god-blasted world fer a sailor, an’ that’s no error.’ The faces of his audience grew serious.

  ‘We gets westerlies all th’ way, should be quick,’ Mullion said.

  ‘Aye, but we’re only at forty south now an’ it’s comin’ on ter blow — we need ter get to fifty-six south fer Cape Horn, an’ there it’s a reg’lar built hell.’ Nobody spoke. ‘Black squalls hit yer out o’ nowhere, grievous cold, seas the size o’ which make yer blood freeze ter see ‘em — no galley fire on account o’ the lunatic movin’ o’ the barky, it’s no place ter be. But there’s some days it’s as charmin’ as ever you’d want, mates, seas calm an’ sun out a-shinin’ on them great black rocks — but yer knows that next it’s goin’ ter turn on yer, like an animal, screamin’ ‘n’ shriekin’ an’ out ter tear the hooker t’ bits …’

  Artemis swooped and lifted, her hull creaking and working energetically. It was easy to imagine the result of a harsher climate, and Kydd looked about at the swaying lanthorn and slight movement of the canvas screen, and felt a quickening of his senses.

  He was still affected by Renzi’s labyrinthine musing on the nature of man. ‘D’ye know if there’s any savages livin’ ashore there, Isaac?’ he asked, interested to see if Renzi’s thesis would work at the opposite pole to paradise.

  ‘Aye,’ said Crow, ‘that there are. Saw ‘em once, an’ they must be the lowest kind o’ hooman yer can get. Scraggy, hair all a-hoo, mud all over, ‘n’ sulky with it. Don’t trust ‘em, any of ‘em.’ He thought for a moment and added, ‘An’ their women are as rough as they is - catch fish naked with a dog, they does.’

  Despite Crow’s direful forecast, Kydd couldn’t help but feel thrilled by the heightened sensations of speed and danger as they drove south. Entering the domain of the Southern Ocean proper everything was on the grand scale. Seas swelled to mountains, a quarter of a mile between peaks and higher even than the maintop in the troughs. As the following seas came on, Artemis would lift at the stern, going higher and steeper, until her angle down seemed a giddy impossibility, and surfing down the face of the wave in an accelerating rush before the massive swell overtook and passed down her length with a consequent sudden deceleration. Her decks filled with a foaming, hissing cataract. Then the process would begin again, a regular three times a minute.

  It was dangerous on deck and lifelines were rigged the length of the vessel. If the unwary could not leap to the rigging in time, only a desperate clamping on to this stout line would give a chance while the rampaging seas invaded the deck. Every man aboard knew that with the boats griped and lashed so securely, there would be no lowering of them to rescue a man overboard - even supposing the hurtling progress of the vessel could be stopped. It would be a cold, lonely and certain death.

  On the helm it was doubly dangerous. One of the massive seas coming in astern and catching the rudder at an angle unawares could slam it aside; this would transmit backwards up through the tiller ropes and to the helm, resulting in the weather helmsman being hurled through the air over the wheel while the lee man was smashed to the deck. It called for ferocious concentration on the subtle motions of the sea, and Kydd learnt much as he and others fought Artemis along.

  If the crest of one of the gigantic waves broke it was a terrifying experience. Struggling at the wheel, the first that the helmsman looking forward would know of its approach would be a sullen rumble, rising to a rushing roar. If he made the mistake of looking over his shoulder, he would see a gigantic mass of foam-streaked sea about to fall on the vessel like an unstoppable avalanche. The spectacle was of such primeval power that it was said to be not uncommon for a helmsman to flee the wheel.

  Days turning to weeks, they sailed on; the same course, the same wind from astern, each day the same wearing down of the spirit in a ceaseless fight against the danger, the motion, the discomfort. Forty degrees south turned to forty-five, then fifty and finally fifty-five south as they shaped course for Cape Horn itself.

  At these latitudes discomfort turned to pain, exhilaration to dread. Skies ragged with racing scud, squalls hammering in from nowhere shrieking like a banshee in the fraying rigging, sails ripped to shreds in an instant, it was a hellish world.

  At noon each day a group of officers assembled, staggering and lurching on the quarterdeck. Like the seamen they dressed in any ragged garment that could offer some proof against the weather. And almost always they dispersed afterwards without the one thing they yearned for — a sight of the sun. Without a sighting, their latitude was so much guesswork, and if this was mistaken, then Artemis would leave her bones on the iron-bound coast of Patagonia.

  Squalls now brought a new misery. Taking in yet another reef in the foretopsail, Kydd closed his eyes to reduce the soreness of salt-reddened eyeballs as he worked at the stiff, sodden canvas. He sensed the cold feathery touch of snow. When he opened his eyes he found himself isolated in a world of white flakes, tossing and whirling around him, wedy settling on spars and cordage before being whipped away. It turned to a penetrating sleet, and in the raw, wet cold Kydd climbed back on deck in the most acute bodily misery. Even so, he could not escape. The spray bursting aboard was now half frozen; as it savagely sleeted across the deck it drew blood where frozen particles sand-blasted his skin.

  Always it was a deep relief to go below and stagger along to his mess, moving from hand to hand in the wild motion, to the blessed benison of rum, age-toughened cheese and hard-tack - and temporary surcease. Men sat, silent and staring, dealing with the conditions in their own way, but never complaining. That would have been the most futile thing they could do.

  Sometimes the weather played tricks. The cloudbase would drop to masthead height, the jagged cloud streaming past, and heavy curtains of snow would advance rapidly to bring visibility down to feet. Then, within minutes it would pass and cloudless skies would emerge as innocent of malice as a newborn, but always accompanied by a freezing cold.

  It was on one of these occasions, when the biting sleet had moved away and the crystal dome of the sky had cleared ahead, that there appeared across an infinite distance of tossing waters the distant sight of snow-capped mountains - the far southern tip of the continent of South America. The disbelieving yell of the lookout in the foretop hailed, ‘Laand hoooo!’

  Men tumbled up from below, crowding the decks. Powlett appeared and stomped up to the Master, who stood with a look of wonderment on his seamed face. ‘God bless m’ soul! My reckonin’ is that those peaks are not less’n eighty, one hundred miles off, so they are.’ Murmurs of amazement greeted this - the horizon for a frigate was never more than twelve to fifteen miles away, and the royals of a ship-of-the-line could be seen at twenty — but this!

  ‘Well done, Mr Prewse! Voyage of half ten thousand miles and we’re right on the nose.’ Powlett’s satisfaction spread out like a ripple, and smiles were to be seen for the first time for weeks.

  ‘Aye, sir, but the hard part is a-coming, never fear,’ Prewse said stolidly.

  Brutally tired, the ship’s company of Artemis faced the final approach to Cape Horn. The stark rock-bound land stretched across their course and was downwind to the fiercest blasts to be experienced anywhere on earth. If they found themselves in the wrong position there was little chance they could claw off back out to sea again.

  At eight bells the watch changed. The short day had turned to a fearful darkness out of which came the hammering blasts with just the same ferocity as in daytime. The same dangers lurked, the same treachery, but these came invisibly and suddenly at night.

  Kydd nodded to his replacement, who loomed up from the dismal gloom. His trick at the wheel always left him aching, bruised and punch-drunk with the merciless buffeting of the wind, and he felt for his lashings with relief. It was a criti
cal time, the handover. The sea was always looking to take advantage of sleep-weary men not fully aroused to their task.

  Hallison took the weather helm himself and was in the process of surrendering the wheel, while Kydd remained for a few more minutes until the new man was sure of himself. Others manning the after wheel were similarly engaged.

  Some instinct pricked at Kydd at that precise moment and he snatched a glance back over his shoulder. The size of seas coming in astern could be sensed by the amount of dark shadow they blocked against the stormy but slightly less gloomy sky; rearing up was a truly huge, immense black hill of sea, which was just beginning to break. An awful, soul-chilling threat.

  Kydd bawled a warning, but it happened too fast for the weary seamen. The ship lifted sharply to the watery mountain, higher than it ever had before, and as the comber broke it did so directly under her stern, sending her skidding forwards at a disastrous angle. At the same time the merciless wind pressed on her topsails and heeled her over even further. The two forces combined could have only one ending, broaching to, the ship forced around broadside to the waves, inertia rolling her over like a child’s toy - to destruction.

  In an impulse of pure seamanship Kydd strained to put on opposite turns at the wheel even before the slewing started, but as the vessel lay over first Hallison, then others who had released their lashing slid and then fell to the side of the deck before disappearing under the torrent of white sea that came over the bulwarks. Audible even above the furious hissing roar of wind and sea was a heavy clatter and ominous rumble from deep within Artemis. Her yards now nearly touched the sea with the heel. Kydd and the two who remained with him fought the helm for their very lives.

  It was Kydd’s instinctive early action that saved Artemis. It was sufficient to tip the balance of forces in favour of sails and helm, the greater angle of rudder working with the remaining thrust from rags of sails to give sufficient way through the water to counter the broadside slewing. Agonising minutes later the ship slowly came back erect and before the wind again.

  Trembling with fatigue and emotion Kydd was finally relieved, going below to a desolation of broken gear all adrift, the surge of water swilling over the deck, and men stumbling about, utterly exhausted after their battle for the life of their ship.

  A day later, a little after mid-morning, the weather moderated to racing low cloud against clearing curtains of heavy rain, but the ship had been heavily battered by squalls of extreme intensity. Powlett and the Master had never left the deck, for as Prewse quietly pointed out, these squalls were born high up on the ice-clad slopes of a mountain range somewhere close by, air super-cooled and made so heavy it hurtled down the valleys and to the sea. This was proof positive that the bleak dread of Cape Horn was close at hand.

  At a brief clearing of the atrocious conditions, there it was, a bare five miles away. The very tip of the continent. A low, black, straggling coast, streaked with snow, barren to the prevailing winds but darkly wooded elsewhere - a picture of desolation.

  ‘Two points to larboard,’ snapped Powlett, hardly recognisable in his thick grego and woollen head covering. ‘We keep in with the land while we can. How far to the Horn itself, Mr Prewse?’

  ‘At a whisker less sixty-seven degrees west at last reckoning, we’ll see it today, sir, no doubt about it — s’long as the weather lets us.’ With their sighting of the distant icy mountains Prewse had been able to adjust his course so that they approached by running down the line of latitude of his objective. Now they would keep with the land until they had won through to the other side.

  ‘Coast is bold hereabouts, I believe,’ Powlett added, shielding his eyes from flurries of spray.

  Prewse nodded. ‘Aye, sir, very steep to, I’ll agree. A good thing, o’ course, and if there are hazards, y’ can be sure that the rock’ll be covered in kelp, easy t’ see ahead f’r a warning - if y’r lookout is awake.’

  At the mizzen cleats Crow heard the comment and muttered to Kydd, ‘Yair, but does ‘e think that ‘cos every bit o’ kelp means a rock, that no kelp means no rock?’ He cracked a grim smile before cinching the rope and going below.

  To Kydd it was awesome and fascinating, bucketing along before the moderating swell and seeing the stark black coast slip past, the first land for so long at sea, yet knowing that if they went ashore they would find it the most bleak and windswept corner on earth.

  More rain. It came in dark-grey curtains of misery, washing over the battered frigate and sending Kydd into paroxysms of shuddering at the cruel wind that always followed. It cleared - and there was Cape Horn. Kydd stared across the grey rollers at the dark mass. One by one sailors came on deck to look, expressions ranging from loathing to fascination. Here was the reality of why they had suffered.

  From the low, nondescript coastline it swept towards them from the north into a magnificent bluff well over a thousand feet high, then plunged vertically into the sea as the breathtaking final point of a great continent. Kydd watched until the grand sight disappeared into the rain squalls and sea fret, and without further ado they passed from the Pacific into the Adantic, homeward bound.

  The bows of Artemis were now irrevocably directed towards England - that wondrous place whose name could send sea-hardened men into misty-eyed reverie. Kydd surveyed the little gathering at the mess table. Sunken dark eyes and bowed backs, introspective silences — none of them was unaffected by the experience. They had passed into the company of those few who could say they had doubled Cape Horn.

  But there was a renewal of spirit: nothing but a couple of months of steadily improving weather stood between them and England. The few days they had spent in the tiny anchorage in the lee of Tierra del Fuego had broken the spell and given them back their strength. The kelp-strewn rocks, playground of seals, echoing to the cries of wheeling terns and gulls, this was a blessed haven while they readied their vessel for her final leg.

  A warm feeling had come over Kydd unexpectedly when he looked up at Artemis from the boat that carried them around her battered hull, seeking out hidden damage. Her colours were dulled, her tar-black timbers streaked and worn, her cordage frayed and white with salt — but this was the ship that had carried him safely within her, across the world, to sights and adventures that would stay with him for the rest of his life.

  Crow lifted his eyes; they now glimmered with life. ‘We get the trades well ‘nough, we’ll be a-rollickin’ ashore in England before th’ buds o’ May.’ His arm was still bound to his body, but at least he was not tied to a cot like Hallison and two others, who had been left helpless with broken bones after their mauling by the giant wave.

  The contribution from Haynes was a grunt, but Kydd could see from his unwinking hard eyes that it would not be long before he would return as abrasive as ever.

  Mullion was cast down. He had been greatly affected by the loss of his friend overside, his grip on the man’s wrist not strong enough to prevent his being carried bodily overboard by the seething torrent. His last sight of his shipmate was of him flailing in the sea close by but being carried inexorably away. Mullion had stood helpless, weeping in agony as the minutes of life left to his friend had passed away out in the anonymous blackness.

  Kydd caught Renzi’s eye. As far as anyone could tell, apart from a deepening of the lines next to his mouth he was untouched by events, cool and considered in his words, as lofty-minded as ever. Kydd smiled. He himself had other concerns. ‘Could do with somethin’ t’ eat other than hard-tack, somethin’ that sticks to y’ ribs.’

  There was a dry chuckle, surprisingly from Haynes. ‘Yer’ll get yer meat soon enough,’ he said.

  The others looked up in curiosity. ‘How so?’ said Crow.

  ‘Why,’ said Haynes, ‘th’ hard-tack will be manned b’ bargemen.’

  Kydd grinned. ‘Let’s tell ye how we used to clear the bread o’ bargemen in Royal Billy’

  He had their attention. Every sailor was interested in ridding the hard-tack of bargemen, the weevils
and other life, particularly the large pale maggots that infested old ship’s stores.

  ‘Well, when we starts a bread cask in th’ hold, we sets on it a plate - with a ripe fish aboard. Bargemen, they wait till it’s quiet, then they swarm out t’ get a taste o’ the fish. All ye do then, is t’ heave the fish over the side ‘n’ set another in its place until you’ve cleared the cask o’ the vermin.’

  The cheery response and the spreading comfort of the rum was gratifying. Kydd’s spirits rose.

  Artemis sailed steadily north. The sun’s warmth swelled, grey seas became tinged with blue, and as the frigate ranged out into the Adantic rollers it was almost possible to put from mind past dangers and harsh times. But the ship and her company were sadly worn by the long voyage, tired by the interminable movement, jaded and soul-weary.

  It was seen in so many ways. Powlett appeared on deck in the morning, but then retired to his cabin soon after, his interchanges curt and monosyllabic. On one night Kydd had gone to Merrydew, the boatswain, in his cabin to ask for some gear and had found him quite incapable with drink. The surgeon, who had no particular friends that anyone could name, was acting oddly, shutting himself away in the noisome gloom of his quarters, his meals sent to him. And the bickering between Parry and Rowley took a bitter edge, a sarcastic and barely concealed animosity.

  The pleasant north-east trade winds petered out into fitful flurries all too soon after they reached the tropics; the sun was now hot and aggressive, humidity making movement a trial. Merrydew rarely appeared. He seldom spoke, his red, sweating face suffused with suffering. Kydd remembered the sun-blasted sea from the last time they had passed this way and prayed that their passage would not be protracted.

  ‘Aye, both on ‘em!’ The little purser’s steward anxiously awaited Kydd’s response. Kydd was quartermaster’s mate and was therefore among those responsible for stowage in the hold. It was shattering news: two or three of the remaining ground tier of water casks had run afoul of each other, probably as a result of their upset at the time of the monster wave, and had chosen this time to split a stave each at the point of contact. Precious water had quietly seeped into the bilge and at a stroke Artemis’s sea endurance was curtailed. There was no longer any question of her reaching England.