HF - 04 - Black Dawn (29 page)

So, then, why did he hurry back, spend a fortune on commandeering this ship to return? He had never enjoyed planting. His entire being rebelled against the necessities of the business; the brutalities and the injustices; the certainty that someone like Josh Merriman, and God knew how many others, were better men than he, in every sense of the word, but yet were forced to crawl, should he so desire, merely because his skin was white, and his uncle had been wealthy.

Even more did he rebel against the concept that he could never be one of them, and equa
lly, never be one of the planto
cracy, sitting in the House of Assembly in Spanish Town and waving their fists at the British Government even as they waved their whips at their employees. Theirs was a transitory world. It had to be, no more than that. That it had lasted over a hundred years, that it had provided the Hiltons with wealth and power and omnipotence for so long, was the fault of humanity, not the design of God.

And yet, return he must. To make amends to Judith? How could he make amends to Judith, save by marrying her? There would be the final chapter in the catalogue of disasters. Or would it? Judith was a lovely child. She would no doubt soon become a lovely woman. So she was totally lacking in either education or breeding. That could be provided, and would be a pleasure to provide. But did he love her? He did not know. He had never considered the matter. It was beginning to dawn on him that he had never actually considered loving anyone. Even Ellen had been an achievement, a prize to be won, in the face of opposition, rather than a woman to be loved.

And even more important, did Judith love him? Could she love him, after Harriet, and after an upbringing such as hers, and after he had raped her?

A drop of rain landed on his hand, large and stinging. The afternoon had grown quite dark, and the sun was lost behind the cloud. And the drop had been only the advance guard. He could see the rain approaching him in a solid sheet, like a quick travelling mist. Haiti had already disappeared.

And with the rain, the first of the wind, soughing over the water. Gibson was at the break of the poop, bawling his orders, and the yards were being trimmed; they had already been stripped of most of their sails. Now the helm was put up to take the coming squall on the bow. The
Cormorant
rose and dipped again, a violent movement. Yet the sea remained surprisingly calm, flattened by the deadening rain, which swept across the ship, smothered the deck and poured into the scuppers as if it had been a wave, flowed through the fairleads and cascaded down the sides.

Dick discovered he was wet through, and the water continued to pound on his hair, flood down his neck. He staggered across the deck, grasped a stay close by the wheel, where two men were on duty, waiting for the real wind, with the captain close at hand.

'You'd best below, Mr Hilton,' Gibson bawled. 'No sense in staying up here. Helm. Helm. Up.'

The two sailors leaned on the wheel, and the
Cormorant's
bows came up again. Now the wind was fresh, and now the ship was moving, slicing into the suddenly large, and growing waves, tossing spray aft, taking green combers over the bow to flood the forecastle and come pouring down the ladders into the waist. And now too, she heeled, port scuppers well down, making the already slippery deck the harder to stand on.

'Due west,' Gibson shouted in Dick's ear. 'It'll veer, but slowly. We'll make the passage, if it lasts. Then we'll be safe enough.'

The open Atlantic. Would he ever turn back then? But no man could be asked to risk his ship for the sake of an unwanted passenger.

Dick found the top of the ladder, made his way down, slowly, being thrown against the rail by each lurch of the ship, staring in fascination as the bows went up, up, as she climbed the ever increasing swell, to hang there for a moment, seeming to be pointing at the sky and attempting to launch herself into space, and then plunging down, down, with a stomach-tumbling force, bowsprit now pointing only at surging green water, and apparently intent on hitting the very bottom of the ocean. Then the seas broke, or the bowsprit plunged in, he could not be sure which, and tons of water landed on the foredeck, with a crash which seemed about to stave the timbers, before roaring aft, bursting into the waist, whipping at the canvas covers for the longboat, flooding the deck, crashing against the foot of the ladder like a wave on a shore, filling his boots and splashing up his breeches to join the rain damp already there.

But the
Cormorant
was lifting her bows again, the bowsprit, undamaged, slicing through the heaving sea to aim once more at the sky, the sea itself tumbling over the sides to leave the deck momentarily clear, while all the while the wind increased, from a sough to a whine, from a whine to a scream, and then suddenly to a gigantic roar, a noise which even drowned out memories of the factory, which took away the powers of the mind even as its very force seemed to take away the powers of the body, ripping at the buttons of his coat to send the tails flying, making him gasp for breath, his muscles discovering the ache of a long wrestling match.

He reached the door to the cabin in the midst of a wave, hung there for a moment with water surging at his thighs, wrenched it open and half fell down the ladder to the floor of the cabin.

'Aaagh,' screamed the boy. 'Aaagh. We're sinking.'

'Only a wave,' Dick gasped, grasping the table to pull himself up, and being struck on the side of the head by the lantern swinging from the low deck beams.

'Oh, God,' said the boy, falling to Ins knees beside Dick. 'Oh, God. Lost, we are, sir. Lost.'

'You've not been in a storm before?'

'A gale, sir. Aye. Nothing like this. We're too close to land. Too close, sir. Too close.'

'Lie down,' Dick recommended, and did so himself, not entirely by design; the
Cormorant
entered a trough sideways and skidded down before bringing up short. There was a crack which seemed to tear the entire ship from top to bottom, and this was followed by a boom which cut across even the wind, and brought another terrified screech from the boy.

Dick found himself lying on one of the berths which walled the cabin, pushed himself up again. But his head continued to swing, and now his stomach was threatening to rebel as well. With fear? Certainly he was sweating.

'What was that noise?' he bawled.

The boy grovelled on the deck, moaning.

And now the
Cormorant
was behaving very oddly, no longer surging to the waves, but rather being slapped, from side to side, each blow shaking the timbers and sending the table creaking, and being followed by water seeping through the deck above his head.

The door was thrown open, and Captain Gibson fell in, accompanied by half the ocean; water cascaded down the steps and swirled over the cabin floor, hurled back the door to the galley and put out the fire with a gigantic hiss of steam.

'God,' screamed the boy. 'Help me, oh God.'

'Shut your trap,' shouted the captain. 'The foremast has gone, Mr Hilton.'

Dick sat up. 'Will she sink?'

'I've men cutting it away. We can run. But there'll be no beating. 'Tis a question of how far the wind will go; she's veering all the time.'

'And how much of thi
s pounding your ship will stand’
Dick said.

'Aye, well, she's stout enough. I've sent Chips down to sound the well. But you'd best come up again. Lash yourself to the mizzen, sir. There's your best chance.'

Dick seized the boy under the armpit
s, pulled him up. 'Come on deck’
he shouted in his ear.

'Oh, God/ howled the boy. 'Oh, God. Help me, oh, God.'

'On deck/ Dick screamed, and climbed the companion ladder. The captain had already gone, but the door swung open as he reached the top and another wave burst in, pounding on his chest, clouding on his face, splashing on the floor behind him, and chaining into the bilges. Sound or not, he thought, she'll not take much of that.

'Please God, help me,' whimpered the boy as he was pushed through the doorway.

Dick closed the door behind him, stood against it to gasp for breath and to look at the sea. Where it had been big before, now it was huge. The swell seemed taller than the masts, and each swell was topped by a rolling, ten-foot-high wall of flying foam. Presumably it was night. The ship carried no lights, but the sky was quite vanished, the clouds seeming to rest almost on the top of the waves themselves, and the rain fell ceaselessly. And then the thunder roared right above him, and the entire universe seemed to split open in searing light which left him blinded, even as the crack of the lightning striking the sea drove the senses from Ins head. He discovered himself in the starboard scupper, looking up and up and up and up at a towering green monster, and realized that the
Cormorant
would not, indeed, survive. And that he was about to die.

But not immediately. Water poured over the deck, and the
Cormorant
seemed to sag, to be struck by another huge wave before she had recovered from the first. For some seconds Dick was submerged, and he los
t his breath and inhaled water
which left him spluttering and gasping, and eventually vomiting, in the intervals between waves. Hands seized his shoulders and dragged him back into the comparative safety of the hatchway, where several more of the
crew were huddled. By now the li
ghtning was continuous, the thunder merging with the howl of the wind and the roar of the seas to make a blanket of sound across the night, across their senses. But he could look up, at the two remaining masts, now quite bare of canvas. They were driving on, carried in the direction of the wind and the current. And the wind had veered. Gibson had said so, how long ago? But no doubt it had veered even more. With luck they might yet make the Windward Passage. With luck.

And a sound ship. A banging on the hatch informed them that the carpenter was on his way out. They banged back to tell him to wait, chose their moment themselves, and released one of the battens. The three men collapsed into their midst. 'There's five feet down there,' gasped one.

'And gaining,' said another.

'She's just opening up,' said the third. 'She weren't made to take this pounding.'

'There ain't no ship made to take this pounding,' muttered the boatswain.

The
Cormorant
agreed with a gigantic shudder, and speech was lost in another foaming maelstrom of water.

They looked at the captain, clinging to the rail of the poop, gazing down at them. Even through the noise and his own preoccupations, Gibson had noticed that the pumps had ceased.

'Ahoy there,' he bawled. 'What's amiss?'

The carpenter raised himself to his feet, holding on to a stay. 'She's making water too fast, captain,' he shouted. 'She's sinking.'

The men around Dick stirred. The fact they had known for some time had at last been put into words.

Gibson stared at them for a moment, rocking with his ship. But the
Cormorant
had no life left. Even Dick, who knew little enough about the sea, could tell that. She was a dead creature, in the water, and every blow struck by the sea killed her a little more.

'Prepare the boat,' Gibson called. 'Careful now.' 'Careful,' grumbled the boatswain. 'You'd best help me, lads.'

Dick rose with them. He felt as if he had known them all his life, as if he and they were intimates of a thousand bottles, a thousand adventures, perhaps a thousand storms. Shoulder to shoulder with them, he tore at the canvas cover for the longboat—amazingly still in place—and helped them secure the slings. And like them, he looked back at the poop for the orders to launch. And thought that they were a good and faithful crew, who stood no chance at all, so far as he could see. So what chance did any crew stand?

'Now,' Gibson shouted. The wheel had been lashed, to keep the ship as much as possible before the wind, and the captain and his helmsmen came swarming down the ladders to assist them. The boat was raised on the slings, several men hauling on each rope, and pushed by the remainder towards the gunwale. And as if intent to assist them, the
Cormorant
listed to port as well, causing the boat to swing ever faster. The six men pushing slid across the deck, the boat hung clear of the gunwale . . . but instead of the order to release the falls, Gibson gave a strangled scream.

'Get her back.'

Dick's head jerked, and he looked over the boat at another towering wall of green, rearing like a striking snake, its top curling white, hovering some thirty feet above them.

'Get her back.' Gibson's words trailed away into nothing as the sea broke. Dick heard the snap of the parting falls. He realized that, water apart, he was liable to be crushed beneath the falling longboat. But the thought was an abstract. All thoughts were abstract. He was aware only of being in the middle of the water; of striking something solid with his left leg, a jarring blow which left him paralysed; of aching pain and breathless lungs; of water filling his nose, his eyes, his ears, his mouth; of sudden air, which had him choking and gasping; of putting his good leg down to the deck and finding nothing; of rolling over and flailing his arms in desperation; of a sudden, tremendous fear spreading outwards from his belly.