The Persimmon Tree (15 page)

I moved over to him and stood with my mouth close to his ear, holding his left shoulder. ‘Get down below!’ I screamed against the howling wind, pointing to the hatch and starting to move toward it myself. Kevin nodded, pushing past me in his haste to be gone, a grateful expression showing on his wet face. I watched as he scuttled across the deck and disappeared like a rat down the hatchway.

I followed him below deck where the noise of the gale wasn’t quite as bad. I pointed to the rope locker. ‘Kevin, help me lay out the mooring lines. We’ve got to lay them out on the cabin floor, I may need them later.’

‘It gonna get worse, Nick?’ he asked in what wasn’t too far from the apprehensive voice he’d used as a six-year-old on the beach in Java.

‘You just stay down here, mate, it’s going to be okay,’ I said, trying to sound convincing. After we set out the mooring lines I went back on deck and into the cockpit to unlash the tiller. The white tops were beginning to slop over the windward gunwale and I was hugely grateful that we were taking the sea on the starboard quarter — the easiest point to weather what was almost certainly a big blow coming our way.

The sound of the wind in the rigging rose to a higher pitch, screaming. Each time
Madam Butterfly
lifted up the face of a giant wave, as we reached its peak, foam, sharp as flying tacks, blew over the weather rail, stinging like buggery. Sailing boats are much better in a heavy blow than even a large ship. This is because the sails tend to steady the craft, leaning away from the wind, so that surprisingly we held our course.

I put in the third reef, struggling with the heavy wet sail and silently blessing the sail maker who had set up a downhaul clew so I could more easily secure the outer edge of the sail. This little consideration is not mandatory and not all sail makers are so thoughtful; perhaps they are the ones who haven’t found themselves at sea in a big storm.

As it turned out I got the sail reduced in the nick of time. Running off before the wind with less than a third of full sail, my greatest concern was that we might broach, although more and more I was coming to appreciate the design of
Madam Butterfly
. The gaff rigger was based on a Norwegian double-ended design, built originally for conditions in the North Sea and the Atlantic Ocean. With a long keel and deep forefoot she was able to keep tracking in bad weather.

The tiller had developed a tendency to pull to port, so I rigged a line to take the strain, using two turns around the tiller to take the load off my aching arms. This is where even Kevin might have proved useful. But, while he seemed normal enough, he had frequent lapses of concentration and I was fairly certain he was still suffering from concussion and, besides, he was over-fearful of the conditions. Not a safe bet at a time when a high degree of concentration is essential.

The moon occasionally appeared through the clouds, showing what appeared to be at least thirty-foot waves towering above us. As
Madam Butterfly
went over the crests I would ease the helm, pulling it back as she started to rise from the troughs. My task was simple enough: it was to prevent the huge waves from starting to curl and then slam directly into us. I was attempting to angle over the crests to allow them to pass under us. But it was impossible to prevent the odd one slamming into the stern quarter, drenching me and pouring foam and water over the entire deck. The big cockpit drains were working overtime, gurgling and moaning as they sucked the water from the cockpit.

The storm seemed to be intensifying and reaching a climax, carrying the overwhelming sense of something terrible and alive, an elemental and unstoppable force, bent on the destruction of everything in its way. Fifty-knot winds drove foam over the gigantic seas in huge white streaks like the horizontal swipe of vicious and malevolent blades. I could barely see as we plunged onwards with the full fury of what I estimated must be at least a force-ten storm on the Beaufort scale. I could only pray that the centre of the depression didn’t come any closer.

I felt the boat was moving too fast. It was time to use the mooring lines I’d laid out with the little bloke on the cabin floor. I lashed the tiller and dived down below to find Kevin sitting with his legs drawn up against his chest, arms clasping his knees, blubbing and choking with fear, his eyes tightly shut. ‘Mary, Mother of God, save us!’ he was chanting over and over, oblivious of my presence in the dim glow from the cabin lamp. I touched him on the shoulder and he opened his eyes with a start. ‘Are we dead yet?’ he asked with a sob.

Despite myself, I grinned. Things were pretty desperate, but we were still riding the storm. ‘No, mate, that’s only tomorrow or the next day. Can’t talk now,’ I yelled. Picking up the mooring rope, I passed both ends into the cockpit. Turning to return up the hatchway, I shouted, ‘Hang in there, mate! I promise I’ll let you know when we’re dead!’

‘I ain’t no hero,’ he cried, arms outstretched in supplication. ‘I ain’t no fuckin’ hero, Nick!’

I decided he deserved better. ‘Kevin, we’re in a spot of bother, mate. Stay where you are, but lash yourself to your bunk as things could get a bit tricky.’

Once in the cockpit I joined the ends of the rope with a sheet bend, then passed them through the stern fairlead and took them around the heavy bronze mooring post in the starboard quarter the six-year-old Kevin had used that first time to climb aboard
Madam Butterfly
. I began to feed the doubled length of three-inch manila out into the churning ocean. My hope was that the drag of 300 feet of rope in the water would stabilise
Madam Butterfly
and slow her headlong rush down the force of the waves.

The drag proved tremendous, two turns around the mooring post barely sufficient to hold the rope in place. Securing the two ends of the rope to a cleat, I immediately felt the effect of the restraining rope on the tiller.
Madam Butterfly
was riding easier, no longer attempting to turn up into the wind. Heaving to was simply out of the question in this fierce weather, so I decided that the only thing left was for me to take in the remaining sail area.

This was a bloody sight easier said than done. Tying on a lifeline by using a double bowline, I lashed the tiller amidships and struggled forward. Dropping the small staysail, I wrestled with it and while it is not a big sail, in the howling gale it was like wrestling an angry boa constrictor. I finally secured it and stuffed it down the fore hatch. That, despite taxing my immediate strength, was the easy part. Now for the deep-reefed mainsail. I rested a couple of minutes and thought briefly of hauling Kevin up on deck to help me, but decided this was no task for someone who was asking for help from the Mother of God. A sudden slap from the sail was likely to send him on his way to heaven and into the comforting arms of the Virgin.

Dropping the gaff unleashed pandemonium. The deck was heaving and bucking like a rodeo horse and I was the cowboy on its back. As well, the wildly flogging sail was bent on hurling me into the sea. Desperately securing the gaff at the tack and clew, I began working my way along the sail, tying it down with a series of hitches. When I’d finally subdued it, my fingers were bleeding and I was utterly exhausted, but, miraculously, I’d done what should have taken the two of us. It’s not always easy being a big bloke but sometimes it’s useful having a tad more strength.

My final task was to secure the bundled sail, gaff and boom to the deck, lashing it to the boom gallows midships. I returned to the cockpit having played my last card. I’d endured an hour of abject terror because I hadn’t taken in all sail hours earlier. At sea there are always new lessons; that is, if you live to learn them.

Dawn brought more bad news. Huge dark seas grey as a whale’s back marched behind us, driving
Madam Butterfly
remorselessly forward. The wind was still shrieking through the rigging and the low clouds racing above me seemed to be touching the tops of the monstrous waves. The eerie dawn light was just sufficient to tell me I’d done all I could and that, from now on, we were in the lap of the gods and the boatbuilders who had constructed the gaff-rigged cutter the Dutchman had boasted could go anywhere and sail any kind of sea.

There is a certain point you reach when the forces of nature simply overwhelm every possible endeavour and numb resignation sets in. I was exhausted, but even with all the will in the world, there was nothing more I could do. I lashed myself in place in the cockpit, hoping the little bloke had taken my advice and done the same. I was now a part of the boat and we would live or die together. So much for stubbornness as a virtue; this time I had truly come unstuck.

I stayed lashed to the tiller for the next thirty-six hours, no going down below to check on the little bloke and, of course, it was much too rough to cook. Under normal conditions there would have been sea biscuits to take the edge off our hunger but these were not available in Batavia towards the end and it was not the sort of grocery item that would have come out of Anna’s depleted pantry. We’d have to do with water. I was worried about re-dressing Kevin’s head wound, although I only had two bandages and both were soaked. Last time I’d looked it had been coming along nicely and was healing at the edges, the wound clean with no suppuration. Regular applications of iodine had worked, although without stitches he was going to have to wear a nasty scar for the rest of his life. That is, if there was going to be much more time left to live.

If I told you that I lived and died through several lifetimes in those thirty-six hours at the helm I wouldn’t be exaggerating. Nobody brags about getting through a storm like this one. Every ocean-going sailor worth his salt knows survival has only partly to do with skill or knowledge. There is only so much you can do. On several occasions during the next two days and nights I was prepared to crawl down the hatchway to announce to the little bloke that we were now officially dead. I’d never been in anything as fierce at sea and trust that I never shall again. Many a large ocean-going merchantman or similar has simply disappeared without trace in a storm of this magnitude. But somehow, perhaps with the help of Kevin’s Virgin Mother, we kept afloat, a tiny bobbing cork in the vast watery and angry firmament.

Dawn on the third day revealed that the crests of the waves were not being blown off by the wind, although I was not prepared to speculate that it had started to abate. I was so bleary-eyed for lack of sleep, and my eyes were stinging constantly from the effect of the salt spray, that I wasn’t sure I hadn’t manufactured the lessening of the storm from a sense of sheer weariness.

By mid-morning there was no mistaking it. The wind had dropped to around twenty-five knots. The seas remained huge but not as steep, while the tumbling, breaking crests, so dangerous for a small boat, were rounding out. Our headlong dash to the south, a decision perhaps I can take credit for, meant that the storm had turned east towards the Australian coastline. Had we decided to sail to Broome we would have been caught in the centre of the storm, instead of being brushed by its southern edge. I was under no illusions; if we’d taken the shorter route we would not have survived.

I was simply too exhausted to raise sail and left
Madam Butterfly
to run trailing warps as if still within the storm. My weary body told me to wait until the wind had moderated further and the seas abated, but at least I could lash the tiller and leave the cockpit for a while. Then I could have a bit of a kip; that is, if the little bloke was in any condition to take over even for only a couple of precious hours. I’d been up for sixty hours. Fear can keep you awake and alert when under normal circumstances you’d be dead on your feet, the complete zombie. It is coming down, the process of returning to normal, that can be the horror trip.

In my mind I begged the little bloke to be in a reasonable frame of mind. On the other hand, if he’d been whimpering and ‘Mother Marying’ for three days he’d be in no condition to help. I reckoned
Madam Butterfly
was just about sailing steady enough for him to manage the tiller. It wasn’t entirely his fault. Any storm in a small boat that’s mildly severe, let alone a near-cyclone, will scare the bejesus out of a novice aboard. He will, if he was still with us, have learned that big-boat sailors of the type that go to sea for Uncle Sam live in a very different world.

I tried to summon the energy to attempt to stand and then to leave the cockpit and to drag my stiff, sore and exhausted body down the hatch to cook a meal for both of us. I decided if he hadn’t died of fright in the meantime, Kevin could have the whole bloody bottle of sweet soy sauce if he was in a condition to do a two-hour watch. Just two hours, it wasn’t asking for much. Frankly, I was on my last legs.

I stood painfully and turned towards the hatch. It was my time to hallucinate. The little bloke had his head protruding from it, his expression as tentative as a bunny emerging from a burrow knowing the local fox is out and about. His face lit up. ‘Jesus, Mary and Joseph! You ain’t dead. You still there!’

I attempted a grin. ‘I can’t be sure.’

‘Say, buddy, ya wanna cup a java?’

I nodded and sat down again, suddenly too exhausted and pathetically grateful to move. Five minutes later I held a mug of steaming, heavily sugared black coffee in my trembling hands. That was the moment I knew we were going to make it. The little bloke cooked a meal and I ate silently, too tired to ask him about his own ordeal below deck. For once he seemed to sense this wasn’t the moment to yak and he kept quiet.