Ocean Canyon
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The sea was a long way down to the bottom of the ship’s wake. There, he knew, they were being pursued by the French warship. He had never seen her before – it must be in its first year of service.
She had been on patrol since she left Toulon two years ago and this morning, when the frigate had sighted them at dawn, she had immediately come after them with the intention of taking him prisoner or sinking his vessel outright; if she captured the frigate then she would probably claim all the booty aboard as well.
In fact, there was none: it had taken him six weeks to gather together what little prize money he could from capturing four prizes in the Indian Ocean and he did not know how much there actually was.
A lot less than half his crew was made up of English sailors – he had bought them for their knowledge of the trade routes and their loyalty – and they had sworn an oath of secrecy about any prize money which might have gone on board. But even so, there was more than enough to buy himself and some men out of prison once he landed on shore again.
His first thought that night, when the frigate had closed in with her guns trained on them, had been of those men who could not escape, but now he realized that he could help them. If only there was a way!
It seemed hopeless. He could make no signal; it would not carry through the darkness and anyway, the frigate’s lookouts were already watching for anything moving on deck or on the water. The frigate, he knew, had the advantage; she would be able to take her time over closing with him until she chose just when to bring her broadside to bear.
Even in these circumstances, there was nothing he could do except try to hold out until she struck, hoping that the damage he suffered would not be too great; perhaps there would still be some hope.
He turned slowly round in his cabin chair, feeling the cold metal edges under his palms, staring at the dark bulkhead opposite. The sea was running up over her gunwales now – he could see the light of her lanterns glimmering through the rain – and soon he knew it would be close-hauled to prevent her capstan from slipping off into the troughs between waves.
He tried to think. What were the chances? He did not want to surrender, not yet; he needed time if he could only find what he wanted to do. There was one thing that gave him confidence: he had seen that there was something wrong with the ship, even though he had thought he was going mad when he had first noticed it.
It was only when he had been forced to take his eyes away from the distant horizon, towards the frigate, that he had become aware that she was moving oddly, almost as if she were not properly anchored to the seabed.
When he looked again at her stern he saw that her rudder was luffing so that it pointed back towards the direction in which she had been traveling; but even when she had turned on her starboard tack to pursue them, he had been sure that he could tell she had not righted herself correctly.
And now that he watched her coming closer he could see that the ship was also listing to the fore; there were other things that told him that she had been damaged badly somewhere along her length, although he could not guess where. Her helm had not moved from its position to port; the wind was blowing steadily in his favor and yet somehow she had managed to keep her course.
It came to him suddenly. He knew exactly why he had thought he had seen something wrong with the frigate, something which had given him confidence. That was because the frigate was not sailing straight into the wind. He had seen her turning on her larboard tack, he recalled, and then he had thought her to be sailing on the same tack as she was now – but she was not.
It was obvious, for it was not even possible to sail across the whole of the Atlantic, and he should be able to see that, even as a seaman. He felt the blood run cold within him and the hair pricks up along his spine as he realized what it meant. It was the only explanation he could think of: she was not sailing on her original heading because she was not sailing.
He was alone in the darkness with a frigate whose captain could not control it.
The French officer’s expression changed. His hands tightened around his wineglass in the grip of sudden excitement. It seemed impossible – a moment before he had been despairing that she had escaped him – but now it began to seem real. He leaned forward, his gaze fixed upon the figurehead which stood at the center of the bowsprit.
There is no chance, he thought, that the British government will not be able to discover what has happened to her. They must have already sent men to investigate; it cannot have taken very long for them to realize that something strange was happening.
He stared at the figurehead, willing her to move – for surely the man who carved such an image could never have known what lay beneath her feet. She might turn this way or that, but she remained fixed in place, a silent witness to all that was taking place.
It occurred to him that she might actually be dead, for she had not moved since she took on this new life at the moment of his capture; and if so, then what had become of her? Was she lying motionless, awaiting a new master in her future existence?
Or would she simply vanish without a trace, like a spirit? The latter would be fitting, he supposed; he felt a curious sense of satisfaction about the idea. He glanced down at his own body. Would he join her after death? Perhaps; he would probably have to wait until the next world, for here there was no need for a soul.
The spirits of those who perished in combat belonged to heaven already, while those who died otherwise were just part of the landscape, like rocks, trees, and hills; they would remain here and continue to exist in their ordinary manner.
But the spirits of people killed by sorcery were different; they did not belong to the land; they had come from elsewhere. Their souls were lost forever, but the spirits of those who died from accidents or old age had a second chance.
The figurehead was still inanimate. He sighed impatiently. He was tired of waiting. He would have to take action himself, for there was little point in leaving his fate to chance.
There was a moment when the two ships were close together, so close that he could see the figures of their crews, illuminated in the light of the lanterns; then one vessel moved further ahead as the other veered to avoid an unseen obstacle. He smiled at the thought.
The British were clever, perhaps cleverer than he had expected; they always made a plan and stuck to it. It was time to make his own plan – a plan which would give him a great deal more freedom than anyone else had ever enjoyed.
He poured out another glassful of wine. This was going to be the greatest adventure of his life.
“Sir,” said the first lieutenant at last, “I don’t know how much longer this will go on.”
The master shrugged. He was getting bored; he wished he had never agreed to this voyage.
There was nothing worse than being aboard a ship when there was no action at all. He had sailed all over the world and he knew it; he was familiar with every sort of sea under any conditions, but there was a difference between being at sea in winter in fair weather with a brisk wind, and being on deck at night surrounded by a fog bank, unable to see anything at all but water stretching away into the distance and stars glinting high above you.
He looked down at the compass; it showed nothing more than the circle of the North Star and he wondered where it might lead him now. He had never heard of this region before; he could not even recall having sailed past it.
They had all agreed to leave off trying to steer towards Jamaica, although it was hard to say that anyone had actually put his foot on the ground for more than ten minutes at a time. The captain, however, was confident that his course would bring them to the island within days.
They had been drifting for so long that the men had begun to lose patience, yet it would have been foolish to do anything rash until they reached the coast, for what if they had got hopelessly lost and found themselves sailing into a hostile nation?
That, at least, would give them reason enough to fight; for some reason which he could not fathom, the crew appeared to enjoy fighting, even though they had never actually fired a shot in anger. He would have given good odds that none of the men had ever seen a battle, except possibly a naval engagement in port.
He would rather have been a prisoner of war than serve among these men. They were certainly not what he had imagined pirates to be like; in fact, they were nothing more than ordinary seamen. He would have liked to ask some of them what their experience of piracy had been, but he could see no sense in upsetting them.
For once he was glad of the fog and the darkness, for he preferred not to look too closely at the faces of those around him. He would sooner not remember the names of his own men, for they might have been replaced by other hands since he left.
It gave him no pleasure to imagine who might replace him, for there were many possibilities, and none of them particularly pleasant. He tried not to think about it; it was bad enough not knowing where he would end up, but at least he would have a choice as to his destination.
He wondered what had happened to the pirate captain. Surely he must have escaped by now? No; that was impossible. They would have taken him alive to stand trial, or at the very least executed him immediately for cowardice. Yet, for a man whose life had been in such danger for so many years, he seemed remarkably calm and collected.
Was he really as good as they said? It was easy to believe it when one saw him standing quietly by the rail, smoking his pipe and gazing out into the darkness without a trace of fear or anxiety.
“Captain!” cried a voice; the first mate was leaning over the side again. “Look!”
There was something moving in the water just below the surface of the dark, green sea. He leaned down and peered intently, but there was no way of telling what it was. It could only have been a piece of rubbish or a piece of seaweed washed ashore; there was nothing else it could have been.
He stood up slowly; it was useless to continue trying to sail through the night, whatever was happening. As soon as dawn came he would set his anchor and wait. The fog might clear at any moment; perhaps it was a miracle sent from God.
For the last few days, he had felt that it had been watching over him, although he did not understand why; now he was sure of it; surely it was looking after him still. If he could survive the night, he would be safe.
The End