Peril on the Sea Read online

  Sherwin pulled, hand over hand, with his novel companions, and there was a quality of cheerful teamwork to the effort. But there was a quality of suspicion in the sideways glances of a few of the seamen, too, as Sherwin betrayed some clumsiness at hauling on the line.

  Sherwin believed that he understood why.

  In a world of instant death, the idea of luck was more essential to a mariner than to a townsman. Sherwin and Bartholomew were both questionable, having survived their respective misfortunes. They might be the best sort of shipmates to have on board, blessed with an additional power to survive. Or they might be just the opposite, the kind that attracted trouble.

  Securing the ship upon the shingle and sand of the beach was a matter of careening her, and that was accomplished by men pulling on the rope attached to the masts and hauling with a unified effort. Sherwin joined in, as did everyone but the captain, who stumped along the shore, with his gaze to seaward, and Highbridge, who stood with one hand on the ship’s prow like a man calming a nervous mare.

  The ship very gradually heeled over.

  The task was achieved to the singsong heave, oh, with a firm emphasis on the oh. The ship took on her new position as required, leaning on her side, and although the masts bobbed forlornly and the ratlines went slack on the downward side and taut on the other, the ship appeared sturdy enough to weather the indignity of exposing the barnacles and sea growth of her keel.

  THERE WAS A FURTHER FORMALITY that did much to ease what might have been the lingering doubts of a few of Sherwin’s new shipmates.

  Highbridge opened a large, leather-bound book, placed it out of the wind, in the shadow of the ship, and anchored the pages with stones from the shingle-strewn beach.

  The first mate was quietly reserved, as before, and he dipped a quill into an inkhorn with a grave manner. He said, “If you will write your name, sir, alongside all of ours.”

  By signing the ship’s articles, Sherwin knew, and by joining the vessel’s company, he was entitling himself to share in a percentage, however small his fraction, of her earnings. He was also committing himself to profit by the prizes taken by a captain of no great virtue, a man who did not balk at robbing his own countrymen. And Sherwin could foresee a cloudy future, his reputation tainted.

  But he could also see himself becoming the confidant of a captain who knew more of the world than nearly any other mortal. Sherwin had already agreed to write this man’s story, a tale any person in the world would be sure to find fascinating.

  And even more exciting, in Sherwin’s view, he saw the possibility of a war against Spain, with Captain Fletcher playing an essential role, and Sherwin there to earn his portion of renown.

  Besides all that, there was money to be won.

  Sherwin was aware that he was being watched as he took the quill in hand. He read the articles, which had been penned with a Greenwich clerk’s steady hand. He would receive his share, like the other officers of the ship, of one-twentieth of her prizes—far more than an able seaman, and as much as the surgeon.

  The final phrase caught his eye: God save and defend Her Majesty.

  Sherwin signed willingly, and with a thrill, believing that with the squeaking of the quill against the broad page he was already embarking on the defense of his country.

  IV

  HAZARDAND

  DEATH

  13

  THE RAIN HAD CEASED, and the sun made inroads into the overcast clouds. The shore resembled bread that had been broken and scattered, with some round loaves remaining intact and others crumbled into chunks of brown crust.

  Sherwin felt dismay at the manner in which the vessel, so stalwart at sea, appeared utterly helpless on shore. She was, even so, an impressive ship. The Vixen was a type of vessel made popular by Fletcher’s rival privateer John Hawkins, who had found that the old-fashioned carracks with their towering forecastles were less seaworthy than a ship with more modest lines. Like most such galleons, the Vixen had three masts, square-rigged on her fore- and mainmast, with her mizzen mast, nearest her stern, rigged for a slanting sail.

  Sherwin took the opportunity to look into the gaze of her figurehead, the carved image of a woman with blue eyes and black hair, one arm sweeping across her breast in modesty or self-defense. This hand held two arrows, and the figure’s outlines were well coated with paint, down to the gilded points of the arrowheads. Sherwin had rarely seen a statue of any kind—the churches had been cleansed of the images of saints during the religious upheaval well before Sherwin’s childhood, and looking at this larger-than-life image stirred his deepest deference.

  Captain Fletcher crunched across the shore to join Sherwin gazing at the carved figure, who in her nearly horizontal position looked like a matron whose dignity was nearly under doubt.

  “I had this ship shadow-built to my design, some twenty years past,” said Fletcher. Shadow-built meant that no drawn plan had been used, only the exacting vision of the builder.

  Sherwin knew something of boatwrights, having grown up around the wherries and scull-boats of the river Thames. The construction, out of a single vision, of a ship like the Vixen struck Sherwin as nothing short of marvelous.

  “Is the ship as fine as you had hoped?” Sherwin asked.

  “She is the very echo of my dream,” said the captain, gazing at the vessel with an air of affectionate pride. “When it came to this stalwart maiden, the figurehead, the carver followed my orders, but he wanted her to clasp a cross.” He gave the wooden figure a caress. “He was an older man with, I think, antiquated religious sympathies. I thought arrows were more fitting.”

  The captain added, without pause, or change of tone, “We are being watched.”

  A HEAVILY CLOAKED FIGURE was observing the ship from the summit of the cliff, a young woman, Sherwin judged, with light brown hair.

  “I am not well pleased by having a witness,” said Captain Fletcher, “especially when my pretty ship is lying on her beams. I hope to be at sea again by midnight, after the next flood tide. Until then a visit by a port constable or one of his tipstaves would be unwelcome.” Tipstaves were a constable’s attendants, notorious for putting their staves to rough use.

  “Is concealment so very important?” asked Sherwin.

  “We need secrecy while we heal. Do you see this wound,” added the captain, “there below the waterline?”

  The captain indicated a tear-shaped gash below the gunports, like a long single claw mark ending in a round hole. As matter-of-fact as the wound was, exposed to the daylight, Sherwin’s breath caught at the sight, the secret wound looking small but mortal.

  “Made by a Spanish gun firing ten-pound shot,” said the captain. “It pains me to see such an injury. The carpenter and his mate will have her mended, under my care, but we’ve been taking on water, and with the trouble to come we can’t let the damage go untended. She’ll be seaworthy again by nightfall, but until then we are vulnerable.”

  “What,” Sherwin found himself asking, hoping that he already knew the answer, “is the trouble that is bound to come?”

  “A great fleet, as men describe it,” said the captain. “The largest navy ever to set sail, if the drain of shipwrights from Porto to Parma, from what I hear, is any evidence. This would be the greatest sea force of all time—a historic armada—if the reports are true.”

  To hear the possibility so described gave Sherwin a quiet thrill—and a surprising degree of dread, too.

  “And you’ll want the Vixen to be fit so you can join the battle,” said Sherwin, sure that he understood the captain’s meaning.

  “What I hope to be, when the fury begins,” responded the captain, “is as far away as possible.”

  “We are not, I hope, a white-livered ship,” said Sherwin. It would not be polite or even wise to say cowardly.

  “Do you think cowardice has any meaning for me,” said the captain, “or courage, for that matter? While the entire world is gathered to spoil the sea with blood, we’ll slip north to pluck a few
ocean geese off Bristol, or Liverpool.” He stopped to consider his remarks, and then he added, “Although I would enjoy getting my hooks into a Spanish prize.”

  Highbridge had joined the two of them, and listened to the captain’s comments with a keen look in his eye, although he made no effort to join in the conversation.

  For his part, Sherwin was badly surprised to hear the captain’s blithe dismissal of defending his country. And this surprising outlook certainly dashed Sherwin’s enthusiasm at putting his life into the captain’s hands.

  Sherwin recovered his good humor. He allowed himself to chuckle. “I do not believe you, sir, if you will forgive me. If the need arises, you will be as stalwart as any of the Queen’s subjects—and more fervent, I am sure.”

  He knew that some men pretended to be foolish to hide their actual cunning, or to make themselves agreeable. Other men pretended to be kind in order to mask their cruelty. Captain Fletcher was surely hiding an ardent, if perhaps discomfiting, love of his country by pretending to be purely interested in personal gain.

  “Why, then, good Sherwin,” replied the captain, “I hope no war comes. Otherwise, you will find me very disappointing.”

  Sherwin was about to express further good-natured skepticism when the captain interjected. “Oh, damn me—she has vanished.”

  The womanly figure was no longer on the cliff.

  “I was going to invite her down so I could tell her lies about who we are and what we are doing.” The captain added, “It has been many a month since I spoke to a lady.”

  Captain Fletcher set a lookout on the cliff, the sharp-eyed Nittany, and he also sent three groups off to forage in different directions. Sherwin and Bartholomew were assigned to a group composed of Sergeant Evenage and a seaman named Giles Tryce.

  BEFORE SHERWIN’S TEAM of foragers departed, Highbridge beckoned silently to Sherwin.

  The first mate had a wooden box under his arm. He set the container down on the stony beach and pried it open.

  “I would be most pleased,” said Highbridge, “if you carried this.”

  Highbridge gave Sherwin a dag—a heavy, large-bore pistol.

  It was a sturdy weapon, made of stag ivory and iron, decorated with pretty silver patterns. The firearm was very much like the one Evenage had been cleaning earlier, except even more beautiful.

  “This belongs to me,” said Highbridge. “I am loaning it to you, during the duration of your stay aboard the Vixen. The sight of such arms impresses shipmates and villagers alike.”

  Sherwin stammered his thanks. He added, “I don’t know the art of using such weapons.”

  There was a twinkle in Highbridge’s eye, and it was not the first time that Sherwin believed that his initial, severe impression of this man had been entirely wrong.

  “Bartholomew,” said Highbridge, “will show you how the weapon works.”

  “I will be most grateful.”

  “And you will,” continued Highbridge, “in exchange for the use of this weapon, encourage the captain to allow you to use it against the Spanish.”

  This assertion was a surprise, and helped to explain the officer’s generosity. He was seeking an ally.

  “Sir,” said Sherwin, “I shall do my best.”

  “Good man,” said Highbridge with a smile.

  LATER, as Sherwin started along the path leading up the face of the cliff, he fully appreciated the trust Highbridge had shown in him.

  An insistent, quiet inner voice was urging him toward freedom.

  As he set eyes on the fine expanse of land from the top of the cliff, Sherwin was teased by the realization that he could run off across the fields of this farmland and never return. No admiralty court would punish Sherwin for escaping after his signature had been entered into a contract with a pirate. Such coerced agreements were common—merchant captains had signed away their ships, under threat, only to recant once they reached a safe harbor.

  But Highbridge sought an alliance with Sherwin in persuading the captain to take part in the impending warfare.

  That should prove easy enough, thought Sherwin, a spring in his step.

  After all, what would the looming conflict be, if not a grand adventure?

  14

  FROM THE CLIFFTOP the Vixen looked not helpless so much as lost to the effects of a night’s carousing.

  Her rigging sagged drunkenly, and the sailors settled, warming their hands around a fire or spreading their clothing and other belongings out on the sand to be dried by the waxing sunlight. They looked like stumpy-legged harvesters, foreshortened by the altitude from which he viewed them, and it seemed pure folly to Sherwin that these men would trust their lives to that cracked walnut of a vessel, being slowly left behind by the ebbing tide.

  The mantled young woman was nowhere to be seen, but what was entirely visible was a green field and a road rutted by cart wheels, with oaks and a blue sky breaking through the clouds. The wind was turning serene, and Sherwin felt again the joy of arrival in a magnificent location.

  The hedges were in full flower, or just past, with briar berries already formed, green and covert among the bristly leaves. Bees fumbled and found blossoms, and a wagtail perched at the edge of a puddle and gave a toss of its tail feathers like a finger beckoning, urging Sherwin forward.

  Sherwin was happy and excited. He felt his future flower with exceptional opportunities. Furthermore, if he encountered the young woman, and if she saw fit to exchange pleasantries, Sherwin believed that his appearance would not displease. While soldiers and gentlemen wore nothing like a uniform garment, Sherwin was dressed much like the sergeant, who was a far from shabby figure.

  Sherwin wore tall boots that folded down below the knee, and a dark blue doublet, with a cup-hilted rapier swinging at his side. Bartholomew had used a solution of vinegar and brine to further diminish the stains of blood on the mantle. Most pleasing of all was the leather-and-felt hat, which sported the feather of a cock pheasant. The late Robin Fosque had taken heed of his appearance, and Sherwin was in his debt.

  As yet Sherwin had seen no humans other than his companions, although a large white horse looked up from a patch of harebells and gave his head a toss—curious, Sherwin had to believe, as to why the visitors did not stop to climb over the stile and come toward him with gifts of hay or apples.

  Now that he was no longer on the ship, Sherwin could smell himself and his shipmates, a strong odor of tar and sweat, sharpened by salt water, rising from the fabric of his garments.

  “Will you show me how to load the pistol with a bullet?” asked Sherwin.

  Bartholomew’s undertakings, as an attendant to a gentleman, included carrying the powder holder, a large ox horn that was embellished with brass fittings, an iron nozzle, and a stout leather strap. He accepted the weapon itself from Sherwin’s hands, and as they walked he used the ramrod to probe the barrel.

  Then he sat beside the road and took no small amount of time loading the firearm.

  At last he stood again. “She holds a charge ready,” he announced, and handed the weapon back to his master. He explained the firing of the weapon, and added, “Let us hope, sir, your life never depends on this.”

  Sherwin thrust the pistol through his belt as they continued to make their way, considerably in the rear of the sergeant and Tryce.

  “What keeps the lead shot and the gunpowder from drooling out the end of the barrel?” asked Sherwin.

  “Gun wadding,” said Bartholomew. “And fortune.”

  “How long have you sailed on the Vixen?” asked Sherwin.

  “Not four months,” said Bartholomew. “I joined her in Calais. Sir, my master was imprisoned.” He pronounced the town’s name Cal-ass.

  “What sort of duties did you perform for your master?”

  “Sir, I was a toad-eater.”

  “A toady?” asked Sherwin in surprise.

  “My master was the mountebank John Pourbonne. He was renowned for his sleight-of-hand marvels, and among these, sir, he had the
power to make creatures vanish.”

  The toad, more than other amphibians, was considered to be poisonous. A toad-eater’s job was to hide the noxious creature while the magician showed that nowhere—not up this sleeve or even under this cap—was the vanished toad. “Madam, could it be the toad is here?” the magician would say, tickling a buxom goodwife under her ribs to a chorus of giggles.

  “My master and I,” continued Bartholomew, “earned pennies by the bushel in Dover and Portsmouth, but he wanted a brighter future. He took a French name, and we thrived for a time.”

  Sherwin had seen mountebanks on market day throughout his childhood. He liked them, but would not trust one. He suspected they were quick-handed thieves at heart, and they sold elixirs that were thought to inspire love, conquer age, and cure poor vision.

  “Do they piss?” Sherwin could not help but asking. “The toads, while in your mouth?”

  “Our toad was educated,” said Bartholomew.

  Sherwin walked for a while, considering.

  “How,” he asked at last, “do you educate a toad?”

  “Dry him out,” said Bartholomew.

  “Do you prefer Captain Fletcher,” asked Sherwin, “to your imprisoned master John Pourbonne?”

  “John once made me hide a scorpion, sir,” said Bartholomew, “under my tongue. Captain Fletcher has made no such command.”

  SHERWIN AND BARTHOLOMEW had hurried up by then to reach the sergeant and Tryce, and as they passed a puddle Sherwin took a moment to examine his reflection.

  “As worthy as a magpie,” snorted Tryce, noticing Sherwin’s momentary indulgence in vanity, “like most gentlefolk.”

  “Ah, Tryce,” chided the sergeant. “By my faith, you’ve all manners of mange.”

  The four of them approached a cottage not far from the sea cliff, a whitewashed dwelling with a broad door, heavily shuttered windows, and a thatched roof. Judging by the sharp smell in the air, there were pigs nearby.