by Alex Archer
“Over there,” Claire said, pointing to a ladder extending down into the hold from the deck above.
They were halfway across the hold when something screamed and came charging at them from the darkness on the far side of the room.
Marcos was closest to whatever it was and it charged right at him. Annja had a glimpse of something heavy and low to the ground racing forward toward him and then Marcos’s gun spoke, the sound echoing in the confined space. The thing staggered, then slowed, giving Marcos time to fire again before it crashed into him, driving him to the ground beneath its weight.
Annja didn’t want to draw her sword in front of so many witnesses, so she drew her knife instead and leaped to his side, ready to give whatever help was needed. Peripherally she was aware of Hugo and Claire doing the same.
Their lights fell upon the carcass of the wild pig that was stretched out atop Marcos’s frame, pinning his gun arm to the floor, and then on his disgusted expression as his own lamp illuminated the pig’s snout just inches from his face.
“Get this hairy thing off me!” he hollered, pushing at it with his free hand.
Laughing, Hugo said, “That hairy thing is dinner, amigo, so stop insulting it,” but bent to help him just the same.
Once Marcos was back on his feet, it was quickly decided that the pig’s carcass was going to attract other animals and therefore couldn’t be left inside the hold. The solution was for the two men to drag it outside and then hang it in a tree. Only when they were finished did they resume their search of the Reliant.
The room above the hold was small and contained a fair bit of lumber, now warped and molded from years in the humid weather, suggesting that it was probably the carpenter’s storeroom. They passed quickly through it into several other storerooms, all in the same dilapidated state, before finding a stairwell leading upward.
Their eventual goal was the captain’s wardroom, which, if Annja recalled her tour of the Temeraire properly, would be on the upper gun deck toward the stern of the ship. To get there they would have to climb up several decks and then head aft. The next set of stairs took them up to what Annja recognized as the lower gun deck, the light coming in from the gun ports throughout the room making it easier to see. The cannons, of course, were a dead giveaway. She counted twelve cannons still in their respective gun ports, the wheels of their support cradles chocked in place to keep them from moving unexpectedly. Several more cannons were lying haphazardly about the deck; thankfully, the ship was fairly level and the heavy iron wouldn’t be rolling anywhere soon.
Hammocks had been strung across the port side of the deck between the beams of the ship. As Annja’s light swept across the hammocks, she thought she saw something glinting from within the folds of the one closest to her.
She moved closer.
“Annja?”
Claire’s voice.
Annja held up a hand in a “hang on a sec” gesture. Closer now, she could see that the canvas of the hammock was weighted down by something inside it.
“Did you find something?”
Annja reached the hammock and looked inside.
The yellowed skeleton of one of the Reliant’s crew members lay nestled in the fabric, its empty eyes staring and its mouth locked forever open in a silent scream.
Annja must have started in surprise, for Claire gave a yell and the others came rushing over.
“I’m fine, I’m fine,” Annja said. “Just wasn’t expecting to find we had company.”
She bent over to take a closer look. She saw that the skeleton still wore the tattered remains of a sailor’s shirt and breeches, but what was more interesting was the fact that he had been secured in the hammock with leather straps and buckles. They were loose now, of course, but given how his arms were lying parallel to the rest of his skeleton, it was safe to assume that the straps had been used to immobilize him. Whether he’d been alive or not at the time was another issue entirely.
“Here’s another one,” Marcos called from a hammock a few feet away.
“And another,” Claire echoed.
In the end, they found ten men in all. Each and every one of them had been strapped into their hammocks, and that, more than anything else, made Annja uneasy. Clearly they hadn’t done that to themselves; if they had, they would have left their hands free. No, these men had been bound by a third party.
“Maybe they mutinied over the treasure,” Claire said.
Annja didn’t think so. Mutineers were usually dealt with quickly. If they weren’t hanged, they were usually locked in leg irons and left on deck.
These men had been held down with belts.
Not the most secure material out there.
“Maybe they were seasick,” said Hugo.
Everyone laughed but Annja.
Maybe they were sick....
Annja’s mind was racing as she saw Marcos reaching out to take the ring off the finger of one of the skeletons.
Fear seized her throat, threatened to swallow her words when she needed them the most.
“Don’t touch them!” she forced out around the lump forming there, and breathed a sigh of relief as Marcos snatched his hand back.
“Come on, woman!” Marcos exclaimed. “Don’t scare me like that!” But he stepped away from the hammock just the same.
“Annja might be right. They were probably sick and the ship’s doctor strapped them in to keep them from infecting everyone else.”
The others began to back away from the hammocks.
“If they were sick, I doubt any pathogens would have lasted this long, but better safe than sorry. I think we should move on, anyway.”
No one argued with her.
In fact, they all decided that it was time to see who could get up the stairs the fastest.
With a final glance at the mystery she was leaving behind, Annja followed.
The next set of stairs took them up another deck, emerging into a passageway outside several cabins. Annja knew that none of them were the captain’s—that would be up at least one more deck—but that didn’t stop the others from investigating.
Inside each cabin was a small table and chair, a dresser with several drawers and a hanging cot that resembled a box with bedding in it.
“Funny-looking bed,” Marcos said, giving the first one they came to a little push to set it swinging back and forth. “Looks like a coffin.”
“That’s because it is one,” Annja told him. “The officer would be buried in it if he died at sea.”
Marcos didn’t touch any more hanging cots after that.
Marcos, Claire and Hugo went through several of the officers’ cabins but emerged each time disappointed. To their eyes, there wasn’t much of value to be found—a few personal items made of gold or silver that might fetch a few dollars if presented to the right buyer—but Annja knew better. The ship had vanished into history and had been presumed lost with all hands on board. Even a crew member’s simple shirt would fetch a fair price at auction as a result, and there were several to be had among the cabins, including what looked to be a full-dress uniform for a royal marine.
Annja didn’t say anything, however. The material here belonged in a museum and not in some private collection somewhere. She’d inform the British government of the ship’s location when they got back.
After they discovered what happened to Dr. Knowles.
It seemed strange to Annja that Claire hadn’t mentioned her husband’s disappearance since arriving at the camp, but then again Annja hadn’t been dealing with the stress for weeks the way Claire had. Perhaps just being near the archaeologists’ camp had settled her down and then the subsequent discovery of the Reliant had simply kept her occupied.
But still...
She was about to say something to Claire when Hugo opened the door ahead of them and found the stairs they’d been looking for, the ones leading to the deck above. He gestured for Annja to go first and she took advantage of doing so, climbing the steps to the doorway at the top.
Opening the door, Annja found herself on the upper gun deck, the middle portion of which, where she now stood, was open to the sky above. She found the sunlight exceptionally bright after the darkened interior they’d just passed through.
Annja glanced along the length of the ship, forward toward the bow. It seemed Mother Nature didn’t like her territory being invaded. The upper deck was practically drowning beneath a sea of vines and creepers, making it appear like a carpet of green had taken over the vessel. Here and there objects thrust skyward out of the covering—the truncated shaft of a mast, the blunt end of a cannon, even the vent from the Brodie stove down in the galley below.
Looking aft, Annja could see the rounded shape of the ship’s wheel and then, past that, the door to the captain’s wardroom tucked away beneath the poop deck.
Like a missile following a homing beacon, Annja headed directly for that door, knowing that the room she was actually looking for, the captain’s personal cabin, lay to one side or the other of the wardroom.
All it took was a few steps into the wardroom for Annja to know that she’d just entered senior-officer country. Light streamed in from the row of windows at the back of the room, which was also the stern of the boat itself; Annja’s and Hugo’s efforts to clear the nameplate had also cleared some of the vegetation growing over the windows. The room was large and its space was dominated by a rectangular table carved of dark teakwood, surrounded by eight chairs of the same. Table settings in both silver and porcelain stood in glass cases along one wall. A chart case occupied another.
For all the splendor, Annja barely noticed. Her attention was drawn almost immediately to the doors on either side of the room. One of the doors on the starboard side seemed to be situated a bit off to the side from the others, so she crossed the room and tried that one first.
The door was locked.
Annja smiled. Every other door they’d encountered on this ship so far had been unlocked, with the exception of this one. Her confidence that she had chosen the right one went up a notch.
She glanced behind her, saw that the others still hadn’t joined her and decided to take a chance. She called her sword to hand and inserted the blade between the door and the jamb, parallel to the keyhole. When she was satisfied with its position, she gave the blade a good shove, putting considerable pressure on the lock in the process.
The door popped open with a snap.
“Annja?”
A thought sent the sword back easily into the otherwhere, and she turned just as Claire stepped into the doorway of the wardroom.
“Here,” Annja called, drawing the other woman’s attention. Of course, if worse came to worst, she could claim to have picked up the weapon from the wardroom table. This was a British warship, after all, and swords were fairly common shipboard weapons.
“Find anything interesting?” Claire asked as their other two companions came up behind her.
Annja gestured at the now-open door in front of her. “Captain’s cabin. Perhaps now we’ll get some answers.”
25
Captain’s cabin
HMS Reliant
Annja stepped into the cabin and was followed by the others. Her gaze swept across the space, taking it in. It was far more luxurious than even the officers’ cabins they’d examined below. A large poster bed stood to one side. Next to that was a hand-carved wooden wardrobe, its slightly open doors revealing several of the captain’s uniforms hanging inside. A table with two chairs stood in the far corner, for use when the captain wished to dine alone or with a single guest in the privacy of his quarters. Two large windows, one of which had been broken at some point in the past, allowed a fair bit of light into the room.
But it was the presence of a writing desk and the item atop the desk that caught Annja’s attention.
She crossed the room and looked down at the leather-bound journal resting there, knowing instinctively that it was the ship’s logbook. The page to which it was open had been damaged by weather, most likely that coming in from the broken window nearby, but a quick check showed that other pages were still intact and legible.
Here, in this book, might be the answers they were seeking, Annja realized.
She looked up at the others. “The ship’s log might give us some clue as to where to go next, but it’ll take some time to look through it.”
Marcos scoffed. “Do you really think a book that’s been sitting on that table rotting for the past two hundred years is going to help us find Dr. Knowles?”
Annja nodded. “I do.”
“Clearly the heat’s been getting to you, then,” Marcos retorted.
“I don’t know, Marcos,” Claire said, stepping in. “Maybe Annja’s right. It appears that some of the crew survived. Maybe there was something they saw or experienced that might have some bearing on what happened to Dr. Knowles and his team.”
She looked at Annja. “See what you can find. Since we don’t know where we’re headed after this, we might as well camp here for the night and come up with a working plan for tomorrow.”
Claire faced the group. “Tents first and then we’ll see about dressing that pig,” she told them, then hustled them out of the cabin.
Thankful that Claire had seen things her way, Annja settled into a nearby chair and began to read.
She started with the earlier pages in the journal, which were largely intact. Captain Jeffries had a fine, spidery script that made it easy to read, as well.
The journal told the whole sorry tale.
Captain Jeffries had sighted the Mary Dear off the coast of Panama and had given chase, eventually engaging in a running gun battle that ended only when Jeffries utilized the marines he had at his disposal to board the other vessel and take her by force. The charges against Thompson had been simple, straightforward and beyond much doubt. A trial presided over by Jeffries found Thompson and his crew guilty of murder and piracy. The crew members were hung from the mizzenmast in sets of three, until only Thompson and his first mate were left.
Thompson pleaded for Jeffries to spare his life, one captain to another, and the British commander had agreed to do so, provided Thompson led them to the location where he’d buried the treasure.
With little choice before him, Thompson agreed.
Annja had assumed all of that; the story as outlined by Captain Jeffries was the same as that which had come down through history.
She flipped ahead, seeking something more relevant. She found it several pages later.
October 2
I am astounded that I am alive to write this, for the events of the past forty-eight hours have been a nightmare unlike any I have ever experienced. Only by the Lord’s grace and blessing did we make it through at all, though the cost has been considerable.
The morning of September 30 dawned calm and clear. Having retrieved the treasure from Cocos Island the night before, we rendezvoused with the Mary Dear off the leeward side of the island and spent most of the morning transferring half of the treasure to her holds. I told Lieutenant Johann that it was to protect the Crown’s investment should one of our ships run into difficulty on the return voyage; at the time I had no idea just how prophetic I was being.
When the loading was finished, a full complement of crew members, along with dispatches I’d prepared for the admiralty, were sent over to the other ship with orders for Johann to make for Bristol at the best possible speed. His was the lighter, faster ship and I expected him to arrive at least three days before I would.
We saw them off with a six-gun salute and then returned to work repairing the last of the damage Reliant had sustained during her confrontation with the Mary Dear when she was under Captain Thompson’s command.
The storm began about midway through the afternoon watch and grew worse by the hour. The nearness of the island began to make me nervous, and as the swells increased in size, so, too, did my anxiety. As the first dogwatch dawned, I had the men haul anchor and pointed the Reliant toward the open ocean.
&nb
sp; Better to ride out the storm in deep water than get battered about on the reef, I thought.
No sooner had we turned for open water than I heard the lookout in the main-mast crow’s nest give a shout. He was hard to see in the rain, but after a moment I realized that he was pointing frantically toward the horizon. I dug out my spyglass and stared hard into the night, searching for whatever it was that had gotten him so worked up. Lightning flashed and what I saw in its light has been carved indelibly onto the inside of my eyelids for all time.
The largest wave I have ever seen filled the horizon and was looming down upon us.
We had one chance and I took it. There was no time to turn about for we’d be caught halfway through the maneuver and swamped by the force of the wave. Same held true for trying to outrun it. The Reliant was a 2100-ton vessel without the treasure aboard her. She could lumber about like a behemoth but that was about it. No way did she have the guts to outrun it.
Our only chance was to climb straight up it.
There was no time to furl the sails, so I gave the order to have them cut away. We had more in the hold, so replacing them wouldn’t be difficult. The crew jumped to carry out the order without hesitation—they were good men and had been trained well—but even so, by the time the last rope had been severed, the wave had gained on us considerably.
The helmsmen and his crew had just enough time to carry out my orders to bring the boat about, aiming the bow right for the heart of the oncoming wave, before the wave reached our location.
It towered above us, a veritable wall of water that had to be at least a thousand feet high. Up, up, up the face of the wave we went until we were all but vertical on the face of it. At that moment the lowest part of the wave struck the reefs surrounding Cocos and the wave crested, smashing down upon us and sending us flipping away from it like a cork from a bottle lost on the high seas.
