38

I had tumbled the dead prisoner’s body over the side and put the other man in the small boat with a skin of wine and some dry biscuit. With a pointed finger I tried to show the man where the nearest land was and I cast him loose to fend for himself. It was only then, when I was totally alone, that I realised how tired I was. Cold, hungry and near to exhaustion. I had not slept very well for several nights before and the stress of the day had taken a heavy toll.

I thought I glimpsed a darker smudge on the already dimming horizon. It could only be my landfall of the Gaulish coast, but before setting the course due north, I decided to make a positive sighting. The last thing I needed was a catastrophic mistake at this late stage. The weather was definitely moderating, although the clouds still chased across the sky like huge, grotesque huntsmen.

The savage wind suddenly dropped to a breeze and the ship began to wallow its way along, as it was pushed over the softer roll of the ocean’s swell. More sail, I decided, and set about lowering the heavy boom, I’d found that by taking a turn or two around a post I could control the hoist ropes quite well on my own without the danger of painful rope burns or, more seriously, crushed fingers.

With a fuller sail, I couldn’t bring myself to shake out all of the reefs, the ship surged ahead with a much more comfortable motion. And I confess to falling fast asleep, but it wasn’t for long.

I had gone back up to the steering platform, to check the tiller lashing and had sat on the step to scan again my much used set of notes and drawings. My sleep was troubled though, the dreams were peopled by the ghosts of those that I had known on this ship, but it was the sound of my father’s stern voice that woke me with a start.

The sail was flapping, cracking like a coachman’s whip and in the darkness around me, the sea seemed to be boiling in a foamy crashing welter. The shock was a poor way to wake-up, but I knew instantly where I was. This was the tidal race where many sea currents met. I’d seen it before, on the outward voyage, just after the attack on the rich merchant ship. I had never thought to see it again, and today, the Viking’s goddess, Lady Gaia, was in furious form. But, which way to turn? If I headed deeper into the maelstrom the forces could easily crush the ship and drag us all the way to the bottom. If I managed to go to the south east, I stood a good chance of finding the shore but also of being driven onto it by the wind that had lately risen again. I cursed myself for my weakness, I should not have slept.

My only choice was a northerly one and hope that it didn’t take me deeper into the boiling mass of heaving, angry sea. The sail needed to be reefed, but in this blow it wouldn’t be possible for one pair of hands. I should have done it long ago. Thank goodness that I hadn’t shaken out all the reefing. With the change in course it wasn’t flapping anymore and to ease the pressure I let out a little on the sheet ropes, giving the great sail a deep belly. Once I had set the course, as well as I could in the twisting, plunging darkness and again lashed the tiller, I was forced to take up a chore that I’d hoped never to do again. I found the leather bucket and, with the water reaching nearly to my knees as it tumbled about, I set about the tedious task of bailing out the ship’s bilges. A difficult enough task when the craft was on a normal sea. Here, and in the dark, it proved impossible and I was soon forced to give it up and climb back up onto the steering platform.

By experiment, I found that I could steer to meet most of the white topped waves that were glowing with an almost magical light and keep the ship fairly stable. The water to the east of our course looked much worse, so I’d missed the eye of the ocean’s wild, inner storm, no thanks to me.

I struggled with the heavy steering board to keep the ship’s head on a roughly northerly course and the sail filled. I concentrated on the ship’s heading. No point looking around, the darkness was complete and I couldn’t even see the bow of the ship, let alone what might lie before it. It took me by total surprise when, suddenly, like air from a burst bladder, we shot through the last wave and surged across smooth water. The wind still howled and moaned through the rigging lines so there was still no chance that I could reef the sail, not on my own. So I eased the ropes that controlled the sail’s foot some more to slow us a little and ventured back to the hatchway to get some idea of the depth of bilge water. But in the darkness I couldn’t see much and I didn’t want to climb down there again, I was wet and cold enough. I thought that it probably wasn’t too bad, as we were still making good headway and not too low in the water. Of course a lot of the ship’s weight had been removed with the abandonment of her crew, but that didn’t occur to my tired mind right away.

After the soaring and plunging ride through the race, I could expect some damage I thought. But if there was any, there was nothing I could do about it, nothing whatever. So I found some dry bread and, by chance, some cheese that had come from the most recent raid ashore and after eating and drinking perhaps too much of some rough wine, I once again fell fast asleep. This time I wrapped myself in an assortment of rugs and with a loop of rope I made a safety line to hold myself onto the steering platform. The last thing I remember of that lonely night was the heavy blackness of the sky that raced past me with vague lighter patches of darkness here and there to mark a thinning of the cloud. I could see no stars, but the swinging lodestone had suggested that my direction was roughly on course for the friendly, rolling green coasts of home.

I awoke in the early hours of a stormy grey dawn and peered around at an empty horizon that was filled by a tumbling sea of palest green. The flanks of the waves were streaked with white where the seeking wind had bent their crests and whipped away the broken foamy lines. My body ached with cold and with an effort, I forced myself to find something to break the fast of a long uncomfortable night. Given the roughness of the sea, the ship’s action was more of a wallow than a violent plunging, like a sodden log in a river. I knew it wasn’t a result of my expert seamanship. The ship must be heavy with leakage water I thought, and I looked at the oily movement below the hatchway. It was too much for me to contemplate, it would take all day to remove that much water, as I knew from bitter experience.

Once I had eaten, I did feel better and the prospect of a landfall cheered me up. Though what I would do when I got there I didn’t know. Single-handed there wasn’t a chance that I could manoeuvre the ship into any sort of harbour especially in this wind. I had wrapped my chronicle in an oiled cloth the night before, to keep it dry and was relieved to find it still intact. But to act as an insurance, I wrapped it in another layer and bound it tightly with some twine. I wouldn’t need my notes anymore I thought, not on this trip anyway.

It was while I was vainly attempting to trim the sail that I first noticed it. A small, but very tired bird had landed on the deck and we stood looking at each other for several moments before the obvious dawned on my slow wits. I leapt for the shrouds and, with one foot on the gunwale’s top plank, I could make out a darker edge to the northern horizon. Little more than a dark, smoky smudge. I had made it.

Arriving on the shores of southern Britain, driven by a furious early winter storm, hadn’t been part of my dream. As we rushed closer, the haze of rain cleared momentarily, like someone twitching a curtain to glance through a window, to give me a brief view of the coast. I was as sure as I could be, that I was headed for a landing on the west coast of Dorset.

Many of our people had fled to this delightful area when the Vikings had settled closer to our own, northern boundaries. Soon, a recognisable landmark proved this to be right. I looked across the choppy water at the dark mass of jumbled rock that was Portland as we passed by. It was a strange isle, peopled by a clannish folk and thought to have magical properties. But, at this time of year, it was almost always swathed in mists and what seemed a perpetual storm.

I had been lucky not to have been cast up on those shores that lay immediately to the west of the Isle of Portland. The treacherous western cliffs often trapped passing ships and beat them to splintered, ruinous wrecks on its steep banks and jagged rocks. Because of the strong tides and vicious currents that swept the whole area, often there were no survivors.

But we were swept on, riding low in the water now, but the sail still holding and leaning the ship forward to push her into the waves. Once or twice a larger than normal wave caught us on the stern and tried to swing us around broadside onto the weather. But with a struggle, and all my weight on the steering board, I managed to hold it and bring her head back. We were noticeably loosing speed all the time now, and with it, I was losing the ability to steer positively. I dared not look into the space below the deck.

Scanning ahead through the sheets of falling rain I saw another landmark, one that I’d seen once before as a youngster, and also in many pictures and drawings, but never depicted in a sea such as this. It was a giant’s doorway that had been burrowed clean through a slender promontory of limestone by the relentless seas. Spray from the rolling waves rushed through the hole and burst against the sheer cliffs that framed the tall arch. Some short distance beyond this tall and remarkable headland I knew there was a small bay with a safe anchorage. I’d not make it through the narrow harbour entrance by sailing. I’d have to try to beach this wallowing hulk close by and swim for it.

With a flutter and a shrill call that almost seemed like a thank you, the bedraggled bird took to the stormy sky and was immediately swept towards the land by the wind. As easy as that I thought.

The wind direction changed as we closed the shore and with a sound like a clap of thunder, the tortured sail started to flap and suddenly it split into two. Immediately the ship began to turn across the sea like a piece of driftwood. I struggled to pull my wits together and with some silly reluctance left the useless tiller to its own devices. Grabbing my bundle and the tightly wrapped parcel that held the chronicle, I staggered down to the waist of the main deck. I had known for some while that the ship would sink, but now that it was imminent, my tired mind was numbed by the realisation.

‘No, this won’t do.’ I told myself, shaking the dribbles of water from my face.

I searched about for a float of some sort. My eye spotted the small cask that we had used for salt. Slipping and sliding, I struggled across to grab it as it rolled across the deck. It still had its wooden bung in one end and seemed sound. Inside it I stuffed my precious parcel of waxy, oiled cloth and hammered the bung home as tight as I could. I tied a piece of sturdy line to the barrel making a loop in the other end that would hold the little life raft to my chest. I hoped.

The ship lurched and I could hear the crunching and tormented squealing sound of breaking timbers. The merciless sea pressed the wallowing hulk hard onto the shelving bottom of the shore and, as it rolled over, I stepped off the side and plunged into the cold sea.

The small amount of height that I’d had on the ship’s deck had given me a view of the coast and the entrance to the sheltered cove was right before me. Gasping for breath amongst the cold waves, I caught brief glimpses of the coast every time my helpless body was heaved to the top of a wave-crest. But I seemed to get no closer.

Suddenly, before me, I saw a clear patch of water between the piles of bursting spray. That must mark the narrow harbour entrance thought. I struck out with my legs to drive myself towards the centre of the channel. A large piece of timber swept by me on the crashing surf, the ship must be breaking up I realised. But my luck held and almost without my help I was swept into the quiet waters of the almost enclosed harbour. With legs that felt like lead, I thrashed my way towards the shore, clutching the buoyant cask tightly to my chest. Floods of relief coursed through my trembling limbs as I found that my feet could touch bottom and soon I was at the edge of the sea’s anger, amid the rattling hiss of pebbles as the waves sucked and pushed at the feet of Britain.