Tim Severin - Sea Robber

FOUR

THE SKIN RASHES broke out a week later – dark-red blotches tinged with purple. They appeared first on the chest and then spread to the lower body, and they itched incessantly. The victims complained of muscle pains and violent, prolonged headaches. Initially there were just a handful of isolated cases, but quickly the malady spread to nearly one-third of the crew. The affected men felt lethargic and listless and could barely drag themselves about the vessel. The worst cases were too feeble even to clamber up on deck. They stayed slumped in their berths, scratching at the inflamed eruptions on their skins.

‘It’s ship fever,’ announced Cook. He had called a meeting to discuss the situation. Anyone with medical knowledge – including Hector and Dampier – had gathered in the captain’s cabin.

The quartermaster, a tight-mouthed Manxman, spoke up for the crew in general. ‘We must get ashore as soon as possible. We’ve been at sea for too long.’ A seasoned mariner, he was familiar with the dangers of ship fever. If the sickness intensified, it could reduce an entire crew to wraiths, unable to work their vessel. The only known cure was to set the invalids on land and wait until the fever disappeared.

Cook turned to his navigator. ‘Dampier, how far to the nearest refuge?’

Dampier looked even more doleful than usual. He gestured vaguely at the chart spread on the table before them. ‘I am uncertain as to our exact position. The mainland is best avoided. If we encounter the Spaniards in our weakened state . . .’ His voice trailed away.

‘Then we steer for Juan Fernandez and restore ourselves there,’ said Cook firmly. Several of those present knew the island of Juan Fernandez from their previous venture in the Pacific. Uninhabited and 400 miles off the coast of South America, it was seldom visited by Spanish patrols.

‘Juan Fernandez is at least three weeks away,’ warned Dampier.

‘So we must hope the fever does not take a stronger grip,’ replied Cook brusquely.

Hector intervened, ‘If I may make a suggestion . . .’

‘Yes, what is it?’ Cook snapped. He had been made irritable by the run of bad luck – heavy weather and now an outbreak of sickness.

‘My friend Jacques tells me he observed the same illness in the Paris prisons.’

‘And, as an ex-gaolbird, what does he suggest?’ Cook allowed a sarcastic edge to creep into his voice.

‘The prison doctors ordered all the cells washed with vinegar and the convicts’ bedding to be aired. I’ve noticed most of our fever cases are among those who sleep in the forward hold, where it’s airless and full of lice and vermin. Could we not allow in additional light and air to that area of the vessel?’

The quartermaster was adamantly opposed. ‘It’s warm down there and the rats aren’t no trouble at all. We’d block up any openings the moment they were made.’

‘I have a better solution,’ said Cook tartly. ‘Issue three pints of burned rum for every man who presents himself for work. That should get them out on deck.’

It was an effective solution, even if it failed to cure the sickness. The Bachelor’s Delight slowly clawed her way north, with her depleted crew often half-fuddled. Hector, however, heeded Jacques’ experience, and the four friends brought their own bedding up on deck. Despite the cold, drizzly weather they were anxious to spend as little time as possible in the stuffy, noxious accommodation. They were witnesses, therefore, to an event that no man aboard could have foreseen, though many had heard it rumoured.

It happened shortly after midnight on the sixty-eighth day of their voyage. The Delight was making steady progress with a moderate breeze. The faint light of a new moon showed the small regular whitecaps covering the sea around her. Earlier in the day Dan had declared this was a sign that the vessel was finally moving out into the open ocean.

‘Seems we’re due for a drenching,’ observed Jezreel, looking to windward. A line of thick, black clouds was beginning to blot out the stars in that quarter, and there was an occasional faint rumble of thunder.

‘Mon Dieu, not another storm. We’ve had more than our share,’ said Jacques with a groan.

‘No,’ Dan assured him. ‘If that was an approaching storm, we’d be feeling the swells already. It’s no more than a patch of bad weather and should pass over quickly.’

The black line advanced rapidly and, with the Delight already under reduced sail, there was nothing to be done but wait for the deluge. Hector and his friends gathered up their blankets and retreated to the shelter of the small overhang under the break of the quarterdeck.

They did not have long to wait. All of a sudden a broad sheet of lightning lit up the sea about half a mile ahead. This was followed by a tremendous clap of thunder. Moments later the downpour rushed upon them. It was a wild torrent, the raindrops bouncing off the planks to a height of several inches. At times the rainfall was so intense Hector felt it was becoming difficult to breathe. Dazzled by the lightning, he could barely see a couple of yards in any direction. Again and again the lightning flashed through the deluge, and the thunder was so loud that it seemed to vibrate the deck beneath his feet. The intervals between flash and sound became shorter and shorter until the centre of the storm was directly overhead. In the brief moments when the sky lit up, Hector could see that the surface of the sea was beaten flat by the strength of the downpour. The tops of the waves were gone. Instead the ocean looked like a vast river, speckled and glistening and flowing by as the ship moved forward.

Then, as abruptly as it had begun, the deluge stopped.

Jacques sucked in his breath in surprise and seized Hector by the elbow.

‘Corposants,’ he exclaimed, pointing upwards.

A ghostly blue-white light had appeared at the mastheads. A pale luminous spike, as long as a man’s arm, was extending straight into the black sky from the tip of each spar. These spikes of light gave off an unearthly glow, which pulsated erratically – now bright, now fading and growing dim, only to become bright once again. After about a minute of this eerie display, Hector felt Jacques’ grip on his elbow tighten. The Frenchman indicated away to one side. Dozens more points of light had begun to spring up. This time they were growing from the ends of all the cross-spars, parallel to the sea. They too varied in intensity. Finally, in concert with what had gone before, strands of the same spectral light began to glow along the rigging, flickering and dancing in an unearthly rhythm.

‘What in God’s name causes that?’ demanded one of the helmsmen in a hushed voice.

No one answered. Everyone on deck was gazing upwards, their awestruck faces strangely illuminated.

The Delight sailed forward, seemingly suspended on the ink-black sea and outlined in a nimbus of unnatural fires. The phantom lights were miraculous. They burned, but consumed nothing. For perhaps five minutes the eerie display continued until, for no apparent reason, the ethereal signs began to diminish. They sank lower and lower until they were barely visible. Then they vanished.

‘I thought I heard a hissing sound,’ said Jezreel. He stepped out from shelter and peered up at the masts, as if expecting to find something burned or blackened.

At that instant there was an enormous, deafening bang, far louder than anything that had gone before. From ahead, out of the darkness, flew a series of bright, blazing projectiles. Yellow and white, they were like huge sparks thrown out by some enormous log that had split in the hearth. They came whizzing through the air, straight at the ship. Hector, too astonished to react, could only gape as they hurtled past. Later he would swear that he felt the wind of their passage. The air was filled with a sharp, burning smell and he recognized the stench of sulphur. He was still recovering from his astonishment when a second massive thunderclap seemed to take the air from his lungs. Again the blazing projectiles shot towards him out of the black night like a salvo of deadly fireworks. Forewarned this time, he ducked down, his ears ringing from the explosion.