Julian Stockwin - Conquest

When the mystified group had assembled he told them, ‘I’ve been advised that the odd-looking cloud to starboard means there’s a right clinker of a blow coming.’

The officers looked at each other uneasily. ‘Sir, you’re surely not giving ear t’ the Portuguee?’ Gilbey growled. ‘Such cat-blash as—’

‘We’ve a chance – a small one – to find out. If he’s right, we need to know about it. If he’s wrong, no harm done. There’s one whose intellects I’ve reason to trust, but he’s not aboard this day.’

The purser arrived, looking confused. ‘Ah, Mr Owen. Be so good as to open Mr Renzi’s cabin. Gentlemen, you are to make use of the library you’ll see there to discover references to this “Ox-eye” or in the Portuguese, “ Olho de boi ”.’

He smiled at their astonishment – he was sure Renzi would appreciate the drollery of the situation. ‘And I’ve no need to mention that time is pressing,’ he added, stepping aside to let them in.

They set to, each selected a volume from the neat racks occupying two sides of the cabin up to the deckhead, and brought it to the gunroom table where brows furrowed in concentration.

Even Kydd was amazed at the abstruse variety of Renzi’s reading. Thick works on the philosophies of the Ottomans, others on the agricultural practices of native peoples, still more on jurisprudence considered culturally – and, blessedly, a shelf and a half on travels and histories.

Curzon was the first to spot it. In a frayed book a century old, Mechanism Macrocosm by one Purshall, there was reference to ‘those Dreadful Storms on the coast of Africa, which the seamen call the “Ox-eye” from their Beginning’.

It was tantalising but more was needed. Bowden came upon a slim and very old piece, Discoveries and Voyages to the East and West Indies , a translated Dutch work with a passing reference, but then he struck gold in a dictionary. ‘ Olho de boi ’ – from Vocabulario Portuguez e Latino of the Lisbon of eighty years before. But it was all in Portuguese.

‘Get Pinto!’

Awed to be in the presence of so many expectant officers, he took the book gingerly, and frowned. ‘Ah, the Portuguese navigators o’ the Orient Sea, is what we call t’ the east of Africa. Where we is now,’ he said, in dawning wonder.

‘Get on with it!’ Gilbey said peevishly.

‘Be silent, sir!’ Kydd snapped. ‘Carry on, Pinto – anything as can show us what we face.’

‘Says, Ox-eye start from little, grow wi’ colour o’ the funeral, until the face of heaven he turn scareful an’ then the wind come. Captains mus’ lower yards an’ topmasts for is sudden an’ dreadful. It say our Bartolomeu Dias when he sail in this sea in 1488 he—’

‘Thank you, Pinto,’ Kydd said, and summoned the sailing master. ‘Mr Kendall, your opinion, please.’

He listened to the description, then rubbed his chin. ‘Aye, well, it sounds main like a weather gall, the most common being a rainbow. If that’s what it be, an’ so quick, then I’ve a notion it’s talking of a tropical storm in the character of a local blow, but it has to be very . . . intense, if y’ gets my meaning.’

‘We batten down.’

‘If’n the signs are there, sir.’

The Ox-eye had grown, spreading laterally across the horizon, darkening and adding livid yellow to the red in its centre in a menacing show of aggression. Oddly, there was no indication of an approaching tempest, no high winds, heaving swell – nothing but the broadening ugliness.

‘Frenchies don’t mind,’ muttered Gilbey. There was no sign of a slackening in the pace of the pursuit.

‘I’m thinking it’ll be all of a sudden, like, when it comes,’ Kendall said, troubled. ‘All that talk o’ striking topmasts an’ such.’

Kydd hesitated – there was still a wild chance they could make the safety of night, and if he was wrong he would be for ever damned as a looby in the Navy. Then, there was a flurry in the steady north-easterly, a flaw that set the sails to a momentary bellying and slatting before settling. And it had come from out of the east – right in line with the baneful Ox-eye, which was now distorted and barely distinguishable in the crepuscular wall of melancholy occupying near half the horizon.

‘We do it!’ he muttered. He turned to the master and ordered, ‘Lay us alongside each of the Indiamen – they’ll have to know we haven’t lost our wits.’

The first was disbelieving and tried to object but Kydd was adamant. The second had heard vaguely of the phenomenon and was more prepared to comply. Both were sent to strike tophamper and distance themselves from each other.

‘Mr Kendall, bosun – we’re to douse all sail and send down topmasts. And we bring down the lower yards a-portlast!’ This action of laying the heavy spars down across the gunwales would lower the centre of gravity.

The pursuing French were visibly put out: as sail vanished from their prey they themselves took in canvas, unsure, wary of a trap. But it was becoming very apparent that something dire was brewing.

By the time L’Aurore ’s yards were down the sky overhead was darkening, the sunlight cut off and the entire eastern aspect hung in livid, hideous greens and ochre upon the mass of dark grey. It had been only an hour or so from the first sighting of the Ox-eye when the winds began to break loose, slamming in from the north-east off the bow to past the beam, directly from the east. If sail had not been brought in they would certainly have been caught aback.

More spiteful blasts rattled the rigging, and combers could be seen here and there, startling white against the grey, the wind now driving almost always from the east. There was little talk along the decks, as men stared out at the gathering phenomenon.

Then they witnessed a strange sheeting across the surface of the sea: unnatural, flat, fan-like shapes of torn white instantly spreading and being replaced randomly by others, so when the wind hit, it was with a shocking force that sent men teetering and set L’Aurore to an uneasy rolling.

This was like nothing Kydd had experienced before. He grabbed a line and tried to peer into the lunatic hammering from the east. The entire sea was now flattened into a tortured expanse of white, yet waves had not appeared – was it that the ‘fetch’ of the winds was too short to build up a sea?

Again strangely, there was no rain – the darkness overhead threatened a deluge but the slam of wind remained dry, then grew damply warm in a ferocious onslaught, droning and howling dismally among L’Aurore ’s stark rigging. The frigate for some reason started a nervous wallow and Kydd saw that it was because her head had fallen off the wind, which bullied and blustered mercilessly at her side, slewing her broadside to it.

It could only be that the sea-anchor, prudently led over the bows, had parted. Broadside to the blast L’Aurore rolled like a log, viciously and frighteningly, but Kydd knew the experienced fo’c’slemen would be doing all they could to get another out quickly.

Then the rain came: in storm-driven downpours, bruising torrents that had Kydd bent double to breathe, his sodden, flogging garments a trial as he held on grimly. There was a perceptible quiver and lurch, and L’Aurore was sullenly jibbing to the second sea-anchor, bringing round to face the wind once more.

The merchantmen had long since disappeared into the chaos of spume and darkness and the immediate need was to endure. God knew where they’d have been if they had not struck the topmasts and laid the yards down. No doubt in times past ships must have encountered this terrifying phenomenon and never lived to tell the tale, just vanished into the deep.