'God knows what will become of him,' the surgeon said worridedly, 'but his powers of recovery are greatly diminished since last year's attack.'
The silence of exhaustion fell upon the brig as the sun set. It was mixed with discontent for, despite reprovisioning at the Cape, some of the salt junk had been found bad and there had been no more that day to replace it. 'It is likely to be a long voyage,' Drinkwater had reluctantly told the purser, 'we must adhere to the rationing.'
He came below at eight p.m. his shirt sticking to his back, too tired for sleep. Not that sleep was to be had in the airless cabin. In the gunroom Appleby dozed over his madeira. Drinkwater slumped in a chair as the door to Griffiths's cabin opened and Catherine Best emerged. She held a finger to her lips, the very picture of solicitude.
As she passed Drinkwater she gave a little curtsey. He could scarcely believe his eyes and his mind was just forming a quite unjustified suspicion that she must have ulterior motives when a piercing cry of alarm came from the deck.
A silence followed, brief but oppressive with the most awful horror. Then, in that stunned hiatus, clearly heard through the open skylights and companionways: 'It's him, boys! It's the Dutchman!'
So potent had been the cry that the senses seemed devoid of reason. Drinkwater felt his intelligence replaced by fear, then with a curse he rose and rushed on deck. He ran forward to where Kellet, captain of the foretop, his arm outstretched was open mouthed in terror.
Others arrived and they too pointed, muttering fearfully, a papist or two crossing themselves, a good protestant on his knees confessing his sins direct to his maker. 'Oh God forgive me that I did indeed have carnal knowledge of Mistress Best when that vessel of unclean-ness was a greater whore than all the…' Next to him Drinkwater saw Dalziell. The midshipman was shaking as though palsied.
Drinkwater stared ahead at the dull, greenish glow. The night had become cloudy and dark, there was just a breath of wind and the glow grew larger. If his theory about Dalziell having initiated the silly rumours was correct the youth was paying for it now in a paroxysm of fear.
'Whisht, listen boys! Listen!' The hubbub faded and they could hear the screams, the screams of souls in torment. 'Holy Mary, Mother of God, blessed is the fruit of thy womb…'
'Jesus Christ, what the hell is it?'
'Tis the Dutchman, boys… the Dutchman…'
Drinkwater pushed his way aft, unceremoniously grabbing Lestock's glass from the master's paralysed hand. He swung himself into the mainchains.
It was the hull of a galleon all right, with a high poop. But the vessel had been dismasted. He thought he could see movement, pale shapes flitting about on it. The hair on the nape of his neck crawled. He dismissed the superstition with an effort. But perhaps an old wreck, like those supposedly trapped in the weed of the Sargasso…?
No, there was something familiar about those screams. 'Mr Lestock!'
'Eh? What?'
'Do we have steerage way?'
'Steerage way? Eh, oh, er we did, sir, just. Come you lubbers back to the wheel, damn it, what d'ye think this is?'
'A point to starboard if you please.'
A gasp of incredulity greeted this order. Cries of supplication and threats floated aft. 'The devil may take you, Mr Drinkwater, but not us, hold your course mates.'
'Belay that forward! What's the matter my bully boys? Have you lost your stomachs? Come now, I don't believe it. A point to starboard there…'
'What the deuce is it Drinkwater?' muttered Rogers below him, 'lend me the glass.' Drinkwater handed it down. 'Let me see after you,' said Appleby. 'Damn your eyes, it's my bloody glass.' Lestock snatched it peevishly from Rogers's eye.
'You can see for yourself, Harry,' said Drinkwater suppressing laughter.
They were closing the apparition fast now. The supposition that it was a galleon had made a fantasy of distance. In fact it was quite close and as they passed it there was a surge backwards from the rails, cries of revulsion as the stink of the dead whale assailed their noses.
'Well it stinks like hell for sure!' There was the laughter of relief up and down the deck as they realised what huge fools they had been.
The decomposing whale had swelled up and glowed from the millions of tiny organisms that fed upon it. Shrieking and screaming above it a thousand seabirds enjoyed the funeral feast of the enormous mammal while the water about it was thrashed to a frenzy by a score of sharks.
They watched it fade astern. Laughing at themselves the men drifted below. It seemed the atmosphere about the ship had been washed clean by that appalling smell. Drinkwater wished his companions good night when a party was seen coming from forward. Four men were carrying the inert white-shirted and breeched body of a midshipman. 'Is that Mr Q?'
'Lord no, sir. I'm here.'
'It's Mr Dalziell, zur,' said Tregembo, lowering the midshipman. 'Fainted he did, zur, in a swoon.'
'Well, well, well,' said Drinkwater ironically, 'it seems that vengeance is still the Lord's.'
Chapter Eight
A John Company Man
Drinkwater was bent over his books, alarmed at the high expenditure of cordage due to the loss of the foreyard, when he heard the cry from the masthead.
'Deck there! Sail ho! A point of starboard!' He gratefully accepted the excuse to rush on deck, feeling the welcome breeze ruffling his open shirt. They had sighted the high land of Ras Hafun three days earlier and doubled Cape Guardafui under the strong katabatic winds that blew down from the Somali plateau. Now they romped westward into the Gulf of Aden carrying sail to the mastheads. It was the forenoon and the watches below were preparing for dinner so that at the cry most of her hands crowded Hellebore's waist. They were eagerly awaiting a sight of the stranger from the deck. Drinkwater saw Quilhampton at the rail.
'Up you go, Mr Q, and see what you make of her.' The boy grabbed a glass and leapt into the rigging. The sight of anything would be welcome. They had seen several dhows inshore of them as they closed the coast but the stranger might be a square-rigged ship, a friend or, just possibly, an enemy.
Hellebore had had her fill of the wonders of the Indian Ocean. Flying fish, whales and dolphins had been seen in abundance, turtles and birds of many descriptions, petrels, long-tailed tropic birds and the brown boobies that reminded them of the immature gannets of Europe. Little sketches filled the margins of Drinkwater's journal together with a description of a milk sea, an eruption of foaming phosphorescence of ethereal beauty. This phenomenon had prompted Quilhampton to essay his hand at poetry. The scorn of Mr Dalziell ended the endeavour, though Mr Quilhampton was quick to refute the assertion that poets were milksops by pointing out they were not the only persons to be sent into a swoon at the sight of the world's natural wonders. But none of these observations thrilled them as much as the two white topgallants that were soon visible from the deck.
'She's a brig sir, like us… or she might be a snow, sir,' reported Quilhampton with uncertain precision.
'Colours?'
'Not showing 'em, sir,' he answered, unconsciously aping Mr Drinkwater's abbreviated style.
'No colours, eh?' said Griffiths hobbling up on his swollen foot.
'No, sir.'
'Waiting for us to declare ourselves, eh? Clear for action Mr Drinkwater, Mr Lestock! Take the't'gallants off her, square away to intercept this fellow.'
The pipes squealed at the hatchways and the men lost their dinner as the cook doused his stove. All was hurrying urgency. They had improved their gunnery coming up from the south, shot at casks with the 'great guns' and shattered bottles at the yardarms from the tops. Their grog had long ago been reinstated and Catherine Best had assumed the demeanour of a nun. Never was a meal more cheerfully forgotten. This was no lurking French cruiser of overwhelming force. The sun was shining, the breeze was blowing and the shadows of the sails and rigging were sharp across the deck as it was sprinkled with sand.