Ship of Fire

by Michael Cadnum

  Jack clapped a hand on the rail.

  “Keep your balance,” he said, with every show of kindness, “like this.”

  With spray in my eyes, I suffered the indignity of being shown how to hang on to a rail.

  Chapter 11

  The two days we spent sailing from the mouth of the Thames along the coast westward to Plymouth were celebrated by the crew of our pinnace as a speedy voyage, and well favored by the wind. Before noon on the first day we passed the Golden Lion cutting a pretty wake but slower than our vessel. Her sailors called out greetings.

  For me it was a time spent seasick, so much so that I found a place in the prow, and let the wind refresh my spirits. My master, too, looked pale as pudding, and he said this was to be expected until “like old sailors we goat-foot around the deck.”

  He was right—I was feeling hale and seaman-like by the time we reached Plymouth.

  The harbor was crowded with ships’ boats and barges, packet boats for carrying messages, and carracks for delivering freight. The warships themselves were packed close, robust, brightly painted vessels, each ship a towering web of rigging, sails tight-furled. Rumor was that privateers raked the coast, legalized pirates of several nations. Merchants and fishermen alike had hurried into harbor, grateful for the protection of the Queen’s fighting ships.

  I tried to spy our flagship—and our famous admiral—but could make out little in the crowd of shipping. I had seen Drake himself once or twice before, from a great distance. His river-boat had been pointed out to me, a long, low vessel painted red and gold, with silk pennants fluttering, carrying the famous red-whiskered mariner to Parliament, where he served. I had remarked to myself more than once that we were alike in the coloring of our hair, an unusual carrot-bright hue, and that we both hailed from the same West Country moorlands.

  Our pinnace, propelled by oars, threaded through the crowd of ships’ tenders and shallops, vessels used to carry messages from shore to ship. The harbor was at first glance haphazard, frigates nearly tangling with warships. But soon a brisk pattern emerged, and by the time we glided toward the inner harbor what had seemed chaos now looked like a well-ordered hive, ships’ provisions lined along the distant wharf, barrels being lowered into lighters—supply boats—and the sing-song of orders being called out in every anchored hull we passed.

  We approached a vessel painted a dazzling black and white, the scent of fresh paint in the air. The Elizabeth Bonaventure was a big ship. She had proud castles fore and aft, but her appearance was sleek, her newly pitched rigging hanging dark and stiff in the gray afternoon. Her masts were festooned with flags and pennons, none of them stirring—except one.

  This flag toyed with the wind, emblazoned with a red-winged dragon, its talons wrapped around the globe.

  It was the crest of Sir Francis Drake.

  Chapter 12

  “Heave hard there,” a voice sang out, “or she’ll crush us all flat.”

  Hovering over the ship, and high above our pinnace, a wooden crane lowered a large crate. The load shuddered downward, shadow swaying. Through the slats of the crate, rows of cannon balls gave off a dull, leaden gleam.

  “Saker balls,” said Jack Flagg at my side. I recognized the pleasant smile he gave me, an expert showing off his special knowledge. “The saker uses smaller shot than most guns, although the falconets aboard this ship will fire the smallest shot of all, the size of pigeons’ eggs.”

  My heart quickened.

  I had, in years past, played at war with my friends among the pig-troughs and millponds, flailing away with a wooden sword. Now I doubted the wisdom of entrusting my life to such a fighting vessel. I gazed upward, my ears alive with the sounds of orders, quick-barked commands, and the rhythmic songs of men heaving, and heaving again.

  A high-pitched metal whistling rose and fell, a sweet but plaintive signal which I recognized from my own dock-side wanderings as a boatswain’s call. I thrilled at this sour music, even as I hesitated, unsure how to clamber up the ladder of knotted rope that had been flung down to us.

  “Come along, Tom,” called my master eagerly, already up and over the wale of the ship high above.

  I climbed upward, laboring, using the webbed cordage as a foothold, hand over hand. I slipped twice, and Jack Flagg reached back to help me.

  My friend would have said something welcoming, or perhaps cheerfully challenging—his eyes were alight with friendship. But a ferocious voice demanded that if he did not stow every keg of powder in the magazine by dark he’d be “flayed alive and rolled in salt.”

  The gray-haired master gunner gave a wry smile, the corners of his mouth turned down, as though to soften his speech, but he made an unmistakable gesture: hurry! Jack vanished back into the pinnace at once, and soon the kegs were handed up and carried across by a chain of men, into the ship’s hold.

  It was all so strange to my eyes and ears, and so ripe with danger—from the powder kegs to the pikes carried by the soldiers—that I was afraid to make a move, sure that I would be impaled on some dirk or grappling hook. The gray-cloaked soldiers handed firearms down into the hold carefully. They were harquebusses—portable weapons made to be held against the shoulder, and discharged into an enemy.

  As I watched, a load of shot, blue-black and round, broke free from a crate and struck a long, slim-barreled gun on the main deck with a resounding report. The stoutly built gunner let forth a bellow, and men scampered after the rolling shot, seizing the offending balls as they made their way heavily across the deck. The master gunner knelt beside the long-barreled gun and examined it carefully. He ran his finger along the seam where, at some point in the past, smiths had joined the two halves of this formidable weapon.

  A dark-haired gentleman with a well-trimmed beard separated from a group of seamen. He took a coin-sized object from an inner pocket and held it in the flat of his hand, adjusting his stance to catch the sunlight. He returned the miniature sun-dial to his pocket and made his way toward us, eyeing us as he came, a smile of greeting fixed upon his face, his eyes alight with inquiry.

  “I am Sam Foxcroft, the ship’s master,” he announced himself simply. “I’m just in receipt of word from the Admiralty regarding our newly appointed medical men.”

  William swept his cap from his head and gave a handsome demonstration of a courteous bow, and I was quick to follow his example. The ship’s captain and William exchanged appropriate pleasantries, but I was aware of the captain’s glance, weighing and testing us.

  Captain Foxcroft was dressed much like my master, in a blue wool cloak and doublet, and high boots. “I am advised that our worthy naval surgeon Titus Cox is in need of our prayers.”

  “I have emptied many a cup of sack-wine with my good friend Titus,” said my master. “In our university days we were rivals for a certain lady’s affections,” he added. “A lady of quality—she presented me with a hart-bone manicure set, I am sorry to report, but to Titus she gave a pomander filled with cloves.”

  Captain Foxcroft smiled at this. The clove was a spice celebrating love—it was used to flavor wine and to sweeten the air. “An old friend of Titus will be most welcome,” said the ship’s master, sparing me not another glance but explaining to William where the surgeon’s quarters could be found, and adding, “We have two hundred and fifty men aboard a ship that can be worked by a score or less.”

  “We sail with a battalion!” said William.

  Captain Foxcroft nodded, but he was already turning away, calling out orders in tart naval language.

  Admiral Drake would not captain the ship himself, my master explained as we entered the shadowy interior of the vessel—those duties would be discharged by Samuel Foxcroft. The admiral would be free to contemplate military matters, and stay out of sight, no doubt with a chart and compass.

  The interior of our ship was like the inside of a great wooden house, with many stories of pegged oak floors, ladders leading from one level to the other. Great cannon lined the gun deck, but wood-joints
creaked all around, just like any city dwelling of timber. At times I could not stand upright below-decks—the ceilings were low and crossed with heavy wooden beams. But most of the sailors were short men, and scrambled easily through the badly illuminated living and storage places.

  Our berth was a little chamber beneath the ship’s aft castle, with shelves of medical supplies ordered some weeks past by Titus Cox. The surgeon’s cabin was very small, but most dwelling rooms in London were little larger, a small room being easier to heat and keep tidy.

  The ship’s below-decks may have resembled a house, but they did not smell like one. Sulfur had been burned to fumigate rats out of the hold, and vinegar had been employed to cleanse the ballast—the stones in the ship’s hold that kept her steady in the waves. And through the odor of new paint rose the permeating perfume of the salt sea.

  My master examined his own bone saws before he hung them on hooks provided for just such items, the broad-toothed tools for large limbs, and the glittering whipsaw, the sort a chair maker might use—or a surgeon cutting a hand at the wrist. Titus’s supplies included clay containers of spearmint syrup and others of dried mace, useful against lung diseases, and aqua vitae—distilled spirits—useful against pain. There was even a jug of opium-wine, my master noted approvingly. But he chuckled sadly when he took down an earthenware container and slipped off its wax-cloth lid.

  A glistening, dark gray worm, as large as my fist, slowly felt its way along the mouth of the jug.

  “Titus,” said my master, “would never sail without his leeches.”

  Somewhere above there was a muffled crash. The ship shivered almost imperceptibly. A cry rose, an involuntary, wordless wail of pain.

  From the hatchway came the scuffling, stumbling procession of feet as someone was helped, half-dragged, half-carried, down the steps.

  Chapter 13

  “Doctors, by your leave,” said a sailor, stiff with good manners. “If you please, sirs, a seaman has squashed his finger.”

  I always braced myself before I took in the sight of an injury, and I became quietly apprehensive now at the sounds as they approached—stifled cries of agony. His fellows were reassuring him, “The two doctors will see you right, Davy.”

  My master and I cleared a space on the pinewood table in our cramped cabin.

  A young man, suntanned and bearded, gritted his teeth against the pain, blood flowing from a finger crushed flat. His fellows supported him, their weathered faces lined with concern. “Davy Wyott here suffered a great accident,” said a seaman formally, as though describing an event many weeks past. “A heavy barrel of beer, if it please you, sirs, fell down upon his hand.”

  “I was helping to lower it into the hold,” said Davy, pale under his sun-browned complexion, “and the poxy rope slipped.”

  My master shook his head sympathetically, and bid the gathered seamen a good day—there was no room for so many concerned faces in our tiny cabin. When we were alone with our patient, William made a low, airy whistle. “You managed to splinter the bone, Davy.”

  The seaman laughed, through his pain, at his own bad judgment. “I thought I could carry the beer, but it carried me, all the way down, with only my hand between it and the planking.” He chattered anxiously, adding, with a frightened laugh, “I’ve seen a sailing man die of a mangled finger before.”

  “So have we all,” said my master. “We’ve watched injuries like this sour and poison many a strong young man.”

  “Before their time!” howled Davy.

  “But we’ll keep you in the world of the living, yet,” said my master kindly. “Hold the injury still,” said my master to me, moving the oil lamp closer to the bloody sight. The middle digit of Davy Wyott’s left hand was flattened, blood bubbling.

  To his patient my master said, “A quick blow with a keen edge, Davy, and you’ll die an old and toothless mariner, many winters from now.” To me he added, “A cup of spirits of wine, if you please, Thomas, for our brave patient. And the chopper from the hook.”

  The cleaver, he meant.

  The blade gleaming on the wall.

  Chapter 14

  “Is there no way,” quailed our patient, “to save the poor, mashed thing?”

  My master gave a gentle smile. “My dear Davy, it’s only one wee finger.”

  The patient drank down the amber-colored aqua vitae, a good quantity. I gave him a second serving, and he drank that straight down, too. “Merciful doctors, you are,” he gasped earnestly when he had quaffed the spirits, “both of you.”

  I did my best to look kind and wise, but I never did like amputations. I had never performed one, nor did I want to—I had a particular horror of the sudden violence such operations demanded. My master spoke to me, partly in Latin to disguise our consultation, “The sinistral ossa metacarpalia as a whole is sound, Tom.” The hand, he meant, was uninjured, except for the crushed finger.

  “Bene, bene,” I said, trying to sound breezy and unconcerned. Davy nodded at the sound of Latin words—medical novices had been known to utter Latin-sounding nonsense to impress and reassure patients.

  “Ordinarily,” my master continued in slow-cadenced, calming Latin, “an operation would be carried out under the sky, where there is more space and light.”

  I was ready to agree that it would be hard to envision a more cramped setting. In clear, gentle English, my master instructed Davy to pray, and the patient echoed the words, his voice ragged.

  “Almighty and merciful God,” my master intoned, “extend your goodness to us, your servants, who are grieved and in great need of your love.” It was the prayer my master always used at such times, and Davy followed along, his words slurring as the distilled spirits dulled his tongue.

  At the final phrase, “with Thee in life everlasting,” my master lifted the chopper.

  “No, please, wait!” cried our patient, jerking his hand, my strength not enough to steady him.

  “Fetch the mallet, Tom, if you will,” directed my master in a whisper.

  Where it was necessary, a blow to the head would render a patient unconscious. Doctors provided themselves with a wooden mallet for just this purpose, and I had used it on a few patients before—the task required a judicious touch in order to stun but not to permanently injure. I retrieved this hammer from the place where it was suspended on the wall, and Davy began to beg, “No, don’t batter my skull, worthy doctors, please leave my head whole.”

  Distracted by the mere sight of the mallet in my hands, Davy was not watching the cleaver.

  I never had to use the hammer. Davy screamed, half in pain and half in wonderment, at the suddenness of the chopper’s blow. The poor wreck of a finger, no bigger than a chicken bone, fell with a chime into the basin.

  Chapter 15

  After this vivid adventure in medicine, I was surprised to see that we were still snugly in port, having voyaged nowhere.

  I glanced around for a glimpse of our famous admiral. Everywhere I saw shipboard bustle, but no sign of the legendary Drake.

  I had never seen any city except London, and had expected Plymouth to be a sleepy port, with peaked roofs in a row. But even from the wharf it was plain that this was a town with taverns of the rougher sort, dung heaps up and down the meandering streets, lean cats scrambling out of the way of staggering sailors.

  The Golden Lion had arrived at last, nosing her way toward the wharf, and every seaman and officer knew that this was a night to drink and sport, because at the next ebb tide the fleet might take us to sea.

  “Are you hungry, Thomas?” asked my master as I followed him. He surveyed the crowded, muddy by-ways of this port, wondering aloud which doubtful, smoky lane promised the best food. A dust-colored torn cat observed me from a coil of hemp rope, but when I reached to scratch his head the cat hissed.

  We had left Davy Wyott at peace with the world because of the drink he had swallowed, a ship’s boy in attendance, spirit-flask nearby. I was very hungry, and thirsty, too. But when I saw two seamen
wrestling each other in a puddle, surrounded by cheering crewmates, I asked my master’s leave. I hurried back to the ship, into our cabin for my sword, and my master’s blade, too.

  “Only a seaman dare sup or drink in Plymouth,” said Jack with a wink, sitting on the deck of the ship. He was pulling on his boots, and had put on a new cap, with a red feather. Such feathers are pretty, but dyed. A golden fighting cock’s plume—a color ordained by nature—angled from my own hat.

  “A gentleman like you,” said Jack with a laugh, “even with a sword, will be a fawn among lions, if you’ll forgive me.”

  I offered Jack our protection in return, with what I thought was a manly laugh. “So if you find yourself in rough company, we can save your skin.”

  “A rapier is not a cleaver, by God,” said Jack. “Or a surgeon’s mallet, either.”

  I had noticed glances of interest and, I thought, respect from our shipmates. Talk of our capable treatment of Davy Wyott’s injury had evidently spread.

  My master and I found an inn called the Mitre and Parrot.

  We dined there on mutton, hearty slices of it, hot and served on slabs of brown bread. We drank a thick, sweet beer, and were soon content.

  We sat with our feet before the fire, and my master told me in detail of the mermaid again. It was a story I had come to love, if only for the mood that came over my master when he spun the tale. Sometimes called meermaids or merewives, these sea-sirens showed themselves as a special favor to men of character. To see one was a sign of great good luck, and to hear one speak a rare wonder.

  “She had long, streaming tresses,” he reminisced, as often before, “and dazzling green skin.”

  He paused, no doubt seeing her again in his mind. “She looked right at me, Tom, as sure as I’m a Christian. She parted her lips and she spoke.” He shook his head. “By the time I called to the boatswain—a good fellow, but slow-footed—she was gone.”