Directly before him, however, was a very different source of light. A teepee-shaped pyramid of sticks, twigs, and bracken had been built on a dune above the beach and was burning fiercely. Less than a dozen figures clustered around it, huddled in greatcoats. Even though he was there in mind only, Pendergast retreated from the light of the fire into the reassuring safety of darkness. The men’s features, backlit by the flames, were barely distinguishable, but they all shared the same look: hardness, desperation, and a cruel anticipation. Two of the men were holding a thick blanket, and they were standing between the ocean and the bonfire. A third man, apparently the ringleader, and whose heavy, brutish features seemed somehow familiar in the firelight, held an ancient stopwatch in one hand and a lantern in the other. He was loudly counting off the seconds, from one to nine, and then starting over again. For two seconds out of each nine, the men holding the blanket shifted it to one side, exposing the light of the bonfire briefly, before blocking it again. This, Pendergast knew, was to simulate the nine-second periodicity of the Exmouth Light.
To the south, the indistinct shapes of the Skullcrusher Rocks were visible only as smudges of creamy, storm-tossed waves.
Skullcrusher Rocks. Walden Point, on which the Exmouth Light was situated, was too close to town; a wreck there would have been noticed. But a wreck on Skullcrusher Rocks... south of town, out of sight — and the wreckage would have been swept directly into this stretch of beach, concentrated in a small area.
Except for the man with the stopwatch, the group near the bonfire spoke little, their gleaming, rapacious eyes staring out to sea, probing the murk. The wind howled in from the northeast, and the rain was driving almost horizontally.
And then a shout went up: someone had spied an evanescent gleam in the darkness, out to sea. The group crowded forward, peering. One pulled a spyglass from out of his greatcoat and peered to the northeast. There was an anxious period of silence as he stared through the howling dark.
Then, the calclass="underline" “It’s a steamer, boys!”
Another shout went up, this one quickly hushed by the leader, who continued to count with his stopwatch, ensuring that the flame of the bonfire maintained the precise periodicity of the Exmouth Light. Now the lights of the ship became more visible, appearing and disappearing as the vessel rose and fell on the heavy seas. An electric shiver went through the group: the ship was clearly steering by the fake light, and was on a heading directly for Skullcrusher Rocks.
Rifles, muskets, pistols, cudgels, and scythes were produced from beneath the greatcoats.
Now a cloak of obscurity fell, and the scene on the beach dissolved. When the dark lifted, Pendergast found himself on the bridge of a vesseclass="underline" the steamship Pembroke Castle. A man clad in a captain’s uniform stood next to him, staring fixedly with his spyglass at a light onshore. To his right stood the navigator, chart spread out under the dim red glow of a navigational lantern. His tools were laid upon the chart — parallel bars, dividers, pencil. Beside him, the binnacle was only a quarter open, just a gleam emanating from it — the bridge being kept as dark as possible in order for all to maintain their keenest night vision. The helmsman stood to the other side of the captain, wrestling the wheel through the heavy seas.
The air on the bridge was tense, but the captain — through his economical movements and his terse, efficient orders — radiated calm and command. There was no sense of the impending disaster.
In his mind’s eye, retreating into a far corner of the bridge, Pendergast noted that a following sea was bursting over the stern of the ship, black water sweeping fore, the vessel rolling heavily with each swell. A mate came forward, drenched to the skin. In response to the captain’s inquiry, he reported that the steam engines were working efficiently, the oak hull was holding: leaks had been reported, but it was nothing that the bilge pumps couldn’t handle.
Now Captain Libby lowered the spyglass long enough to hear the reports of the first and second mates. The first mate noted that the taffrail log gave the ship’s speed as nine knots; the heading was south-southwest, 190 degrees true. The second mate reported the depth of water, via the drop of the sounding line. “Twelve fathoms,” he cried over the storm. “Shelly bottom.”
Captain Libby did not reply, but his face grew troubled. He raised his glass once again toward what appeared to be the Exmouth Light. “Keep your soundings continuous.” He turned to the navigator. “Keep the light hard a-starboard.”
Pendergast knew enough of maritime navigation to be aware that, because the ship was close to shore and in great danger from the storm, the depth soundings were critically important.
A few minutes later, the second mate returned with another depth report. “Ten fathoms,” he said. “Rocky bottom.”
The captain lowered his spyglass, frowning. “Check again,” he said.
The second mate briefly disappeared again into the storm. “Nine fathoms, rocky bottom.”
All men on the bridge knew that the Pembroke Castle drew three fathoms, or eighteen feet, beneath the waterline. Captain Libby turned to the navigator for an explanation.
“It makes no sense, sir!” the man yelled over the wind. “According to the chart, we should be holding steady at sixteen fathoms, sandy bottom.”
“A rocky bottom means shoaling water,” the captain rapped back. “Either the chart is wrong, or we’re off course.”
The navigator, working behind the pelorus — a kind of dummy compass — took a bearing off the light and then worked furiously with his charts. “It can’t be,” he said, more to himself than to anyone else. “It just can’t be.” He took another bearing off the light.
“Six fathoms,” the voice of the second mate droned. “Rocky bottom.”
The captain stepped over to the pelorus and took his own heading. “Bloody hell,” he said, raising his spyglass again, peering ferociously into the lashing storm, but now nothing was visible — not even the light.
“Hard to port,” the captain abruptly ordered the helmsman in a stentorian voice. “Set new heading 90 degrees true.”
“But Captain,” the first mate protested, “that will put the sea directly on our beam.”
“So be it,” said Libby. “Carry on!” But the helmsman was already swinging the wheel, making the course change, the ship shuddering into a turn.
Even as the Pembroke Castle turned, however, a cry came up from the watch at the bridge wing: “Surf ahead!”
The captain wheeled about, staring through his spyglass. Silently, Pendergast crept up behind. There, ahead, the faintest smudge of white seemed to float on the darkness of the waves.
“Hard right rudder!” Libby roared. “Reverse engines, full astern!”
The order was transmitted to the engine room while the helmsman leapt to obey the wheel order, but the ship was heavy, it was long, and it was fighting a beam sea. The white smudge grew brighter, and a sudden tongue of lightning revealed them for what they were: the Skullcrusher Rocks.
“It’s impossible we’re so far off course!” the navigator cried.
“Full astern!” the captain shouted again, even as the laboring rumble from the engines vibrated the deck. But the crew of the bridge, and Pendergast, could see it was far too late: the horrid rocks loomed up out of the driving rain, surrounded by exploding surf...
...And then there came a shuddering crash as the bow of the ship was thrust violently upward onto the rocks. A massive sea broke over the port rail, bashing through the bridge windows and carrying the first mate and navigator overboard with it.