Five

 

The George V. Cotterill remained alongside despite the noisy demands from the forecastle that she should leave. Business in the city was still being carried on, newsboys cried the names of papers and urchins scrambled for discarded cigarette ends. But the cafés were empty and cabs stood idle in ranks. A few shops had shut and people hurried past, not even stopping to talk.

With the increasing number of deaths, rumours spread, many of them wildly exaggerated. Gradually the city became isolated. The streets no longer grated under the wheels of waggons bringing in food. Bonfires were lit in the streets in the belief that the smoke would ward off the pestilence. But still the deaths continued and even the quacks, hawking their medicines in the streets, fell dead and were buried with the money still in their pockets because no one would touch it.

The heat was intense, but there was a storm building up in the west. Edward could sense it. Edward prayed the ship would leave because he was terrified. While he had been in the agent’s office one of the clerks had collapsed. He had seen him for two or three days, looking as if he were disappearing pound by pound, his eyes slowly receding into his head. As the clerk fell off his stool, he almost knocked Edward over. Turning on his heel, Edward had fled.

Now there were reports of other outbreaks in the eastern end of the Mediterranean – in Istanbul, Smyrna, Beirut and Alexandria, all destinations for the George V. Cotterill. In the end a deputation was sent to Captain Budd demanding the crew should be free to leave. Budd’s eyebrows vibrated and his face grew red.

‘Are you lot telling me what to do?’ he roared.

‘Yes.’

‘A ship has to give notice of her arrival and departure,’ Budd yelled. ‘Nationality, tonnage, cargo, where she’s been, where she’s going, when she leaves and how long she plans to stay. I’m the master of this ship and I don’t ask the piss-arsed members of the crew what I should do.’

He blustered mightily, but was as frightened as they were. Nobody bothered with the drinking dens and bars any more. The ship was ugly and uncomfortable but they had taken on their water at Gibraltar and, by rationing it, they seemed to be safe so long as they didn’t go ashore. Only the mate seemed to crave the pleasures of the land.

Captain Budd remained all a-twitter and continued to send Edward to chivvy the agent to hurry the unloading. He was itching to leave, but he couldn’t ignore the owners’ instructions. And his cargo was still only half unloaded.

That night, the mate, who had gone ashore as usual, failed to return to the ship. Edward was sent to find out what had happened. He managed to track him down to a drinking den where he had last been seen, but the place was closed and there was a board nailed across the doorway with a skull and crossbones insignia scrawled on it. Underneath it was scrawled, ‘Fermé. Choléra.’

‘Oh, Christ,’ Captain Budd said when Edward delivered his report.

The cholera cases were being taken to an isolation hospital which had been set up outside the city, but the place was in total confusion. There had been no time to take down the names of individual victims but Edward was offered the chance to check the wards to see if he could identify the missing man. He took one look and backed away. They were crowded with twisting, wretched figures. Their faces were hollow, their eyes deep-sunk, their skins yellow, their clawing hands appealing for help. There were men and women crammed together, of all colours and races, but mostly Egyptians from the poorer quarters of the city. There was no sign of the mate.

The nurse, a hollow-eyed Scottish woman, who looked ready to drop with exhaustion, answered Edward’s questions. She seemed to remember a European who had been brought in.

‘He was a sailor, I think,’ she said.

‘Where is he now?’

‘I think he died.’

‘Damn. So what happened to him?’

‘They’re taken out and buried immediately.’

‘Have you any proof?’

‘They’ll have kept his belongings. Most people here come from the poorer quarter and don’t have anything at all so it shouldn’t be hard to identify them. They’ll be burned.’

The mate’s wallet, watch and chain lay in a neat heap on a large table. There were other neat piles, obviously the possessions of Europeans who had died and been hurriedly buried. Edward was careful to touch nothing. When he went outside again, he found the man who’d driven the carriage had vanished.

‘He’s inside,’ he was told when he enquired. ‘He collapsed.’

When he reported the facts to Captain Budd, the captain licked his lips nervously. ‘I don’t like this,’ he said. ‘He ought to have been brought aboard. Sick or distressed British seamen are supposed to be conveyed to their home port.’

‘The crew would have walked off immediately,’ Edward pointed out bluntly, ‘and the ship would have been quarantined.’

‘He was in here last night,’ said Budd. ‘He had a drink with me.’

‘Perhaps you’ve got it now, Captain,’ Edward said cheerfully.

Budd gave him a startled look and vanished to his cabin. His steward reported sounds of heavy gargling, and, during the afternoon, orders were issued to single up the mooring ropes ready for departure.

About noon the next day, when they were all congratulating themselves on their escape, a cloud as big as a pocket handkerchief arose out of a clear horizon. The second mate, a thin little man who suffered from the captain’s bullying, decided it meant rain and sent Edward for sou’wester and oilskins. By the time Edward returned, the cloud had spread across the entire sky. Lightning flashed through and there were growlings of thunder.

As the vanguard of the clouds passed over the ship, rain began to fall, growing heavier until the sea seemed to protest at its weight. From the weather side of the ship came the threatening roar of a huge wind sweeping across the sea, awe-inspiring and terrible in its power.

The second mate immediately ordered the royals taken in. But as he did so, Captain Budd appeared on deck and insisted they stay where they were. As the squall struck, with the howl of a banshee, the George V. Cotterill leaned over, water leaping up through the scupper holes in solid jets. Another squall followed and the ship lurched further until the rail dipped beneath the waves, and the captain finally ordered the royals to be lowered.

But because of the angle of the yards, it was impossible to bring them down, and another gust drove the lee rail out of sight, sloshing water along the deck.

‘Jesus God!’ Washed out of his galley, the cook was clinging to a lifeline. ‘She’s on her beam ends!’

In a panic, the captain gave the order to let go the royal halliards, and started to scream a succession of wild orders.

‘She’ll go like the Eurydice.’ The second mate was muttering in his fury by the wheel.

‘What’s the Eurydice?’ Edward asked nervously.

‘Naval training frigate. Nine hundred tons. Caught by a sudden blow off the Isle of Wight in’ Seventy-eight. One minute it was bright sunshine and calm seas, and she was under plain sail. Next minute she was upside down. Three hundred and fifty men lost.’

The George V. Cotterill heeled over. She had been caught with every scrap of sail on her and as she leaned it was difficult to keep a footing on the deck.

The second mate was struggling to help the helmsman put the wheel over so the ship would pay off, and there were moments when Edward was sure he was as good as dead. Then the gaff topsail blew away. There was a crack that lifted every head, the outer edge of the mainsail which was trailing in the sea lifted clear, and gradually the ship came upright.

The rain drove horizontally into the canvas. Sails and gear were clattering and banging in the wind as the crew began to haul away the mainsail. The hands went aloft, Edward with his heart in his mouth as usual. By the time they returned to the deck, darkness was sliding across the sea, and it was blowing a full gale. Edward’s muscles seemed to be caught by iron bands, his eyelids drooped with weariness and he was half-dead for want of sleep.

But the wind began to abate and, with the mainsail back in place, the George V. Cotterill stood to west and north in a backing wind.

The following evening, a group of faint lights was seen.

‘Tip of Sicily,’ said the second mate.

There was no sign of Captain Budd, and the steward said he was in a drunken stupor. The second mate was haggard with fatigue. As they edged closer inshore, Budd appeared and hovered near the wheel. The word went round that he was aiming to pass round the tip of Sicily and put into Naples, and everyone began to look forward to a disease-free port where they could enjoy themselves.

‘We’ll be there for Christmas,’ the second mate said.

The wink of a lighthouse appeared through the darkness.

‘Cape Spartivento,’ the fifteen-year-old apprentice suggested.

Budd decided to go on thrusting before the wind which was still blowing strongly. The plan was to make for Reggio di Calabria, to ride out the storm in the entrance to the Straits of Messina.

‘That’s a terrible place,’ the second mate observed. ‘The wind and current come through there like the hounds of hell.’ He was extremely nervous. He felt they were too close to land and suspected they were heading for trouble.

‘We should stand off till daylight,’ he said.

‘We’re getting pretty close,’ the apprentice squeaked.

Almost as he spoke, through the mist of spray, they caught the flash of a green light and saw the bulk of a steamer crossing their path.

‘Christ!’ Budd yelled. ‘Hard over!’

Instinctively, the helmsman, helped by the captain, heaved on the wheel and the George V. Cotterill swung to port. The steamer loomed to starboard, lights blazing.

‘For God’s sake,’ the mate yelled. ‘We’ll be ashore.’

‘We’re all right,’ Budd yelled back. ‘There’s the lighthouse.’

‘That’s not a light,’ Edward screamed. ‘It’s a fire ashore.’

Everybody was on deck, both watches waiting tensely for the next order, knowing that some of the canvas should come off the ship, and convinced something horrifying was about to happen. The steamer had vanished into the murk.

‘That is a fire,’ Edward insisted. ‘You can see the sparks.’

The mate had sent a hand forward with a lead-line and he was singing out the depths. ‘By the deep–’ he yelled. Then he stopped. ‘Bloody hell!’ he screeched, ‘we’re aground.’

Even as the captain turned to bawl fresh orders, Edward was thrown forward as the ship struck. The howling surf swung her up and she drove forward then dropped heavily. The topmasts bent and came down. Sails flapped and hammered, the chains clattering against the yards. Then the yards themselves came down as the lifts and ties carried away, and the mizzen topmast fell in a blanketing cloud of canvas. The ship stopped dead, the helmsman groaning on the deck by the wheel with broken ribs.

Budd seemed petrified, and it was the second mate who took control.

‘Rockets,’ he ordered. ‘Carpenter, see how much water we’re making.’

The rockets flew up with a shower of sparks as the hull continued to bump and crash on the rocks. Now they were closer, they could see land just ahead of them, even lights, beyond the foaming sea. A backing gust of wind drove the ship back into deeper water. On deck it was pandemonium, with flying chains and wires twisting and whipping like living things.

‘We’re taking water fast,’ the carpenter announced.

As he turned away a heavy spar, swinging down from aloft, swept him into the scuppers.

‘Get him below,’ the mate shouted. ‘I’ll attend to him later. The rest of you stand by the boats.’

With the apprentice, Edward struggled down to the officers’ saloon. It was canted at an odd angle and the crockery that had been on the table had all slid to the deck, while the curtains with which the steward had attempted to decorate the place hung at an angle from the porthole. As they placed the injured man on the leather bench, he promptly rolled off and they had to snatch up clothing from the hooks on the bulkhead and wedge him in.

When they reached the deck again, the lurching seemed to have stopped.

‘I think she’s floating,’ the apprentice piped. ‘She seems steadier.’

‘She’s floating,’ the mate agreed. ‘But she’s full of water.’

But the deck was tilted crazily, and the boats the mate had ordered out could not be swung because the topmast had fallen across them, shattering one and pinning the other to the skids. Finding a new, vile oath for every wire and spar that got in their way, the men worked furiously to clear them. The surf roared among them as they struggled. All the George V. Cotterill’s upper masts had gone, leaving only the thick stumps of the lower masts, the yards-a-cockbill at crazy angles. The masts and spars which had fallen into the sea swung back and forth like battering rams to grind against the hull.

Every man in the ship was on the poop now, struggling to release the shackles that held the hammering spars, fighting off the hampering folds of canvas that flapped and beat at them in the wind. It was impossible to release the shackles.

‘You two.’ The mate pointed at Edward and the apprentice. ‘Go forrard. Find lamps, chisels and hammers.’

Fighting his way through the spider’s web of ropes and wires, Edward could see the sea sweeping unhindered across the deck. The black shape of the forecastle head appeared in front of them, dark against the sky. Beyond it lay the land, near enough, it seemed, to leap to safety. Fallen gear impeded their path and, as they struggled, the ship shook like a rat held by a terrier.

The apprentice was swearing in a cracked and terrified voice inside the locker, trying to find what he was seeking in the pitch blackness. Waiting outside, Edward was in a nightmare of fear, expecting the ship to vanish beneath his feet at any moment.

‘For Christ’s sake!’ He yelled, ‘come out of there.’

There was a crash from inside the locker and a squeal of fury, and the apprentice burst out, holding his head. Blood was pouring through his fingers and he seemed dazed. The ship lurched and he fell backwards into the darkness. Edward plunged after him, pawing like a blind man until he found him. As he dragged the apprentice clear, a spar smashed down on the locker, reducing it to splinters.

Supporting the boy with one arm, Edward struggled aft, forgetting the lamps and tools they had been sent for.

As he negotiated the tangle of spars, wires and chains amidships, he was startled to see the white shapes of the boats ahead of him slowly sinking from sight. Deck planks splintered, iron plates bent and tore like paper. Rivets popped, and Edward saw the great fore and aft sail come roaring down with a shriek of blocks and the twanging of wires to cover the huddle of men struggling on the poop. Then the stumps of the main and mizzen masts canted slowly to one side, and fell backwards, and he realised the ship had broken her back. The poop was disappearing before his eyes.

Dumping the unconscious apprentice, Edward ran aft to find that between him and the rest of the ship a vast chasm of wild water had opened. It dawned on him that the stern half of the George V. Cotterill had fallen away, taking with it every other member of the crew. All of them, the second mate, the captain, the cook, had been fighting to clear the rigging on the poop when the huge sail had come down, swamping them with its folds, and now they had all been swept into the darkness, every one of them, together with the unconscious carpenter stretched out on the bench in the saloon.

Already he could hear shouts and splashing somewhere below him. Grabbing one of the halliards, he tossed it down into the darkness. For a while he could feel it moving in the swirl of water, then he felt a tug that almost jerked him into the sea. Realising a man was on the end of it, he tried to haul it in but it was too heavy and his hands were frozen. Desperately he looked round for help but the apprentice was still in a huddled heap on the deck among the wreckage.

A hoarse voice croaked up from the darkness. ‘Take a turn round something, you bloody fool. I’ll climb.’

Edward swung the bight of the rope round a bitt and held on. A minute or two later, the bosun’s head appeared, his hair in his eyes, blood pouring down his face so that he looked like some sort of spectral being rising out of the sea.

‘Well done, lad,’ he said. ‘Let’s send it down again.’

But even as they stood staring down into the maelstrom, the shouting died away beneath the crashing of the sea.