In spite of everything that had happened, everything I had seen, I had not really believed it. Not in my heart.
Tales of demons, of monsters that believed themselves gods, and spirits that could fly through air to possess a person’s mind – they were just stories, the fruits of febrile imaginations, the natural children of the darkness before civilisation.
They were not real.
But under the boat, rising near the bow and surging beneath and past us, what I saw was real enough: a rugged peak of flesh breaking the surface. It was almost black in colour, with a curved and pitted spine, and moved like a dolphin; sleek, lithe, faster than the current. I could see only a segment of its body at a time – it did not breach the water fully – but as it poured its form back into the sea, foot after glistening, armoured foot, I began to conceive of its immensity. As I stared, dumbfounded, the waves covered it again, and it was gone.
The wind rocked the boat. I did not need to wait to see what the creature would do. I released Esther. Henry lay still in his small ball. Desperate to return to the shore, I grappled the oars again, raised my chin to the storm and began to pull. As I did, I saw where the beast was headed.
There was a ship.
The vessel bore down from the west. It had probably just left port at King’s Lynn and been caught out by the unexpected maelstrom of wind and snow. It turned in an enormous circle, moving towards the shelter of the bay, and there was something valiant about its billowing sails. From so far away, I could not see the men, but there was movement on deck; rowing boats were being lowered, ready to slow the craft as she came in to harbour. And between the ship and the shore…
They don’t know…
I looked towards Esther. Her gaze was fixed on the ship. For a moment I questioned whether she was aware of her surroundings, or even of time or space, because her face was so blank and resigned, reminding me, horribly, of my father’s last hours, and his vacant sadness.
‘Esther…?’
Before I could finish, the tension in her frame gave out, and she began to fit. Her body shook uncontrollably, her flailing hands and feet striking the side of the boat. Fearful I would lose control of the vessel entirely, I could not get to her, and screamed her name, only to have my frightened cries ripped away by the gale.
Then the snow began to fall in earnest, bucketing from the huge clouds overhead. I raised my eyes in disbelief as the sky flashed white, and I heard the rumble of thunder.
And still the ship came on. She looked small but wasn’t. She was a three-decker, a great ship of the second rank, with perhaps fifty guns. I was no seaman, but knew she probably carried over two hundred men. She was sailing in a crosswind, battling the surging waves. She could not come all the way to shore – she would need to drop anchor near the limited shelter of the cliffs.
Meanwhile, Esther was fighting her own battle. The snow blanketed her shaking body, and the white foam spilling over the side soaked her blue-tinged skin. I could not release the oars to help her. We were in danger of capsizing, and my breath came harder as I struggled to keep the boat on course. I looked anxiously at my sister and the crumpled form of Henry, but before I had rowed three more strokes, my attention was wrested from them by a colossal black shape surfacing against the bow of the ship.
God or monster – it was as real as I.
They collided.
In the chaos of the wind-driven snow and with the water roiling about the hull, the captain would have seen nothing ahead. The ship staggered. There was an excruciating sound, as though something wailed in anguish. It was accompanied by a splintering crack; the craft was holed.
I could hardly watch, but could not look away.
A monstrous shadow rose further out of the water, stirring the sea like a boiling pot, and even over the cry of the wind and the melee of the waves, the dismay of the crew carried all the way to my ears. Slowly, before my unwilling eyes, the beast wrapped its snake-like body about the mainmast. It was far longer than the ship, impossibly so, and as thick as five men about its sinuous middle. Beginning with its elongated mouth, like the snouted head of an eel, with teeth as sharp as ballock daggers, it dragged itself up the rigging, tearing sails, strands and stays like dead ivy off a tree. Reaching the top, it tightened its grip, dragging its powerful tail from the water. I could see its muscular length now, plated with bony, triangular crests. The tail smashed down on the deck, port to starboard, and the vessel reeled under its weight, the masts leaning hard towards the water. The doll-like forms of men began falling from the decks like wooden soldiers. The creature seemed oblivious, its only aim, apparently, to crush, to reduce those great timbers of English oak down to firewood. Now, bearing the full weight of the monster, the ship was breaking apart down the middle. Men fell towards cruel jaws, which gaped mindlessly towards the cannons like the mouth of Hell.
Sailors are notoriously poor swimmers. Any man who fell overboard when the ship was at sea would pray for a swift death, as their pain would only be prolonged by the ability to stay afloat. The piteous cries of those still aboard went up to Heaven. It was pointless to try to turn the boat, to go back and help, but I tried anyway, calling Esther’s name as she continued to shake and cough up spittle. I rowed towards the ship. If I could save just some of them…
Abruptly, Esther’s body straightened. A plaintive noise escaped her, like the last cry of a trapped wild creature. Her eyes widened as though the sound had broken through her fit. Heedless of the greater battle being fought ahead of me, I dropped the oars and scrambled to her – was there a hope? – falling to my knees, no longer noticing the cold or the spray of the waves. Even the monster was, for the moment, forgotten. I gathered her close and said her name over and over. ‘Esther. Return to me. Please.’
A sudden sob behind made me turn back to Henry, and I felt overwhelming relief as the boy stirred. But he did so in fear, trembling. I watched with horror as Henry, seeing Esther, shifted further back against the rear of the boat, throwing one leg over the side as it pitched in the current. He whimpered, caught between his fright of the water and his deeper terror of his captor.
‘Henry!’ I shouted. ‘Stay where you are. It will be all right.’
‘Help us!’ came the child’s cry. ‘God, help us!’ He half-hung off the back, and as the next swell broke, I let go of my sister and launched myself towards the other end of the boat, but the water took him. The boat rocked so hard we were almost vertical, and when it righted itself, and I desperately scanned the white-foamed, shadowed surface, Henry was nowhere to be seen.
On the bottom of the boat, Esther lay curled, her lips moving. The sound was barely audible, but even so, I knew the language was unknown to me and felt the same creeping terror I had experienced before. I desired only to still her tongue, or stop my ears if I could not.
The beast was moving. Its quarry remained, its timbers crushed and tortured, yet its attacker was retreating. It unwound its bulk from the shattered form of the galleon, which sagged as the monster’s body fell away. As the serrated tail slipped beneath the waves, followed by the bow end of the ship, the sailors clung to the debris and to each other; but the worst was over. The behemoth was gone, the stern was still afloat, and the men in the water were now beginning to clamber on. A smaller boat was being lowered, with what seemed to be an orderly start to disembarkation.
I breathed again.
Then Esther’s eyes opened wider, and the ship burst into flame.
There was a roar, and the whole hull exploded, creating a fireball that seared my eyes and made my eardrums hum like a cathedral organ. I lurched backwards with the shock, a shock that made my head spin as though the Earth had reversed its motion. Men screamed like dying cattle.
Over the noise of the fire, the thunder, the wind and the waves, I heard my father’s voice in my mind: no plan of the Lord’s can be thwarted.
I closed my eyes. The beast was of God’s making – its armour, its mighty coils, every fold of its flesh – and what would be, would be as God had intended since He had conceived of it. Of that there could now be no doubt. But what would be the Lord’s instrument?
Or who?
I looked to my sister. Since the explosion, she had stopped her muttering. She lay as in a trance.
As the lightning flashed nearer, so close I thought it must hit home, and thunder rolled directly overhead, I glimpsed the future.
The leviathan would never stop. It was too full of rage, too trapped, too wild. Where it saw weakness it would strike, and, striking, it would destroy. We might drug Esther’s body and corral the mind within, but if we slipped in our vigilance even for an instant – and being only men and women, we would – catastrophe would follow. The creature’s fury would engulf every good thing, on and on, until we stared into darkness. Hell would come after.
As we drifted back towards the shore, my sister lay on her side like a wounded animal, her mouth still now, her face so devoid of colour she seemed unreal. The thought of her suffering shredded something inside me. How could I help her? I was not strong enough.
Always, in the stories of my youth, there were signs. Spears of light would break through the clouds and doves would descend on church spires. In reality, it was not so. There were no miracles. I was quite alone with the wind and driving snow. Nobody else could do this duty – it was mine. I had never before shirked anything out of fear, yet I quailed before the choice in front of me.
Then, as I looked towards the beach, I saw two heads bobbing in the churning waves: one dark, small and still; the other fairer. Milton paddled valiantly, his left arm about Henry’s neck, his efforts barely keeping them afloat. But they moved slowly towards land, and there, just visible through the billowing snow, a tall shape waded eagerly into the sea to meet them, framed by a cloud of flyaway dark hair.
I turned the boat the other way, into the storm.