Tim Severin - Sea Robber

‘This was our position yesterday at noon,’ said Vlucht, laying a grimy finger on the map. Hector took in the situation at a glance. The Westflinge lay a little south of the direct route from the Thief Islands to Manila, less than a hundred miles from the Philippines. The makhana had been a remarkable navigator. The sakman had followed the patache’s track like a bloodhound.

‘And where are you headed?’ Hector asked.

The Frisian’s finger hesitated and then slid across the map, south and west. It came to rest on a cluster of islands. ‘Tidore is our destination.’

Hector looked up at Vlucht in surprise. ‘But that’s in the Moluccas, the Spice Islands.’

‘Indeed it is,’ said the Frisian. A crafty look crept into his eyes. ‘Young man, I do not take you for a fool, and doubtless you have guessed already that I would seek to avoid anything to do with the Company. But I have had dealings with the Sultan of Tidore, and we have an understanding.’

Hector looked back down at the chart. It was all laid out before him. A series of small crosses and pin pricks marked the Westflinge ’s outward track. The ship had sailed from the Spice Islands, visited the port of Hoksieu in China and then begun to retrace her route.

Vlucht guessed his thoughts. ‘The Chinese turned us away at the instigation of the Company’s agent of course, and because they saw a chance to get something for nothing. The contagion spread because my crew were denied a chance to go ashore and recuperate, or even to have a change of diet, because the port authorities also refused to let us take on fresh supplies. For the past month we’ve been limping south, with scarcely enough men to manage the ship.’

‘But you will find an agent of the Company in Tidore as well.’

Vlucht’s voice had a contemptuous edge. ‘The Company isn’t as all-powerful as it likes to make out. The Sultan of Tidore pretends to heed what their local agent says, and even allows the Company to keep a few soldiers on his island. But he has plenty of back-door dealings with the likes of me.’

‘Do you think the Westflinge in her present condition can make it as far as Tidore?’

‘We could always divert to Manila. That’s closer.’ A sly look passed across Vlucht’s face as he made the suggestion.

Hector thought about what might happen to Maria if they sailed into a Spanish-controlled port. She would be arrested as a runaway and a traitor. He felt the Dutchman’s eyes on him, watching for a reaction.

‘I believe my friends would be willing to help get the ship to Tidore,’ he said.

‘I thought you might prefer that course,’ said Vlucht meaningfully. ‘When I heard you and the young lady speaking Spanish together, and I took account of the strange circumstances of your arrival, it occurred to me that your own situation is similar to my own – there are certain places we would wish to avoid.’ He sat down heavily on his bed, beads of sweat breaking out on his grey face. ‘I’m in no condition to bring my ship to Tidore, so I would welcome your help. I suggest you check the hold. You’ll see there’s no time to be lost.’

Hector left the Frisian in his cabin, and went to find Dan. As he made his way across the main deck he noticed that Jezreel and Stolck had already carried several of the invalids out on deck, and that Jacques was stoking up a fire in the galley. Dan had filled a bucket with a mixture of wood chips, rags and tar, ready to fumigate the forecastle.

‘Dan, leave that to Jezreel. I think the two of us should take a look below,’ he said. Together they removed a hatch cover and descended into the darkness of the cargo hold. If anything, it was gloomier than the forecastle and it too had a strong smell. Hector pinched his nose.

‘Cloves. It’s lucky the ship was carrying a cargo of spice to China. This hold hasn’t been cleaned for years, and someone’s been using it as a latrine,’ he said. The distinctive fragrance of cloves was still discernible, overlying the stench of human waste.

Dan went forward, stooping low under the deck beams as he explored. ‘Nothing much here,’ he called back. ‘Just a few odds and ends. A couple of boxes. The ship is virtually empty.’ He paused. ‘Do you hear that noise? Let’s check the bilges.’ They could hear the slop and gurgle of water surging back and forth beneath their feet. Dan hooked his fingers underneath a deck board and prised it up. They peered down into the dark gap. A shaft of light from the open hatch above them glinted off a black, gleaming surface less than a foot below.

‘No wonder she rides so sluggishly,’ Hector exclaimed. ‘There must be at least four feet of water in the bilge.’

They stared in dismay at the gently swirling water.

‘The crew did not have the strength to pump her out,’ said Dan. ‘Let’s hope the leaks are not too bad.’

They hurried back up to question Vlucht, who told them that the vessel hadn’t been pumped for a week. He’d intended to dry her out and recaulk her hull in China, but that was another thing the Chinese had refused to allow. He suspected the Westflinge ’s seams were seeping badly.

Hector called a hasty conference with his companions. The five of them were enough to set and manage the sails, handle the ship, keep watch and steer. But whether they could keep the ship afloat long enough to reach Tidore was another matter.

‘We’ll have to take it in turns to man the pump and see if we can lighten the ship. If she continues this waterlogged, she’ll barely crawl.’

‘We can start by dumping her cannon overboard,’ suggested Jezreel. ‘There’re several tons of useless metal there.’

Hector was more cautious. ‘Let’s keep one gun each side. Just in case we have to defend the ship. There are enough of us to make a single gun crew.’

Jezreel went off to find an axe and a maul, and soon he and Dan had hacked a hole in each bulwark wide enough for the guns. They found long hand-spikes and, one by one, levered the cannon into the gaps and shoved them overboard. They made a satisfyingly deep plumping sound as they struck the water and vanished into the opaque depths. Then the team moved to the halyards and sheets and set more sail. There was a steady breeze out of the north-east, and with an adjustment to her mizzen sail, they found they could make a course for the Spice Islands without the help of the rudder, so they left the whipstaff lashed in place.

‘Time to try the pump,’ said Jezreel. He and Stolck went to the aft side of the mainmast, where the T-shaped handle of the pump protruded from the deck. Like her steering gear, the Westflinge ’s bilge pump was an old-fashioned affair. A wooden tube made from a hollowed-out tree trunk led to a foot valve in the bilge, and a long shaft worked up and down to provide suction. They gave the pump handle a tentative pull and, after a couple of strokes, the water began to trickle out on to the deck and run to the scuppers.

‘Twenty minutes each,’ grunted Jezreel as he began to send a steady jet of water across the deck.

Hector took an oar from the skiff and went back below to plumb the bilge. As he had feared, there was close on four feet of water. With his knife he scratched a mark on the oar handle as a reference. Turning to leave, his eye fell on a line drawn with chalk on one of the frames. Above it someone had scrawled a crude cross in broad strokes. He guessed it marked the level at which someone had calculated the ship would founder and drown her crew. The line was less than a foot above the water.

Twenty minutes at a time, the men took it in turns to pump. Jacques rummaged through the cook’s stores and found some dried peas, half a cask of rancid butter and a box of biscuit. The last was mostly dust and weevils, so he cooked up a thin gruel, which Maria fed the invalids, though several of them had mouths too damaged to accept the food.