The Command - Brian Jacques - Flying Dutchman 02

Thuron smiled gratefully. “Pierre, tell the cook to make these lads a good hot bowl o’ soup apiece. It must be cold down there, working as long as those two have.” He waved as they submerged once more.

This time Anaconda took six nails in his mouth. He began to work swiftly, though it was extremely difficult. Ben held tight to the rudder, trying to prevent it from moving, his body shaking as each hammer blow struck. Suddenly the hammer slipped from Anaconda’s grasp, and his hand hit the nail head hard: Blood gouted out like a red ribbon into the sea. Ben gestured through the shadowed water that they should go up, but the giant grinned and shook his head, signalling that there was only one more nail to go. Gamely, he spat the last nail into his hand and began nailing the last bit of strip to the rudder. It went home with four hefty whacks. Anaconda pointed upward—then everything happened at once.

Up on deck, the ship’s wheel, which was unmanned to allow the rudder repairs, took the bite of the newly repaired rudder. The wheel spun half a turn, sending the rudder crashing into Ben’s head. Through a pain-filled mist of semiconsciousness, he let go of the rope and floated up. Looking back, he saw the big steersman reach a hand up toward him, when a massive, dark shape struck Anaconda. For a moment the water was a seething mass of bubbling crimson, and then something lashed sharply, stinging the back of Ben’s leg. He lost all his senses, whirling upside down in red-streaked blackness as Ned’s wild baying and calling echoed inside his brain. “Ben! Howoooooh! Beeeeeen!”

Thuron saw the blood and bubbles rising. Clamping a knife in his mouth, he dodged around the howling dog and dived over the rail without a backward glance. Ben was dangling upside down underwater, the broken rope wrapped about his leg. A crimson trail plunged down into the misty depths. There was no sign of Anaconda. The Frenchman grabbed the boy and the rope, tugging furiously as he saw other massive, dark shapes homing in on them both.

They were dragged from the sea by a crew hauling frenziedly on the rope. Thuron never once let go of Ben or the rope; his whole body wrapped around both. As the pair were manhandled over the stern rail, a huge head, its razor-toothed mouth agape, cleared the surface a handsbreadth away from the Frenchman’s foot.

Pierre flung a boat hook after it, shouting, “Sharks! Sharks!”

Several of the crewmen, who were armed with loaded pistols, fired at the sinister fins, which had begun circling the Marie. A musket exploded in the air as Pierre knocked one man’s arm up. “No, don’t fire! You’ll hit Anaconda, you fool!”

Thuron was thumping Ben’s back as seawater poured from the senseless boy’s mouth. The Frenchman looked up, his face a picture of tragedy and shock, and screamed, “Anaconda is gone, Pierre, he’s gone!”

The firing ceased, and all hands stared at one another in disbelief. Anaconda gone?

Ben lay on the bed in Captain Thuron’s cabin with Ned alongside him, trying to reach his friend. However, the dog’s thoughts could not penetrate the boy’s fevered mind. Disjointed images of storming seas and large waves crashing upon rockbound shores, the Flying Dutchman, with Vanderdecken at the helm and lit all about with the eerie green light of St. Elmo’s Fire wreathing its rigging. Ned tried to interpose calming thoughts into Ben’s delirium, licking the boy’s hands and whining softly. “Ben, Ben, it’s me, Ned. You’re safe now, mate. Lie still, rest now!”

Thuron brought a little brandy mixed with sugar and warm water. Ned watched as he poured a few drops between Ben’s lips. The Frenchman spoke his thoughts aloud to the dog as he ministered to the boy. “There now, that’ll help him, I think. He’s had a bad time, Ned. I’ll stay here with you until he looks better. Thank the Lord he wasn’t taken by those hellfish. Poor Anaconda, we’ll never see him again. Apart from you and Ben, he was the best friend I ever had, rest his soul!”

Thuron settled down in a chair and put his feet up on the end of the bed, assuring the Labrador in a weary voice, “At least our Ben’s safe, eh, boy? Don’t you fret now, he’ll be fresh as a coat o’ paint by tomorrow.”

With her rudder back in working order, La Petite Marie sailed northeast, out into the nighttime vastness of the mighty Atlantic Ocean. Raphael Thuron was asleep, one elbow on the table, his cheek resting in an open palm. Ned, too, stretched on the bed with his head lolling across the boy’s feet. Ben drifted in and out of slumber, quiet and still for the most part. Then strange spectres began haunting his mind. Were his eyes open or not? The boy was not sure, but he could see through the ornate, oblong stern window. The sea was moon-flecked and smooth, yet far out it appeared stormy. Cold sweat poured from Ben’s brow. There in the distance, riding the gale, the Flying Dutchman was coming toward the Marie. Ben lay there, robbed of all power of speech or movement, watching the ghost ship getting larger and closer. He could not even pass a thought to his dog. Vanderdecken’s wild, despairing face banished everything from his mind. Ben could see him standing at the Dutchman’s wheel. Lifting a corpselike finger, he beckoned the boy to come to him, staring at Ben with eyes like chips of tombstone marble that pierced his entire being. Now the Flying Dutchman was sailing level with the Marie. Tap! Tap! The accursed captain’s finger rapped upon the windowpane, calling, signalling Ben to come aboard his vessel. The petrified boy suddenly realised he had no grip on reality, no control of his limbs. Was he still lying on the bed, or was he sitting up, getting out of bed and walking trancelike toward the apparition outside the window? Vanderdecken smiled triumphantly, exposing long yellow teeth as his black lips curled back, his beckoning finger, like a swaying serpent, calling his victim to him.

The feeling seeped slowly into Ned’s mind as his eyes opened blearily. Then he felt his hackles rise, and he came wide awake. He leapt up with a sharp bark, and Vanderdecken turned his attention upon the dog, glaring and hissing viciously. In that moment, Thuron was wakened by the bark. He saw Ben, momentarily free of the spell, snap the thong that held a carved coconut-wood cross around his neck. Thuron dropped to the cabin floor as Ben threw the cross at the thing hovering outside; then the Frenchman grabbed the chair by a leg and flung it with all his might from flat on his back.

11

AMID THE RENDING crash of glass and wood, a high-pitched, keening screech ensued. Ned was standing with his paws up on the sill, barking out at a calm night sea. Shakily, Thuron pulled himself over to where Ben was sitting on the cabin floor.

He grabbed the boy and hugged him tight. “Ben, are you alright? What in the name of heaven and hell was that thing at the window? Was it a man or a fiend?”

Before Ned could think out a warning, Ben had spoken. “It was Captain Vanderdecken of the Flying Dutchman!”

Thuron ran to the smashed window. Regardless of the broken glass and splintered frame, he leaned out and scanned the empty ocean.

Turning slowly, he looked from the dog to the boy. “I think you’ve got something to tell me, lad!”

Ned sent a swift thought to Ben. “Well, you’ve already told him who it was—are you going to let him know the rest?”

Still facing the captain, Ben answered his dog’s question. “He saved my life, we can trust him. I’d best tell him everything. He’ll understand, I know he will.”

The black Labrador closed his eyes resignedly. “I hope he will!”

The crewman Gascon, who had not gone with the other three deserters, was taking his turn at the wheel. He had heard Ned’s bark and the window breaking. Looking astern, he saw the captain’s chair, with the cross on its thong tangled about it, floating off into the night. Tying the ship’s wheel on course with the helm line, Gascon hurried to the captain’s cabin door. He was about to knock when he heard voices clearly from within. Carefully he pressed an ear to the door and listened. Ben was speaking to Thuron. What Gascon heard that night chilled his very soul into a terror-stricken silence.