After the auspices of its beginning, our voyage soon reminded us that the sea is not always benign. After four months at sea my crew expected some ease from the biting winds and cold autumnal spray, some shelter from the elements that had assailed them so assiduously. And some were expecting something more, having heard tell of the harbour tavern of our destination, and the warm doxies who waited there.
Cold comfort was all they found.
We arrived under a slate grey sky, having to tack hard against a strong offshore wind that faded and died as soon as we entered the safe haven of the natural harbour. I thought it passing strange that there was no-one on the dockside to mark our arrival. We have been looked for these past two months, and the Havenhome is tall enough to be seen from many a mile. And yet no smoke rose from the colony, despite the chill in the air and the ever-present autumnal dampness. There was already a pall over my heart as we hove to.
“Mayhap there is a town meeting,” the pastor said as we stood at the prow.
“Aye, mayhap,” I said. But my heart did not believe it. I knew already there was some dark power at large. Perhaps I do have a touch of the Highlander sight after all.
Jim Crawford was ashore before anyone else, running down the dock.
The First Mate called after him.
“Do not tire the doxies out, Master Crawford.”
“I will have first choice,” the deck hand shouted, laughing. “I’ll leave you the ugly ones. But if you want any ale, you’d best be quick, for I have a terrible thirst.”
We found him again when we disembarked and headed into town. He was first at one thing... he’d been right at that... he was first, but by no means last, to fall in a dead faint.
At our last visit some three years ago this was a thriving town of a hundred souls, living off the land that God gave them, and maintaining peaceful trading relations with the natives. There had even been talk of expansion, with land to the south earmarked for a church.
Now it will only be used as a cemetery, for they are dead... every last soul of them.
The fortifications have not been breached and there is no evidence of a fight. There were just the bodies of the dead, as if the Lord decided in that instant to take them to their heavenly rest. They lay, scattered on the ground like fallen leaves, faces grey, ashen and almost blue. They are cold to the touch, their eyes solid and milky, like glass marbles sunk in a ball of snow.
It was all the First Mate and I could do to keep the men from fleeing. Some did indeed fall to their knees in prayer and supplication.
“What could have caused this, Cap’n?” the First Mate asked.
“Mayhap t’was a freak storm,” Coyle the cook said. “For surely we have seen the same thing happen to a man at the mast in the far north waters?”
“But these are not the north waters,” the pastor replied. “This land is most clement, even in comparison to our own home. Men do not freeze in October. This is the devil’s work, mark my words.”
As for myself, I kept my peace then, but as I saw more of what lay on the streets I came to think they might both have been right.
I was in the court house, standing over the still, dead bodies of Josiah MacLeod and his family and trying not to weep when the pastor made his final report.
“We have searched the whole town, Captain. As far as we can tell the entire population has been felled, for no one answered our calls, although our entreaties have been long and loud. God rest their souls.”
The burials began.
The small ones were the worst. The sun had partially thawed their bodies, but when you lift them you feel the hard frozen core inside. It is all that you can do to keep from weeping as you lay them into the too-small holes.
After the burials were finally complete our pastor called for a service of remembrance, but I knew the mood of the crew better. I had the cook break open our cargo and prepare a feast while I myself ensured that the tavern was made ready. The men had made a fair pass at clearing up the stench and gore of the carnage that had been wrought there. I was able to hide the last stains of blood with the judicious application of straw and wood chippings. What I couldn’t mask was the memory; of the sightless eyes and the strewn limbs that had so recently laid scattered on the floor. I could only hope that a flagon of grog and the hearty company of my shipmates would dispel the chill that had fallen on my heart.
We set a great fire roaring in the hearth, cracked open what barrels we could find. We set to feasting and drinking with a gusto that only men far from home and long at sea will understand. Any guilt we might have felt at such merriment in a place where so much destruction had been wrought was quickly assuaged by the warmth of the fire and the sweet tang of the ale.
The evening began in fine fashion. The chef excelled even his own high standards. He managed to turn a few stone of potatoes, a leg of salted pork and some rough vegetables into a mouth watering feast for each of us. Ale flowed freely. For a while we were almost warm.
The pastor recited ‘The Lay of Lady Jane,’ as bawdy a verse as any old sea-dog might muster. It was all the better coming from such an austere man of the cloth. Jim Crawford told a tall tale, of a man from Orkney who was twelve feet high with a two foot cock which he used to beat off foreign raiders. The room was filled with laughter.
“A tune from Stumpy Jack,” came the call. When the eldest of the crewmen started on the squeeze box we could almost believe ourselves at home port once more. All went quiet as he started up that tune we all knew well, for we had sung it many times afore, albeit with lighter hearts and warmer circumstances.
Once more we sail with a northerly gale
Through the ice and sleet and rain.
And them coconut fronds in them tropic lands
We soon shall see again.
Six hellish months we’ve passed away
Sailing the Greenland seas,
And now we’re bound from the arctic ground,
Rolling down to old Maui.
Stumpy Jack was old, but his voice was as clear and true as a young man’s. It rang through the rafters, promising of hot sun and even warmer women. We all joined in on the chorus
Rolling down to old Maui, my boys,
Rolling down to old Maui.
We’re southward bound from the arctic ground
Rolling home to old Maui.
Bald Tom found a tavern wenches’ skirt. There was much bawdy laughter as he moved among the tables pretending to be a doxie. If the talking and laughter was somewhat muted, and if some drank more than was good for them, we pretended not to notice. The Ulsterman told of his exploits against the Turks in Vienna, Bald Tom, still wearing the wenches’ skirts, regaled us with tall tales of the Amsterdam brothels. Stumpy Jack sang the old whaler’s songs before starting up that old sailor’s favourite, “The Girl from Brest.” We sang along at the top of our voices. The tavern rang loud, keeping the cold at bay, for a while at least. For that short span, we made a common bond that life was good once more. It nearly was.
By the time things went bad most of the crew were too far into their cups to notice.
“Bald Tom went out to the privy some ten minutes ago. He has been gone too long,” the First Mate said to me.
“Tis not unknown for him to linger over a shit,” I replied.
“Aye, sir,” the First Mate said, “but even for Tom this is too long. Especially when there is free ale and meat on the table.”
He had it right. Bald Tom often loitered over his ablutions. He was teased mightily over it, but this was over-long, even for him. The pastor and I, being the two men least addled by the drink, went out into the night in search of him.
The cold was like a wall, hitting us square in our faces and taking our very breath.
“Let us leave him to his business,” I said. “Tis too cold to go looking for the steam from his doings.”
In truth, it was not just the cold that had me trembling. I had the fear of the devil in me. The memory of the fire inside the tav
ern was fading fast.
But the pastor was made of far sterner stuff than I.
“Let us continue and look a little further. He may be in trouble,” the pastor said. “And there is evil afoot tonight. I feel it in my bones.”
“Then have at it man, but make it quick. Already the cold bites at my ankles. At the rate the men are drinking, there will be none left for our return.”
He led the way round the corner of the tavern, tall and proud in his faith while I cowered, cowed, behind him like a whipped scoundrel. I am not sure if the pastor prayed, but I was surely calling on God’s protection more than enough for both our souls.
Bald Tom will be on the privy for the rest of eternity. We found him in the shed, squatting over the rough hole in the ground, skirts pulled up around his waist. He was no more than a cold block of flesh; frozen solid in mid shit. Had the pastor not been there I believe I may have laughed... in jest at first, then later in hysteria.
“Lets us have him inside by the fire,” the pastor said. “Mayhap he can yet be revived.”
I nay-said him. “Leave him be. He is deader than anything I have ever clapped eyes on. Deader even than Jim McLean of Banchory, and he had his head taken off by a corsair.”
The pastor stood over the body to say the words that would speed Bald Tom to paradise, but I had known the man well. I’m certain that the resting place of his soul would be more than warm enough to thaw any part of him that was yet frozen after the journey.
The pastor was taking over-long over the formalities, while all I could think about was the fire in the hearth, and a flagon of spiced rum. I was about to turn away when it suddenly got colder... colder even than the time the sea had frozen around us off Trinity Bay in Newfoundland and we’d been locked in place for a month with naught but salted fish to sustain us. Ice formed in my beard. It crackled to the touch. The last half-inch of my moustache came away in one piece in my palm.
We looked at each other, the pastor and I. I hope my own eyes held less abject fear than I saw in his, but I cannot guarantee it.
“Have you finished telling the Lord of Bald Tom’s piety?” I asked, speaking loudly, as if the very sound of my voice would keep the cold at bay.
“That I have, Captain,” he replied. “But it is my own soul that concerns me at this moment.”
“I have found that a flagon of spiced rum is good for most things that ail the soul,” I replied.
“Then let us retire within, and you can show me,” the pastor said. “For it is colder than fisher-wife’s teats out here.”
Outside the shed something moved, a shuffling, stumbling. Then came a moan, as of a man in pain.
The pastor instinctively moved to help and stepped outside.
“No,” I called. I put out a hand.
He was dead before I could help him. He froze, stiff as a board in the wink of an eye. One cold eye stared up at me in amazement before it too froze, all sight going as life left him. He fell, solid as a stone, part in, part out of the privy door.
The sound of shuffling got louder. The cold cut deep, reaching my bones. I am ashamed to say it, but I was mightily afeard, struck immobile with terror as whatever manner of thing was beyond the door crept closer. The noise stopped just outside the shed door. Something pulled the pastor out of the shed, his body scraping on the ground like a slab being slid from a tomb.
I bent, thinking to take his arms, to try to counter whatever had him. But one touch of his bare hand was enough for the cold to burn my palm to the bone. Whatever had the pastor tugged at him again. The body was dragged away out of my sight. But not out of hearing.
My ears were assailed with cracking and crunching... teeth grating on icy flesh and bone. I could not tell you what manner of creature made such foul sounds, for I could not bring myself to look.
The sounds continued for some time while the cold crept ever deeper through me until finally I could take it no longer... I squeezed past Bald Tom and made an attack on the shed’s rear wall.
The noises of feeding stopped. Behind me the privy door creaked as something pushed inside.
I renewed my attack on the wall, kicking and punching like a man possessed. The wall fell before me like dry kindling. There was a single moment of icy cold, a breath on the back of my neck that I will remember for whatever life I have left, then I was away and heading for the tavern as fast as my legs would take me.
* * *
Once I made my escape from the privy I was too afeard to risk a look backwards. If I had seen the pastor’s fate I do believe I may have given up my soul to the Lord there and then. But all I could see in my mind was the roaring heat of the fire, a beacon calling me to safety. I was close enough to hear the crew singing:
“There was a young lady from Brest,
Who had an enormous chest
You could place a whole city
On each of her titties
And hide a small hill in her vest.”
I mouthed along with the words. Although I was afraid to speak them aloud, the very nature of them, reminding me of home and the fireplace around the Inn on the harbour of a summer’s evening, gave me what strength I needed to keep moving.
I had a bad moment when my feet slipped, and threatened to give way under me.
In my mind’s eye I saw something reach for me, something foul and cold from the worst nightmare of my childhood. I felt its cold dead breath on my neck. I thought that my maker had finally called for me.
I do believe I screamed, alone there in the dark. I may have lain there, unable to move if I hadn’t at the very moment thought of you, my dearest Lizzie. It was the memory of you on the dockside that got me moving. I managed to scramble away and I burst like a fury into the tavern.
Some of the crew turned and, on seeing me, laughed. But there must have been a fell look in my eyes, for their laughter died on their lips. The room fell suddenly quiet.
“What has happened, Cap’n,” the First Mate called.
I had no time to answer. I turned and slammed the oak door behind me as soon as I was full inside, but even then I felt the cold seep through the wood to my hands.
“Stoke the fire,” I called out.
No one moved. They were all stuck immobile by the shock of my sudden entrance.
I backed away from the door as a silver sheen of hoar frost ran across its surface.
“Where’s the pastor? Where’s Bald Tom?” the voices cried.
“Dead,” I called out. “As you will be if you do not heed me. Stoke the fire! It is all that will save us now.”
Young Isaac was having none of it. He was one of the ones who had helped clear out the tavern earlier; he’d seen at first hand the slaughter that had happened in this enclosed space.
“I’m not going to be taken like them others. If I’m to die, it will be out in the open,” he called.
Before I could stop him he stepped forward and grabbed at the iron door handle... and was immediately frozen in place, icing-white like a grotesque cake decoration, mouth open in a mix of fear and surprise, his tongue lying like a cold grey stone in the floor of his mouth.
The men stood stock still, staring at what had become of the young deckhand.
“Stoke the bloody fire!” I called out once more. “Are you deaf as well as witless?”
The cold leeched through the door and started to reach for me. And still they didn’t move.
“Have you forgotten those that we placed in the earth? Do you want to be like them? Stoke that bloody fire!”
Finally the First Mate had the sense to respond.
“You heard the Cap’n. Stoke this fire, or I’ll throw you on alongside the logs.”
Some of the men at last set to piling the hearthside logs on the fire while the rest of us backed slowly away from the door.
The wood, and young Isaac, were by now covered in a good half-inch of silver-grey ice, glistening red in the reflected firelight.
“Cap’n,” Jim Crawford said fearfully. “What is it?�
��
“Death,” I whispered. “As sure as eggs is eggs, ‘tis death for us all, if we cannot get warm.”
I heard the First Mate call out for more fuel, but I could not take my eyes from the encroaching edge of the ice.
The extent of it spread even as we watched, crawling along the walls as if laid down by some invisible painter, creeping across the floor towards our feet, tendrils reaching out, looking for prey.
As one man we stepped further backwards, each of us trying to get closer to the fire which roared at our backs but seemed to give out little heat. In truth I have never felt such cold, not even in the far north where the white bears roam. It was as if my very blood thickened in my veins.
A strange lethargy began to take me. I took a step forward, towards the door, then another. In my head I heard you, my dear Lizzie, calling me in from the field, calling me home for supper.
“Captain!” the First Mate cried. He pulled me back towards the fire, putting his own body between myself and the creeping ice.
“Best warm your hands,” he said. “It’s turned a bit on the nippy side.”
I turned and faced the fire, feeling the heat tighten the skin across my cheeks. A layer of frost that had formed on my hands melted away. My blood began to move again so that I felt I might live, at least for a short time longer.
“Tell me, Cap’n,” Stumpy Jack said. “Is it Old Nick himself come to take us? I always heard tell that fire was more in his line of work.”
“I can’t tell you that, Jack,” I replied. “But there’s more than just Mother Nature working agin’ us this night. Stoke the fire, man. Keep stoking the fire. It’s all that stands between us and a cold grave.”
I helped Stumpy Jack load more wood on the flames. The fire had grown so as to fill the grate. We had to stand back and throw the fuel on, but still the ice crept across the room towards us and we were forced to huddle ever closer together.
“It’s getting right cozy,” Jim Crawford said. “When I dreamt of cuddling up with a warm body in this tavern, it wasn’t any of you I had in mind.”
Samurai and Other Stories Page 9
