Dracula's Demeter: The Vampire King's Stunning Sea Voyage

by Doug Lamoreux

  Until only months ago the captain, like most of his countrymen, had no surname. In the first ever Russian population count, just completed, the census takers issued surnames. These were based on the names of the family's eldest father. The captain, whose grandfather Nikolay (no relation to the current Emperor of All the Russias) was still living, with the wave of a census taker's pen, would thereafter be known by the government-approved moniker, Mikhail Sergeyevich Nikilov.

  Among the new, most widespread Russian surnames were: Ivanov, Petrov, Vasiliev and Nikitin; all to answer the question, as charmingly posed by the Russians, “Whose you are?” Harrington was just thankful there were no women aboard. Female names, he understood, added -ovna or -evna to their father's name, or took their husband's names, or took the husband's paternal family name (often the same as their village). Harrington shuttered. The masculine names were difficult enough.

  * * *

  While Harrington wrestled with Russian monikers, someone (outside the knowledge of the others) wrestled with a stern scuttle hatch.

  Until that moment, it was dark as the grave in the aft hold. Not as quiet, for there was the rush of water passing on either side and, being the deepest, most-stern part of the ship, the squeaks, creaks, and tension-filled groans of the lines behind the bulkhead working the ship's rudder. But it was as dark. Then one of two overhead scuttle holes came open and a glow of amber stole in from the between-decks companionway above. A lithe form slipped through and quietly drew the lid closed.

  The interloper, a thin shadow, carried a cloth-wrapped bundle and paused at the base of the ladder, straining to see the layout of the compartment in which he had no legitimate business. He moved quietly, feeling his way around the stacked sand ballast to the middle of the hold. He paused again to hug the bundle to his chest.

  The ship rocked jarringly. He replanted his feet to keep from falling, and inhaled to keep from… He felt suddenly nauseous, seasick, homesick. But he did not regret his choice. He was where he wanted to be; where he needed to be. But enough. Time was short. Someone on deck would miss him and he needed to get back.

  He groped among the bags of sand until he found a space that would serve. A hiding place invisible to a sailor going about his business. Having found it, with great care, he tucked the bundle out of sight. He felt his way back to the ladder, lifted the hatch and, finding the companionway clear, climbed out and pushed the lid back into place.

  The aft hold was dark again.

  * * *

  That night, of his first full day at sea, Harrington had the opportunity to practice their names when he joined the crew for supper in the mess. His companions consisted of three Russians, the big Moisey Olgaren, Feliks Petrofsky, and Pasha Amramoff, who had all sailed with this captain for many years, and a Romanian, Bogdan Popescu (who nobody seemed to like), that had been with them for several voyages. One mate was present, the Russian second with the threatening bangs, Georgiy Eltsin.

  The first, Constantin, who normally ate with the crew was that night supping with Captain Nikilov in his quarters. Ippolit Smirnov, the mustache with a small Russian attached, was on duty at the wheel. The deck boy, whom Harrington had yet to meet or even see close up, was absent. Likewise, the old cook, who laid their meal out in silence then vanished like a ghost. Whether or not old Swales' disappearing act was a comment on the night's repast, Harrington did not know.

  What he did know, or quickly discovered, was how badly he'd misjudged his readiness to eat. Watching the experienced sea dogs stuff themselves with salted pork, grease gravy and hard biscuits overspread with gobs of butter, as the table pitched and rolled to the movement of the sea, only made it worse. Four bites and the Englishman's stomach began to rumble. Harrington inhaled deeply…

  Then, out of nowhere, Olgaren slapped the table with the flat of his hand. The explosive BANG made Harrington jump. He stared, ogling the massive Russian. Olgaren lifted his hand – and the flattened remains of the two-inch cockroach he'd killed.

  Harrington excused himself and rapped his shin getting away. He threw his hand over his mouth to stifle a cry, and his stomach's impending return, and stumbled hurriedly from the mess to a chorus of derisive laughter.

  * * *

  “I've sailed 'round the waarld!”

  Harrington heard the shout over the rushing water below. He breathed deeply, watching the white caps swirl in cold blackness, then forced himself to look up, through bleary eyes, at the speaker on the deck beside him. It was Oliver Swales, the old cook.

  In the dim light of the half moon, and the dimmer light of the kerosene lamp on the fore mast some distance away, he was little more than a shadow; but a bent and recognizable shadow. He lit a match and put it, flickering in cupped arthritic fingers, to a short-stemmed pipe in his teeth. Then he loudly repeated the boast, “Aye, lad. I've sailed 'round the waarld!”

  Harrington, folded over the pinrail, his head dangling above the sea, breathed deeply. He ran a kerchief across his lower lip and dabbed the tear-filled corners of his eyes.

  The cook continued to bluster. “I've whaled in the bitt-er north o' the German Sea. Hauled sisel from the Grand Turk, coffee from South America, pushed wheat down the flooded Nile, an' drank Bumboo in the West Indies. I've sailed from one end o' God's creation t'other an' seasick was me only constant companion.” His clay pipe clicked against his teeth. “Aye, lad, seasick was me constant companion.”

  Harrington dabbed his mouth again, flushed and overheated, but with that undeniable sense of relief that comes after you've… Anyway, he felt a good sight better and was – at least temporarily – sure of his stomach. He pushed up on the rail. He turned slowly, for despite the calm sea the deck was in constant motion, and leaned his rear against the bulwark. Etiquette dictated he reply, but nothing came to mind. His mouth tasted of sick stomach. Better to keep it closed.

  The old man, wispy white hair, round red face, drew hard on his pipe, puffed an aromatic cloud of smoke, and pointed over the side of the ship. “No' a comment on me cookin', I hope?”

  Harrington shook his head to assure him it wasn't.

  The cook laughed a congested, smoke-filled laugh. The Englishman's frown was lost in the darkness, or the cook ignored it, but he slapped Harrington on the shoulder in a fatherly way and went on as if there'd been none. “Ye've nowt to be embarrassed fer, lad. Most people throw up after eatin' their first meal aboard. Some struggle for days t' keep food down; long, gruellin' days they are. I've seen folk, masel', bedridden fer the crossin', virtigo, nausea, strugglin' to rise for one reason an' one reason only, to puke their guts out an' fall back abed. I've seen men so o'erwhelmed w' seasick they starved t' death durin' the voyage. An' who could blame `em? Who could eat? How could ye eat? How could ye swallow down pulled pork flesh, bloody rare roast beef, fish stew - with some o' these crazy bastards eatin' heads an' all right in front o' ye. With the ship bouncin' up an' down, jostlin' with the waves. The deck rockin', forward and aft, starboard to port; pitchin' an' rollin', pitchin' an' rollin'…”

  Harrington spun round and, heaving from the bottoms of his curled toes, vomited over the side again. Between the spasms, somewhere behind, the cook's timber laugh grew distant.

  * * *

  His stomach empty, his dizziness mostly abated, his mouth rinsed and lips again wiped clean (thanks to one of the rain barrels on deck), and his shirt and waistcoat realigned, Harrington cautiously maneuvered the port companionway, beside the midship deckhouse, toward the back of the ship, intent on returning to his cabin and bunk. Suddenly his rented prison cell didn't sound so bad.

  He paused at the rear corner of the deckhouse, listening to the ship's bell ring. It was followed by Smirnov's scratchy falsetto, “Eight bells and all's well.” Then, under his breath, the added, “'Cepting for Popescu late again to relieve the watch.”

  Harrington peered round the corner. In the pale lamplight, he could just make out Swales bending Smirnov's ear at the ship's wheel. Harrington rolled his eyes and lea
ned against the shadowed bulkhead. He'd had more than enough of Swales for one night. Better to return forward and wait him out. Surely the old cook would go below soon.

  Demeter rode the dark water with relative ease, pitching and rolling only slightly, with an occasional yaw at the bow, as they cut a path to the southwest. The night's warm breeze blew gently in the billowed canvas of the sails. He reached the battened forward hatch and pulled up, groping for the main mast, when the ship carved into a particularly robust wave. The deck leveled and one of the jib sails snapped like the report of a gun. Then came a sound Harrington knew well. Somewhere in the dark starboard bow he heard someone being sick.

  Harrington felt for them. The pit of his stomach still rumbled. His nose and throat burned. He still felt the attending exhaustion. Yet, forgive him, he was secretly glad he wasn't alone. Someone else, poor soul, knew what he had gone through (his stomach gurgled); was going through. And, in this cruel world, who really wanted to be alone? He moved forward, wondering whether he might be of more assistance than the obnoxious old cook had been. If nothing else perhaps offer moral support.

  He reached the bulwark even with the fore mast's heavy rigging, grabbed the pinrail to steady himself against the toss of the deck and, in the moonlit bow, made out the form of the deck boy. He was leaning over the starboard rail and anchor, as Harrington had earlier, fiercely throwing up into the sea.

  The Englishman waited quietly, not wanting to startle him, until the emesis had run its course. Then as the gasping boy took in air, and wiped his wet eyes with one sleeve and his besotted mouth with the other, Harrington called out, “Don't worry, lad.”

  The boy started, looking up in abject terror.

  Harrington saw little in that light, but he felt the young man redden with embarrassment. “You're not alone,” he said, trying to reassure the boy. “Believe me, I know.”

  Actually he didn't. For the boy, apparently, felt like running. That's exactly what he did, without a word, bolting past the stupefied scholar and vanishing into the shadows aft of the deckhouse. In the distance, Harrington heard the steersman shout Funar's name. The call went unanswered. Then he heard the deckhouse door slam shut.

  Harrington was flabbergasted. He had by no means intended to frighten the boy. If anything he'd been trying to offer the comfort he had himself been denied by that supercilious cook. A fleeting notion to follow and apologize was as quickly overruled by his own ailing stomach. His head, a slight dizziness returning, made a motion instead that he forget the deck boy and adjourn to his own bunk. His shaking legs seconded it. The motion passed without further discussion.

  Chapter Six

  The routines of sailing were interrupted on Thursday, 8 July, by two odd incidents, back to back, aboard Demeter.

  The morning bloomed bright and Harrington, feeling brighter, came up for a breath of sea air. The captain and mate were chatting near the steersman. Olgaren was coiling a line at the foot of the mizzen mast. (Calling it a rope, the scholar had learned, was a grievous shipboard sin.) The others were amidships, in the main mast shrouds, doing what sailors did with the sails. The Englishman didn't pretend to know, but as it was explained afterward -

  Smirnov, his impressive mustache, and his same filthy shirt, had been in the rigging only once. That morning he was going up to work. Two experienced men, Petrofsky and Amramoff, held a friendly debate over which would go with him.

  Both were able-bodied seamen. Like paper dolls, only their heads distinguished them, but those differences were striking. Feliks Petrofsky wore his black hair like a gentleman, greased and parted mid-crown. He had large brown eyes and was the quietest man Harrington had ever met. Pasha Amramoff was the ship's carpenter and, until the arrival of the odd Smirnov, the ship's character as well. Amramoff was a laugher, whose pointed beard and round explosion of yellow hair made his head look like one of the edible iced-cream cones Harrington had seen under Cornet with Cream in his mother's `Marshall's Cookery Book'.

  Petrofsky won (or lost) the debate and went up the mast with the new man. Their mission was to fit a line, called a vang, into place to prevent the top of the main gaffe sail from sagging downwind. This could have been done by dropping the sail but, with a warm breeze, a clear sky, and a calm sea, the mate thought it a beautiful day for Smirnov to work among the clouds.

  Petrofsky had climbed the spar to the leech edge of the sail, while Smirnov waited on the mast to pass the vang through the block and down. Harrington watched for several minutes before he realized Funar, the deck boy, had gone up as well. He clung, halfway up the shroud, watching the real sailors above like a trembling baby spider in a web. The Englishman had to hand it to the lad. With nothing but a few lines and thirty feet of air separating him from the other stains on the deck, he ignored his fright and courageously showed his heels to those below.

  Then Swales appeared. The old cook, bent and belligerent as usual, barged out the deckhouse door carrying scraps for the sea. He paused, scowled, then took in the three above. He started violently and shouted, “Carrie!” Swales dropped his pail. “What are ye doin', my pretty? Michty me! Get down, 'efore ye break yer gob!” To whom and for what he was hollering, Harrington hadn't a clue. Nor, by their looks, did the startled seamen from quarters high and low.

  That was the first odd incident. Strange as it was, it ought not to have caused the second.

  Petrofsky, at the peak of the gaff spar, between main and main top sails, was as curious as the rest about the old cook's caterwauling. Craning his neck, he let both his attention and his feet slip. Petrofsky fell.

  He would have fallen to his death had he not acted. Known as the ship's `marlinspike', Petrofsky carried the metal rope tool for which he'd been named on a lanyard round his wrist when on deck. As he toppled, he flipped this into his hand, swung rapidly, and drove the spike through the foot of the top sail. For a breathless instant he dangled fifty feet above the deck like one of Jules Léotard's trapeze acrobats, arms stretched between the pin he'd stuck through the sail and the gaff vang in his other hand, still held by the alarmed Smirnov on the mast who was struggling to support his weight.

  “Swales, what in the…” The captain's rant was interrupted – by Smirnov, shrieking like a woman, on the verge of being pulled off the mast.

  The shrouds, Harrington knew, were no place for him. The others could climb, but to what end? Amramoff, at the pinrail, waiting for the mustache to pass the line down when the cook shouted and things went pear-shaped, had no way to help from below. Swales shook himself from whatever caused his outburst and, embarrassed and angry, stared helplessly. The captain, mate, Olgaren were there. Eltsin lashed the wheel and joined them. Other than Popescu, who'd stood the watch and was abed, all were there. But what could they do?

  Then the main top sail tore. Petrofsky had no choice but to yank his marlinspike free and trust to Smirnov. He did, and swung on the vang like a buccaneer before the main sail, while his partner fought to hold on to the line and the mast.

  The first mate jumped into the rigging and started up. But Funar was well above and, to everyone's surprise, doing more than watching. He'd climbed even with the swinging Petrofsky and worked inside the shroud. Clinging with one elbow and one knee, the sprite of a lad grabbed Petrofsky with the other arm and leg and drew him safely into the shroud. There, they found the vang biting Petrofsky's hand. They freed the miniature noose (which, ironically, saved his neck) to find salvation had come at a price. Petrofsky's hand was torn. Only his leathery skin prevented the rending of thumb and forefinger. Constantin arrived and, with Funar, helped Petrofsky down.

  Smirnov was shaking like a leaf. Following hard, he jumped over all to escape the rigging, and fell the last eight feet to the deck. He was on his feet immediately, holding his aching back, and staring wide-eyed as the others helped Petrofsky. The marlinspike uttered not a peep, while Smirnov cried out again and ran (his aversion to heights no match for his fear of blood).

  The crew ignored Smirnov's antics n
ow Petrofsky was safe. Instead, as if someone had thrown a wet tarpaulin over them, they shared silence and darting glances. To end the gloom, Eltsin slapped the marlinspike's back, stole a look at his bleeding hand, and whistled.

  Amramoff laughed (Amramoff was always laughing) and said, “Good thing Popescu is below. He'd be shaking beads; thanking the Lord and blaming the devil in the same breath.”

  “He'd blame the ship's curse,” Olgaren said. Save the breaking waves and wind snapping in the sails, the deck went silent. Reddening, the big Russian added, “Not me. Popescu says there's a curse.”

  “That's enough!” Constantin barked. “The only curse… is this ship's cursed hands, not watching their work! Let us be about it.”

  As all returned to their business, Harrington noted the deck boy missing. He observed too words passed between captain and cook, though he heard only a snippet.

  “I need not tell you, Swales, that man was almost -”

  “Aye, cap'n,” the cook nodded. “I apologize, sir. I had no wont to skeer anyone. I thought I… seen somethin'… I could no' have seen. I do no' gawm what come o'er me. T'won't happen ageean.”

  Nikilov dismissed him, wondering if the mate hadn't made a mistake signing the old fellow. His presence amounted to one more thing he'd need to watch over as…

  “Which of you is the doctor?” Harrington asked, interrupting the captain's thoughts.

  “No doctor,” Nikilov answered simply. He signaled the mate and, together with Eltsin, headed back to the wheel.

  Harrington stared after them, agog the vessel carried no physician. Apparently, it was a ship's policy no one be injured. Then he heard Swales, booming again, ask Petrofsky if he needed help below. The marlinspike, arm clutched, bloody bandana wrapped round his hand, shook his head and started for the deckhouse. Swales followed, muttering to Harrington as he passed, “The cook does the doctorin'.”