The Ocean of the Dead: Ship Kings 4

by Andrew McGahan

  It was a salve to the eye, that whiteness, but even better, as soon as the ships crossed over into the milk sea the stench of the red slime fell away, and the mosquitoes vanished. The white algae did not appeal to them, it seemed – or indeed to any life, for the sea was now devoid of all insects and of any swimming creatures that might feed on them. The heat remained, and the algae still choked the ocean for as far as could be seen, but free of noxious fumes, the crew breathed easier, and in sick bay the fever victims quickly began to improve.

  And so that afternoon, well clear of the red slime, Dow recalled the attack boats and let the fleet drift to another halt. Here in the milk algae they would wait again for a time, in hope of the wind returning.

  Three days passed. It was still too hot, and too silent, and too black at night, for anyone to ever be at ease – but after the torture of the red slime it was almost a holiday. And yet Fidel was puzzled. ‘I have reviewed all my old accounts,’ he said one evening at dinner, ‘and I can find no mention of this white algae. Red and yellow and green slimes, yes, and all the attendant horrors of insects and fever. But there is no mention anywhere of such white and empty seas as these.’

  ‘The old tales are hardly exhaustive though, surely,’ said Nell. ‘Doubtless there will be many things that we encounter, especially in the deep Doldrums, that no one has ever encountered before.’

  ‘We cannot quite say that,’ admonished Fidel. ‘Just because we have no report of a thing does not mean that no one has encountered it. For instance, earlier ships may have indeed met with this white sea, but perhaps those ships did not survive to bring a report of it home.’

  ‘You think this algae dangerous?’ asked Dow.

  ‘Not as far as I can tell. I’ve tested the white slime and find that it is bitter, but no worse. I meant only that we should not rely too heavily on the old accounts to warn us of all dangers. The worst perils may not be recorded at all, because no ship ever lived through them.’

  But such grim speculations were forgotten the next day, when a hot breeze stirred at last, and canvas could finally be raised once more.

  On through the white ocean pushed the fleet, and for every hour under sail, the higher morale rose on the ships. Folk began to look ahead eagerly. The breeze had a feel to it as if it might blow for several days and maybe more. And if Fidel was right, then they were already well past the halfway mark of this first stage of their voyage. Why, if winds like this continued, then soon the thousand miles of the outer Doldrums would be behind them, and the next stage of their journey, the inner Barrier, would be at hand.

  And all was well. Yes, the Doldrums were as disagreeable as rumour made them, but the Chloe and the Snout had shown that the suffering was not beyond human measure; it could be borne, and mitigated by use of the boats. Nor, for all Magliore’s dire warnings, was there any sign that fate was truly against them, nor any hint of his Ocean of the Dead.

  Dow shared in the growing confidence. The New World would not be reached without further ordeal, he knew; but nothing had happened so far to suggest that the attempt itself was impossible – and that was the main thing. Yes, he had always believed that he and his fleet would find a way through, whatever the cost; he would hardly have begun otherwise. But he was now beginning to hope that it might be less difficult, and less deadly, than he had ever dared dream.

  And speaking of dreams, for the last two weeks Nell had gone without any further fits. There had been no nightmares, no sleepwalking.

  Everything was looking up.

  Then came a dawn message from Jake Tooth. Urgent. Unbelievable.

  The Snout had started to sink.

  4. AT THE PUMPS

  At sea level the algae had an acrid smell, like distant burning. It stung in Dow’s throat as a boat bore he and Fidel over to the Snout. Staring across the white-slimed water Dow could spy no obvious sign that the second ship of his fleet was in trouble. It was still at full sail. But then again, as he peered acutely at its waterline, was it riding somewhat lower in the sea than it should be? By a few inches?

  Jake and Boiler were waiting on the Snout’s main deck, expressions grim. ‘What’s happened?’ Dow asked.

  ‘Come below and see,’ was Jake’s answer.

  Dow followed the others down, full of trepidation, and also a strange sense of dislocation. He couldn’t remember the last time he had been below decks on the Snout. And yet for three years this vessel had been his home, its every inch familiar. Now, stripped of its war gear, packed with stores and livestock, and crowded with men, women and children, it all felt unrecognisable. Worried faces stared at him from every corner as he and the others descended. Whatever the problem was, everyone knew of it.

  They came at length to the lower hold, and climbed down into the gloom where great piles of kegs and crates rose. A mechanical sound filled the darkness, coming from amidships – the bilge pumps were running at full power, burning whale oil even though that was forbidden aside from emergencies. And forward, near the bow, dim lamps glowed, illuminating a team of workmen gathered in a tense knot at the inner hull.

  Jake led the way towards the lights. As they approached, the sailors parted for them solemnly, and Dow saw.

  Water was streaming down the timbers.

  Now, Dow knew as well as anyone the great truth of seafaring: all ships leaked. Yes, a nicre-sheathed hull was mostly impervious to the ocean, but in the day-to-day stresses of sailing, small cracks often opened within the nicre, letting water through to the hull. If there was any weakness in the hull itself, some rotten caulking, say, then that water could enter the ship.

  That’s what the bilge – the shallow cavity below the hold, at the uttermost bottom of the hull – was for. Any water leaking into a vessel would eventually find its way down to this dark reservoir, where it was held, safely out of the way, until the pumps spat it back out to the sea. It was quite routine for there to be a foot or two of water sloshing about in the bilge of any ship, and such leaks were no danger, as long as the crew was aware of them.

  But what Dow was looking at now was no ordinary leak; seawater, a horrible pus-white colour because of the algae, was flooding down the timbers in thick streams. The torrent frothed through gratings in the floor, and could be heard splashing below with a disturbingly deep tone.

  ‘The pumps can just keep up with it,’ said Jake. ‘For now. But it’s getting worse by the hour. It’ll overflow the bilge soon and flood the hold.’

  ‘But what caused it?’ demanded Dow, still transfixed by the cascade.

  ‘Two things in combination, we think. The first was that cannonball during the Battle of the Headlands.’

  Dow looked up in incomprehension. ‘Cannonball?’

  Jake’s grin was cold. ‘You remember – that shot we took late in the day, and the trouble we had fixing it.’

  Dow blinked, so long ago and far away did the topic seem. But, of course, he did remember. In the great battle, the Snout had received a direct hit from an enemy broadside, just short of the bow. It had happened as the ship was heeling sharply in the high winds of the day, so that the ball struck well below the waterline, cracking many of the timbers there. During the repairs in Stone Port, the carpenters had been forced to heel the ship perilously in the harbour to replace them. Still, they had managed it, and there had been no trouble since.

  ‘I thought the repairs were holding,’ said Dow.

  ‘They were,’ agreed Jake. ‘They were sound and dry until we hit this white algae. That’s the second thing, we think.’

  ‘The algae?’

  The harpooner gave a nod to Fidel. ‘Our esteemed scientist here will want to confirm it in his laboratory, but we think the white algae is an acid of some form. One that eats nicre, and then wood.’

  Fidel was shaking his head. ‘An acid? No, that can’t be. I’ve tested it, and found no such property . . .’

  ‘Did you test it only in your glass tubes and metal flasks?’ asked Jake. ‘To those materials maybe it does no h
arm. But nicre and wood are another matter. I sent divers down to examine our hull at first light, and they report that all across the repaired section the timbers are now bare of nicre, as if the sheath had been sandpapered away. And as you can see, the inner caulking is now also being eaten through, to expose us direct to the sea.’

  Fidel’s brow was creased. ‘Glass and metal. Yes . . . it’s possible. I made no real tests for the algae’s effects on organic matter. I did try a little on my skin, but other than some irritation, it seemed harmless . . .’

  ‘Not to the divers we sent down,’ Boiler put in. ‘A mere quarter hour of submersion in this white ocean has left them scalded and half blind; we cannot send more men down to the same fate.’

  ‘It gets worse,’ Jake added. ‘This leak is only the beginning. The water has broken through here first because the nicre on the repaired section was thinner than anywhere else on the hull, having had only a year to grow. But in time the algae will eat through the thicker nicre all over the ship. Then we’ll have leaks everywhere.’

  Fidel was nodding in grave appreciation. ‘And not just on the Snout, but on the Chloe too. If you’re right, then neither hull is safe.’

  Dow felt a helpless horror. He had been prepared for many threats – but an acid dissolving the hulls of his ships? That was beyond expectation. He stared in loathing at the white streams. And what in all the deeps could be done about it, when the ships floated in the very substance that assailed them? But he could sense the others watching him, so he forced the horror back, and concentrated. They were not, he reminded himself, without resources here.

  He said, ‘Obviously, we have to get the ships clear. This algal bloom can’t be endless – we just have to reach the other side, and fast. For now, we have the wind with us, so we’ll continue under sail – but if the wind fails, we’ll send out the attack boats and tow. In the meantime, what can be done to slow this leak down? And how long before the rest of the hull starts to go?’

  Jake shrugged. ‘Who knows? It took these last four days for the algae to eat through here. Where the nicre is thicker – perhaps another two? Or less. As for this leak, there are things we can do indeed, and the preparations are already underway. The pity is that it lies so close to the bow. As you say, what we need now most is speed – but speed will only make this leak worse.’

  ‘Do what you can,’ said Dow.

  *

  The preparations of which Jake had spoken involved the soaking of a large sail in thick tar to make it nearly waterproof. The sail was then fixed to ropes and lowered over the bow, under which it dragged as the Snout sailed forward. As soon as the patch was over the position of the leak, the ropes were drawn tight, pulling the water-resistant canvas stiffly against the hull.

  It was a complicated procedure, made worse by the fact that no divers could be put in the water to help, but at length it was done. The leak was not entirely staunched, nor would the patch itself last long in the acid waters, but at least the inflow was slowed for a time. And meanwhile the fleet hastened south as best it could.

  It was an agonising, anxious day, fleeing across the white sea. The colour that had been such a relief after the blood red was now the most hateful of all to the eye; not a white of innocence, but a white of poison and danger, like venom milked from the fangs of snakes. Nor was there consolation anymore in the absence of biting insects, for that only proved how hostile was the white algae to all forms of life, reminding everyone that they, living creatures in wooden ships, did not belong there either.

  But the day yielded no end to the whiteness, and by evening the patch over the Snout’s wounded hull had itself been eaten away. It was only with further difficulty that another could be fitted before darkness – and even then, the inflow of water was gathering pace. The pumps could no longer keep up with the flooding, and from the Chloe it could now be seen that the Snout, outlined against the sunset, was dipping by degrees at the bow.

  Then the sun was gone and a hazy moon rose, near full, to summon a matching pallid luminescence upon the white water. The fleet limped onwards across a ghost ocean where the only darkness was the ships themselves, and all else was a sickly grey, sea and sky alike.

  Dow watched all night from the Chloe’s high deck, nervously studying the Snout across the milk waters, lest it suddenly dip and vanish. He knew it would not happen that way, that there would be warnings first, and that if Jake felt he was truly losing the battle he would signal with flares, and begin transferring his crew to the Chloe. But even so Dow stood watch, alert – and angry. This wasn’t fair. They had prepared for so many contingencies: heat and hunger, thirst and disease, sea monster and Miasma. But this? This was too cruel, to have so many hopes threatened by something as trivial as algae.

  Dawn came, the white sun climbing into the white sky, pouring white heat down upon the white sea. There was still no end in sight to that whiteness, no promise of escape from the acid water, but at least the breeze did not desert them. Ever and anon it fluttered as if it might give out, but always it held just strong enough to keep them moving south – not with any great speed, but faster at least than they would have been able to go with the tow boats as alternative.

  But would that prove fast enough? The Snout was down at the bow by a full six feet now. Worse, Dow had made an inspection of his own ship at dawn, and thin runnels of milky water were now streaming down the Chloe’s inner hull as well. These were minor leaks as yet, but they had not been there a day ago. The Chloe was beginning to dissolve, just like the Snout.

  And still the sea ahead showed only white. All day, the watchers in the rigging gazed south, but no shout rose. Surely the algae couldn’t be eternal, the Doldrums couldn’t consist of only this terrible whiteness, it must give way soon. But afternoon found the fleet seemingly no closer to escape than it had been in the morning. And now great sheets of nicre were falling away from the Snout’s hull, like layers of melting frost shedding from a window. As their sixth evening in the milk sea deepened, crews on both vessels stood by for the abandonment of the smaller ship, as now appeared all but inevitable.

  And yet, pondered Dow, spending another sleepless night watching from the high deck, what was the use of transferring the five hundred souls from the Snout to the Chloe, when the Chloe itself was equally imperilled? By midnight, telltale splashes from the Chloe’s flanks revealed that nicre was peeling away from its hull too now, to expose the vulnerable timbers.

  Dow could only grind his teeth, sharing the pain of the ship’s dissolution as if it was his own skin being flayed away. That they all might die here was monstrous enough, but what pierced him most was that the Chloe should come to such an ignoble end, eaten away by slime. The ship deserved better. It had survived a hundred years of war and wave. Its great captains, from Honous Tombs through to Vincente of the Shinbone, had kept it intact, come what may. It couldn’t sink now, under Dow’s command, in such a demeaning fashion. He could not be its last captain. Rather he would hurl himself into the acid ocean, a substitute sacrifice, than see it finish this way.

  Ah – but could such a bargain be struck? His life for the life of his ship? It came to Dow then that perhaps this was how the whole notion of scapegoats had been born. Had some desperate captain long ago made a contract with fate to preserve his vessel – and had fate accepted the terms? Maybe. Except that now it wasn’t captains who were expected to make the final sacrifice. Now, the job fell to scapegoats specially chosen.

  Scapegoats like Nell . . .

  And the chill thought rose in Dow. Could he give her up, if it meant his ships would be saved?

  Then—

  ‘Lo,’ came a cry from above. ‘Lo, to the south, look!’

  Dow turned eagerly to stare. Barely discernable through the moonlit haze, a dark line was advancing slowly across the sea.

  A change in the water!

  An end at last to the milk algae!

  Relief flooded through Dow, and wild joyous cries rose from the ships. The dark bound
ary in the sea drew closer still, and then the two vessels were sliding smoothly into this new expanse of ocean.

  In the night little could be guessed of the exact nature of the water here, but the burning scent of the milk sea quickly vanished, replaced by a more familiar seaweed smell, and lamp glow showed dark fronds floating on the surface. They were back in the world of living things!

  And not before time. As soon as the white boundary was a mile safely astern, a boat set out from the Snout with an urgent word from Jake. They may have escaped the algae’s acid attack, but his vessel was still in grave danger. The leaks remained, and the ship’s forward half was down by twelve feet now. Worse, the very action of the wind driving the vessel onward only increased the flooding through the open planks in the bow. In short, the Snout must halt immediately, or sink by the cause of its own motion.

  Dow agreed. The Chloe was not much better off. So in the grey darkness the fleet lowered sail and drifted to a halt to tend to its wounds.

  *

  Dawn came, hazy and hot, and found the two ships still hove-to. In the first light the ocean could be studied in more detail, and a curious sight it made. The fleet sat amid a field of seaweed, as they had guessed in the night, but it was a weed never seen before, with purplish fronds curling on the surface, and peculiar scarlet extrusions rising above the water, like great flower buds.

  It was not an attractive plant – the lurid colours clashed too ominously – but at least it was not home to biting insects, and its smell was not noxious. Even better, the field was not infinite. It extended beyond vision to the east and west, while to the north the white algae lingered, a reminder that there was no retreat that way. But only a mile southwards, the weed thinned to a wonderful prospect here in the Doldrums: clear blue sea.

  If they could make their repairs safely, then soon they could be sailing again on the open ocean!