Three

Soft whispering in a strange tongue. Hayden came fully awake . . . and then he realised the sound came from beyond the newly erected panel. Spanish.

Hayden spoke Spanish well enough—not so well as Italian or French—and he comprehended a good deal more, but this whispering was too low for him to catch more than a few words.

The Spanish were allies, of course, and these brothers were likely nothing more than the castaways they claimed, but there was something—as Mr Barthe had said—peculiar about finding only the two of them in a boat. Two from a complement of some two hundred. He wished now that he had not revealed his knowledge of the Spanish tongue. It would have been less than gentlemanly, but he might have learned something of what had happened to them—assuming it was something other than what they claimed.

The younger brother made a hissing sound and whispered, “Listen . . . I believe he is awake.”

The conversation ceased forthwith.

Hayden realised his breathing must have changed as he woke, giving him away. As there was no more advantage to be gained, and this was commonly his hour to rise, he rolled out of his cot and commenced his morning toilet. Breakfast arrived, lamps lit.

Rustling behind the screen preceded the arrival of Miguel and, soon after, Angel.

Hayden rose. “I do apologise for the noise,” he offered. “I rise before the sun, but you, of course, may sleep as long as you wish.” He motioned to chairs. “Please, join me.”

“We are happy to rise when you do, Captain,” Miguel replied, sliding into a chair. “And please, it is your cabin. We well understand that the captain of a ship must come and go whenever his ship has need of him. Do not spend a moment in concern for us.”

Hayden’s steward and servant were quickly offering food.

“I tend to eat simply at sea,” Hayden informed them—half an apology. “I hope you won’t mind?”

“One grows so tired of elaborate meals,” Angel replied quickly. “And I find simple meals produce the best conversation.”

“I fear I might be a disappointment to you, Don Angel. Before I have had coffee I can barely mumble a few words.”

“Then you must have coffee, Captain,” he said, and motioned Hayden’s servant with such confidence that the man filled Hayden’s cup before he thought, and then turned red as a marine’s coat. Hayden let it pass, not wishing to embarrass his guest.

“We will begin a search today to see if there are any other survivors from your ship. Can you tell me, now, what occurred?”

Angel glanced at his brother, clearly deferring to him.

“We set off,” Miguel began, his face darkening, “three frigates from Cádiz, sailing for Vera Cruz. We were guests of Captain Andreu, who, as I said, was a friend of our late father. All went well until the gale. Captain Andreu told us to not be alarmed, for his ship had been through many much worse.” His voice lowered noticeably. “But that evening a mass was held for all the officers and men who were not on watch to pray for our deliverance. I could tell that the men were frightened and dismayed. Some appeared unnerved. Many of these men had spent their lives at sea. I assumed from this that the storm was much worse than Captain Andreu had told us.”

Hayden nodded. “Yes, we went through it as well. A hard gale—not a storm—but the seas were confused and steep and greater than the wind warranted.”

Miguel glanced at his brother as if Hayden had confirmed their own thoughts. “As we prayed, there was a thunderous, great crash and we were all thrown down upon the deck. Immediately, water began to rush in. Some men were orderly, but others made a rush for the ladders and in the panic trampled their crew mates. I was knocked down myself, and if some man, I know not who, had not hauled me up by my collar, I should have been killed. Captain Andreu got us to the deck and established order there. The men were frightened for their lives, but Captain Andreu had their respect. The ship was already down by the stern and sinking more rapidly than I would have thought possible. There was no saving it. We were told by the officers on deck that there had been a collision, but the other ship was not then to be seen.

“Captain Andreu put us in the first boat launched with a single crewman—I think you say a coxswain—and we were hoisted out and into the terrible seas. Men were to climb down into the boat then, but the ship suddenly rolled away from us and our boat was torn free. We were thrown down and the boat half filled. When I rose to my knees the coxswain was gone and the ship had rolled on its side. The seas drove us away from the ship. We bailed for our lives.

“I did not know how to manage a boat in such seas, but it hardly mattered; we became ill with the motion and could barely move. We bailed enough to stay afloat—fear being greater than our sickness. After a very long time the winds grew small and the seas less angered. The whole day we lay in the boat and prayed to be saved. And then, as night found us, Angel saw your ship far off on the horizon. The rest you know, Captain Hayden.”

Hayden took a fortifying sip of his coffee. “You were beyond lucky to have survived the sinking, and then to have been discovered at sea . . . Well, it is a vast ocean . . .”

Angel appeared moved, his eyes glistening. “God preserved us. There can be no other explanation.”

Hayden, who was less convinced that God intervened in the affairs of men, said nothing. “Don Angel, you have a bloodstain on your shirt and jacket,” Hayden noted. “Are you injured?”

Looking confused, Angel opened his coat, revealing a shirt stained a muddy red. “No. It is some other’s blood—from the melee, I think—but I do not know who.”

“Well, you were fortunate not to be injured.”

Angel fixed his gaze on Hayden. “You place a great deal of faith in luck, Captain.”

“It is the sailor’s superstition, Don Angel,” Hayden responded. “When I was a young midshipman, a ship fired grape at our quarterdeck from barely thirty yards off. Four of us stood together—three abreast and one behind me. We were, all of us, thrown down on the deck; the men to either side were wounded and the man directly behind me was killed. It was impossible. The shot would have had to pass through me to strike him, yet he was killed instantly. When he was examined by the surgeon, it was found that the shot had struck him in the chest and severed both a major artery and his spine. A miracle—or perhaps divine intervention—was the offered explanation for my survival. But then, we realised the ship’s bell had been struck at the same instant—struck at such an angle as to have deflected the grapeshot, killing my friend but missing me.”

Angel reached out and touched Hayden’s arm. “But you do not know that it was not a miracle or divine intervention, Captain. God might have preserved you for some other purpose.”

Hayden shrugged. “Perhaps. Perhaps it was to find you and your brother, adrift in a great ocean, just as you said. You must excuse me. I am called to the deck. We shall begin our search for survivors. It has only been a day. There is always flotsam; some men might yet be alive.”

Miguel rose as Hayden did and touched his brother on the shoulder. Angel appeared confused a moment and then came to his feet as well. Hayden went out.

Dawn was summoning its energies beyond the eastern horizon. The last remnants of the gale had blown clear and the stars glittered against the lightless sky.

“Captain on deck,” Hayden heard from nearby, and there was a rustling in the dark as men shifted or stood. Out of habit, Hayden went to the binnacle, but the ship was hove-to and did not really have a heading—and he could easily have told it from the stars on such a night.

“Captain . . .”

Hayden turned to find Archer approaching.

“Mr Archer,” Hayden replied. “All is well, I trust?”

“Perfectly well, sir. We have a fair topsail breeze, sir, and the sea has gone back down.”

“It is a fair breeze for Barbados, Mr Archer, but not necessarily so for our purposes.”

“I take your point, sir. I have detailed men to go aloft as lookouts, and I shall station men around the deck as well.”

“Have a boat cleared away and ready to launch, Mr Archer, in the chance that we find anyone.”

“Aye, sir. And how shall we proceed?”

“I shall confer with Mr Barthe, who I am certain has been consulting his charts, estimating the winds and currents, and has come to a conclusion. Even so, it is a needle in a haystack, Mr Archer, a bloody needle in a vast haystack.”

Hayden took a turn around the deck, as was his habit, and spoke here and there with the hands and officers. Many men were new, and Hayden was only now learning their names and character. A few had been fishermen or had sailed in merchant ships, but too many were landsmen snared by the press. These men were rather wide-eyed and silent; they had never experienced the ocean in its anger and were still shaken by it. Another day would see them begin to recover, Hayden thought. Then the relief would appear and they would start to breathe again and even laugh. The first bad gale at sea was always unnerving.

Upon his return to the quarterdeck, Hayden found Mr Barthe and Archer huddled in conversation.

“Mr Barthe,” Hayden addressed the older sailor, “I have confidence that you have given our pending search your most careful consideration?”

“I have spent some energies on it, Captain,” Barthe admitted. “Shall we look at a chart, sir?”

Mr Barthe had a temporary table set up under the upper deck just outside Hayden’s cabin, for charts were at once costly and invaluable. Without them, a ship wandered lost among unknown perils.

Hayden, Archer, and Barthe were joined by Wickham, the only midshipman senior enough to be included in such a gathering—indeed, Wickham had recently been acting lieutenant. Hayden allowed him certain privileges to soften the blow of being reduced to a mere reefer again.

In the glow of a lamp, Barthe indicated a pencilled circle.

“It is my best guess, Captain, that the Spanish frigate went down here. Allowing for wind, current, and seas, any boats would have been driven downwind . . .” Barthe put the point of his compass in the centre of the circle and drew a few degrees of arc dead downwind. “I do not believe a boat would have passed beyond this point in so short a time.” He tapped a little triangle between the arc and the circle. “We are here, sir. We have not held our position perfectly all night, but have been carried by the current and lost some to the wind as well. Even so, any boats or wreckage should be downwind of us. I believe we should sweep here, sir, forth and back perhaps two leagues either side of our present position.”

“Twelve miles, Mr Barthe,” Hayden observed. “That is a great area of ocean.”

“So it is, sir, but the winds varied somewhat in direction during the gale and even more so after.” Barthe met his eye. “To be safe, Captain.”

Hayden considered a moment, then turned to his first lieutenant. “Mr Archer, we will wear at the end of each sweep and keep the wind ahead of our quarter. If there are survivors, we must not miss them.”

“Aye, sir. When shall I begin, sir?”

“An hour after the sun is up, Mr Archer. And Mr Archer? Launch a cutter, if you please. In these seas I believe we can safely stream it manned.”

“Aye, Captain.”

Barthe and Hayden were left alone over his chart, and Hayden related what the Spaniards had told him of the frigate’s sinking. Barthe shook his head and looked very grave.

“I do not hold out much hope of finding anyone else, sir.”

“No, but I for one will sleep better if I feel we have scoured the sea as best we can.”

“I agree entirely, Captain Hayden. To lie awake wondering if there was a man out there clinging to some bit of flotsam . . .” He tapped his chart. “If only for our own peace of mind we must make the most thorough search we can manage.” Barthe looked up at him. “And how fare our survivors, sir?”

“Better this morning. They ate, which I take as a very good sign.”

“Indeed it is. If they are the only two survivors . . . Well, maybe there is something to this papism, sir.”

Hayden laughed. “Mr Barthe, I am the only man aboard you should ever say that to.”

“It was but a momentary lapse, sir. It shall not be repeated.”

“Let us repair to the deck.”

“Aye, sir.”

Dawn had not yet chosen to make itself known, but the wind blowing from the north-east felt suddenly warmer. There was often a light squall of rain at sunrise, but this morning the horizon appeared devoid of low, dark cloud. The men who had gathered over Mr Barthe’s chart now stood in the stern of the ship, looking off to the east.

“How did Homer describe the fingers of dawn?” Hayden asked suddenly.

“‘Wine dark,’ was it not?” Barthe answered innocently.

“I believe it was ‘the wine-dark sea,’ Mr Barthe,” Archer said softly.

“And ‘rosy fingers of dawn,’” Wickham added.

“Ah, well, the fingers of dawn might well be ‘rosy,’” the sailing master asserted, “but I have never seen a ‘wine-dark sea.’”

“You lack a poetic soul, Mr Barthe,” came the voice of Lieutenant of Marines Hawthorne. “It often appears ‘wine dark’ in my experience.”

“I am certain it is, if you look through a fully charged claret glass, Mr Hawthorne,” Barthe replied, mock testily.

Hawthorne appeared among them, tall and erect. “Ah, that is the explanation. Homer must have done the same, I should think.” Hawthorne glanced from one to the other. “And why are we all staring off at the horizon?”

“We are awaiting the sun, Mr Hawthorne,” Archer told him, “so that we might begin our search for survivors.”

“The sun will arrive at its usual hour. All your staring will not change that. But by all means, do not let me discourage you. I am certain that Homer would approve.”

Eastern grey turned to crimson and then a rather spectacular gold. Archer sent lookouts aloft and all the midshipmen appeared with their glasses. Those not on watch went aloft as well. Hayden had often noted that anything that broke the monotony of a ship’s routine—especially on passage—was taken up by the men with great zeal. There were soon men all about the ship, scrutinizing the sea at every point of the compass.

Hayden ordered the ship underway and the morning trades quickly bellied the sails. Miguel and Angel appeared then, and Hayden invited them to the windward side of the quarterdeck, along with Mr Percival, the admiral’s poet-secretary. The sea, however, was uniformly empty of anything but water, though admittedly they did see petrels and a very fine specimen of the bosun bird.

The watch below soon tired of this and wandered off, a few at a time. They had all seen an empty ocean before. Hayden quizzed the sea with his glass, not so much because he thought he would find anything but because the lookouts would not want their captain to spot something from the deck before they saw it from aloft. The first lieutenant, Mr Archer, would quickly find a suitable punishment for such a failing.

The first sweep revealed nothing, but upon wearing and beginning their second sweep, flotsam began to appear—a grating, a gun carriage without its gun, a broken barrel. Standing on, they found a capsized boat, but a subsequent investigation revealed the larboard side had been stove in. All this did give Hayden some hope, however.

Just before noon, a lookout on the forward tops sang out: “On deck! Flotsam, two points off the larboard bow!”

Archer, who was forward, called up, “What is it, Higgins?”

“Don’t know, sir,” came the reply. “Mayhap the stump of a yard, Mr Archer. Might be men, sir, but they ain’t moving.”

Hayden and most of the guests went quickly forward. It took Hayden a moment to find this object in his glass, but finally he did.

Angel approached and stood beside him. “Are there men, Captain Hayden?” he asked softly.

“I cannot be certain.” Hayden handed the young man his glass.

After a moment of futile effort, Angel returned the glass to Hayden with a shrug. “I could find nothing.”

“There is a bit of a trick to it,” Hayden said. “Stare intently at the object and raise the glass to your eye without removing your gaze, even in the smallest degree. Easier said than done on a moving deck. It is one of those odd skills that, once learned, is never lost.”

Angel nodded, but Hayden could not help but think he looked unsettled, almost apprehensive.

The ship was hove-to and the cutter quickly surging over the waves, white sweeps catching the sunlight as they broke the surface then disappeared briefly into the sea, over and over. The little boat covered the hundred yards of heaving blue in record time and brought up smartly alongside the flotsam.

Hayden turned his gaze aloft. “Mr Wickham? Can you see what they do?”

Wickham’s head appeared from the tops. “I cannot, sir.” There was a murmur above; the head was withdrawn and then reappeared. “They appear to have taken aboard a man, sir.”

“Alive?”

The midshipman shrugged. “I cannot say, Captain.”

Hayden beckoned one of the hands. “Pass the word for the doctor, if you please.” And the man ran off, bare feet padding along the gangway.

The cutter was soon making its steady way back to the Themis, Hayden’s own coxswain, Childers, at the tiller. Hands, officers, and guests gathered at the rail, staring at the boat, which was laid expertly alongside. A hammock was lowered. A moment later it came up the side, bearing the body of a young man, bits of sea grass tangled in his hair and streaming from his limbs. He was laid out on the planks, eyes closed, a stain of glittering seawater overspreading the deck about him.

“There is no need for me to examine this man,” came the doctor’s voice. He had appeared at Hayden’s side. “Drowned.”

“Did you know him?” Hayden asked Miguel and Angel, both of whom looked terribly grim. They stared at their own fate, lying before them, evaded by the smallest margin.

“I did not, Captain,” Miguel replied, “but the names of the crewmen were unknown to me.”

“Pedro,” Angel whispered. “His name was Pedro. His family name I did not know. He was well liked.” He turned to Hayden. “What will you do with him?”

“We have no choice but to bury him at sea. I will consult our parson as to how this should best be done. We realise, of course, that he is of your church and not ours.”

Angel nodded and turned his attention back to the man lying on the deck. “So many died without last rites. I believe God will not mind.”

In the end the man was sewn into the hammock used to lift him to the deck and slipped over the side, after Mr Smosh had intoned some suitably neutral words. The search continued, but the excitement and novelty had been extinguished by the discovery of the dead sailor. Two hundred men had almost certainly gone down into the dark depths, and it was a sobering realisation for every man aboard.

By mid-afternoon the search was abandoned and Hayden ordered the Themis back on her course for Barbados. The north-east trade had returned and sped the ship along, her sails full and drawing. She rolled heavily in these conditions, but there was nothing for it.

Over supper Hayden could not help but feel his Spanish guests looked both haunted and relieved, and though the former was easily understood, the latter was not, causing him to wonder if he was not, somehow, mistaken about their feelings.

Later, Hayden ascended to the deck, where he stood by the taffrail, admiring the stars and small moon. It was a close night, for they had entered the zone of equatorial summer; soon, no doubt, they would be cursing the heat, after longing for it the previous weeks. It was as fine a night at sea as Hayden could remember. The trades had eased a little after sunset and the motion of the ship was more civilised, yet she still hurried on her way.

Hayden set out on a circuit of the deck, to stretch his legs and settle his supper. He made his way along the starboard gangway to the forecastle, where Archer intercepted him, coming the other way.

“Have you come to take a turn of the deck, Mr Archer?”

“I have come, sir, from the midshipmen’s reading society.”

“Have you? And how went your meeting this evening?”

“Most instructive, Captain. Mr Maxwell produced a poem by Shakespeare which provoked the most lively discussion.”

“And was Mr Percival in attendance?”

“He was, sir, and uncommonly silent on the matter of our interest. He retreated to his cabin the moment we drew to a close. I confess, I felt a little sorry for him.”

Hayden nodded. “Have you experienced a more lovely evening at sea, Mr Archer?”

“Hardly, sir. I can almost imagine I smell the perfume of the island flowers already.”

“You have an acute sense of smell—they are more than a sennight off yet.”

Archer accompanied Hayden back up the larboard gangway, where Hayden’s eye ran over every little detail of his ship that could be made out in the dim light. It was well known among his crew that nothing amiss escaped his notice. For most of the crew it was a matter of pride that the captain would find nothing to trouble his eye. For the rest, it was a matter of angering the bosun, who was a large man, and, though Hayden believed him kindly by nature, he was not averse to doing his duty and inflicting as severe a punishment as he believed a given transgression required.

Hayden and Archer parted at the quarterdeck, Archer going below and Hayden returning for a moment to the taffrail. He stood there, admiring the night, listening to the sounds of his ship speeding across the vast ocean. A whisper reached him, coming up through the open skylight. Feeling rather ignoble, he crept silently nearer.

“No one but the English know we are alive,” Miguel said in Spanish. “To everyone else, we are dead. We may claim to be anyone we wish. Anyone at all.”

“But the English will not keep our existence a secret,” Angel replied, just as softly.

“No, but we will have time to find a ship in Barbados—to slip away.”

“And how will we pay for our passage, Miguel? Everything we possessed has gone to the bottom of the sea.”

“There will be a way. I will find it.”

“I still believe we can confide in Captain Hayden. He is a good man; I feel it.”

“No doubt you are right, but he is, above all things, dutiful. A typical Englishman.”

“Captain . . . ?” The man at the helm spoke quietly. “I believe I saw a light, sir.” He gestured to starboard.

At the sound of a voice the Spaniards went silent and Hayden crept away as stealthily as he could. When he was a dozen feet off he said clearly, “Where away?”

And damned if it was not a light! Hayden called up to the lookouts, who spotted it almost immediately. Ransome came hurrying along the deck, whence he had been overseeing the renewal of some chafing gear.

“I will deal with the lookouts, Captain . . .” he said as he mounted the quarterdeck, “. . . suitably.”

“I have no doubt of it, Mr Ransome, but what of this light?”

“On deck!” the lookout on the main-top called down. “Light a league off our starboard beam, Mr Ransome. Appears to be moving north, sir.”

“Away from us,” the lieutenant said. “I wonder if she is one of the Spaniards.”

“It would seem unlikely. They were headed for Vera Cruz.”

“Shall we alter course, sir, to close with them at first light?”

“I think we have lost enough time on this crossing, Mr Ransome. Let us continue on our way.”

“Aye, sir.” He touched his hat and turned away, calling out, “Mr Hobson? Replace the lookout on the main-top, if you please.”

“Aye, sir.”

And so Hayden was left standing at the starboard rail, watching a mysterious light rise and disappear, growing ever smaller.

No one but the English know we are alive.

We may claim to be anyone we wish. Anyone at all.

It would appear that Mr Barthe would be proven right; there was something peculiar about these two brothers. And Hayden thought it best he find out what—perhaps also typical of an Englishman.