A Million Tears (65 page)

‘I shall kill you for that insult, and for the blow I received when we came on board. Prepare to die, gringo.’

It was so childishly melodramatic that I could not believe my ears. He was standing to windward of the boom and half way along when Jake yelled, ‘Jibe oh,’ and spun the wheel hard to port, while I ducked. The wind came over the starboard bow, filled the mainsail and pushed the boom hard to port. It took young Mendoza about shoulder height and swept him over the side. The girl screamed and scrambled across the deck to see her brother floundering and yelling for help. Jake was already coming about and I was getting a life belt ready to throw. Their mother rushed on deck to see what was wrong, fear on her face.

‘Save him, save him, he cannot swim,’ she called, wringing her hands as she had done over her dying husband.

He was waving, sinking, reappearing and spitting out water. Jake aimed to pass close, not attempting to slow down. I threw the life belt as we drew abreast and watched him grab hold of it. We then came about and tacked in closer. He had the lifebelt over his head and watched us with malevolence in his eyes. While this had been going on the girl had been talking to her mother and I could see Senora Mendoza becoming angrier and angrier. We hove to and I threw the boy a line. I pulled him alongside and helped him aboard. As he lay on the deck his mother tore into him in Spanish and from the way he flushed I guessed he was getting a real earful. He muttered something in a disdainful way. Before I so much as blinked the old woman’s hand flashed and struck him across the cheek with a sound like a pistol shot. She said something again and this time he mumbled an apology to me in English. His mother added one of her own.

‘I am sorry for the bad manners of my son, Senor,’ she said sadly. ‘He has not been brought up in the way a mother would like. I only hope he learns better before it is too late. I have told him to go to his room and stay there. My daughter, Estella will bring his meals to him. I hope the rest of the voyage goes quietly.

‘Look,’ I said, ‘there’s no need for that. I can appreciate how he feels, with the loss of his father coming on top of everything else. He blames us and I know how easy that is for him. The fact that there was nothing we could have done is beside the point. If he promises to behave then there’s no reason why he should not move about as freely as he likes. If he gives his word, that is.’

She told us they had been a wealthy land-owning family before the US invaded the island. After that, though her father tried to set himself up in business, punitive laws were slowly but surely leading to the loss of all their money in taxes. Some old enemies of her father had tried to have him arrested on a charge of conspiracy, something to do with an attempted coup to re-establish the old regime. It was all nonsense but the courts only wanted an excuse to confiscate his money. Justice and proof were not the order of the day. Learning what was going to happen, the family had attempted to leave openly from port but had been prevented at the eleventh hour. In desperation, they had arranged, through friends, for a boat to pick them up secretly. Jake and I had got the job.

The next day Jake took over from me around dawn and I went into the saloon for a few hours sleep. I was back on deck around midday and stepping into the cockpit I could see black clouds forming on the horizon. Jake cast a worried look over his shoulder and nodded grimly.

‘Yep. That means it’s coming this way. In an hour or two you’ll see grey clouds rolling underneath and then a dark, very black area. That’s where the rain is. Depending on how high that black area reaches will depend on how bad it’s going to be. And from the look of it, I’d say it’s going to be a bad son of a bitch.’

‘There’s nowhere to run to? No land in reasonable distance?’

He shook his head. ‘Now that the wind has gone so far round we may as well keep on for Bermuda. In fact, I’d say it’s the closest place.’

The wind was almost directly astern and we were running before it. I went below and secured everything I could. Already the wind was chilling and the sea was beginning to run from the south east, from the direction of the storm. All day the cloud kept on building up and soon the day darkened ominously. Our passengers had been up to see what was going on and one look at what was brewing had been enough to send them back to their bunks. When I passed the forward cabins I heard the two Mendoza women praying and I just hoped somebody was listening.

The wind increased steadily. I could see the billowing grey, cauliflower shaped clouds beneath the towering anvil and the blackness where the rain was blotting out the horizon. We put two reefs in the mainsail and took down the other sails. The boom was well out to starboard and we were running before the wind.

The seas began to break against the stern and we were surrounded by whitecaps, four or five feet high. We put on our oilskins and took in another three reefs of sail. The whole of the sky astern of us was a black, tumultuous mountain of cloud while ahead it still showed blue. It was becoming cold in spite of the fact we were only just north of the Tropic of Cancer.

Jake and I stood in the cockpit and watched the black wall of rain sweeping down, cutting off the light as it overtook us. There were a few minutes of light rain and then it became torrential. The wind whistled through the rigging and we had to shout to make ourselves heard. The boat was pitching and turning like a corkscrew, and the day had turned to twilight. We pulled the boom in but still had plenty of headway to keep the stern to the wind. Inexperienced though I was, I could appreciate that if a wave ever turned us broadside to the sea and wind there was every chance we would turn turtle.

The wind whipped the sea and rain across the cockpit so hard it lashed us like buckshot pellets, visibility was as far as the bow, and lightning was splitting the sky every minute. I was scared to death.

‘We need to keep running before the wind,’ Jake yelled in my ear. ‘This storm is going to last for some time and it takes a lot out of you. You go down below and try and get some sleep, or at least rest and come and relieve me in four hours. Okay?’

‘Okay,’ I yelled back. He helped me to open the hatch to the saloon and close it behind me, gallons of water sweeping in as we did. I threw off my oilskins and sat down heavily at the table, trying to think if there was anything else I could do. The stoves were out and every moveable item tied down.

I did fight my way across the heaving deck forward, scraping my shins a couple of dozen times and looked through the hatch down to the bilges. They were bone dry. I looked in on our passengers trying to reassure them. The women were still kneeling by their bunks praying, the boy lay on his, staring at the overhead bulkhead. He ignored me when I told him not to worry. I went back to the saloon and sat at the table. All that was left was for me to worry instead.

45

Twenty four hours later Jake and I were close to exhaustion after spending four-hour watches on, fighting the wheel and weather and the next four off, lying on our bunks. It was impossible to rest, the movement of the boat threatening to throw us onto the deck. We saw nothing of the Mendozas and I did not know whether they were alive or dead; anyway, I was feeling scared enough so that I no longer cared.

The wind did not abate by so much as a knot. The seas were mountainous and often, as I stood at the wheel and we plunged down the side of a wall of water, I wondered if we would come up the other side. Jake kept telling me the
Lucky Lady
was a highly seaworthy craft, well built and able to take far worse. I wondered which of us he was trying to convince.

Then disaster struck. Jake and I were changing over and I was looking forward to going below for a drink of water and to wash the salt off my face when there was a loud ripping, rending sound. In the grey afternoon light we saw the mainsail tear in half, flapping wildly, making a noise like a number of pistol shots. The mast creaked ominously under the strain.

‘Stay here,’ yelled Jake. ‘I’m going to get the sail down.’

I watched helplessly while he crawled over the deck, a safety line paying out behind him.

The sail was ripped from top to bottom and was now in two almost equal halves. Jake slackened off the halyards, pulled down armfuls of sail and rolled it up under his feet. It was hard, dangerous work, the boat pitching and yawing like a mad thing, and many times Jake had to stop and just hold on for grim life to avoid being swept overboard.

Once it was down, he undid the clew outhaul and pulled the sail clean off the boom. He passed the sail back to me and I shoved it underfoot, out of the way. Jake then tightened down on the main topping lift, pulling the boom tight against the boom jack, a rope which held the end of the boom to the deck. He left the lazy jacks, used to contain the sail while it is being lowered, and fought his way back to the cockpit. It had taken him the best part of an hour to carry out a task which we had done in ten minutes on a bad day when we both nursed a hangover.

He stood alongside me in the cockpit, regaining his breath and watching how the boat performed. We now had no way to keep the stern pointed at the waves and though I spun the wheel back and forth as far as it would go it was more luck than judgement that stopped us turning turtle.

‘I thought we’d have this problem,’ yelled Jake. ‘Leave the wheel and help me get the sail to the stern. We’ll tie it to the stern cleats and throw it overboard. It may act as a sea anchor and steady the boat.’

I nodded and together we pushed the sail to the stern guard-rail. I was freezing, soaked to the skin and frightened to death. We tied a dozen lengths of manila rope to the canvas and worked it overboard. Immediately the stern steadied into the wind and waves. We hugged each other with delight and returned to the cockpit. Jake lashed the wheel to prevent the rudder damaging itself and we both went below to the saloon. There was nothing further we could do, except pray and I had not done that since I left Llanbeddas.

We had a brandy to warm ourselves and then Jake went back to the after cabin. I lay down and must have dozed off. The next thing I knew we were being thrown about as wildly as ever.

I climbed into my oilskins and went up to the cockpit. Jake was already there. Glumly we stared at the stern where the ropes had parted and were flapping wildly in the wind.

‘Well I’m telling you, we can’t. So far we’ve been lucky but we could turn over anytime. If that happens we’ll probably slide to the bottom and meet Davy Jones. Without the main mast the boat has a good chance of righting herself again. With it there’s no chance. Understand?’

I nodded.

‘Get the axe out of the locker,’ he yelled. ‘I’m going to cut the mainstay ropes off above our heads. That way no flying rope can take an eye out or cut our faces open, all right?’

I nodded and suddenly grabbed the wheel to stop from falling. We were now yawing as much as sixty degrees either side; any more and we would turn over. I did not need Jake to tell me that.

Carefully we made our way out of the cockpit and towards the mast. The wind dragged at our oilskins. Sea waves and rain poured down our necks and the lightning flashing across the sky added a further touch of high drama to the scene. In spite of the weather it took only seconds to cut the ropes free and clear the deck. Jake took the axe from me. He loved the
Lucky Lady
with a passion I would never equal, but even so it hurt me to see the axe bite deeply into the foot of the mast. He cut a chunk out of the downwind side and then attacked the mast behind and above the cut. The mast bent a few degrees, then another swing and it went a little further. Jake was panting heavily but would not let me take over. Instead he swung the axe with greater effort, blow quickly following blow. With a loud crackling noise the mast toppled, still not cut free but now touching the water, dragging the boat to starboard. A few more strikes and it was severed completely. With a heave from both of us it slid over the side and was immediately lost from sight. We crawled back to the cockpit and down into the after cabin. Jake was utterly spent and I helped him into his bunk.

‘Go and tell the other three to tie themselves into their bunks and not to get up for any reason. Tell them if we turn turtle we’ll still be all right and to wait for us to come upright again,’ Jake ordered.

I took some rope from the cockpit locker. Both women had been sick at some stage but had been unable to do anything about it and just lay in the filth, holding on to each other. I told them what the situation was and tied them to their bunks. They accepted it with resignation.

The boy screamed that I wanted to murder him when he was tied down so I threw him the rope in disgust, explained the situation again and left. I went back to the after cabin and tied myself alongside Jake, lay back and wondered if there was a God.