The next few days are harsh, though nowhere near as stressful as when I was all alone, with only the stars for company. But I am beyond exhausted. The others are still too ill to move much, and can only lay about listlessly on deck, their heads racked with terrible, intense headaches.
I haven’t said anything to them, but our lugger seems to be riding lower in the water, and this morning when I was in the galley, I think I heard water splash in the bilges. I may have been mistaken, and I sure hope I am. Otherwise, we are slowly sinking.
I look up at the sun and out across the endless expanse of water in all directions. There is nothing to be seen, no dolphins, no turtles, not even a seabird. When we sink, we’ll be left clinging to wreckage in an endless ocean. How long will we survive? The water is not too cold, so not minutes, but maybe a day or so, at most.
‘Red?’ asks Bosun Stevenson, quietly, as I go take the wheel from him. ‘We are settling in the water. I can feel it.’
I nod. ‘I thought so too,’ I say, equally quietly. ‘How long do you think we have?’
‘A few days, a week maybe,’ he answers. ‘There is no hurry, but you need to think about making a raft, Red. Ready for when it happens. Search below for any barrels or drums you can find. Anything that floats well. Bring them up and lash them around the sides of that hatch cover.’ He points to the open lattice-like wood square in the centre of the deck. ‘You’ll need canvas for shelter,’ he continues, ‘a mast with a sail, and something to use as a rudder. And a box with as much food and water as you can fit in it.’
I shake my head. The idea is too overwhelming to comprehend.
‘When the lugger finally sinks, you’ll have to tie us to the raft. Think you can handle all that, boy?’ he asks. ‘We won’t have the strength to hold on for long.’
‘Rowdy and Briggs,’ I ask, ‘do I tell them now as well?’
‘They are both old sea-dogs,’ he says. ‘They’ll have worked out we’re going under.’
I am increasingly worried. Not only is the lugger, without doubt, sinking lower in the water, but I also have no idea where we are or how far away from land we might be. And even if we do manage to reach Australia, most of the western coast is utterly inhospitable, with no water, no shelter and little hope of survival.
I look around helplessly. The Bosun spends more time asleep than awake, and the other two can still barely move, the illness having devastated them.
I check the compass for the thousandth time, and glance up at the leading edge of the jib and at the wind direction telltales at the top of the mast. It is just like every other day. But I stop and frown slightly. Something has altered. Somehow, I can feel it. I scan the horizon. I am right. Directly astern of us, several miles back, is a sail. I jump to my feet, slip the loop over the wheel spoke and sprint for the mast. I am up the ratlines to the masthead in record time. I squint against the light. Sure enough, it is a lugger, just like this one, on the exact same course as us. I wave, even though I know they are too far away to see me.
‘Wake up! Wake up!’ I call, as soon as I hit the deck. ‘There’s a boat. Heading this way!’
Excitedly, I drop the mainsail and then let out the jib just enough to keep us moving forward, but slowly.
The new lugger draws towards us. Soon it is close enough for me to make out its lines and rig. It is identical to this one in every respect and moving swiftly. I wave and yell when it is within shouting distance. No one waves back. There is no sound. I peer closer. A flock of seabirds soars overhead and swoops down. I can hear their noisy squawks.
It is difficult without a telescope to see what exactly is going on on board, but at about two hundred yards the skipper of the lugger makes no attempt at shortening sail or even steering closer to us.
‘Ahoy!’ I yell.
It is then I notice the stink. It is like nothing I have ever smelt — worse than the cave full of bats. It is even worse than Mr Tosser’s cesspit at home, and that is really saying something. I put my hand to my mouth to stop myself gagging.
It is obvious the skipper has no intention of stopping, and it is going to sail straight past us, less than ten yards away on the port side.
‘Help!’ I yell as loudly as I can. ‘Help! I need help here! I really do!’
It takes only a minute for the lugger to pass by, and in that long, terrible sixty seconds I see hell on earth. The skipper is slumped over the ship’s wheel, clearly dead, and a seabird pecks at his face. The bird flies away, a hunk of bloody red meat wedged in its beak. The skipper’s face is half eaten away. I close my eyes for a second at the shocking sight. Near his feet, another crew member lies dead, and birds swarm all over and pick at his skin.
Further forward near the mainmast, two more crew members lie still, one on his back, his face a frightful mess of pecked bloodied gore. The other wears a red patterned shirt. I look a little more closely. No, the red is not his shirt but blood. What I thought was the pattern is his gizzards splattered all over him. Entrails hang from his belly and more birds peck at them in a feeding frenzy. On the opposite ratline, a younger crewman hangs upside down, his foot tangled and trapped in the foot lines. He sways like a rag doll, his eyes now black empty sockets, and his fingers all chewed off.
I stand stunned, unable to quite believe the truly hideous scene sailing past. After the excitement of seeing the lugger and hoping we might be saved, all I now feel is horror, revulsion and rising numbness. So much for my Captain Bowen–sounding boast that I would save everyone. If I had fallen with the disease, that would be exactly us now, birds pecking at our dead bodies as we sailed endlessly south. I fear my future is passing in front of my eyes.
Its sails forever set, the stricken lugger continues on its unrelenting passage into the unknown, and as it gets ahead, I see on its stern the name, Edith, and its home port of Cossack.
Cossack again. Is that what happened? Cossack has a typhoid epidemic? Did the crews we captured from the Cossack luggers come ashore carrying this disease and infect us? I can feel my thoughts swimming in confusion. So have the Captain and the crew on the Tartar been stricken as well? Are they too all dead and sailing ever onwards on a ghost ship? And why am I still unaffected? Why me?
I wait all the rest of the day before hauling the mainsail back up the mast and moving off again. I want the ghost ship to get well ahead, so I am in no danger of catching up to it.
All night I sit on the deck at the wheel, adjusting it with my foot. The wind is so steady and straight that I hardly need to steer at all and I drift off to sleep many times, only to wake with a start, the dreadful scene filling my mind over and over like an endless nightmare.
An hour after dawn I go below and get some food to feed the men. There are some loaves of very stale bread, but after soaking them in port wine, they become soft enough to eat and tastier. None of the men has much appetite, but they all give in and eat a little after I badger them into it.
Two more days pass, or it could be three, or even four, as I think I might be going a bit doolally with loneliness and fear. The lugger is even deeper into the water now, and I can feel it moving slower. We are definitely sinking.
I have been constructing the raft, and it looks like it might float well enough but, even so, it will be overloaded and down at water level so that any sharks and other sea monsters that might want to eat us will have no trouble.
I take a break at noon and climb the ratlines to look to the east. There has been unfamiliar seaweed floating on the ocean, and if I can see any birds, it might mean we are close to land. Deep down, I know we are nowhere near the coast, but I have to pretend, even if it is just for my own sanity.
I check the horizon for every single one of the 360 degrees, but it is a clear ocean under a cloudy sky. No, it’s not. At ten degrees north, there is a speck, a white speck. I stay at the masthead, clutching on for at least an hour watching it. The speck is undoubtedly a sail, and it moves back and forward diagonally across the wind, so it is going reasonably fast, at least three or four times the speed of my boat. And if it is tacking back and forward, someone must be actually sailing it.
I slide down to the deck. ‘Bosun! Bosun, I need you. Look,’ I cry, pointing north. I put my shoulder under his armpit and haul him to his feet so he can see better.
‘Red?’
‘Look! Who else sails like that, a broad reach across the wind, then the opposite tack, zigzagging down the wind? It’s dangerous. You can easily snap the mast. Most skippers take the easy way and run before the wind, straight. I only know two who would tack like that. You and the Captain.’
It takes him a few minutes to work out what I am saying. He watches until the distant boat tacks again. That’s him,’ he says simply, ‘and look at their flag on the backstay. If that ain’t a message, nothing is.’
Sure enough, fluttering in the wind from the backstay is a brightly coloured flag, as red as my name.