“I’ll hang your courtly self if I don’t see the mizzen in its place before the boy brings my supper!” the captain roared. “Courtly” was the ultimate insult on shipboard. A courtly seaman was a landlubber.
In Evans’s case it was the truth. He was a farmer by trade. His landlord had evicted him from the potato fields that provided his meager living. Evans had grown too weak to work the property profitably, and he had no sons to help him. Going to sea was his only chance to provide for his wife and daughters.
In spite of their age difference, Samuel felt a bond with the much older man. Both were non-sailors who had been forced by poverty to the Griffin and its merciless captain. The ship’s boy spent most of his free time in the sail maker’s cabin, stitching canvas until his hands bled, substituting his young eyes for the old man’s dim ones.
Although Evans appreciated the help, he must have at first suspected that Samuel was the captain’s spy. The old man was always saying things like, “Captain James Blade is a right gentleman. Lucky we are to have such a fine master on the Griffin.”
Even after a brutal flogging, he had nothing but praise for the instrument of his agony. As Samuel poured seawater over the man’s whip-scarred back to prevent infection, Evans would whimper, “’Tis a fine captain who takes such a personal interest in the affairs of his crew.”
Samuel said nothing. He had never known his own father, and longed for the moment that Evans would trust him with his true thoughts.
Late one night, as the two struggled to darn a foresail so pockmarked by mending that it resembled a ragamuffin’s wardrobe, the moment finally came. By the dim flicker of a waterlogged oil lamp, Evans said in a matter-of-fact tone, “He’s a proper lunatic, that captain of ours. I hate him, I do.”
“Shhh!” Samuel hissed, glancing nervously over his shoulder. Then, in a whisper, “I hate him too. Every time I touch his filthy chamber pot, I want to throw it in his face.”
“That whip — I see it in my sleep!” All at once, the old man’s moist, haunted eyes took on a faraway look. “In my dream, it’s wrapped around Blade’s white throat. I’m pulling it tighter, tighter. He screams, but I don’t stop pulling, squeezing—”
“That’s mutiny!” Samuel breathed in horror. “It’s a hanging offense!”
“And then I think of my girls,” the old man finished, visibly deflated, “and I remember I have to avoid the noose for their sakes.” He added earnestly, “But this old body is not strong enough to survive another flogging. I’m telling you true, Samuel. I’ll die under James Blade’s lash.”
The weather continued wild and dangerous. Two and a half months into the perilous crossing, a storm sank the Viscount, an eighteen-gun brigantine in their small fleet. The Griffin picked up four and thirty hapless sailors, adrift in the rough seas. The rest simply slipped beneath the waves and were seen no more. Captain Blade clung to the ratlines through the entire operation, cracking his whip into the wind and rain and hurling abuse at rescuers and survivors alike.
There were now more than one hundred souls packed onto the barque. Conditions were more than cramped; they were unsafe. Fever spread like wildfire through the seething mass of humanity. Six men had already died, including the ship’s carpenter, whose responsibilities included replacing damaged or rotten wood in the leaky hull. The Griffin sat low in the water. Samuel was ordered away from the sail maker’s cabin to join the army of pumpers in the unbreathable air of the reeking bilge.
He was returning, bowed down with fatigue, from several hours below, when he heard the distant cry: “Sail, ho!”
It was Evans, perched high in the rigging, where he had been struggling to mend a tear in the square topsail at the tip of the mainmast. From that vantage point, he had spied another ship on the horizon.
Captain Blade poked his head out of his quarters. “One of ours?” he called.
Evans squinted. “I can’t tell, sir!”
Blade stormed down to the main deck. “Are you a seaman or a gooseberry, mister? Is it one of our fleet?”
Samuel tried to jump to the old man’s defense. “He doesn’t know ships, sir! He’s just a farmer who went to —”
Thwack! The big emerald flashed in the sun as the captain brought the bone handle of his whip down hard on Samuel’s forehead. He collapsed to his knees, seeing stars.
“You’ll earn yourself a flogging if I have to come up there!” Blade bellowed at his sail maker.
But Evans was paralyzed. His pale, nearsighted eyes could not recognize the distant vessel, and his fear of the captain prevented him from guessing.
“You’ll be right sorry you troubled me!” Blade strode to the ratlines and began to climb, not quickly, but with the authority and balance that comes from decades spent on shipboard.
It was a nightmare, Samuel reflected, watching the captain close in on the quaking sail maker. His friend’s words came back to him: “This old body isn’t strong enough to survive another flogging….”
He flung himself at the ratlines, scrambling like a spider, shocked at first at how fast and good he was at it. The chimneys, he thought, arms and legs working efficiently. If I can make it up Sewell’s chimneys, I can make it up anything!
The captain bellowed with rage as he pulled level with Evans. “Why, you worthless maggot, don’t you recognize your own flagship? I’ll flog you till there’s nothing left but a handful of your rotting teeth!”
The angry green of the emerald flashed in the sun. At first, Samuel thought Blade was going to lash the poor farmer right there on the ratlines. It was a horrifying prospect. Surely Evans would lose his grip and fall. Then he realized that it was the old sail maker who had snatched up the whip, and was attempting to wrap it around Blade’s neck.
“No!” Samuel cried, but he knew it was already too late. Under maritime law, even touching the captain was a capital crime. No matter what happened now, poor Evans would hang.
“Mutinous — scum—” With great strength, Blade managed to pull himself free. He brought down his clasped hands full force on the sail maker’s crown. Evans went rigid for a moment, and then let go of the rope. Horrified, Samuel watched his only friend plunge to his death one hundred feet to the deck below.
The effort of the savage blow had overbalanced the captain, and, with a terrified scream, he too lost his purchase on the ratlines.
I’ll not help him, Samuel resolved as his master plummeted toward him. I’ll not save the murdering —
Yet the action was pure instinct. As the captain fell, pawing desperately at the rigging, Samuel reached out and grabbed his belt. He would not have been able to hold on, but he slowed the acceleration of the drop just enough for Blade to snatch the webbing of rope. The cruel captain hung on, gasping for breath and whimpering with panic, as crewmen surrounded the sail maker’s broken body beneath them.
It should be you, Captain, lying down there dead, and Evans up here with me, consigning your black soul to the devil! Samuel thought, biting back tears. Aloud, he just said, “You all right, sir?”