Julian Stockwin - Seaflower

As Kydd stared at the ruin, the stern fell off the wind — the line to the sea-anchor had given way. He whipped up the telescope. In sharp detail he saw the after end of the vessel sag away to leeward and the fire leap up triumphantly. Dark figures fell into the sea as the flames advanced on the poop.

The calm seas around the stern became agitated. Flickers of white in dark flurries puzzled him for a moment until he understood — survivors in the water were being taken by sharks. His hands shook as he held the telescope. With a sick horror he saw the remaining figures on the poop hesitating between being burned to death or eaten alive by sharks. One by one they toppled into the water or danced insanely before crumpling into a briefly seen dark mass in the flames.

Seaflowr curved smoothly into the wind and her longboat splashed into the water. Kydd watched as it pulled towards the hulk, now no more than a blackened wreck, a dying ember. The hideous twitching around the stern was now irregular and the desolate stink of the fire drifted down on them. The boat reached the still smoking hull and circled around. It returned with a pitiably burned corpse. 'Weren't none made it, sir,' the bowman said sofdy. 'We c'n give 'em a Christian burial, like.'

'No - they stay with their ship. They go together.'

'Tom, mate!' whispered the carpenter's mate, plucking Kydd's sleeve. 'Come an' 'ave a squiz 'tween-decks.' Wondering at Snead's peculiar air of anxiety, Kydd followed him down the fore-hatch below.

Chasing aside seamen at the galley, Snead lifted the access grating to the forward hold and dropped inside, listening intently in the musty gloom. Satisfied, he hauled himself out. 'Tell me what y' hears,' he said, his lined grey eyes serious.

Kydd let himself down. As quartermaster he had the stowage of the hold, but that was in port or calm waters. Now, in this increasingly boisterous sea, wasn't the time to be rummaging among the big water barrels or tightly tommed-down stores. He hunkered down in the cramped space and listened carefully, bracing himself against the cutter's roll. Nothing at first, but then he heard over the swish of sea on the outside of the hull an intermittent sibilance as quiet and deadly as a snake. In time with the roll came a sudden rushing hiss which for a seaman had only one meaning: 'We've sprung a plank somewhere on th' waterline — takin' in water fast!'

Snead looked at him peculiarly. 'Yair, but when I sounds the bilges, ain't any water!'

'What? None?' Kydd asked. It was peculiar to a degree — the rushing hiss returned with every roll, and at this rate the water should be at least a foot deep in the lower hold.

'Don't like it, cully,' Snead grumbled. 'What say you 'n' I 'as a word wi' the Cap'n?'

'Heard o' this happenin' to a cargo o' rice - swells when it's wet, it does,' Merrick said.

Jarman stroked his jaw. 'Nothin' stowed below that I knows of like that,' he said slowly. 'But there's some kind o' - something — that's soaking it up fast...'

'No chances. We heave down and get at it from the outside,' Farrell said with finality. 'I believe Islas Engano will answer.'

Kydd was relieved. A small cutter like Seaflower could easily find an island to beach between tides and get at the hull planking from the outside, and in this case the sooner the better. They raised the island late in the afternoon. Because the leak was getting no worse — in fact, the vessel was still mysteriously dry — they anchored in its lee to wait out the night. A passing rain-squall spattered and then deluged the decks. Only the disconsolate lookouts fore and aft remained, the rest were snug below.

In the free discipline of a cutter, there would be no 'pipe down hammocks' or other big-ship ways. And now at anchor was a time when a sailor could relax, no fear of an 'All the haaands!’ to send him on deck, no sudden course-change requiring the vessel to tack about — instead the sewing 'housewife', the gleefulness of dice play, the scrimshaw, the endless letter ...

Lanthorns spread a warm golden glow in the crew spaces and the hum of his shipmates' conversation was a reassuring backdrop to Kydd's thoughts. Renzi's musings about his future had awakened possibilities that were unsettling. It seemed that Renzi believed he was destined for something beyond quartermaster - that could only be master's mate, which required an Admiralty warrant . ..

He watched Stirk throw a double trey at the dice with a roar of satisfaction - did he concern himself with times unknown? Unforeseeable circumstances? Himself in twenty years? Of course not! Kydd setded back in his hammock and listened to the drumming of rain on the deck above, grateful to be dry and warm. The rain eased, then stopped. Kydd slipped into drowsiness, unperturbed by the noises of his shipmates' pastimes and merriment, sure of himself and the world he had made his own.

A soft dawn revealed their island to have a long sandy beach, suitable to heave down Seaflower and get at the leak. Kydd had tried to localise the sound of inrushing water but, bafflingly, it had died away as they anchored.

The cutter gently grounded on the sand of the beach and was brought broadside to in the gentle waves. Snead waited in the longboat while lines were secured to her mast, taken to a tackle on a sizeable palm ashore and back to the windlass. Snead only needed to see the waterline region and it took little effort to achieve the required cant to one side. "Tain't this side,' he called from the boat, after going the length of the cutter. Seaflower was laboriously refloated and rotated for a survey of the other side — with the same result. A perfectly sound hull.

'Only one thing left t' do,' Kydd muttered. They would have to rouse out the entire contents of the hold to put paid to the mystery, a long and tedious process. Starting from forward the first of the stores were brought out and laid against the after end of the crew space. Kydd saw that the men were well positioned in chain to pass up the provisions, and turned to go.

He was stopped by an incredulous shout. 'God rot me! Come 'ere, Mr Kydd!' Hurrying over to the fore hold, Kydd looked down. A seaman was standing and pointing to what he had found in the close stowage of the hold. It was a substantial-sized cask with its head knocked in, and in it was the remains of what it had contained — peas, dried for stowing, a sea of seven hundredweight of hard peas. And as the ship rolled, the peas had swished from side to side in the smooth barrel, sounding exactly like the hiss of inrushing water.

They made good sailing in clear conditions and secured a morning landfall on the odd-looking island of Alto Velo, off the southernmost point of Hispaniola. 'We will take the inside passage, I believe, Mr Jarman,' said Farrell, inspecting the stretches of low, flat land to the north and the peaked dome of Alto Velo to the south.

The swell increased as they approached, a peculiar, angled swell that felt uneasy. Over to the north-west a serried rank of sharp-peaked mountains appeared out of the bright haze, white-topped and distant. Kydd growled at the helmsman when the Seaflower's topsail fluttered, his eyes flicking astern to check her wake. It was straight — the ever-reliable trade winds were slowly but surely backing; it was not the fault of the helmsman. 'Wind's backing,' he called to Jarman.

'Just so,' said the sailing master. 'Those mountains, t' weather.' His mouth clamped tight and he glared generally to windward.

'We have the current in our favour, Mr Jarman,' Farrell said mildly. 'Sir.'

The swell angled more and met a south-going counterpart that had Seaflower wallowing in confused jerking in the cross seas. Unfriendly green waves slopped and bullied on to her decks, sluicing aft to wet Farrell's shoes. They passed through the passage, the wind backing so far that Seaflower had to strike her square sails entirely. Once through, the predominant westerly current and north-easterly winds reasserted themselves and the way was clear for the final run to Jamaica. But for one thing. A brig-of-war. Five miles ahead across their path, her two masts foreshortening as she altered course purposefully towards them.