Tim Severin - Sea Robber

‘How does he know which way to steer?’ Hector asked Ma’pang quietly as they ate a meal of raw fish. The charcoal for the cooking fire had been saturated.

‘The wind and waves tell him,’ answered the Chamorro. ‘Kepuha will not lose his way. You need not worry.’

But Hector did continue to fret. All that day and the next a veil of heavy cloud obscured the sky, and he became increasingly doubtful that the makhana could succeed in tracking down the patache. The more he thought about their mission, the worse seemed the odds against success. Quietly he resigned himself to the moment when Ma’pang would announce that they must turn back for Rota before their supplies ran out, and he wondered how his companions would react to the failure. Maria, he was relieved to observe, had come to terms with the tedium and the cramped conditions of the voyage. She would sit in the door of the little shelter, watching the pattern of the waves. Occasionally her watchfulness was rewarded with a brief sighting of sea life – the leap of a dolphin or, once, a pod of whales so close to the sakman that the fishy smell of their exhalation swept across the boat. By contrast, Jezreel with his massive frame accumulated bruises and scrapes as he moved around the crowded vessel. Jacques showed an almost limitless capacity to doze away the time, and Dan was happy to pass hour after hour with a fishing line. Stolck, however, was a cause for concern. A rash of salt-water sores, raw and oozing, had developed on his wrists and ankles where his clothes rubbed, and he appeared to be sinking into a profound depression.

The fifth day of their voyage began under the same lowering grey sky. The sakman had run smoothly all through the night with a steady breeze on the beam, and Hector calculated that she was covering ten miles every hour on the long swell rolling across their track. He had just finished eating his breakfast – a fist-sized lump of the sour breadfruit mash – when he noticed that Kepuha had risen to his feet and was staring intently downwind. The young man turned to look in the same direction, but could see nothing except the rounded backs of the waves as they travelled towards the horizon. Nevertheless, Kepuha stood there for several minutes. He seemed alert, yet puzzled. After an interval he spoke to one of the Chamorro crewmen, who made his way to the foot of the mainstay and began to haul himself aloft. From there the lookout called down to the deck.

‘What’s he say?’ Hector asked Ma’pang.

‘There’s a guirrago ship in the distance. About ten miles away.’

Kepuha was beckoning. ‘You better come with me,’ said Ma’pang to Hector. ‘This is a surprise and may change our plans.’

Ma’pang and the makhana conferred briefly. Then Ma’pang turned to Hector and said, ‘Kepuha is certain the ship to the south of us cannot be the patache. It is in the wrong place.’

Hector refrained from asking how the shaman was so sure about the distant vessel. He feared the question would offend the old man. Instead he said, ‘Perhaps we should investigate.’

There was a rapid exchange between the two Chamorro, and then Ma’pang nodded. ‘Kepuha says that if we change course now, we’ll lose time and may not catch up with the patache.’ His deep-set brown eyes searched Hector’s face. ‘I leave the choice to you.’

Hector was in a quandary. The sakman had shown that she was fast enough to overtake her prey, but even if both vessels had shared the same weather conditions – and that was by no means certain – the Chamorro might already have overhauled the Spaniards and sailed right past them in the darkness or in poor visibility. On the other hand, the unknown vessel could be well armed and powerful enough to beat off an attack by Chamorro pirates. Then he remembered Maria’s fears that they’d kill her countrymen. The unknown vessel might not be Spanish and yet might carry weapons the Chamorro could plunder.

‘I say we try our luck with that stranger,’ he said.

At a shout from Ma’pang, two of his crew began to ease out the mainsheet. Two others brought the forward corner of the sail aft until it was level with the mast, and a third eased on the halyard. The great sail ballooned out across the vessel, almost flying free. The sakman turned and began to sail downwind, the bow dipping and rising as the ocean swells overtook her.

‘WHAT SORT OF ship do you think she is?’ Hector asked Dan half an hour later. The two men, loaded muskets in hand, were in the bow of the sakman, trying to make sense of what they saw less than half a mile away.

The unknown vessel appeared to be a small merchantman of about a hundred tons. She had an unusual, very old-fashioned appearance. Two small aft decks rose one on the other to give a high, narrow stern, and there was a long run amidships to a low, shortened forecastle, so that she looked as though at any moment she would topple forward and bury her nose in the sea. She was rigged with three masts, but had only her foresail set, barely enough to propel her forward. She sat unnaturally low in the water, and was wallowing and pitching aimlessly. The sail flapped and slatted, and there were regular glimpses of a rich green coating of weed and growth clinging to her hull. Her rigging was slack and slovenly, and even at that distance an unhappy groaning could be heard as her masts worked in their steps. Most puzzling of all, she showed no signs of having seen the sakman bearing down on her.

‘There,’ exclaimed Dan. ‘Did you see it? Someone on her quarterdeck.’

Hector looked closely, but could see nothing. The vessel’s rudder was banging back and forth, swinging loosely from side to side. It appeared there was no one at the helm.

‘It could be a trap,’ said Stolck, who had come up behind them. He looked more animated now that there was something unusual happening, and he too carried a loaded musket.

‘Dan thought he saw a movement,’ said Hector.

Stolck gave a grunt and crouched down. He rested the barrel of his musket on the edge of the canoe’s hull and aimed at the merchantman. ‘If anything moves again, I’ll deal with it.’

The sakman was closing the gap very rapidly. Hector had advised Ma’pang to approach from directly astern, the point at which the strange vessel would be unable to use her broadside, if she had one. Now he worried that the sakman was moving so quickly she’d overshoot her victim.

‘Where is everyone on that ship?’ asked Jacques.

It was puzzling. Aboard the merchantman there was no one in the rigging or on deck. Several ropes trailed over her side, dragging through the water.

Stolck was muttering under his breath. He sounded irritable and impatient. ‘They’re waiting until we are alongside. Then they run out their guns and we’ll be blasted to pieces. I’ll give them something to think about.’

Without warning he pulled the trigger of his musket. The sound of the gunshot echoed across the water, and Hector saw splinters fly up from a stanchion under the poop rail. But once again there was no reaction.

Hector glanced back over his shoulder. Ma’pang was in the stern at the steering paddle, and three of his crew had made their way to the outrigger struts. They crouched behind the little cabin, hidden from anyone on the merchantman. With a knot in his stomach, Hector realized the cabin was the obvious target for any gunfire from the strange vessel. Maria had decided to stay out of sight inside, and its flimsy thatch would provide no shelter from a musket ball. She’d be far safer crouched in the bottom of the sakman’s main hull. But it was too late to do anything about that now.

The sakman was very close, less than a stone’s throw from the high stern of the vessel. Hector looked up, trying to distinguish the flag. But the cloth was tangled around its staff. He could only make out part of a white stripe on a blue background and a small red blotch.