Neil Hanson - The Custom of the Sea

Stephens tried to hold up a shirt on the stick they had been using as a yard, but he had barely enough strength left to raise it above his head.

Tom’s breath rattled in his chest like a dead man’s, but he forced himself to count off a hundred strokes. With each one, the roaring in his ears grew louder until it drowned every other sound. He raised his eyes and again searched Brooks’s expression.

He shook his head.

Tom glanced over his shoulder. The ship was now almost level with them, and still holding its course. He hauled on the oars in a frenzy for a few more seconds, then threw them down and bowed his head.

‘Wait.’ Brooks said something else, but his swollen tongue and cracked lips made it unintelligible.

‘What?’ Tom said. ‘What is it?’

‘He’s changing course. He’s seen us.’

He continued to wave the shirt, but Tom simply stared as the ship, a triple-masted sailing barque, began to bear down on them. It was flying a German flag and he could make out the name Moctezuma on the bow. He saw the figures of sailors climbing aloft to reef the sails. Others lined the rail, peering down at the tiny dinghy as it came alongside.

Brooks took the oars and Tom stood up. A rope thrown from the ship hit the water with a slap. It lay just out of reach as Tom scrabbled for it. The end of the rope sank from sight, but it was hauled back and thrown again. This time he caught it as it snaked across the gunwale. He winced as it bit into his torn hands but held on and made it fast.

The captain called down to him from the rail of the upper deck. ‘Captain Simonsen of the Moctezuma , out of Port Andemer, Punta Arenas, bound for Hamburg. Who are you and what was your ship?’

Tom opened his mouth to speak but no words would come and he stared at the other man in a mute plea. He tried again and found his voice, but it was so weak and cracked, and his words so faint, that they barely carried over the water separating the two ships. ‘Tom Dudley of the Mignonette , bound for New South Wales. For God’s sake, help us. We have been twenty-four days adrift with nothing to eat or drink. We have wives and children depending on us. Please help us on board.’

He waited, not daring to breathe as the captain exchanged a few words with the woman at his side. Then he gave a curt nod and shouted for more ropes to be lowered. Tom’s knees buckled as relief flooded through him.

Brooks glanced at him, then nodded towards the canvas sheet across the bow. ‘What of the rest of our food?’

‘What of it?’

‘I could throw it overboard.’

Tom shook his head. ‘Leave it be.’

Brooks began to argue, but Tom cut him off. ‘I said, leave it be.’

Brooks hesitated, then turned away. He had enough strength remaining to clamber on to the ship by the chain plates, but then collapsed. Picking him up as easily as a child, the ship’s carpenter took him on his back and carried him on deck. Tom and Stephens were too weak to climb even the few feet to the chain plates. Ropes were passed around them and they were hauled up by the crew.

They lay on the deck, huddled in the foetal position, croaking for water. The bony hands they held out in supplication were more like claws.

The captain’s wife ladled water from a barrel lashed to the foot of the mainmast. She mixed it with a little wine and gave each of them a ladleful. They drank it greedily.

‘Wait a few moments before you drink more,’ she said, ‘or it may make you ill.’

The captain called down to them from the upper deck. ‘What of your dinghy?’

Brooks again shot a glance at Tom. ‘Cast it loose. We have no need of it.’

Tom ignored him and called out, ‘Please bring it aboard.’

Brooks stared at him. ‘For God’s sake, why?’

‘As a reminder.’

‘Do you think we could forget? I beg you, Captain, let it rest with our ship at the bottom of the ocean.’

‘And I say no. The dinghy comes with us.’

They were carried down the companionway below decks to the crew’s quarters. There was a feeling of safety and familiarity in the smells that filled Tom’s nostrils: damp timber and tar from the ship’s caulking, blending with the more exotic scents of the cargo — the warm smell of cedarwood and the musty odour of fustic.

Mrs Simonsen gave them more water, a little food and a tot of brandy, then the crewmen stripped them of their tattered, salt-encrusted rags. As the last of his clothes were removed Tom made a feeble attempt to cover himself with his hands, then lay back and closed his eyes.

‘Please,’ the captain’s wife said, ‘I must bathe your sores.’ She gasped as she saw his wasted body. Purple, ulcerating sores covered his legs, hips and shoulders. His yellowing, waxy skin was tight-drawn over his ribs and the split nails of his hands and feet were the colour of tanned leather. While the rest of his body was stick thin, his legs were grotesquely swollen.

She wrung out a cloth in water and Tom felt its cool touch on his burning skin. She dried him gently with a soft towel, bandaged the worst of his sores and the crew then dressed him in clean clothes.

He opened his eyes and looked up at her. ‘Thank you for saving us.’

‘The Lord led us to you and we could not leave you to die.’

‘Others did.’

She inclined her head. ‘But you are safe now and you must rest. There will be time enough later to tell your story.’

Tom sipped some more water, then lay back on the bunk and closed his eyes. He heard the familiar sounds of a sailing ship at sea — the creak of the boom and the snap of canvas as the wind filled the sails, the greasy slop of water in the bilges and the scuttling and scratching of a rat behind the planking. Then there was a thud on the deck above his head as the dinghy was hauled on board.

Still leaning on the rail overlooking the main deck, Captain Simonsen ordered two seamen, Julius Wiese and Christopher Drewe, to clear out the boat. Wiese picked up the chronometer case and stared at its stained surface, then ran his fingers over the striations on the wooden cross-member of the dinghy and the marks on the brass crutches for the oars.

Under the canvas cover across the bow he found a small piece of rib bone and the remaining strips of the rancid, stinking meat. He held them up towards the captain. ‘What are we to do with these?’

Simonsen shuddered. ‘Throw them overboard.’ He turned on his heel and went below.

Every few hours the captain’s wife brought the men food and water mixed with wine. Between her visits Tom drifted in and out of consciousness. His sleep was broken by constant nightmares and several times he jerked upright, terrified that he was once more sprawled in the dinghy beneath the burning sun. He reached out to touch the reassuringly solid timbers of the deck above him then lay back once more and closed his eyes.

Although Mrs Simonsen had been careful to limit the food and drink they took, Tom awoke early the next morning with a fierce griping in his guts. He crawled from the bunk and squatted on the earthenware chamber-pot as a violent spasm shook him, his first bowel movement in twenty-five days. As he attempted to stand up, his strength deserted him and he slumped back on to the pot. It broke beneath him and he felt stabbing pains as shards of the pot were driven into his buttocks.

He cried out as he sprawled on the deck and warm blood trickled down his thighs. He heard footsteps and the rustle of skirts. He closed his eyes and cried in shame, his humiliation complete.

Mrs Simonsen called out for help and a few moments later strong hands lifted Tom and laid him face down on the bunk. She picked out the broken fragments of earthenware embedded in his wasted flesh, cleaned his wounds and staunched the bleeding. She bandaged him as well as she could, then cleaned the mess from the deck.