"Right! Fox, you stick with us, hear?" shouted Rumstick. The boy nodded and Rumstick stepped around them and led the way forward.
The best bower, nearly two tons of forged iron, was held to the side with one remaining lashing, and it slammed fore and aft five feet with each plunge of the bow, the inboard fluke tearing soggy hunks of wood from the bulwark, the shank slamming against the cathead and threatening to dislodge it. Haliburton was already there, coils of rope over his shoulders, and without a word the three men fell to securing the anchor. There was no argument now; for all of Haliburton and Rumstick animosity each respected the other's abilities in matter of seamanship, and now there was no thought for anything beyond the ship.
For forty-five minutes Biddlecomb, Rumstick, and Haliburton wrestled with the anchor, passing lashings and hauling taut as the anchor slid into position. Their throats burned from the salt water they swallowed and from screaming just to be heard. Biddlecomb drew the final frapping turn tight as the bowsprit buried itself in an oncoming wave and the sea boiled over them.
"Lay ahold!" Biddlecomb shouted at Fox, dragging the boy to the deck and clapping hold of the lifeline as Rumstick and Haliburton did the same. The sea crashed down on them, the open ocean pounding over their arched backs, the pressure tearing at their grips as the water swirled aft along the decks. And then the bow rose again and the ship shook off the tons of seawater and lifted to the next wave. The spritsail yard had carried awayin the onslaught and disappeared astern, leaving a tangle of shredded cordage hanging from the bowsprit.
"Won't do any harm, not with the jibboom run in!" shouted Biddlecomb as the men looked at the damage.
"Ain't a damn thing we can do now, anyway!" replied Rumstick. He turned and worked his way aft, with Biddlecomb, Haliburton, and Fox following in his wake.
They made their way from the bow to the quarterdeck, pulling themselves hand over hand along the lifeline and twice pausing to hold tight as the decks went awash. At last they reached the quarterdeck where Peabody and Fry and two miserable helmsmen were riding out the night. The helmsmen had lashings around their waists that were tied in turn to a ringbolt in the deck. The lashings would keep the men from being flung over board if the wheel suddenly spun out of control.
Peabody stood aft by the wheel and Fry huddled beneath a leecloth triced up in the mizzen rigging, seeking what pathetic shelter it offered.
"Where in the hell have you been, God damn your eyes!" Fry shrieked when Biddlecomb was a few feet from him. "You were to relieve the helm over a glass ago! Damn you, we have no time for your slacking in this weather, God damn your eyes!" Fry readjusted his grip on the mizzen shroud. He sounded, to Biddlecomb, as if he had gone completely insane.
Biddlecomb stepped around the mate and struggled aft to the helm, young Fox following behind.
"Best bower secure, and the spritsail yard gone! Nothing we can do about it!" Rumstick was shouting this at Peabody, though the two men were almost face-to-face. Peabody nodded, then pointed down the after scuttle, indicating that he was going below. Rumstick nodded as well, pointing forward to indicate the direction that he was headed.
Biddlecomb stepped up behind the helmsman on the weather side of the wheel and grabbed the spokes, freeing the man's hands and allowing him to untie his waist lashings. He turned to see Larson, the big Swede who occupied the bunk just above Biddlecomb in the forecastle, doing the same on the leeward side. Five minutes later Biddlecomb and Larson were lashed to the ringbolt and the weary men who had stood at the wheel for the past five hours struggled forward. Biddlecomb looked around for Fox. The boy was standing at his side and a little behind, and Biddlecomb imagined he was as safe there as anywhere.
The wheel fought with all the cunning of its ilk, sometimes going limp in the hand as the ship rode over a wave, sometimes giving a savage kick as the stern buried itself. But Biddlecomb fought back with the experience gained through hundreds of hours at ship's wheels, and Larson lent his own experience and strong arms to the effort. Nonetheless they were exhausted after fifteen minutes, and Biddlecomb thought grimly of the three and a half hours that they had yet to go.
Peabody stepped through the scuttle and onto the quarterdeck, his body momentarily framed in the dim light from the chart room. He shut the doors quickly and was lost to Biddlecomb's sight. And then he appeared again at Biddlecomb's side, peering first at the compass, then out to sea, then up at the sails.
"Mr Fry!" Peabody shouted, and his voice was just audible on the quarterdeck. "Mr Fry!"
The mate jumper and turned quickly, stepping across the deck to the captain.
"We're getting set too far north!" Peabody continued. "I'm afraid we shall find Nova Scotia under our lee! We must wear ship! We must do it now!"
Fry said nothing, just stared at Peabody and shook his head in small movements from side to side. It was a dilemma, Biddlecomb could see that. They had to turn the ship, somehow. It was obvious to anyone that they could not tack, could not put the bow of the ship through the wind and let even the little canvas still aloft come aback. That would tear the sticks clean out of her. But even the longer and safer maneuver of wearing ship, turning her stern through the wind, would be no mean feat in those winds and seas. But it had to be done. It was better than piling up on a lee shore.
Biddlecomb had been wondering about Nova Scotia. They had been driving along on a starboard tack for some time now, and with the set of the Gulf Stream... Of course Biddlecomb had not been able to see a chart, but his mental dead reckoning seemed to be in agreement with Peabody's navigation. But how to wear ship? The fore staysail would have to go once the stern was through the wind, of course, or they could never hope to get the bow back up into the wind. Yes, first tend to the fore staysail, then ease the helm over as the Adams mounted the swell...
Biddlecomb worked his calculations from force of habit, and in his mind he had the ship halfway around on the other tack when an uneasiness intruded in his thought. He looked up, unsure of what was wring. And then he knew. The Adams was not rising to the swell.
There was a rhythm to the waves, and Biddlecomb's body was used to that rhythm, and it told him that now the ship should be rising, cresting the next wave. But it was still sinking, farther and farther down, into a valley of water. And that could mean only one thing: the wave that was rolling down on them now was bigger then the rest, vastly bigger, a freak of wind and sea. A rogue wave.
Biddlecomb peered forward, and in the flashes of lightning he could see it, a mounting of water, twice as big as the huge seas over which they rode, and hurtling down on them as they in turn were sucked into the hole it pushed before it. He could see the boiling crest of the wave's top high above the deck.
He had no illusions about what would come next, when the water came down on the ship like the wrath of an angry God, and he hoped the Adams could take it. He felt his stomach convulse and he grabbed tighter to the spokes of the wheel. He glanced quickly at Larson, could see the same thoughts reflected in his face. If the Adams could not withstand the pounding, then in the next five minutes every man aboard her would die.
He looked quickly around the quarterdeck. Peabody and Fry had flung themselves into the mizzen shrouds, threading their arms and legs through the rigging. And Fox stood at the weather rail, one hand resting on the lifeline, oblivious to the danger.
"Get in the shrouds! Grab the shrouds, God damn it!" Biddlecomb shouted, but the boy just looked at him and shook his head to indicate that he could not hear.