I had never been so afraid in all my life.
As a loblolly boy on a ship of the line you get to see fearful things, things no boy should ever see: frightened men, men with the fear of death in their eyes, and, often enough, death itself in their eyes. But this was different. I’m the one who was frightened now and with very good cause.
I looked around at the men in the jolly-boat. It was hot. The sun was high in the sky and beat down like a belaying pin. It had been several days now and although the water had been rationed it was almost at an end. The biscuit, our only food, had ended already.
Most of the men, six, seven or so, were frightened too. I could almost smell their fear; their fear of dying of the heat or dying of thirst and hunger.
These were the things that frightened me as well, but there was much more. It’s what I was seeing in the men’s wild eyes as, every now and again, they glanced at me. It was as though they were considering the wares in a butcher’s cart. At such times I saw them instinctively touch the hasps of their daggers before they would catch my eye and look away.
Back in the stern of the boat far away from me lolled Captain Lightower and the ship’s surgeon, Dr Hatch, whose servant I was. My master had comforted himself with rum — which he had not been prepared to share — and was only at that point emerging from a three-day stupor of groaning and snatches of singing.
The captain, on the other hand, had hardly said a word since the ship was taken. He had just lain there, glowering about at the easy rolling sea and growling every now and again. Despite his anger, whenever we glanced at each other, I did not see rage or hunger in his eyes, I saw bitterness.
In the prow of the boat, just behind me, the passenger sat. He was a strange figure, a friend of the captain I understood. He was a gentleman, I’ll warrant, certainly no sailor. On our passage out he wore the clothes of a man with a purse of gold: leather shoes with silver buckles, and a black greatcoat to guard against the wind. Now he sat by himself in the prow stripped to trousers, a silk shirt and a tricorn hat to protect his head from the beating sun. Like the captain he was largely silent, but I imagine for different reasons because he seemed neither angry nor desperate. If I had to describe the way he was treating our predicament, I’d say it was mocking. This was very strange to me, for our situation was dire. Certainly he seemed to show no fear. In a way, this attitude scared me as much as the men’s growing agitation and I was glad the passenger was at my back.
We had been bound for Jamaica to join our flotilla when we were boarded. The attack was swift and totally unexpected. It was deepest night and for some unfathomable reason — perhaps rum, perhaps treachery — neither those at the helm nor those on watch were aware of the assault until it was too late. Possibly it was treachery. The attack had been so efficiently carried out that no lives I’m sure had been lost. It was odd therefore that only such a handful of our crew had been ordered into the jolly-boat and cast out onto the ocean.
It must have been pirates, although pirates of a strange stripe. Most pirates would have cut us to pieces as a bloody gift for their kinsfolk, the sharks, although now I was no longer so sure that casting us adrift in a jolly-boat — what a fantastical term for the boat we were on! — was any act of human kindness.
It could not have been the Spaniards. Had it been the Spaniards, the ones they spared would have been bound in irons and taken to some island or mainland stronghold and held to ransom perhaps with their ears cut off, like poor Captain Jenkins.
It was a mystery, but now in this heat, this thirst, this hunger, I no longer cared to puzzle at it.
This sea I knew was peppered with islands and it was my urgent prayer that we would find one before the heat, thirst and hunger drove the men to the deed I knew was in their hearts. However, the sea was as boundless and empty as the sky. I shrank into myself, as if to render me smaller, less noticeable. Foolish, I know, but my terror was ever growing.
Just then, I heard a sardonic whisper at my back.
‘Look at them, Loblolly Boy. They’re measuring you up.’
I glanced quickly over my shoulder. The passenger was staring beyond me at the men. His eyes, dark in the shade of his hat, glittered.
I followed his gaze. What he had meant was all too plain and it was all too plain that he was right.
Despite the heat, I trembled.
‘They’re sharing you out. I’ll wager that one wants a leg …’
‘Stop it!’
‘Whether I stop it or not, little Loblolly Boy, will not make any difference …’
Why was he doing this? Taunting me? The hunger in the men’s eyes was growing and I could tell it might not be too long before one or more of them made a move. Who could I appeal to? The man at my back seemed almost amused at my plight. My master Dr Hatch had no love for me, only love for his bottle. Captain Lightower seemed gripped by his own private demons.
I glanced over the gunwale. Would it be better to slip into the water? Would it be better to let my drowning deny what was in their wicked hearts?
The sea was calm, beguiling. It slapped against the boat slyly, nudging it back and forth. Apart from this slip slap the silence was complete and almost unbearable.
Then, suddenly, the captain broke the silence by barking in the direction of the passenger. ‘Well, Mr Wicker, see what a catastrophe your devilry has led to?’
The passenger was unmoved by the captain’s passion. Instead he turned to him and smilingly said, ‘My devilry, Captain? You’re not suggesting I’m the one responsible for your present predicament, are you?’
‘Don’t fob me off with your humbug, man!’ cried the captain.
‘Or blaming me for the appalling stewardship of your vessel?’ responded the passenger easily.
This exchange surprised me, especially the captain’s bitterness. I did not understand it, nor did I understand the passenger’s carefree reply. I had thought that the man the captain called Mr Wicker was a friend of his; now it appeared as if they were enemies. It was not unusual for a gentleman acquaintance of the captain to voyage with a navy vessel, particularly if the said gentleman was well-connected or perhaps a man of science, as I presumed this Mr Wicker was.
It now looked as though Mr Wicker had found means other than friendship to secure his place on board and that the captain had not been happy about it. However, what Captain Lightower meant by devilry, I had no idea at all. I had scarcely seen the gentleman on our way out; since leaving Portsmouth he had remained in his cabin for most of this time, I presumed for the reasons most unseasoned voyagers stay in their cabins.
The captain did not respond to the passenger’s charge. He merely grunted scornfully and slumped back into himself. This interruption to the silence, however, had enlivened the men a little and one or two muttered to each other. The muttering did not bode well for me and I found myself shrinking again even further and instinctively moving closer to the stranger. I imagine that this was because, despite his goading, I felt that he did have an authority and self-possession above all of the other wretches on board.
I sensed that if anybody on the little boat could save me it would be him, although how he could do this was beyond my understanding.
Suddenly the boat was set a-rocking by one of the men standing up. It was Jacob Stone, the bosun’s mate. He was not generally liked, being a lickspittle and a bully, toadying to his superiors and lording it over those he considered beneath him. I generally avoided him as his usual pleasure was to cuff my ears, aim a kick at me, or tell me I was damned. As there was no mast, he had to balance himself by standing legs apart, forcing the boat to seesaw violently. His purpose was to gain height in order to scan the horizon all about us, hoping for some indication of land. There was clearly none.
‘Sit down, man!’ ordered the captain angrily, ‘or you’ll have us all in the drink!’
Stone obeyed at once, causing as much rocking and pitching as he had in climbing to his feet. Once seated again, and as the boat slowly gained its balance on the water, he set about whispering to his fellows and, as they whispered among themselves, once more I felt their lip-licking glances in my direction.
‘I do believe they’re getting hungrier, Loblolly Boy,’ murmured the stranger.
I did not reply. What was there to say? It was such a self-evident fact.
‘Clearly Master Stone has found no sign of rescue on the horizon,’ the stranger added. ‘No comfort there for him, and so I dare say even less comfort for you, wouldn’t you agree?’
‘Don’t do this,’ I whispered.
‘What am I doing,’ said the stranger, ‘except stating the obvious? The sun is hot, the sea is calm, there is no land or ship in sight, the men are parched and getting hungrier, and you are the best thing on board to satisfy that hunger …’
I felt faint with fear.
And then, mysteriously and most unexpectedly, given his ever mocking cruelty, the stranger whispered, ‘Loblolly Boy, if you can move as gently as possible and without rocking the boat as roughly as that fool Stone, then you would be able to sit right up in the bow and I shall sit between you and these who would butcher you for dinner.’
I looked up at him speechless.
Why was he doing this? He did give the appearance of fearing nothing, not even the captain, but he was still only one man, and as far as I knew, unarmed. He could possibly delay their murderous designs, but he could not prevent them. They would have their knives, their daggers, and they were growing ever more desperate. I could not see my master Doctor Drunken Hatch coming to his aid. The men would probably seek the doctor’s surgical skills to cut me up and he would clumsily oblige them. Captain Lightower had already revealed his contempt for the stranger. I did the arithmetic: nine against two. It was not comforting.
All the same, I gave the stranger a small surprised grimace and my muttered thanks.
Immediately, I began to wriggle past him as inconspicuously as possible and without rocking the boat too much.
Of course, both were impossible. How could I be inconspicuous when I was the constant focus of the desperately hungry men? And how could I move even a finger or a toe on that small jolly-boat lolling on a rolling sea without setting it lurching?
‘Keep yourself still, dammit!’ barked the captain, glaring in my direction, but thankfully he did not order me to return to my place. One or two of the men half-rose, as if to prevent me from shifting, but then quickly sat down as the boat began to rock even more violently.
‘That wasn’t difficult, was it?’ murmured the stranger, turning to me.
Now that the bulk of his body shielded me at least from the gaze of the others, I felt slightly more secure, although I knew in my heart that this was an illusion. Sooner or later, the men would come for me, and the stranger’s body would then be no more defence than a calico curtain in a window.
I suspected that the time would be dusk or even darkness. Whatever they were, whatever their desperation, the men were still human, and would prefer not to see their inhuman depravity revealed in the full glare of sunlight. No, it would be when there were shadows and darkness, when the boat bobbed in a black sea, and there would be little more than starlight to catch the glint of their knives.
My strange protector may have understood this as well, for after some time he whispered to me, ‘It occurs to me, little Loblolly Boy, that we do not have much time; that we should make our move before the sun sets, for in these tropic climes the sun sets with surprising expedition. We must take these scoundrels by surprise.’
Make our move? Take them by surprise? Was he suggesting that the two of us, one man and a mere stripling, should attack the lot of them, our only weapon being surprise?
To me, that seemed a somewhat inadequate weapon.
‘What do you mean?’ I whispered.
‘Trust me,’ he murmured. ‘I have certain abilities, you might say, that will utterly confound these wretches. I am rather weary of this becalmed little boat, and even wearier of its company. I think it’s time to say farewell to both.’
I began to think that the stranger was mad, that the sun had affected his reason. He was speaking of leaving the boat and its company. He was talking as if he were back in Portsmouth Town, not adrift in the vast emptiness of a tropical sea. I gave him what I hoped was an encouraging look, but I was sore afraid he’d lost his mind.
Or was he considering giving ourselves to the sea?
Despite the dark fears plaguing me there remained some small security in having Mr Wicker between me and the others. Perhaps because of his mocking recklessness, I sensed strength. I eased back into the prow and glanced around the ocean. While it promised nothing at least it did not stare at me with naked hunger. All at once, not far astern, I saw a flash of silver, and then another, and then to my astonishment there was a great scattering of silver rising in graceful arcs and falling back into the water only to rise and fall and rise and fall again.
Mr Wicker had turned back to me and now followed my gaze.
‘Flying fish,’ he murmured.
‘They’re beautiful,’ I whispered, ‘such joy.’
‘Perhaps,’ Mr Wicker said, ‘but I suspect it is more likely to be terror.’
‘Terror?’
‘I imagine that they’re leaping out of the water because some shark or barracuda is snapping at their tails. Luckily, providence has given them the ability to fly.’
Now, as I looked at the flying fish it did look as if there was something desperate and frantic in their succession of leaps and falls. My wonder at their freedom turned to a slight shudder at their predicament.
‘Alas, little Loblolly Boy,’ murmured the stranger, ‘would that providence had given you the ability to fly.’
He was teasing me again.
‘Would that not be a blessing, for there are sharks gathering about you, too.’
I willed him to turn away, and that failing, I turned away myself, muttering once more, ‘Don’t do this to me.’
In the event, both Mr Wicker and I were wrong about the men putting the deed off until nightfall.
Their desperation could not, in the end, wait for darkness. It was in the late afternoon, when in the wake of some further hurried muttering, Jacob Stone once more rose to his feet.
However, this time, his concern was not with the horizon, his object was me.
Despite Captain Lightower’s increasingly urgent orders for him to sit down, Stone stood there crazed and determined, swaying from side to side, but, with the natural balance of a seaman, at no time in danger of toppling, nor of upsetting the boat. His sweat-striped face was reddened by the sun, and his shirt flapped in the light breeze as he reached beneath it for his dagger, which he now raised, stretching out sideways with his other arm to purchase balance. He stood there for several seconds, looking like a bird of prey, wings outstretched. The boat lurched with him as he swung a step towards us. Then he paused and looked balefully at the stranger.
‘Move aside,’ he said savagely. ‘My purpose is not with you.’
‘I’m pleased to hear it,’ said Mr Wicker, not at all intimidated by this, ‘for your manner is both threatening and foolish. However, since I have offered this boy shelter, your purpose is in fact with me.’
The stranger’s slightly amused calm stopped Jacob Stone in his tracks. However, his greater need soon took over and he lurched towards us raising the dagger as he did so. The boat, like a physical echo, lurched with him and all on board were rocked from side to side.
I flinched against the inevitable attack. The stranger, on the other hand, making no effort to shift from his sprawling position in the bow seat, simply glanced up with amusement, an amusement which now goaded Stone to fury.
In response Mr Wicker merely lifted a hand as if to remonstrate with the sailor.
However, the hand of Stone, by some miracle — I do not know how — was, in that instant, turned into a hand of stone. And not just the hand, but the whole body of Stone was at that very moment frozen as if into a statue. He stood there, somehow transformed into marble, arm held back, hand clutching the dagger, expression fixed in a grimace of hatred; and then, because of his being utterly paralysed, he was unable to adjust to the pitch and roll of the boat, and slowly at first, but with gathering speed, he toppled off the boat and into the sea.
It was as if Jacob Stone had been transformed into his own name. He immediately slipped beneath the surface and was lost to view, and lost — there could be no doubt of this — to all earthly existence.
As I peered from behind the stranger, it looked to me for a moment as if the others had been turned to stone as well, for they sat stunned, as if what they had witnessed had, like the gorgon’s stare, petrified them.
The first person to break this ghastly silence was my master who, no doubt emboldened by the rum, all at once shouted, ‘Man overboard!’
And as if that were a signal of release, the other men rose, heedless of the risk, and rushed to the port side where Stone had disappeared. The boat swayed dangerously with this stampede while the captain roared ineffectually at them to stop.
There was nothing to see. Not even a bubble rose to the surface. The blue-green water sparkled in the sunlight. It was as if a glittering curtain had been drawn across the final act.
Wonderingly, nervously, the men retreated to their places in the boat. I do not think that they were responding to the barking of the captain. I believe it was because they had witnessed something strange, mysterious and frightening, something that had been caused by the raised hand of the stranger, a person who himself became suddenly mysterious and frightening.
I didn’t know what to think.
I had considered the man was suffering from too much sun.
How could he, simply by raising a hand, turn a man to stone?
Perhaps the oddest thing of all was the stranger’s own reaction or, rather, lack of reaction. While the others on board were gazing at him with fear and horror, he merely settled back in his seat in the prow, turned to me, and remarked, ‘Isn’t it peculiar? I imagine it won’t be long before he who thought he was about to feed is about to be fed upon.’
I understood what he meant and shuddered.
‘I imagine, too,’ he murmured, ‘that the sharks will recognise one of their own and like Stone himself, have no scruples about devouring a fellow creature.’
This cold-blooded meditation chilled me and I could not help but imagine the picture he was drawing.
The stranger glanced towards the stern of the boat. With Stone gone, there was an even wider gap between the two of us in the prow and the other men. The recent events had silenced them and, for the time being, put an end to the famished gazes. The stranger turned to me and whispered, ‘They are sufficiently cowed for the moment and Stone has bought us some time. I don’t really think any of these craven curs will attempt to follow his example, at least not until their desperation drives them to forget.’
I gave him a tight little smile of gratitude. It was like a shepherd thanking a tiger who had chased a dog from his flock.
‘However,’ he added, ‘I must say I am sore sick of this heat, this blasted boat and its crew.’
I agreed. I was sore sick of it as well. I was sore sick of everything.
‘So,’ said the stranger. ‘I must call upon your assistance little Loblolly Boy. You must help me out of this …’
Once again, I felt the sun must be getting to him, that he was possessed by some tropic madness. All the same, there was a nagging doubt pecking at me. I had already seen that this stranger, this Mr Wicker, did have — what did he call them? — certain abilities. Truly, with these abilities he had stopped Master Stone in his tracks, had petrified the man merely by raising a hand. I had never known such magic. Was he capable of more?
I was soon to discover.