King of the Sea

Chapter 14

Chapter 14

Swallow was not big enough to have her own quartermaster; everyone took a hand at the helm. Neil and young Freddy Bowles, an ordinary seaman on his first voyage, had their turn during the dog watches. During each voyage Neil would spend part of his time with the day men and part with each of the watches, port and starboard.

It had been interesting enough on his first voyage or two - so much so that he had begun to think his father's judgement was right and his own instincts were wrong. But already it was beginning to pall. The conviction was once again growing within him that, no matter how hard he strove, to use his mother's favourite word, to become a true seaman like his father, he would never do more than play the role. He might become the greatest actor in the world at it, but it would never be more than acting. A bit like Aunt Daphne; she always seemed to be acting her part in life. She always left you wondering what sort of person she'd really be if only she could break out of her present rôle.

"Getting thinner," Slim commented as they carried the urn between them to the forecastle. "I smell foul weather a-brewing." This last comment was added as they went within.

"What d'you call this, then?" asked Jakobsson, the Swede.

The siren's moan backed him up.

"Now if it's foul weather you want," Slim replied, filling a mug for Neil and then his own, "did I ever tell you of the time we sailed from Liverpool on the old Maude, a coaster bound for Avonmouth?"

He clearly had, but that didn't stop them settling to enjoy it again.

"She was sailing light, with just a few bales of cotton," he said, ushering Neil into the seat beside him. "You don't know that coast, I suppose, Mister? No. Wild Wales, they call it." He shivered. All hands dutifully shivered in sympathy. "Anyway, the moment we rounded the Skerries we hit a sou'wester like a fist." He set down his cup and drove his fist into his left palm. "Stopped us like that on every crest. Skerries to Holyhead took us four hours! The skipper, Cap'n Mann ..." His eyes roved among his hearers. "You knew old Grizzly Mann, didn't you, Dead Eye?"

The sailor nodded and sucked wind through clenched teeth. "I knew him right enough! What a fate! What a fate for any man!"

"Why, what happened to him?" Neil asked. "Ah, matey, hearken and it shall be made known unto ye! Old Grizzly was no sailor to go running for port in a storm, not even on a little coaster like the Maude. But he turned and ran into Holyhead that night, and no second thoughts." He sipped his cocoa with relish and shook his head at the memory.

"Howsomever, he couldn't abide it long, sitting in port doing nothing while our cargo of cotton rotted in the hold. And blow me down if, an hour later, he didn't ship anchor and put out again! Even the Irish boats were standing to their berths that night, but not old Grizzly. Talk about buffeting! I'll swear there were solid spars floating in every wave. You could hear them hammering into our bows like piledrivers. And poor old Maude, she chucked herself every way but turtle." He waited for the groans.

"Well, after four hours we could still see the breakwater light at Holyhead. I don't think we made a yard. And as for steering her, that was a joke. She saw more points of the compass that night than on all her other voyages put together. Grizzly cursed the helmsman but that was just his way. He knew he couldn't have done better hisself." He stared around to make sure he still had them with him.

"And then, around first light, six bells of the morning watch, a sort of haze fell down on top of the storm - thick as what this is now only howling with it. We lost sight of land at once, of course."

A shiver went round the forecastle; the present fog was bad enough in all conscience but to have it combine with a roaring gale was almost past imagining.

Slim went on: "Even old Grizzly beshat his breeches at that, but there was nothing we could do, only sail on by compass one little spanker, that's all we dared show. And for three days we never got sight nor sniff of land. We had the ocean to ourselves, for there was no other fool who dared go out. And the weather never bettered itself once, nor the haze never lifted, neither. We could have been anywhere - off Wicklow Head or back in Liverpool for all we knew. The log registered two knots, but what does that tell you when such a sea's running?" He paused again to let the siren have its say. "And what happened?" Neil asked, all agog by

now. He had always loved the sea at second hand. "What happened? What happened?" Slim asked dramatically. "Why we kept on piledriving into them seas, that's what happened. On the third night someone said he saw a light, but my opinion is it was the crest of a wave and the man was tired. But on the fourth day she lifted a bit and we got a fix at last. And d'you know where we were? Off Douglas Head, Isle of Man! 'Course, old Grizzly was like a dog with two pricks. 'Didn't I tell ye! Didn't I tell ye!' But I tell ye now, mateys - the haze came down again and the winds rose and that was the last we saw of land for another seven days!"

A groan of disbelief went up. "What? In the Irish Sea and never saw land for seven days? Tell it to the Horse Marines!"

"Seven days!" Slim insisted. "And when we did, it was Howth Head off Dublin Bay!"

Neil's eyes darted between the storyteller and his audience, wondering which could be right. The bosun was very convincing, and the crew, for all their naysaying, seemed more than half inclined to believe him still. Except for the Swede. "And then, I suppose, you lost sight of it again for another seven days!" he jeered.

Slim leaned across the table and jabbed him in the ribs. "Fifteen!" he gasped hoarsely."And my, weren't we just desperate by then!" He turned to Neil and explained, "On a coaster, you understand, each hand brings his own grub. There's no stores. So you only bring enough for the voyage and Liverpool to Avonmouth is only three days. I tell you - we was chewing canvas and scraping for barnacles by then." "Fifteen days!" Jakobsson echoed in disgust. "And where was it, eh? The Cape of Good Hope?"

"Sydney Heads," chimed in another. "Labrador!" The ribald suggestions came thick and fast now. Slim remained imperturbable until it subsided.

"You're all wrong," he told them calmly. "You couldn't be more wrong. Our next sight of land, after twenty-eight days at sea, was ... Liverpool River!" the Bar Light on

"And still the storm raged," the Swede mocked, "and you couldn't get over the bar, and so you lost sight of land for another month, I suppose!"

Slim pointed at him as a teacher might point to the brightest boy in the class. "I could almost believe you was there, Swede," he said admiringly.

"But you must have been starving," Neil objected.

"How did you manage?"

A hush fell. Slim looked all about them, checked there was no one at the door before he dared answer. "We started on the ship's cat, matey," he said in a sepulchral growl. "That was off the Isle of Man. A Manx cat, it was, so at least it died in home waters. And then" he checked all around again, and the entire company leaned expectantly nearer him as his voice dropped to a conspiratorial whisper- "well, the fact is... but don't you dare breathe a word of this to a living soul, not ever I, yours truly, Slim Watson as ever lived, I was the sole survivor of that dreadful

voyage." A great roar of laughter went up and hands reached forward to punch Neil playfully with an ever-been-had grin.

"Come on mateys!" Slim roared above the merriment. "This ship won't sail herself. Port watch on deck - and you, too, Mister, if you please."

Of course, Neil didn't believe Slim's tale - not that he ate the whole crew. Still, even eating one or two was pretty bad. He doubted he'd have the courage to do such a thing, no matter how starved he was. It just showed what he'd always told his father he wasn't really cut out for the sea at all.

B Y FOUR BELLS of the middle watch, no one could any longer pretend that the roaring off the port beam was anything other than surf. Boris sent for Captain Troy, who had gone to his cabin only three hours earlier, having been sleepless for nearly forty-eight before that. It speaks of the depths of the man's exhaustion that the pounding of that surf had not already roused him.

Within the minute the Captain was on deck again. No verbal report was needed. The roar to port was saying it all.

"You've dropped anchor?" he asked.

"Just before two bells, Cap'n." "How many fathoms is she drawing?"

"More than twenty. The lead returns clean and scratched."

They were over rocks, then. Troy asked grimly:

"Is she dragging?" "No sir. She seems to be holding. The sea anchor's slack and there's no sign of a tide."