Julian Stockwin - Artemis

Ahead lay the island. The officers' faces tightened as the frigate sailed closer. 'This is the island of Masbate, apparently,' Rowley said, in response to Salcedo's grunting. Artemis kept her course, anxious eyes staring forward all along her deck.

'Sir, we're standing into danger,' blurted Parry, fixing his eyes balefully on Salcedo, who continued to look ahead sullenly.

Powlett glanced at Salcedo. 'The passage through will be narrow and difficult, Mr Parry. We will follow this fellow's course.'

Kydd cast the lead once more. It plunged into the sea, but this time the line slackened. He hauled it taut quickly, and when the ship overtook it his hail changed. 'By the deep twelve!' The deadly coral now lay seventy-odd feet below the sea.

On the quarterdeck the group of men looked at each other. 'Steady on course!' said Rowley. The tension grew, and on deck seamen off watch looked at each other uneasily.

'By the mark ten!' Kydd pulled in the line quickly, hand over hand, and as he did so he caught a subliminal flicker of a paler shape passing swiftly below, followed by an indeterminate darker shape, before the sea resumed its usual deep blue-green.

It was always disturbing for a sailor to sense that things other than an infinite depth lay beneath the keel, and a coral sea-bed was quite outside Kydd's experience. Sixty feet, and Artemis drew about eighteen feet at her deepest, the stern.

Salcedo seemed edgy. His gaze was clamped as though fixing a mark, although there was nothing that remotely resembled a seamark on the lush slopes of the island ahead.

Kydd watched carefully. The red bunting hung wetly from the lead-line a few inches above the water. 'By the deep eight!' he bawled. Only thirty feet separated the vulnerable bottom of Artemis from the cruel coral. Now the alternating pale and dark was common. He shivered and brought in the line for another cast.

This time it was the Master who spoke. 'Sir, I should bring it to y'r attention - unless we bear away soon we will not weather the point.' He hesitated then continued, 'This is hard, sir, to stay quiet while we enter into hazard at the word of a Spaniard.'

Powlett snapped back, 'This will be a channel we are following — it makes no sense for the fellow to wreck us ashore.'

'By the mark five!' Kydd's hail carried clear to the quarterdeck. Ten feet below the keel! An instant stirring among the officers, but Salcedo continued to gaze doggedly ahead.

'This is too much, sir, we will be cast ashore!'

The Master confronted Powlett, who thrust him aside. 'Stand fast!' he roared.

At that moment there was a scuffle on the foredeck, and Pinto raced aft, followed by a shambling Goryo, clearly enjoying the effects of generous offerings of grog. 'Sir!' panted Pinto to the Captain, knuckling his forehead. 'This Ylongos, he tell me, we are condemn!' In his urgency the English wilted. Salcedo looked sharply at him and then at the Filipino.

'What?' Powlett bellowed.

Salcedo jabbered tensely at the Filipino, who shouted back.

Pinto's eyes stared wildly. 'Sir, they mean to run us on the reef, and leave us as plunder fer the natives!'

Chapter 10

For a split second there was a shocked silence, broken only by Kydd's anxious yell, 'By the deep four!' Then came a burst of simultaneous action. Salcedo dived for the bulwarks and was brought to the deck with a crash by Hallison; Powlett bellowed orders that had the frigate sheering into the wind to check her ongoing surge; and all hands rushed to the side to look down into the gin-clear waters.

The coral bottom was clearly visible twenty-five feet below, a riot of colourful rocks interspersed with bright patches of sandy bottom, with just enough depth to shade all with an ominous hue. The frigate drifted forward slowly despite her backed sails. The trap had been well sprung; heading for the sloping reef with the wind constant from astern, there was no way the square-rigged vessel could simply turn into the wind and claw off.

There was little time. As Artemis lay hove to, Powlett turned to Parry. 'Into the boat. Find a passage ahead out.' He wheeled on Salcedo. 'And get this villainous dog out of my sight — in irons!'

Parry lost no time in shedding his cocked hat and other encumbrances. He signalled to Doud, who went over the bulwarks and into the mizzen-chains pulling the bangkha up to allow Parry to board it, before following himself. The boat-boy headed over the side and emerged spluttering. He heaved himself up into the narrow craft and Doud surrendered the little steering oar to him.

Stopping only to claim Kydd's hand lead, the bangkha skimmed off at an angle.

Kydd took another lead-line and resumed his duty, watching the reef garden pass beneath them at a slow walking pace as the frigate drifted. He saw occasional heads of coral rising above the exotic undersea plain, their details horrifyingly clear.

Twenty feet.

All eyes were on the bangkha, which was half a mile off and seemed preoccupied with a particular area.

It was a fearful thing, to face the impending destruction of their magnificent fighting machine - but when it was also their home, their refuge, their everything . . . Kydd felt a cold uncertainty creeping into him. He gathered the line for another cast, but before he could begin the swing he felt the frigate tremble through his feet. Almost immediately another subliminal rumble came and then the ship's drifting was checked and the vessel seemed to pivot around slightly.

He heard a grumbling scrape at the hull. Aft, the sea grew rapidly cloudy with pale particles. Sudden fear showed in every face. Then the ship swung free and continued its slow drift.

Kydd looked around for the bangkha. It was a mile away, at the point off the end of the large island, but it was returning with Parry standing erect at peril of being taken by the long boom. The bangkha whirled to a stop a few hundred yards off the bow. Parry ducked the sail and stood. At his signal the vessel's fore topsail loosed and, with steerage way on, Artemis altered towards her. The bangkha waited, then skimmed ahead to another point.

They were still heading towards the island, but angling towards its tip, and Kydd felt instinctively that they were following a slightly deeper channel implied by a tide-scour around the point. Certainly the soundings had steadied. They passed close to the island, almost within earshot of the small group of villagers gathering on the sea-shore who watched in awe as the big ship passed so near. A few waved shyly, but the ship's rate of progress was so quick that they were the other side of the island and stretching away beyond in minutes.

The coral fell away rapidly to an anonymous cobalt blue. The carpenter clumped up from below to report a dry hold and Parry was cordially slapped on the back as he returned on deck. Pinto touched his forehead and spoke to Powlett. 'Th' Ylongos say, he know where we go, an' it is distant nine leagues — there he visit his brother,' he said. More sail was made and, to lifting hearts, Artemis foamed away over the glittering sea.

'A splendid sight, Captain.' Hobbes had finished his breakfast below unaware of the drama of the morning, and was now ready to take a stroll about the decks. He looked at Powlett curiously. 'I see your Spanish friend has incurred your wrath. He certainly appears unhappy at his fate, raging below that he is to be sacrificed when the ship strikes the rocks.' His expression was politely enquiring, but Powlett didn't enlighten him.

Ahead the impassable barrier loomed, but it soon became clear that the northern part overlapped the south, and before the noonday meal was piped they had taken on substance and reality — and a steep channel had opened between them. It widened and there was a slight swell. The southern point drew back to reveal a small but definite slot of daylight between the two land masses. The channel broadened more and they began breasting the swell that could only come from a great ocean, long, languorous and effortlessly driving into the shore.