Wake of the Perdido Star (20 page)

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Authors: Gene Hackman

BOOK: Wake of the Perdido Star
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“Can you hear me?”
No reply.
A shout from below asked Jack if he was all right.
“I'm all right, but my mate is bad hurt.”
“Is he dead?”
“No sir, just banged on the head. I'll try to tie him and lower him down.”
“Well, be quick about it, lad. We're in deep trouble here and need every hand.” Jack understood that Quince thought Paul dead, but knew it would be quicker for the first mate to humor him in his attempt at rescue than talk him into deserting his friend. Below was a scene of snapped timbers, twisted canvas, blocks, lines, blood, and broken bodies—at least five on the deck, and more over the side.
Jack saw one man in the water holding to a bit of spar attached to the debris on deck. The sailors on the quarterdeck clearing the wreckage couldn't see their comrade. Jack shouted but the wind picked up and he couldn't make himself heard. The man clung to the spar then broke free and drifted away, swallowed by the sea.
Jack turned his attention to Paul, talking to him. A conscious man would be easier to lower to the deck through the confusion of timbers. Paul was incoherent and Jack knew he would have no help. He stepped from the spar onto the ladder just below where Paul's leg extended between the rungs. A line from the now missing upper works had draped itself over the yardarm next to him, and Jack looped it under Paul's rear and around his back, taking an extra turn to widen the strain on the makeshift chair. He then cut the line, looped it, and tied a bowline in front of Paul's waist.
He threw the line over the spar and then wrapped it again to get more friction. Pulling Paul's leg from the ladder was difficult, since Jack had to lift his friend's weight to free it. This done, he pulled him up once more and extracted his arm from between the sail and the spar. Now his body was free and swinging with the movement of the ship. The line around Paul's back was too low and he hung doubled over. He swung away from Jack as the ship heeled and then was on his way back, head first. Jack lunged himself between the mast and Paul.
Suddenly, the line over the spar holding Paul's weight slipped from Jack's grasp and his friend dropped six feet before Jack could stop him. Jack forced himself to ignore the rope burns on his hands and kept lowering Paul to the deck. The sailors below couldn't help, for the ratline ladder had parted fifteen feet from the deck when the mast had broken.
Jack tested his strength by holding fast with his left hand and feeding out the line with his right. It was going to work, if he could just keep Paul away from the mast. He waited till the ship shuddered and righted itself in a trough and then quickly played out the line, hoping to drop Paul to the waiting hands below. He inched his way up closer to the spar and let the line out. Still fifteen feet short, Paul's body swung dangerously close to the mast. Jack grasped the spar with the rope around it and let go more slack. Paul dropped again, but was still several feet from the sailor's grasp on deck. The ship heeled suddenly and the limp body swung aft.
“Catch him!” Jack screamed. Quince, on the bridge deck above the sailors, grabbed Paul with one arm and lowered him to the deck. Relief washed over Jack as he could see Paul was safely down. As the pain from the ripped skin on his hands began heating its way into his consciousness, he took a moment to rekindle his strength.
“Take a wrap under your arms and get down here!” bellowed Quince. But Jack had already begun his rappel down. Again his line was too short, but Jack dropped into the arms of a half dozen waiting sailors. A few men whispered “well done” before hurrying off to deal with the carnage about them.
Jack looked to the bridge deck where Quince and Hansumbob had propped Paul up against the compass binnacle. Paul met Jack with a blank-eyed look.
An eerie quiet settled over the ship. Jack noticed the water had become calm; several sailors stopped their work and gazed seaward. Black clouds billowed about them, but just scant miles away the sea still boiled. Jack could see the stars straight above him, as if he were peering up from the bottom of a deep bowl. They were caught in what appeared to be a lake, surrounded by towering mountains of water. Jack fell to his knees, more tired than he had ever been in his life.
There was a stirring on the bridge deck. Jack saw a figure all in white—it appeared to be a ghost climbing up the aft companionway. After a moment, Jack realized he was looking at the captain, naked, his pale skin silhouetted against the dark skies behind him. His long hair was disheveled and he had a large, blood-caked welt on his left temple, like a piece of old jewelry. Dried vomit adorned his chest and in his left hand he held a jug of grog. His right hand held a saber, still sheathed. He seemed unaware of the bodies and debris about him.
“Mr. Quince, why are we running with short sails? Damn it, man, we're almost becalmed. Lay on the canvas, mister.”
Several of the crew dropped their heads. Jack realized for the
first time how much his fellow sailors had come to believe in the hierarchy of the ship at sea. The raging of the storm and the death of their mates had shaken them, but the recognition that they were truly without a captain was crushing.
“Smithers, see that the captain is safely back in his cabin. Lash him securely in his bunk,” Quince said. He stepped toward the old man and took the saber from his hand. The captain sputtered a protest.
A rogue wave from the stern lifted the entire ship and spun her. The water carried Jack halfway across the quarterdeck. Coughing seawater over the aft rail, his hands gripped the rough carving he had seen the captain working on while docked in Massachusetts and Cuba. Salem seemed to him a lifetime ago—when he was just a boy. He ran his fingers over the intricate letters: “Captain Hans Peter Deploy. 1730–1806.” The captain knew this was his last trip.
No one manned the wheel. It spun lazily, as if detached. Then Jack realized that, in fact, it was. The pintles were sprung from the gudgeons and the rudder had come unshipped. My God, thought Jack. We're sitting in this pond like a toy boat.
Quince bellied up to the starboard rail and stared into the blackness. In a voice full of dread, knowing he was the only one capable of command, he addressed the crew. “Quickly do what you can for the ship, lads. Then lash yourself to the pulpit around the main and foremast and pray . . . for we are surely in the eye of the typhoon.”
Jack secured Paul onto the pulpit surrounding the mainmast, jamming in the belaying pins upside down so that a quick pull down would release the line he had secured around both of them. Then he sat quietly against the wood as sailors all around him tied themselves to masts, stanchions, and cannon.
Talk was scarce as the sailors prepared. Quince took one last survey of the ship and tied himself in. The winds started to pick up.
Debris from the wreckage over the side pulled the ship to port, but the winds and seas were pushing back to starboard, and it was in this pattern that the typhoon found the
Perdido Star
. She was helpless in the heavy seas.
The seawater came over the bow in housefuls. It hit the quarterdeck then burst upon the sailors on the main deck all tethered in their spots, helpless to ward off the tons of water. Jack could hear screams as the men gasped for air and prepared themselves for the next wave. The relentless pounding loosened some of the timbers, and the noise of the waves was countered by the sound of the parting of the ship's main cross members. She was beginning to break up.
Waves struck the cabin on the quarterdeck, sounding to Jack like the felling of trees. Tons of water rushed into her companionway hatch, spilling into what was once the captain's cabin. The water would shoot over Jack's and Paul's heads, slam against the quarterdeck bulkhead, and disappear into the cabin area. As the
Star
pitched again, it would dump the water, along with debris from the aft cabin, back on deck. The returning water lashed against the new wave coming over the bow, meeting in the middle of the main deck where the sailors were struggling for life.
Jack now thought that strapping in was not such a good idea. He could barely catch his breath between waves, and looking about him, he could see some of the mates were struggling mightily to keep from drowning.
At one point between waves, Jack raised his head above the pulpit stanchion to look aft, when he heard a loud shout. “Jack, above!”
A spar in a tangle of lines came screaming down in a large arc toward the pulpit, crashing just inches above Jack's head. The concussion alone was enough to deafen him and he had pulled Paul
down with him. They were shaken but unhurt, as yet another wave washed over them. Sputtering, Jack looked to where the warning had come from. There lay the drowned body of Cookietwo. He had repaid his debt.
Across from Jack, three sailors secured between the cannons were trying to untie themselves, for one of the cannons had come adrift and was running to the length of her securing line and then back again, swinging like a pendulum from the end that still held. The sailor closest to it was unconscious and in the path of the two-ton, cast-iron killing machine. Jack could do nothing but watch helplessly as the man was reduced to pulp. The damn thing didn't need to be loaded to take seamen's lives.
“Are you all right?” Jack shouted to Paul, hearing his voice.
Paul must have been delirious, for his answer didn't make sense.
“Say it again. I can't hear you.”
“I said, never let me find you again, old sir, near our hollow ship . . .” Paul pointed toward the ocean, laughing.
There, tied securely onto what was left of his oaken bunk, floated the captain, holding an oil lantern, silver beard and hair wild with water, gazing into the black sky. He lifted a hand to wave briefly as the sea carried his bier into the night.
“Are we dead yet? Do we deserve this?” Paul asked, suddenly cogent, his voice matter-of-fact.
Jack spit seawater and replied, “Not dead yet. But close. Very close, Paulie.”
“Paulie? Only Hansumbob calls me that. I remember the first time I heard that name, it was the night I peeled you off the street in Habana. Do you remember that night?”
Jack watched the violent sea. He remembered.
The storm wrenched their bodies from side to side. After the endless hell of drenchings, the water tearing at his bindings, Jack was beaten so badly, he was barely conscious. Then the wind's fury began to ease. The ship seemed to right herself, slowly circling in her own debris. Stars appeared not only overhead, but across the
entire sky. The decks were now awash, fore and aft; the port rail was four feet underwater, and the ship lay as a tilted whale. But they had survived the storm.
It occurred to Jack they should be sinking. The seas had calmed beyond what seemed reasonable from just moments before—they must be in the lee of land, given the odd lurching of the ship.
Wounded and drowned sailors were all around him; some of the stronger ones started to move. He knew the sailors tied to the port rail were all dead, for he saw that part of the ship submerged most of the time.
Jack became aware of a wild joy coursing through his veins. It was the most exciting and terrifying thing that had ever happened to him.
Quince untied himself and began giving orders to the mates who were able to move. A grinding, unearthly sound stopped him. He made his way aft along the starboard rail, shouting, “We're hard aground, lads. Quickly grab anything that floats and prepare to abandon ship.”
Jack pulled out the belaying pins, untying Paul and himself. He grabbed the door to the captain's cabin.
“What's happening? Are we home?” Paul's face was intense with pain.
“No, Paul, we're not home yet. We're going to take this piece of wood and begin paddling. We've gone aground on a reef, or a spit of land, and if we're lucky, lad, maybe there's an island attached.”
J
ACK AND PAUL CLUNG TO the safety of the door, drifting away from the remnants of the ship, praying to find solid earth. They could hear the surf breaking somewhere on a distant shore but the heavy seas and dark night made it impossible to know which direction to swim. They were exhausted. Jack had left the safety of their life raft twice to go to the aid of a sailor crying for help—each time finding nothing. The sea was exacting a heavy price this night.

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