Until the Sea Shall Give Up Her Dead

by S. thomas Russell

  “I agree. We all saw how long the Syren floated when not nearly so grievously wounded,” Hayden reminded them, referring to a ship sunk by collision on convoy duty not a year past.

  “Perhaps we shall find the other ship, sir, and have an explanation,” Ransome suggested. “We might hope they saved the crew, Captain.”

  “If they did not founder as well. Alert the lookouts, Mr Ransome. I doubt they will see anything on this dark a night, but we must do all we can.”

  “Aye, sir.”

  Hayden stood with the sailing master a moment more.

  “Peculiar, is it not, Captain,” Barthe said, lowering his voice, “to find a boat from a sinking ship with only two aboard?”

  “I agree, but more peculiar things have occurred, as we both know.”

  Barthe nodded, then touched his hat. “That is true, sir, but this . . . Well, I’ve never heard of such a thing before. If you have no more need of me, Captain . . . ?”

  “We are hove-to in the middle of a deep ocean, Mr Barthe; I believe Mr Dryden can keep us safe until daylight. Good night, Mr Barthe.”

  “Good night, sir.” Mr Barthe waddled off into the night.

  Hayden stood looking out over the sea, which still rolled heavily from the recent gale, though the wind had taken off considerably. Tattered cloud flew ever swiftly by, but high above, the stars spread densely across the heavens. He expected a clear day next, with fickle winds. It would make his search difficult, but there might be seamen out there yet, clinging to flotsam if not in boats.

  A throat cleared behind, and Hayden turned to find the surgeon’s mate standing a few paces off.

  “Somehow, Mr Ariss, I doubt you come bearing good news.”

  “Dr Griffiths sent me to tell you that MacDonald has departed this life, sir.”

  “The unfortunate whom the top-man fell upon?” There were new men in the crew, and Hayden did not yet know all their names.

  “That is correct, sir.”

  “God rest his soul. His luck was as bad as the two Spaniards’ was good.”

  “So it would seem, sir. Luck can be like that.”

  “Indeed it can. Thank you, Mr Ariss.”

  “Good night, sir.”

  This news left Hayden very low; he was not sure why. Perhaps it was the entirely arbitrary nature of ill luck; the idea that it could fall upon one in forms never conceived of and against which it was impossible to defend oneself. As though being struck by lightning became suddenly common.

  In this foul temper, Hayden retreated to his cabin. The carpenter or his mates had fitted a canvas panel fore and aft to provide some privacy to both Hayden and his unlooked-for guests. By a dim light Hayden made his nightly toilet and, creeping about to make as little noise as possible, rolled expertly into his swaying cot, where sleep would not come no matter how he attempted to entice it. He closed his eyes and listened to the common sounds of a ship at sea: creaking cordage and the sound of men moving about the deck. Hove-to as they were, the motion was very comfortable—an almost gentle lifting and falling. Through the screen he could hear the Spanish brothers breathing softly and he could not think of them as anything but intruders stealing away the little privacy he had.

  Spain, Hayden knew, was being hard-pressed by French armies in the Pyrenees and, after its initial successes, was beginning take losses. The British government feared that Spain’s resolve would weaken if further losses were incurred. The question then would be, would Spain turn against her former allies, or try to remain neutral? Hayden’s own belief was that, if sufficiently threatened by France, Spain would rather fight a distant island nation than a great power with her even greater armies. The brothers asleep beyond the screen might be enemies and he would not even know.

  The world was in tumult. Robespierre had fallen in July, but the chaos in France continued. The war had been carried to almost all the oceans of the world, and the West Indies, towards which he sailed, was no exception. The valuable sugar islands were being traded back and forth, and on some, the slaves were in revolt. The guillotine had crossed the Atlantic, carried by fanatical Jacobins bent on purifying their revolution. It was a time of fear and constant change—unsettling to everyone, as the outcome was as yet uncertain.

  As almost every night of his life since he had gone to sea, Hayden woke several times. Commonly, he stirred to listen and sense the motion of the ship—to be certain all was well—but this night, each time he woke it was from a dream of a woman coming to his cot. In the darkness he could not make out her face but only a wave of hair tumbling about her shoulders, her graceful movement, the pale silk of a nightgown, perhaps, and the sweet scent of her skin. Each time he awoke with such longing that it was almost a physical pain—a fever.

  Three

  Soft whispering in a strange tongue. Hayden came fully awake . . . and then he realised the sound came from beyond the newly erected panel. Spanish.

  Hayden spoke Spanish well enough—not so well as Italian or French—and he comprehended a good deal more, but this whispering was too low for him to catch more than a few words.

  The Spanish were allies, of course, and these brothers were likely nothing more than the castaways they claimed, but there was something—as Mr Barthe had said—peculiar about finding only the two of them in a boat. Two from a complement of some two hundred. He wished now that he had not revealed his knowledge of the Spanish tongue. It would have been less than gentlemanly, but he might have learned something of what had happened to them—assuming it was something other than what they claimed.

  The younger brother made a hissing sound and whispered, “Listen . . . I believe he is awake.”

  The conversation ceased forthwith.

  Hayden realised his breathing must have changed as he woke, giving him away. As there was no more advantage to be gained, and this was commonly his hour to rise, he rolled out of his cot and commenced his morning toilet. Breakfast arrived, lamps lit.

  Rustling behind the screen preceded the arrival of Miguel and, soon after, Angel.

  Hayden rose. “I do apologise for the noise,” he offered. “I rise before the sun, but you, of course, may sleep as long as you wish.” He motioned to chairs. “Please, join me.”

  “We are happy to rise when you do, Captain,” Miguel replied, sliding into a chair. “And please, it is your cabin. We well understand that the captain of a ship must come and go whenever his ship has need of him. Do not spend a moment in concern for us.”

  Hayden’s steward and servant were quickly offering food.

  “I tend to eat simply at sea,” Hayden informed them—half an apology. “I hope you won’t mind?”

  “One grows so tired of elaborate meals,” Angel replied quickly. “And I find simple meals produce the best conversation.”

  “I fear I might be a disappointment to you, Don Angel. Before I have had coffee I can barely mumble a few words.”

  “Then you must have coffee, Captain,” he said, and motioned Hayden’s servant with such confidence that the man filled Hayden’s cup before he thought, and then turned red as a marine’s coat. Hayden let it pass, not wishing to embarrass his guest.

  “We will begin a search today to see if there are any other survivors from your ship. Can you tell me, now, what occurred?”

  Angel glanced at his brother, clearly deferring to him.

  “We set off,” Miguel began, his face darkening, “three frigates from Cádiz, sailing for Vera Cruz. We were guests of Captain Andreu, who, as I said, was a friend of our late father. All went well until the gale. Captain Andreu told us to not be alarmed, for his ship had been through many much worse.” His voice lowered noticeably. “But that evening a mass was held for all the officers and men who were not on watch to pray for our deliverance. I could tell that the men were frightened and dismayed. Some appeared unnerved. Many of these men had spent their lives at sea. I assumed fro
m this that the storm was much worse than Captain Andreu had told us.”

  Hayden nodded. “Yes, we went through it as well. A hard gale—not a storm—but the seas were confused and steep and greater than the wind warranted.”

  Miguel glanced at his brother as if Hayden had confirmed their own thoughts. “As we prayed, there was a thunderous, great crash and we were all thrown down upon the deck. Immediately, water began to rush in. Some men were orderly, but others made a rush for the ladders and in the panic trampled their crew mates. I was knocked down myself, and if some man, I know not who, had not hauled me up by my collar, I should have been killed. Captain Andreu got us to the deck and established order there. The men were frightened for their lives, but Captain Andreu had their respect. The ship was already down by the stern and sinking more rapidly than I would have thought possible. There was no saving it. We were told by the officers on deck that there had been a collision, but the other ship was not then to be seen.

  “Captain Andreu put us in the first boat launched with a single crewman—I think you say a coxswain—and we were hoisted out and into the terrible seas. Men were to climb down into the boat then, but the ship suddenly rolled away from us and our boat was torn free. We were thrown down and the boat half filled. When I rose to my knees the coxswain was gone and the ship had rolled on its side. The seas drove us away from the ship. We bailed for our lives.

  “I did not know how to manage a boat in such seas, but it hardly mattered; we became ill with the motion and could barely move. We bailed enough to stay afloat—fear being greater than our sickness. After a very long time the winds grew small and the seas less angered. The whole day we lay in the boat and prayed to be saved. And then, as night found us, Angel saw your ship far off on the horizon. The rest you know, Captain Hayden.”

  Hayden took a fortifying sip of his coffee. “You were beyond lucky to have survived the sinking, and then to have been discovered at sea . . . Well, it is a vast ocean . . .”

  Angel appeared moved, his eyes glistening. “God preserved us. There can be no other explanation.”

  Hayden, who was less convinced that God intervened in the affairs of men, said nothing. “Don Angel, you have a bloodstain on your shirt and jacket,” Hayden noted. “Are you injured?”

  Looking confused, Angel opened his coat, revealing a shirt stained a muddy red. “No. It is some other’s blood—from the melee, I think—but I do not know who.”

  “Well, you were fortunate not to be injured.”

  Angel fixed his gaze on Hayden. “You place a great deal of faith in luck, Captain.”

  “It is the sailor’s superstition, Don Angel,” Hayden responded. “When I was a young midshipman, a ship fired grape at our quarterdeck from barely thirty yards off. Four of us stood together—three abreast and one behind me. We were, all of us, thrown down on the deck; the men to either side were wounded and the man directly behind me was killed. It was impossible. The shot would have had to pass through me to strike him, yet he was killed instantly. When he was examined by the surgeon, it was found that the shot had struck him in the chest and severed both a major artery and his spine. A miracle—or perhaps divine intervention—was the offered explanation for my survival. But then, we realised the ship’s bell had been struck at the same instant—struck at such an angle as to have deflected the grapeshot, killing my friend but missing me.”

  Angel reached out and touched Hayden’s arm. “But you do not know that it was not a miracle or divine intervention, Captain. God might have preserved you for some other purpose.”

  Hayden shrugged. “Perhaps. Perhaps it was to find you and your brother, adrift in a great ocean, just as you said. You must excuse me. I am called to the deck. We shall begin our search for survivors. It has only been a day. There is always flotsam; some men might yet be alive.”

  Miguel rose as Hayden did and touched his brother on the shoulder. Angel appeared confused a moment and then came to his feet as well. Hayden went out.

  Dawn was summoning its energies beyond the eastern horizon. The last remnants of the gale had blown clear and the stars glittered against the lightless sky.

  “Captain on deck,” Hayden heard from nearby, and there was a rustling in the dark as men shifted or stood. Out of habit, Hayden went to the binnacle, but the ship was hove-to and did not really have a heading—and he could easily have told it from the stars on such a night.

  “Captain . . .”

  Hayden turned to find Archer approaching.

  “Mr Archer,” Hayden replied. “All is well, I trust?”

  “Perfectly well, sir. We have a fair topsail breeze, sir, and the sea has gone back down.”

  “It is a fair breeze for Barbados, Mr Archer, but not necessarily so for our purposes.”

  “I take your point, sir. I have detailed men to go aloft as lookouts, and I shall station men around the deck as well.”

  “Have a boat cleared away and ready to launch, Mr Archer, in the chance that we find anyone.”

  “Aye, sir. And how shall we proceed?”

  “I shall confer with Mr Barthe, who I am certain has been consulting his charts, estimating the winds and currents, and has come to a conclusion. Even so, it is a needle in a haystack, Mr Archer, a bloody needle in a vast haystack.”

  Hayden took a turn around the deck, as was his habit, and spoke here and there with the hands and officers. Many men were new, and Hayden was only now learning their names and character. A few had been fishermen or had sailed in merchant ships, but too many were landsmen snared by the press. These men were rather wide-eyed and silent; they had never experienced the ocean in its anger and were still shaken by it. Another day would see them begin to recover, Hayden thought. Then the relief would appear and they would start to breathe again and even laugh. The first bad gale at sea was always unnerving.

  Upon his return to the quarterdeck, Hayden found Mr Barthe and Archer huddled in conversation.

  “Mr Barthe,” Hayden addressed the older sailor, “I have confidence that you have given our pending search your most careful consideration?”

  “I have spent some energies on it, Captain,” Barthe admitted. “Shall we look at a chart, sir?”

  Mr Barthe had a temporary table set up under the upper deck just outside Hayden’s cabin, for charts were at once costly and invaluable. Without them, a ship wandered lost among unknown perils.

  Hayden, Archer, and Barthe were joined by Wickham, the only midshipman senior enough to be included in such a gathering—indeed, Wickham had recently been acting lieutenant. Hayden allowed him certain privileges to soften the blow of being reduced to a mere reefer again.

  In the glow of a lamp, Barthe indicated a pencilled circle.

  “It is my best guess, Captain, that the Spanish frigate went down here. Allowing for wind, current, and seas, any boats would have been driven downwind . . .” Barthe put the point of his compass in the centre of the circle and drew a few degrees of arc dead downwind. “I do not believe a boat would have passed beyond this point in so short a time.” He tapped a little triangle between the arc and the circle. “We are here, sir. We have not held our position perfectly all night, but have been carried by the current and lost some to the wind as well. Even so, any boats or wreckage should be downwind of us. I believe we should sweep here, sir, forth and back perhaps two leagues either side of our present position.”

  “Twelve miles, Mr Barthe,” Hayden observed. “That is a great area of ocean.”

  “So it is, sir, but the winds varied somewhat in direction during the gale and even more so after.” Barthe met his eye. “To be safe, Captain.”

  Hayden considered a moment, then turned to his first lieutenant. “Mr Archer, we will wear at the end of each sweep and keep the wind ahead of our quarter. If there are survivors, we must not miss them.”

  “Aye, sir. When shall I begin, sir?”

  “An
hour after the sun is up, Mr Archer. And Mr Archer? Launch a cutter, if you please. In these seas I believe we can safely stream it manned.”

  “Aye, Captain.”

  Barthe and Hayden were left alone over his chart, and Hayden related what the Spaniards had told him of the frigate’s sinking. Barthe shook his head and looked very grave.

  “I do not hold out much hope of finding anyone else, sir.”

  “No, but I for one will sleep better if I feel we have scoured the sea as best we can.”

  “I agree entirely, Captain Hayden. To lie awake wondering if there was a man out there clinging to some bit of flotsam . . .” He tapped his chart. “If only for our own peace of mind we must make the most thorough search we can manage.” Barthe looked up at him. “And how fare our survivors, sir?”

  “Better this morning. They ate, which I take as a very good sign.”

  “Indeed it is. If they are the only two survivors . . . Well, maybe there is something to this papism, sir.”

  Hayden laughed. “Mr Barthe, I am the only man aboard you should ever say that to.”

  “It was but a momentary lapse, sir. It shall not be repeated.”

  “Let us repair to the deck.”

  “Aye, sir.”

  Dawn had not yet chosen to make itself known, but the wind blowing from the north-east felt suddenly warmer. There was often a light squall of rain at sunrise, but this morning the horizon appeared devoid of low, dark cloud. The men who had gathered over Mr Barthe’s chart now stood in the stern of the ship, looking off to the east.

  “How did Homer describe the fingers of dawn?” Hayden asked suddenly.

  “‘Wine dark,’ was it not?” Barthe answered innocently.

  “I believe it was ‘the wine-dark sea,’ Mr Barthe,” Archer said softly.

  “And ‘rosy fingers of dawn,’” Wickham added.

  “Ah, well, the fingers of dawn might well be ‘rosy,’” the sailing master asserted, “but I have never seen a ‘wine-dark sea.’”