Minerva's Voyage (8 page)
“S'll we free the larboard cannon too?” shouted a seaman.
“No, sirrah. Release the mainmast from the shrouds, and cut her down by the box to relieve the pressure, or we'll still be done for.”
“And you boys, get rid of the bluebottles that are sent to plague us, for the love of God,” said Boors, who had come from his room to see what was going on. He was still wearing his night cap. “I can't hear myself think for the roaring of the flies and the shifting of the furniture.”
“Aye aye, Sir Thomas,” responded Peter Fence. No one else took any notice except Admiral Winters, who was standing close by watching the men follow orders.
“Get to your cabin,” he hissed through his teeth at Boors.
“But the flies are Devil sent. Punishing. Whizzing like whirligigs all over the place.”
“Get to your cabin, I said.”
“I am in charge here. I am Sir Thomas Boors. You cannot tell me what to do.”
“I can and I will. I am in charge at sea. You are creating a disturbance. Do as you're told.”
Boors stuttered as if about to protest, but then peered into Winters' face. It was set and stern. “Very well,” said the knight, staggering off into the wind like a drunken man. “But mark my words, I shall be in charge on land.”
“If the ship ever gets there, we will decide,” Winters called after him.
No one else appeared to be watching them. The men, sailors and colonists both, were too taken up with manag
ing themselves and the ship in the tempest, and that might be for the best. Our situation was terrifying enough. Who needed to know that except for Winters, if he could prevail, our fate was in the hands of a complete madman?
The crew were busy unknotting the shrouds, while we cleared a path for them by crushing ourselves into a yet smaller area. A great cry went up from the exhausted pas
sengers as the mainmast toppled like a huge tree in a night forest. It hit the rail, slid by the board, and vanished instantly, together with its sail yards, as the hurricano shrieked and whistled around us. The ship almost overturned as the mast went down into the deep, and as it tipped back with a great creak, waves rose over the side and flooded the deck. We went reeling. Boors, further down the deck, was yelling again about the furniture. Voyagers, struggling back up, were promising to light candles, to go on pilgrimages, to enter monasteries, if only they might be saved. As wind and voices rose in a crescendo, a rat skittered by me and leapt into the sea. He was, I thought, sager than any of us.
C
HAPTER 13
T
HE
V
ISITATION OF
S
T.
E
LMO
Quite suddenly, there appeared on the foremast, which was still in place, a trail of small glowing lights, yellow and white, dancing along the cross made by the mast and its yards, following their leader. They flew from shroud to shroud, streaming past Winters, who had mounted to the poop deck and was on the watch.
“St. Elmo,” Fence said with awe. “I never thought to have seen it.”
“What does it mean? What can it mean?” I clamoured, as a sigh went up from bone-tired passengers and crew.
“It means we be'ant like to die, Ginger Top,” said Piggsley, who was standing near. “Look up, boys. There is more lights aloft. St. Elmo, St. Helen and St Nicholas. Castor and Pollux as they's named by we mariners in the old times. Heaven be praised.”
“Aye, Praise be. Like bright candles in the night,” said Fence, in wonderment. “Like little balls of fire.”
But my own wonder was mixed with disbelief. Could I be dreaming? Or even drowned dead in a shipwreck but imagining still? The phantoms of St. Elmo and St. Helen, as I now thought them, divided and burned on the rigging and around the rails, before vanishing into the cabins, through the hatch and into the hold, as well as across the deck and over the side of our vessel. I watched them flaming on the sea for a short while. Soon they extinguished, leaving faint round lights in their wake.
The wind was already dropping and the darkness clear
ing. The rain reduced to a drizzle and what was left of the ship, its skeleton really, now sat low and quiet in the water. The weather was beginning to warm slightly. It was a mir
acle, and many threw themselves on their knees to give thanks. But the sea was empty. Of the rest of our fleet there was not a sign.
Fence guessed my thoughts. “Perhaps they have gone on to Virginia.”
“Or perhaps they are drowned,” I responded sadly, hav
ing been so close to death myself.
Then came the words we thought we'd never hear.
“Land ahoy,” cried the admiral from his high perch. “Land ahoy.”
And indeed, as I looked, I could see a huge shadow on the sea, a presence before us, like a crouching beast in the water. I was not at all sure that this was really happening. But if this was the dream of a drowning boy, I fervently prayed never to wake from it.
Fence and I had found a piece of wood and floated to land on it, too excited to wait for others. And now we were on what Oldham would have called
terra firma
. It was amazing the ship hadn't been dashed on the rocks on the way in. But it had become wedged fast between two of them, about half a mile offshore. And that prevented it from sinking. And us from spilling out.
I felt still the boat's motion. My exhausted body bore the memory of it, and I kept staggering from side to side. Now, true it is, I had my sea legs. But I was on shore, where waves broke over and over and the birds flew by or pecked in the sand. Seaweed lay in curves and swirls, like letters of the alphabet, and coming off the ocean was a healthy smell of brine, so different from the appalling stink of the ship. My feeling that I was like to vomit, which had been my constant companion for weeks, had gone, and I was instead ravenously hungry. I took several deep breaths, and gasped as the fresh air hit my lungs.
I felt under my shirt and jerkin, as had become my habit â though on the ship, so as not to cause suspicion, I would pretend to be rubbing my lice. The cipher was still there. Useless it might be, but its presence was a comfort.
Fence and I fell asleep where we landed, on the edge of the water. Fence was sucking the thumb of his gloved hand. I could almost taste the dirty fabric of it in my own mouth, but it didn't seem to bother him. Waking later, thinking I could easily sleep for a hundred years, I glimpsed the smaller outcroppings of rock around our island, which resembled hedgehogs, and watched the clusters of voyagers, still distant on the waves, but approaching.
I began to explore the beach, first having taken off my sodden boots. There hadn't been that much of them to start with, but now they were rotten from long use, brine, and dog shit. My feet were, for the nonce, as bare as Fence's, but I realized it wasn't a comedown. And I was faster without the footwear, which had been flapping around my feet.
Soon I came upon huge sea-land crawlers, very slow, with sleepy blinking eyes that reminded me of Boors. I was a little afraid, but poked one with a stick, whereupon it shut up shop, hiding its head and legs in its horny shell.
“There are legions of insects here,” remarked Boors himself, who had arrived on shore. He sauntered by me, Ital
ian umbrella in hand, as if out for a stroll in town.
Indeed there were. One was creeping up my arm and I knocked it off, leaving a red smear. Winters was close behind Boors, who turned and glared at him.
“I'm in charge now, Spring or Autumn or whatever your name is.” Boors laughed triumphantly into Winters' face and put his hand on the admiral's shoulder. “We're on land, and I'm in charge. On behalf of His Majesty.
I am in charge
.”
“We shall see about that,” Winters replied grimly.
Boors bowed, his night cap falling onto the sand. The admiral walked on. Boors started to meander along the shore again, but in the other direction. He had left his night cap behind. It was a miracle that despite the storm and his own mangy mindedness, he'd managed to keep it and the umbrella about him all the way to the island.
I ran and put his cap back on his head before watching after him for a moment, but I was soon back to Fence. “The knight and the admiral are at it again.”
“It's nothing new, Robin. Winters complains of Boors and Boors complains of Winters daily, and although it's a nuisance and not a good example, it is, I admit, a right wel
come change from talk about flies.”
“Hm. I hope Winters wins the fight.” I had nothing else to say on this subject so I changed it. “Could this be the Isle of Devils?”
“Isle of Devils? I don't know.” He was still only half awake. “We shall have to wait for the pilot, with his instruments and measures, to give us our bearings.”
Others were landing now, having come in on the ship's small rowboat, which hadn't been jettisoned, or astride empty barrels, or, like us, on wooden planks, part of the ship's carcass. Soon the beach was littered with colonists and crew, many of them asleep. Not Scratcher though. He found me and yanked me up by the ear, as was his wont. Behind him, much to my dismay, stood Proule, his body stuck in a perpetual half bow to Scratcher. I had long hoped him drowned â at least, in an uncharitable corner of my mind.
“My servant at sea and on land,” sneered Scratcher, shaking me. “My loyal servant, who threw my comfortable future overboard with my chest.”
“Cockroach,” muttered Proule, bowing deeper. “Hang him, the dishonest varlet.”
“Dishonest? No, sir, not I. Master Thatcher's chest â your chest, Master Thatcher â was taken from me by burly mariners. I would have saved it had I been able.” I put on the best look of innocence I could muster. And in truth, I really was innocent. That chest had been at least as important to me as to him.
He cuffed me twice, but changed the subject. “My mouth feels as if it's stuck together with fish glue. Find fresh water, you useless pile, or Proule and I are like to die of thirst.”
“Wait, Robin. I'll come with you,” called Fence, as I set out across the beach, my feet covered in sand, which there
abouts was pink and fine enough for an hourglass.
“We'll find water, soon enough, I'm sure of it,” said I. “And as time goes on, much more.”
All manner of jetsam from the ship was already washing up on the shore: wooden planks and ribs, tackling, broken glass, cracked casks, bottles, and spoons. As we walked, I recognized with a thrill of surprise the kerchief I had shoved into the ribs of the hold to stem the leak. It was unmistak
able, with its brown and black stripes. Tucking it into my sleeve, I vowed to find its owner and give it back to him.
“Not that he deserves it,” said Fence. “He gave you a good shove, as I recall.”
“Right. He was a swine. But I can't keep it. I have put the whirr and whoosh of wickedness behind me.” And at that moment, scoured clean by the sea and deposited like the jetsam onto the shell pink beach, I truly thought I had.
We continued searching for water in the edges of a spinney with its stands of strange trees, and along the rim of the sea, into which, experience had taught me, fresh riv
ulets often emptied. But besides a need for water, my belly rumbled mightily for meat. Would there be food here? Would we eat the sea-land crawlers who carried their houses on their backs? I asked Fence whether he thought them eatable.
“Those be tortoises, Robin, or turtles, as some call them. I've seen small ones before. But as to eating one, why, I've never done so.”
Could we catch the birds on the beach? They didn't seem in the least afraid of us. One, indeed, had already landed on my shoulder before swooping away. His neck would be easy enough to wring, should he come back, though I felt sick at the thought of doing the deed.
“I can hear the song of your stomach right loud, Robin,” said Fence. “But to be honest, mine is singing too.”
“Growling, more like.” I tapped my noisy belly.
It was then that we saw it, a dark something farther along the shore, having come to rest in front of a rock. It must have been carried along in the wake of the ship, and the tide would have brought it in. My heart thudded as we raced towards it. Could it be? Was it possible? Yes, yes, it was. Just what I had wished and prayed for. Scratcher's sea chest!
The chest was rather the worse for wear, damp and dented and draped in seaweed, but luckily in one piece. And it was still as tightly closed as a clam shell. All thoughts of food vanished from my head, though a crab was crawling over the top of the chest, clicking its pincer.
When I knocked it off it joined some other crabs, which were pursuing a small bird with a broken wing. I felt sorry for the bird, which would soon become crabs' meat, but there was nothing I could do.
I looked around carefully before we moved the chest. There was not a soul nearby, no one to stop us or confide our amazing secret to Scratcher. The voyagers were landing farther down the bay. We could hide the chest in stealth, and visit it at our leisure. But before I returned to my well-worn but risky occupation of pilfering, I had to know whether it might pay off. I sprung the catch, and the lid flew open. There was a smell of mold and seaweed. Inside the chest, wet and smeared but for the most part whole, were the emblems. Three of them. We would need to separate them and hang them to dry. Somewhere deep in the woods, I thought, on twigs and branches, where no one would find them. I imagined papers and pictures hung out like washing, fluttering in the breeze. We would need to be careful though. Here, quite possibly, was the key to our fortune, returned to us like a ball retrieved by a dog for his master. Now it was only necessary to solve the puzzle. How hard could that be? The first emblem, the one that stupid Scratcher had jettisoned overboard, had already yielded at least some of its secrets.
