Falconer's Quest (6 page)

Falconer awoke again in the middle of the third watch. He lay in bed trying to tell himself that it was nothing. But he had long lived by trusting his gut, and just then, his gut churned with genuine fear.

He dressed, checked on Matt, slipped down the hall, and climbed the stairs to come out on deck.

The lieutenant nodded to him and spoke with the respect due a guest of the owner. “All is quiet, Mr. Falconer.”

“Aye.” But he was not so certain. “Permission to climb aloft.”

“Of course, sir.” Clearly the young officer had been informed that the stranger had served shipboard.

“Thank you.” He clambered swiftly up the ropes with the ease of a man whose hands had long been molded to the tarred hemp. He pulled himself into the crow’s nest, nodding to the middy wrapped in his greatcoat. “All’s well, midshipman?”

“Aye, sir. Thought I saw a whale off the starboard side, but it didn’t sound a second time so I can’t be sure.”

“Not so close as to be a threat.”

“No, sir. Not that it seemed to me.”

Falconer nodded. The most important thing to come from the exchange was the fact that the middy was both awake and alert. “Do you have a glass on you?”

“Aye, sir.” The midshipman reached into his pocket and handed over his telescope.

“Thank you.” Falconer extended the spyglass and turned to the southwest. Directly into the wind.

Then he saw it.

It came and went in such a glimmering flash he wanted to discount it as an illusion of a sleepy gaze.

But he knew it was not so.

“Do me a favor, will you, lad?”

“Aye, sir.”

“Slip down to the deck. Ask the lieutenant to make a careful search into the wind.”

“But, sir, my station…”

“I’ll take responsibility, lad.” There it was again. And this time Falconer was ready for it. And the image made it hard to hold to a measured tone. “Hurry now.”

The middy glanced doubtfully at the stranger but did as he was instructed.

Falconer held his glass steady south by southwest. Refusing to even blink.

The flash came again. Now he was sure, and the fear crept up his throat.

A leaden line had formed between the ocean and the sky, split every so often by a slash of lightning.

Falconer slapped the spyglass shut. He reached for the rope connected to the crow’s nest alarm bell. He rang it, and it seemed as though his own heart pounded with a terror as brash as the bell.

He leaned over the nest’s railing and roared with all his might, “All hands on deck! Raise the captain! All hands on deck!”

Before the bell stopped ringing, the poop door crashed open. This time the captain held his coat in one hand and his boots in the other. His nightdress fluttered about his bare shins as he stared upward.

Falconer yelled down, “A blow, Captain!”

“Where about?”

“Ten points off the windward stern.” Falconer could see the separation now without aid of the glass. “She’s bearing down hard! We’ve got fifteen minutes, maybe less.”

The captain’s voice rivaled Falconer’s for urgency. “Night watch aloft, rig all sails for storm!”

“Aye, sir!”

“Prepare a storm anchor and await my orders. Lieutenant!”

“Sir!”

“Lash everything double tight!” The skipper looked back up to Falconer. “Have you known tempests such as this?”

“Aye, Skipper, that I have.”

“Then I’ll thank you, sir, to take charge of the wheel.”

“Aye, Skipper.” Falconer was already moving for the ropes. “And please have your steward see to my boy.”

“Soap!”

“Aye, sir!”

“Captain’s compliments to the owner. Mr. Lawson is ordered to remain in his cabin for the duration. You keep the lad safe.” The captain shrugged himself into his coat. “Look lively, lads! Our very survival depends upon it.”

Chapter 6

The storm now was visible to all on deck, a beast of the night that rumbled toward them on legs of fire and wind. Its roar, audible at fifty leagues and more, announced the waves coming at them like enormous fists beating against the ship’s timbers and flinging their froth as high as the topsails.

Captain Harkness used a canvas trumpet to add volume to his shouted instructions. Sailors raced against the approaching tempest, clinging to ropes high overhead as they hurried to batten down the sails. They clutched the canvas to their chests, drawing their billowing lengths into slivers tight as new moons. Ropes were tossed back and forth in such practiced haste it would have been remarkable to witness had it not been for the monster now claiming all the horizon as its own.

The midshipmen were ordered below—all but the eldest, a lad of seventeen who helped the sailors hammer wooden chocks around all the portals leading belowdecks. When Falconer felt a grinding through his boots, he knew the captain had ordered all the bilge pumps to be doublecrewed.

The ship was surrounded by a ghostly illumination. One moment all was black. Then lightning danced upon the waves and the crew’s frenetic activity was thrown into garish view. Yet more lightning split the clouds high overhead into great shards of brilliance. The blasts seemed to punch the billows toward them, boiling up and forward at an impossible speed.

Lieutenant Bivens directed the crew to fashion a sea anchor, a double loop of sail that was readied on the stern, there in case the ship lost either rudder or masts or both. The anchor would then be cast overboard to drag the ship about, keeping it from striking an oncoming wave amidships. In seas this mountainous, one wave striking the vessel sideways would be enough to flip it over and send them all to a watery grave.

The helmsman, assigned to the ship’s wheel, shivered so hard his words were chopped into bits. “W-will w-we s-survive this?”

In reply, Falconer unraveled the storm lashings, ropes coiled about the wheel’s stanchion. He took a double bite around the sailor’s chest and shoulders. “Can you breathe?”

“Aye, s-sir.”

Falconer used the second rope to tie himself into a similar cradle. “Are you right with God?”

The sailor winced at twin lightning strikes, so close there was no space between the fire and the sound. “I-I am, sir. B-But m-my b-baby g-girl, she’s—”

Falconer smelled the sulfurous whiff from the lightning, a scent akin to battle. He forced his voice into an iron hardness. “Focus upon the next wave, the next blast of wind, the next glimpse you have of the compass. The ship and all who sail her depend upon your doing your duty.”

The sailor’s response was cut off by a sudden shriek of wind. The ship’s rigging hummed a frenzied warning. Then the wind subsided for a moment, allowing the ship’s crew to hear another sound, a sibilant rush, like a myriad striking snakes. The menacing hiss grew and grew and grew. Falconer watched the sheet of rain flying across the waves, illuminated by lightning on all sides.

The full storm struck.

All the noise and the waves and the rain became one screeching force. The whole ship was tossed into a cauldron whipped to insanity.

Falconer reached one arm around the smaller helmsman so their bodies were melded as one. His reach was longer, so he gripped the wheel spokes just below the sailor’s clenched hands.

The waves were often hidden behind the lashing rain, but when an incoming peak was spotted, he and the sailor fought to turn the ship slightly upwind. They could not face the wave directly head-on. They had to steer just off the windward quarter to keep the sails full. Otherwise, they would lose steering and the ship could founder. They nosed the ship into the wave, braced themselves against the shuddering wash of water that spewed over the gunnels, then steered the ship back a notch. Shifting the wheel that fraction of a degree took so much effort the sailor and Falconer groaned with one voice.

The rain came in a sideways wall. The wind strengthened further still and tore the tops off the waves, such that there was no longer any separation between the sea and the storm. Falconer found it impossible to breathe unless he shifted his face away from the full brunt of the blasts. He timed his turns so that either he or the sailor was always facing forward.

One instant the rain was pelting them, the next it had lifted like a curtain and the ship’s surface was covered in gray spume blown off the waves. A crewman slipped on the froth and tumbled over the railing. He would have been lost to the sea and the storm except for the lifeline tied to his middle. He clutched the rope and screamed his fear as his mates dragged him back on board.

Whenever their vision somewhat cleared, Falconer and the sailor took aim for the next wave. They now faced a watery mountain the color of a gravestone. They rose and rose, tipped upon the peak, then slid down into the cavernous depths. From beneath his feet Falconer heard the shrieks and wails of the passengers trapped belowdecks. Falconer took time for a single anguished prayer for his boy. Then he recalled his instructions to the sailor and shouted aloud to the wind and the thunder and the storm’s ceaseless roar.
Stout heart
. Nothing less would serve them now.

The top of the next wave looked higher than the masts. It broke and sent a massive wall of water tumbling down at them. Falconer and the seaman shouted as one, fighting the sea and the ship both as they met the white water head-on. The ship’s deck was completely awash, and for an instant Falconer feared they were lost. But the ship proved stronger than the wave. The nose punched through with stubborn ferocity, clambering up the maelstrom. The ship hung at the peak for a heart-stopping moment, shook off the load of white water, and slid down into the next trough.

Falconer and the seaman gave a wordless cheer. Certainly the crashing storm was not over. Yet Falconer sensed a first hope that they might indeed survive.

Another curtain of rain swept in, and their world shrank down to the next liquid face, the next blast of wind, the next turn of the wheel.

The lieutenant used his lifeline as a guide rope and pulled himself across the deck. He checked each of the hatches in turn, ensuring that they remained watertight. When he arrived at the wheel, the incoming wave almost tossed him over the side. Falconer released one hand from the wheel, wrapped the lifeline around his forearm, and held grimly on until the lieutenant found his footing again.

“Much obliged, sir!” Bivens was obviously frightened, as were they all. Yet he maintained a wry smile for the crew. “She’s a grand vessel, is she not?” he said as he moved to the next checkpoint.

Falconer found himself liking the man immensely, respecting his ability to remain stable and somewhat cheerful in the face of this blow. “Not one in a hundred would have survived that last surge!”

“I was there in Nantucket when they laid her keel,” the lieutenant shouted from across the deck. He had to stop then and wait as they crested the next rise and slid down into the enormous valley. “The shipwright claimed she was a singular vessel. I must remember to thank—”

The lieutenant never completed his sentence. From overhead came a resounding
crack,
as loud as a rifle barrage above the storm’s savage wail, strong enough to halt work throughout the ship.

The lieutenant cried, “The mast!”

“No!” Falconer had managed one clear glimpse between the lash of rain. “The mid crosstie!”

The captain roared from the quarterdeck. Falconer saw three sailors clutch the rigging and force themselves aloft. The next wall of rain swept down, blinding Falconer. The lieutenant was in the process of drawing his sword when, out of blackness and rain, a wooden pulley on the end of a rope plunged straight at them.

Falconer shifted back and felt the winch whip within inches of his face. The lieutenant did not act swiftly enough, however. The pulley struck his shoulder with the force of a mallet. Bivens cried out and went down hard. His cutlass slipped from numbed fingers and went spinning across the deck.

Falconer released the knot holding himself to the wheel. He shouted a warning to the helmsman, then flung himself at the lieutenant. A wall of water rose out of nowhere, high enough to crash
down
upon the deck. Falconer smothered the lieutenant with his body, ignoring the officer’s wail of pain. He gripped both arms about the nearest hatch, hugging the lieutenant between himself and the wood. The wave punched hard at him, so fierce that momentarily Falconer feared his grip would give way. Now that he was freed from the wheel, there was nothing save his own strength that kept him from being washed overboard, along with the lieutenant. But he held fast, the water sluiced off, and the officer was still with him.

Falconer unlashed the man’s lifeline and retied it such that Bivens’ shoulder remained free while he was now firmly connected to the hatch. Falconer stripped off his own greatcoat and shirt, leaving just his undershirt on, and with frantic haste fashioned a crude sling from the shirt. He tied it tight about the young man’s chest and neck to keep the shoulder from shifting and shoved his own arms back into the greatcoat. He spotted the next incoming wave just in time and took a renewed hold upon the injured officer and the hatch.

When the ship shook itself clear once more, Falconer spied two things at once. To his right, the helmsman yelled while dragging at the stubborn wheel. To his left, the sparring from the broken crosstie had tangled about the base of the mast. Rigging and canvas and wood now clung to the ship’s leeward side, dragging them about, threatening to turn the ship sideways. Meeting a wave of this size amidships would send them all to the deeps.

Two sailors chopped at the sodden rigging with axes. The captain clambered down from the quarterdeck, drawing his sword as he did so. Falconer spied the lieutenant’s lost blade, caught by the railing. He leapt across the deck and snatched up the handle. Raising himself up, he sawed at the nearest rope with all his might.

The ship’s railing cracked beneath the strain of the overboard rigging. In the distance, higher than the wind, the helmsman shrieked another warning.

Falconer’s rope parted with a savage crack. The captain managed to saw through another. The sailors chopped their way through a third. Together Falconer and the captain began working on the final cord.