King of the Sea

Chapter 11

Chapter 11

AS THE STORM TRACKED east the winds moved around to the north, settling finally into a great, howling monster on the starboard bearn, now scant, now leading. Though Phoenix must be drawing ever-nearer its edge, there was no slackening in its fury. The glass, which had remained steady but low for the past thirty-six hours, while the eye of the storm had counter-moved more or less parallel to their course, now began relentlessly to fall. By the evening of that Tuesday, the second of their voyage, it stood as low as Troy had ever seen it in thirty years at sea.

"Either she's turned north-east and is coming to get us or she's deepening," he said to Boris.

"... and still coming to get us," the First Officer added grimly. "I've never sailed faster with so little canvas. At this rate, we'll take the bare-mast riband for east-to-west."

Troy grunted and returned to the chart. "I wish we could place more reliance on that log. We know how far west we've gone" he drew an invisible circle on the Atlantic chart with the dividers, which were still set to his previous calculations far south, eh?" - "but how

The pair of them stared at the long New England shoreline, where the answer to that question could mean the difference between foundering today, running aground tomorrow, or missing the land by a whisker or a hundred miles and having to turn round

and sail north again when the storm blew itself out. Neither said a word - or needed to.

At that moment an almighty wave caught them on the starboard quarter and hurled them half a mile, or so it seemed, toward the American shore before plucking them back again and dropping them into what felt like the very deeps of the mælstrom. The storm caught the crest of water as it rose over the decks and turned it to a kind of white shot - pellets of freezing ocean that bombarded the watch and stung like hornets even through oilcloth.

Both officers were thrown in a heap against the far wall of the chartroom, with a ferocity that finally made up Troy's mind. "We must wear ship, Mr Boris," he commanded. "Set mizzen and mizzen staysail and shiver the fore-trysail."

The First Officer hesitated the barest moment, as the unfamiliar manoeuvre quickly shaped itself in his mind. He frowned.

Troy, who would normally have barked the order again at anyone who dared so much as hesitate, merely nodded and said, "I know. But I daren't face her arse into this sea."

"We've both watches on deck at the moment, sir. Shall I stand the port watch by to set head yards and fore-topsail?"

Troy nodded, gave a severe little smile, and said, "Good man yourself." "Aye aye, Cap'n!" He went out on deck to relay the

order. Troy followed in moments. Grim though the situation was, Boris had time to reflect that his Captain's final words were more Irish than English, certainly not the sort of phrase one expected to hear from his lips not before this voyage, anyway, he added to himself with a smile.

It was his last smile for a considerable time. The process of wearing ship - that is, of bringing her about until the wind is on the opposite side from wherever it was before is, if not the trickiest, certainly the busiest of all nautical movements, even in a moderate breeze. In a storm, or great storm, it is not for the faint of heart to attempt. But at least on Phoenix every man could stay down on deck and pull with all his muscle instead of wasting his strength shinning up the ratlines into the yards and clinging on for dear life.

For the first few minutes all went well. The quartermaster put the helm hard down, and she slewed gratifyingly to port with considerable assistance from the mizzen behind him. But as she got up into the wind, or "in irons," as the saying so accurately has it, she was taken aback and began to move as fast downwind to stern as she had previously, when running before it. Nothing, it seemed then, would make her come about that last few degrees, bringing the weather onto her port bow, where she would head into the waves and ride them out better.

Troy then gave the order he had never thought to hear issue from his own lips - certainly not in such weather as this: "Counterbrace the fore-topsail. Set and close-reef the main-top!"

Not a man hesitated, though all were sure it was the last desperate throw in a life-or-death gamble with the laws of seamanship, a gamble that had already failed. Phoenix yawed and shuddered as the wind found its two new playthings. The masts groaned and shrieked while a merciless pressure built up. A great trembling seemed to possess the ship and to pass out

into the storm-blackened waters all about her. "She won't hold, Cap'n!" The quartermaster struggled with all his might against the wheel.

The two officers tore their eyes from the canvas and sprang to help him. In the lurid, fitful light of the dying day they were like three creatures from the pit, devils with devilish faces and a strength born of devilish desperation.

At least they held her. If she wouldn't wear right round and come up on the starboard tack, at least she held her direction, head-up to the wind. How many miles leeway they sacrificed in the achievement was anybody's guess, but with the three-quarters of the Atlantic astern, that was hardly a present worry.

"Brace by the main-top," was Troy's next command, and even he could hardly believe he was giving it, for it really was the last desperate gamble of the day, equivalent to saying, "If her head won't wear, tip her to starboard and see how she likes it!" Incredibly, she liked it!

Before she'd developed even half a list to starboard she was back again, responding to the helm and coming up nicely on the starboard tack - except that her yards were now set at about the worst possible angle to the wind.

"Starboard your helm," Troy cried and, leaving Boris and the quartermaster to manage as best they could, he ran to the rail and yelled, "Brace up yards. Take in all fore-and-aft canvas." all

"The cheek of the devil," they called it later when each nerve-rending second of that extraordinary act of seamanship was recounted in shanty and story in dockside taverns around the world. But it worked as the singers and yarn-spinners were there to witness. Phoenix settled down to stay on the starboard tack until dawn, with the wind foul to port and the sea dead against her. Maybe she'd lose more leeway; maybe she'd do no more than hold her station; maybe the wind would now take hold of her and sweep her inexorably into the storm's eye.

The dawn would tell.

But as she settled to her new course and the keel righted and the canvas filled, a great, spontaneous cheer went up from all hands. Old Troy had done it again. He had tossed his contempt into the teeth of the gale and the gale had yielded to its master. They'd sail to hell and back with him now.

T HE RUN FROM TILBURY to Hamburg was considered a bit of a "bus-driver's job" among seafaring men. To be sure, they treated the German Ocean itself with the respect its mercurial moods and past ferocity demanded, but the business at either end running up the Thames or the Elbe, berthing, discharging, and taking on new cargo - all this had to be managed with the proficiency of a bus setting down and taking up its passengers. The Horsa, registered at Lloyd's for 1,800 tons, was a typical case in point.

After no more than twelve hours in Tilbury, during which she discharged a cargo of small German steam engines and dried fish and took on a load of seasoned tropical timber and Kentish hops, she cast off and made half-steam ahead down the Thames on the thirty-hour crossing to Germany. Her hatches were still open, the derricks still deployed - and Lawrence Troy was still on board, checking the mate's receipts and signing the bills of lading "for and on behalf of the captain."

"Late again, Mr Troy," the mate said, sucking a tooth disparagingly and shaking his head as the vessel began to heave and roll beneath them.