Brian Jacques - [Flying Dutchman 01] - Castaways of the Flying Dutchman

A hawkfaced Arab drew a dagger from his belt. “Then we collect our wages, yes?”

The Englander, who was the ringleader, seized the Arab’s wrist. “Aye, we’ll live like lords for the rest of our lives, mate. But you stow that blade, an’ wait ’til I gives the word.”

They took another drink before leaving the Barbary Shark.

The boy stood facing his pursuers—he was trapped, with no place to run, his back to the sea. Bjornsen’s three big sons closed in on the edge of the wharf, where their victim stood gasping for air and trembling in the fogbound night. Reaching out, the tallest of the trio grabbed the lad’s shirtfront.

With a muted animal-like grunt, the boy sank his teeth into his captor’s hand. Bjornsen’s son roared in pain, releasing his quarry and instinctively lashing out with his good hand. He cuffed the boy a heavy blow to his jaw. Stunned, the youngster reeled backward, missed his footing, and fell from the top of the wharf pylons, splashing into the sea. He went straight down and under the surface.

Kneeling on the edge, the three brothers stared into the dim, greasy depths. A slim stream of bubbles broke the surface. Then nothing. Fear registered on the brutish face of the one who had done the deed, but he recovered his composure quickly, warning the other two.

“We could not find him, nobody will know. He had no relatives in the world. What’s another dumb fool more or less? Come on!”

Checking about to see that they had not been noticed in the dark and fog, the trio scurried off home.

Standing at the gangplank, the Dutch captain watched the last of his crew emerge from the misty swaths which wreathed the harbor. He gestured them aboard.

“Drinking again, jah ? Well, there be little enough to get drunk on ’tween here and the Pacific side of the Americas. Come, get aboard now, make ready to sail!”

The blue scar contracted as the Burmese smiled. “Aye, aye, Kapitan, we make sail!”

With floodtide swirling about her hull and the stern fenders scraping against the wharf timbers, the vessel came about facing seaward. Staring ahead into the fog, the captain brought the wheel about half a point and called, “Let go aft!”

A Finnish sailor standing astern flicked the rope expertly, jerking the noosed end off the bollard which held it. The rope splashed into the water. Shivering in the cold night air, he left it to trail along, not wanting to get his hands wet and frozen by hauling the backstay rope aboard. He ran quickly into the galley and held his hands out over the warm stove.

The boy was half in and half out of consciousness, numbed to his bones in the cold sea. He felt the rough manila rope brush against his cheek and seized it. Painfully, hand over hand, he hauled himself upward. When his feet touched ship’s timber, the boy pulled his body clear of the icy sea and found a ledge. He huddled on it, looking up at the name painted on the vessel’s stern in faded, gold-embellished red. Fleiger Hollander.

He had never learned to read, so the letters meant nothing to him. Fleiger Hollander in Dutch, or had the lad been able to understand English, Flying Dutchman.

2

MORNING LIGHT FOUND THE FOG HAD lifted, revealing a clear blue icy day. The Flying Dutchman plowed past Goteborg under full sail, ready to round the Skagen point and sail down the Skagerrak out into the wide North Sea. Philip Vanderdecken, captain of the vessel, braced himself on the small fo’c’sle deck, feeling the buck and swell of his ship. Light spray from the bow wave touched his face, ropes and canvas thrummed to the breeze overhead.

Valparaiso bound, where his share of the green stones would make him a rich man for life, he was never a man to smile, but he allowed himself a single bleak nod of satisfaction. Let the shipowners find another fool to sail this slop-bucket around the high seas. Leave this crew of wharfscum to pit their wits against another captain. He strode from one end of the vessel to the other, snapping curt commands at the surly bunch that manned the craft. Often he would wheel suddenly about—Vanderdecken neither liked nor trusted his crew. Judging by the glances he received and the muttered conversations that ceased at his approach, he knew they were speculating about the trip, plotting against him in some way probably.

His solution to this was simple: keep the hands busy night and day, show them who was master. Vanderdecken’s quick eye missed nothing; he glanced past the steersman to the ice-crusted rope left trailing astern. Signaling the Finnish deckhand with a nod, he pointed. “Stow that line and coil it, or the seawater will ruin it!”

The deckhand was about to make some remark; when he noted the challenging look in the captain’s eye, he touched his cap. “Aye aye, Kapitan!”

Vanderdecken was making his way amidships when the Finn leaned over the stern rail, shouting. “Come look here—a boy, I think he’s dead!”

All hands hurried to the stern, crowding the rail to see. Pushing his way roughly through, the captain stared down at the crumpled figure on the molding below his cabin gallery. Crouched there was a boy, stiff with seawater and frost.

Vanderdecken turned to the men, his voice harsh and flat. “Leave him there or push him into the sea, I don’t care.”

The ship’s cook was a fat, bearded Greek, who had left his galley to see what all the excitement was about. He spoke up.

“I don’t have galley boy. If he’s alive, I take him!”

The captain gave the cook a scornful glance. “He’d be better off dead than working for you, Petros. Ah, do what you want. The rest of you get back to work!”

Lumbering down to the stern cabin, Petros opened the window and dragged the lad in. To all apparent purposes, the boy looked dead, though when the Greek cook placed a knife blade near his lips, a faint mist clouded it. “By my beard, he breathes!”

He carried the boy to the galley and laid him on some sacking in a corner near the stove. The ship’s mate, an Englishman, came into the galley for a drink of water. Placing the toe of his boot against the boy’s body, he nudged him. The lad did not respond.

The Englander shrugged. “Looks dead to me, I’d sling him over the side if I was you.”

Petros pointed with his keen skinning knife at the Englander. “Well, you not me, see. I say he stays. If he comes around, I need help in this galley, lots of help. He’s mine!”

Backing off from the knife, the Englander shook his head. “Huh, yours? Like the cap’n said, that one’d be better dead!”

For almost two days the boy lay there. On the second evening Petros was making a steaming stew of salt cod, turnips, and barley. Blowing on the ladle, he tasted a bit. As he did this, the Greek cast a glance down at the boy. His eyes were wide open, gazing hungrily at the stewpot.

“So, my little fish lives, eh?”

The boy’s mouth opened, but no sound came out. Petros took a greasy-looking wooden bowl and ladled some stew into it, then placed it in the boy’s open hands. “Eat!” It was bubbling hot, but that did not seem to deter the lad. He bolted it down and held the empty bowl up to the cook. The bowl went spinning from his grasp as Petros hit it with the ladle, narrowing his eyes pitilessly.

“No free trippers aboard this ship, little fish. I caught you, now you belong to me. When I say work, you work. When I say eat, you eat. When I say sleep, you sleep. Got it? But you won’t hear me saying eat or sleep much. It will be mostly work, hard work! Or back over the side you go. Do you believe me?”

He wrenched the boy upright and reached for his knife. The wide-eyed youngster nodded furiously.