Tim Severin - Sea Robber

The entire crew lined the rail as the Delight glided past the extraordinary sight. No one spoke. All were unnerved by the melancholy spectacle.

‘Maybe there’s someone still aboard,’ said Hector.

Cook snorted in disbelief. ‘Not a chance. That ship is a graveyard at best.’

‘At least let me check. There may be something to salvage,’ Hector begged.

‘Very well, but we won’t waste time. You have an hour, no more.’ He turned and shouted an order that the sails were to be brailed up.

Hector hurried to the cockboat, and within minutes Jezreel was rowing him and Dan towards the wreck. With a final powerful stroke he propelled the little boat right up on to the ice so that Hector and Dan could step out, dry-shod.

‘Jezreel, stay here and be ready to pick us up. We won’t be long,’ Hector said over his shoulder as he and his friend crunched their way through the frozen snow alongside the stranded ship.

She was a bark, less than half the size of the Delight . There was no name on her stern to identify her, and any flag or distinguishing mark had long since gone.

‘How do you think she got here?’ Hector asked.

‘I’d say she ran on the ice by accident, in the dark and during a gale,’ Dan answered.

‘Then what happened to her crew?’

‘There’s only one way to find out.’ The Miskito scrambled in through the gap where the hull had split. Hector followed cautiously.

The interior of the hull was dimly lit by shafts of light falling through ragged holes where the deck above them had fallen away. Inside was a jumble of debris – broken planks and barrels, anonymous bundles and crates, scraps of cloth. It was difficult to be sure what anything was because everything was coated in ice or half-buried in small drifts of snow that had accumulated.

Moving cautiously, the two men picked their way through the rubbish to a companionway that led up to the deck. Dan brushed away a thin scattering of snow, which lay on the steps of the companionway. His breath steamed in the shaft of light from the open hatch above.

‘I doubt we’ll find much. Whoever was on board left with what they could salvage.’

He mounted the steps and called down, ‘All the ship’s boats are missing. The vessel was abandoned by the survivors.’

Hector followed him up on to the deck and looked around. There was little to see. The vessel was bare.

‘Dan, go forward and search,’ he said. ‘I’ll try aft. There must be some clue as to why the vessel is here.’

The slant of the wreck made it awkward to clamber up on to the quarterdeck, and he was obliged to haul himself up by a side rail, using both hands. Again he found nothing of interest. The vessel had been stripped.

He was descending carefully to the main deck when he heard a shout from Jezreel. He was gesturing towards the Delight and calling out that they should hurry. Hector looked across the water and could see men on deck, bracing the yards around. Cook was preparing to sail on.

Hector was on the point of abandoning the search when he noticed a low, narrow door under the midships rail. He guessed that it must lead to the captain’s cabin. He tested the door, but it was either jammed by ice or the frame had warped. Hector put his shoulder to the panel and gave a hefty shove. The door grated open and he peered inside. The cabin was tiny, no more than eight feet square and with a roof so low it would have been impossible to stand upright. Even in the gloom Hector could see that the room was bare of furniture except for a narrow bunk along the far wall, a small stool tipped over on its side and what looked like a rumpled coat dropped on the floor. On second glance Hector saw that what he had taken as a discarded coat was the carcass of a gaunt, hairy dog. It had dark brindle markings and was almost the size of a small calf. It lay curled up, its lips drawn back to show the teeth, and rigid in frozen death.

Outside Jezreel called again, urging him to come on, but something prompted Hector to step across to the narrow bunk. In it lay the stiff corpse of a man. The icy conditions had preserved the cadaver. Only his face and one hand were visible. The rest of the body was concealed under a blanket that the dead man must have drawn up around his neck to try to keep out the cold. He looked to have been about fifty years old, with a few wisps of grey hair, and there was a scar across the bridge of his nose that might have been left by a sword cut. Like the dog, the man’s lips were drawn back in a grimace, and the cheeks had fallen in. If he had not died of cold, he had perished of starvation.

The light in the cabin was very poor. Hurriedly Hector looked around, hoping to see some papers, a chart, something that might yield information about the vessel. There was nothing. He reached down to pull the blanket further up and cover the dead man’s face. In doing so he dislodged the man’s hand, which clutched at the edge of the cloth. There was a faint clinking sound, and Hector saw that the dead man had been clutching a small medallion at the moment of his death. Very gently he reached out and turned the medallion. Its surface was worn. One side was so smooth he could see nothing. But on the other face he could just make out what looked like a bird, perhaps a hawk, and around it a wreath of leaves. He pulled at the medallion, thinking to take it out into the daylight and examine it more closely. But it was attached to a chain around the dead man’s neck, and Hector felt he risked becoming a grave robber. Instead, he eased the blanket up to cover the corpse’s face. Then he turned to leave.

Dan was already coming towards him, slipping and sliding along the sloping deck. ‘Better hurry,’ he called. ‘I don’t doubt that Cook will leave us here if we stay any longer.’

Hector looked out towards the Bachelor’s Delight . One corner of the main-course was already being let loose. Soon the ship would get under way.

The two men ran across the snow to where Jezreel was waiting. He had already turned the boat’s stern to the ice so that the two men could jump aboard, and as soon as they had joined him, he began to row with quick, powerful strokes.

They caught up with their ship just as she was gathering pace, and scrambled on to her, out of breath as the crew hoisted in the cockboat.

‘You took your time, so what did you find?’ demanded Cook. He was angry at the delay.

‘Very little. The vessel probably ran on to the ice in a storm. She was too badly damaged to be refloated, so her crew took the boats and all that was useful and set off.’

Cook scanned the expanse of sea around them. ‘Then I doubt they survived.’

‘It must have been a year ago, maybe more,’ said Dan.

‘She was a Spanish ship?’

‘Probably,’ said Hector.

‘No charts we could use?’

‘Nothing. I found what I think was her captain. He died in his bunk. My guess is that he chose to stay behind, for whatever reason.’

‘This is a dreadful place, and the sooner we get clear of it, the better,’ admitted Cook. He had shed his usual self-confident manner and looked sombre. ‘From now on, we post two men at all times in the maintop on the lookout for ice. And I don’t care how cold it is, or how much wind there is. If necessary we draw lots for who goes up there.’

No one contradicted him or questioned his order. As the Bachelor’s Delight sailed onwards, the crew were noticeably subdued as they went about their tasks. From time to time they cast furtive glances over the stern. It was as if they had encountered a horrific nightmare, which they knew they would be unable to forget. Hector could only wonder how much longer – whether months or years – the two corpses would continue to drift on the current with a ship for a coffin and an ice island as their catafalque.