Sea Robber

by Tim Severin

  ‘Bo’sun, take two men and see what can be done,’ yelled Cook above the din as the helmsmen struggled to keep the vessel heading safely into the oncoming waves.

  Moments later Hector found himself alongside Jezreel, struggling forward to reach the crippled sail. Hand over hand, he pulled himself along one of the ropes rigged for the safety of those moving about the heaving deck. A rogue wave swirled over the gunwale and he clung on tightly as the surge of water dragged at his legs, trying to sweep him overboard.

  They reached the wreckage of the spritsail and its spar where they lay across the bow. The boatswain was an ex-fisherman named Evans and had a lifetime of experience in dealing with such situations. One look at the waterlogged tangle and he tugged a knife from his belt and began to cut through the ropes. Hector knelt beside him and followed his example. ‘Hang on,’ bellowed Jezreel as the ship lunged forward, driving into a roaring mass of water that submerged Hector entirely.

  He held his breath and gripped tightly to the damaged sail, waiting for the ship to rise. The water poured off him, and he was free once more to saw away with his blade at the sodden cordage. Half a dozen times the bow dipped, and the sea sluiced over him, before he felt the knife cut right through and the tangle of sail and spar and rigging begin to shift. Still on his knees, he slid back out of the way to allow the wreckage to drop overboard. Beside him Jezreel gave another warning cry. But it was too late. A loose rope wrapped itself around the boatswain’s ankle and, as the ruined spritsail went over the side, it dragged the sailor with it. There was a despairing shriek, and Hector had a glimpse of Evans’ white face as he looked up towards the ship.

  The Bachelor’s Delight was barely moving forward through the water. Her motion was only a tremendous, wild swoop and heave as she rode out the seas. Just yards away, the spar and spritsail stayed afloat. Evans swam, his head above water. His sea coat of oiled canvas had trapped the air and ballooned and was floating like a glistening bladder around his shoulders. Hector rose to his feet and fled back towards the quarterdeck. ‘Man in the water,’ he shouted, pointing. The helmsmen had already seen the accident. Several sailors were at the rail, trying to throw ropes to the floundering man. But the ropes fell short, and for the space of several minutes the wretched boatswain lay floundering in the water, one leg pinioned within the flotsam, still swimming strongly. But with each succeeding wave he gradually drifted away in the gale. The gap was growing wider and wider.

  ‘Can’t bring her up any more into the wind,’ bawled the chief helmsman. ‘The steering doesn’t answer.’

  Appalled, the remaining members of the watch could only gaze on as Evans was swept slowly out of view. Another two or three minutes passed and he could no longer be seen among the spume and spray.

  ‘Even double earrings didn’t save him,’ muttered a grizzled sailor, turning away from the rail, his face hard-set. Evans had worn gold hoops in both ears in the common belief that an earring would save a sailor from drowning.

  ‘We still have ourselves to worry about,’ barked Dampier. ‘The wind’s picking up. The storm isn’t yet at its worst.’

  As he spoke, the mizzensail shredded above his head. The canvas split into a dozen sodden rags, which thrashed back and forth, cracking like whips. Then they ripped loose and whirled away downwind. The bolt rope that had edged the sail lasted only a moment longer, before it too disintegrated and vanished. The gale increased to a hurricane. It raged out of the west, screaming through the rigging, and by mid-afternoon the seas had grown higher than anything even the most experienced sailor on board had witnessed. Solid walls of water reared up and loomed over the labouring ship. The Bachelor’s Delight lay under bare poles, scarcely managing to stay afloat. She rose to each wave, staggered as the crests struck her and skewed sideways. It was suicidal now to try to reach the foredeck. Again and again the sea washed over her, thundering along the deck in a swirling mass and bursting its way under the hatch covers. From there it poured below, adding to the water leaking in through the seams as the Delight’s hull flexed in the raging sea. Four men at a time, the crew took their turn at the wooden handle of the ship’s pump and desperately tried to stop the level of water rising in the footwell. They knew that if they failed, the Delight would founder.

  For the rest of that day and all through the following night, the ordeal continued. The wind veered into the northwest, driving the vessel even farther south. As she wallowed and rolled, her crew had little respite. Those off-duty huddled in the noxious darkness below decks amid the smell of vomit, damp and excrement, for it was no longer safe to go on deck to relieve oneself, and the men used the bilges as their latrine. Hector wedged himself in his cot and took refuge in thoughts of Maria. They helped him blot out the pounding of the waves against the hull, the sudden gushes of water cascading through her deck leaks and the creaking and groaning of the timbers. He conjured up the moment he had first seen her as she stepped from the cabin of a captured Spanish merchantman two years earlier. She had been plainly dressed in a long-sleeved brown gown with a collar of white linen, her nut-brown hair loose. He recalled her small, neat hands clasped in front of her in a gesture of exasperation. She was travelling as companion to the wife of a powerful colonial official, so she had stayed in the background, but his glance had kept returning to her. He found her remarkably attractive with her wide-set, dark eyes, regular features and a lightly freckled complexion the colour of dark honey. She radiated a quiet intelligence, which he found intriguing. Just once their gaze had met, and he’d felt a surge of admiration as he recognized that Maria was unafraid, even when faced with a gang of lawless buccaneers. Now, as the Delight swooped and shuddered in the storm, Hector pictured her courage and defiance and was more certain than ever that he had to find her and tell her that he was in love with her.

  By dawn on the second day the storm was easing enough for the exhausted crew to emerge and attend to the needs of their ship. They knotted and sliced damaged ropes, tightened slack shrouds and drove home extra wedges where the masts had begun to work loose. Jacques got a fire going in the galley and had boiled up some hot soup when a maverick swell shook the vessel and capsized the cauldron yet again. This time Jacques slipped on the greasy spillage and, falling heavily, dislocated his shoulder. Hector bound the arm in place with strips of sail canvas. Then Dan and Jezreel carried the Frenchman below. The crew had to make do with plain food and, as the wind rose again, chew on cold biscuit and gulp down brandy to sustain themselves.

  Accurate navigation was impossible. Scudding clouds obscured the sky, and when there was a brief glimpse of the sun or the stars, the heaving, rolling deck and a horizon broken with a jumble of swells made it impossible to take an accurate sight. Cook and Dampier could only guess the ship’s position and speculate how much progress had been made.

  The ship was being driven farther and farther south – that was evident. One gale succeeded another, with scarcely a lull of a few hours between them. The temperature fell even further. The squalls carried more and more snow. On the seventh day a blizzard reduced visibility to nothing more than a white blur. By then a permanent glaze of ice had formed on masts and rigging. Everything was encased in a thin slick of ice, and it became dangerous to climb the rigging or move about on deck. The men’s hands froze and lost all feeling. Several had fingernails torn away without even noticing as they worked the ship. They counted themselves lucky. One man slipped from an icy yard and fell, smashed like a broken doll, dead.

  It seemed like a miracle when, after two weeks of this ordeal, the sky cleared and at dawn they had a gentle breeze in their favour. At last it was possible to set the larger sails and resume their voyage. On the quarterdeck Dampier took a reading with his backstaff, gave a slight grunt of surprise and handed the instrument to Hector.

  ‘Just to be sure, what do you make of it?’

  Hector measured the sun’s angle for himself, and after the two men had consulted the almanac, they agreed that the Delight now lay a full degree fa
rther south than they had thought.

  ‘Well, there’s no fear of us striking a reef if we head west from here,’ Dampier remarked. Like the others, he looked haggard. His eyes were red-rimmed, his hair dirty and matted with dried salt, and the hand that held the battered chart was little more than a claw, stiff with cold.

  ‘Just as long as we stay well clear of those monsters,’ said Jezreel. In every direction they could see floating ice islands. Some were huge, white shining blocks, their cores deep aquamarine and vivid blue. Others were low and flat, covered with a mantle of snow and barely showing above the water. After the noise and turmoil of the storms, the ice islands had a strange, alien quality. They were motionless, silent and ghostly.

  Dan had said nothing. He was standing at the starboard rail, gazing intently at the largest of the ice islands about half a mile ahead. ‘What are you staring at?’ Hector asked.

  ‘A ship,’ replied his friend.

  Perplexed, Hector looked more closely. The ice island was shaped like an enormous wedge. One end was a blunt cliff, sheer and spectacular, perhaps sixty feet in height. From there the surface of the ice sloped down in a series of irregular ridges and spurs to a low shelf at the opposite end, scarcely above water level. Here a barely perceptible swell could be seen swirling over the submerged ice ledge.

  ‘At the lower end, do you see it?’ Dan pointed.

  Hector put up a hand to shield his eyes. The glare of the sun reflecting from the ice was dazzling.

  ‘That darker patch,’ said Dan.

  Hector turned to Cook. ‘Could we steer towards that ice island over there?’ he asked. ‘Dan thinks there may be something on it.’

  As the Delight came closer, the dark object Dan had seen took shape. Stranded on the ice was indeed the wreck of a small ship. She lay at a slight angle, her bow tilted up, as if she had been run on to the ice at speed. Her forward third was buried in what appeared to be a snow bank, and her stern still projected into the sea. A shattered stump was all that remained of her single mast. One side of the hull had burst open. A tangle of damaged rigging hung draped over one side. Rime and ice had coated the entire vessel, so that she seemed like a fly that had been caught and embalmed by a spider.

  The entire crew lined the rail as the Delight glided past the extraordinary sight. No one spoke. All were unnerved by the melancholy spectacle.

  ‘Maybe there’s someone still aboard,’ said Hector.

  Cook snorted in disbelief. ‘Not a chance. That ship is a graveyard at best.’

  ‘At least let me check. There may be something to salvage,’ Hector begged.

  ‘Very well, but we won’t waste time. You have an hour, no more.’ He turned and shouted an order that the sails were to be brailed up.

  Hector hurried to the cockboat, and within minutes Jezreel was rowing him and Dan towards the wreck. With a final powerful stroke he propelled the little boat right up on to the ice so that Hector and Dan could step out, dry-shod.

  ‘Jezreel, stay here and be ready to pick us up. We won’t be long,’ Hector said over his shoulder as he and his friend crunched their way through the frozen snow alongside the stranded ship.

  She was a bark, less than half the size of the Delight. There was no name on her stern to identify her, and any flag or distinguishing mark had long since gone.

  ‘How do you think she got here?’ Hector asked.

  ‘I’d say she ran on the ice by accident, in the dark and during a gale,’ Dan answered.

  ‘Then what happened to her crew?’

  ‘There’s only one way to find out.’ The Miskito scrambled in through the gap where the hull had split. Hector followed cautiously.

  The interior of the hull was dimly lit by shafts of light falling through ragged holes where the deck above them had fallen away. Inside was a jumble of debris – broken planks and barrels, anonymous bundles and crates, scraps of cloth. It was difficult to be sure what anything was because everything was coated in ice or half-buried in small drifts of snow that had accumulated.

  Moving cautiously, the two men picked their way through the rubbish to a companionway that led up to the deck. Dan brushed away a thin scattering of snow, which lay on the steps of the companionway. His breath steamed in the shaft of light from the open hatch above.

  ‘I doubt we’ll find much. Whoever was on board left with what they could salvage.’

  He mounted the steps and called down, ‘All the ship’s boats are missing. The vessel was abandoned by the survivors.’

  Hector followed him up on to the deck and looked around. There was little to see. The vessel was bare.

  ‘Dan, go forward and search,’ he said. ‘I’ll try aft. There must be some clue as to why the vessel is here.’

  The slant of the wreck made it awkward to clamber up on to the quarterdeck, and he was obliged to haul himself up by a side rail, using both hands. Again he found nothing of interest. The vessel had been stripped.

  He was descending carefully to the main deck when he heard a shout from Jezreel. He was gesturing towards the Delight and calling out that they should hurry. Hector looked across the water and could see men on deck, bracing the yards around. Cook was preparing to sail on.

  Hector was on the point of abandoning the search when he noticed a low, narrow door under the midships rail. He guessed that it must lead to the captain’s cabin. He tested the door, but it was either jammed by ice or the frame had warped. Hector put his shoulder to the panel and gave a hefty shove. The door grated open and he peered inside. The cabin was tiny, no more than eight feet square and with a roof so low it would have been impossible to stand upright. Even in the gloom Hector could see that the room was bare of furniture except for a narrow bunk along the far wall, a small stool tipped over on its side and what looked like a rumpled coat dropped on the floor. On second glance Hector saw that what he had taken as a discarded coat was the carcass of a gaunt, hairy dog. It had dark brindle markings and was almost the size of a small calf. It lay curled up, its lips drawn back to show the teeth, and rigid in frozen death.

  Outside Jezreel called again, urging him to come on, but something prompted Hector to step across to the narrow bunk. In it lay the stiff corpse of a man. The icy conditions had preserved the cadaver. Only his face and one hand were visible. The rest of the body was concealed under a blanket that the dead man must have drawn up around his neck to try to keep out the cold. He looked to have been about fifty years old, with a few wisps of grey hair, and there was a scar across the bridge of his nose that might have been left by a sword cut. Like the dog, the man’s lips were drawn back in a grimace, and the cheeks had fallen in. If he had not died of cold, he had perished of starvation.

  The light in the cabin was very poor. Hurriedly Hector looked around, hoping to see some papers, a chart, something that might yield information about the vessel. There was nothing. He reached down to pull the blanket further up and cover the dead man’s face. In doing so he dislodged the man’s hand, which clutched at the edge of the cloth. There was a faint clinking sound, and Hector saw that the dead man had been clutching a small medallion at the moment of his death. Very gently he reached out and turned the medallion. Its surface was worn. One side was so smooth he could see nothing. But on the other face he could just make out what looked like a bird, perhaps a hawk, and around it a wreath of leaves. He pulled at the medallion, thinking to take it out into the daylight and examine it more closely. But it was attached to a chain around the dead man’s neck, and Hector felt he risked becoming a grave robber. Instead, he eased the blanket up to cover the corpse’s face. Then he turned to leave.

  Dan was already coming towards him, slipping and sliding along the sloping deck. ‘Better hurry,’ he called. ‘I don’t doubt that Cook will leave us here if we stay any longer.’

  Hector looked out towards the Bachelor’s Delight. One corner of the main-course was already being let loose. Soon the ship would get under way.

  The two men ran across the snow to where Jezr
eel was waiting. He had already turned the boat’s stern to the ice so that the two men could jump aboard, and as soon as they had joined him, he began to row with quick, powerful strokes.

  They caught up with their ship just as she was gathering pace, and scrambled on to her, out of breath as the crew hoisted in the cockboat.

  ‘You took your time, so what did you find?’ demanded Cook. He was angry at the delay.

  ‘Very little. The vessel probably ran on to the ice in a storm. She was too badly damaged to be refloated, so her crew took the boats and all that was useful and set off.’

  Cook scanned the expanse of sea around them. ‘Then I doubt they survived.’

  ‘It must have been a year ago, maybe more,’ said Dan.

  ‘She was a Spanish ship?’

  ‘Probably,’ said Hector.

  ‘No charts we could use?’

  ‘Nothing. I found what I think was her captain. He died in his bunk. My guess is that he chose to stay behind, for whatever reason.’

  ‘This is a dreadful place, and the sooner we get clear of it, the better,’ admitted Cook. He had shed his usual self-confident manner and looked sombre. ‘From now on, we post two men at all times in the maintop on the lookout for ice. And I don’t care how cold it is, or how much wind there is. If necessary we draw lots for who goes up there.’

  No one contradicted him or questioned his order. As the Bachelor’s Delight sailed onwards, the crew were noticeably subdued as they went about their tasks. From time to time they cast furtive glances over the stern. It was as if they had encountered a horrific nightmare, which they knew they would be unable to forget. Hector could only wonder how much longer – whether months or years – the two corpses would continue to drift on the current with a ship for a coffin and an ice island as their catafalque.