Pirate Latitudes

Chapter 31

THE HURRICANE STRUCK with furious intensity. Within minutes, the wind was screaming through the rigging at more than forty knots, lashing them with stinging pellets of rain. The seas were rougher, with fifteen-foot swells, mountains of water that swung the boat crazily. One moment they were high in the air, riding the crest of a swell; seconds later they were plunged into a stomach-wrenching trough, with water looming high all around them.

And each man knew that this was just the beginning. The wind, and the rain, and the seas would become much worse, and the storm would last for hours, perhaps days.

They sprang to work with an energy that belied the fatigue they all felt. They cleared the decks and reefed shredded canvas; they fought to get a sail over the side, and plug the holes in the ship below the waterline. They worked in silence on the slippery, shifting wet decks, each man knowing that at the next instant he might be swept overboard, and that no one would even see it happen.

But the first task — and the worst — was to trim the ship, by moving the cannon back to the starboard side. This was no easy matter on calm seas with dry decking. In a storm, when the ship was taking water over her sides, with the deck pitching to forty-five-degree angles, with every deck surface and line soaked and slippery, it was plainly impossible and a nightmare. Yet it had to be done if they were to survive.

Hunter directed the operation, one cannon at a time. It was a problem of anticipating the pitch, of letting the angles do the work as the men wrestled with the five-thousand-pound weights.

They lost the first cannon; a line snapped, and the gun shot across the slanted deck like a missile, shattering the hull railing on the far side and crashing into the water. The men were terrified by the speed with which it happened. Double lines were lashed around the second cannon, yet it also broke free, crushing a seaman in its path.

For the next five hours, they battled the wind and the rain to get the cannon in position and safely lashed down. When they were finished, every man on El Trinidad was exhausted beyond endurance; the sailors clung like drowning animals to stays and railings, exerting every last ounce of energy to keep from being washed over the side.

And yet, Hunter knew, the storm was just beginning.

. . .

A HURRICANE, THE most awesome event in nature, was discovered by the voyagers to the New World. The name — hurricane — is an Arawak word for storms that had no counterpart in Europe. Hunter’s crew knew of the awful power of these giant cyclonic events, and responded to the terrible physical reality of the storm with the oldest sailor’s superstitions and rites.

Enders, at the helm, watched the mountains of water all around him, and muttered every prayer he had ever learned as a boy, while he simultaneously clutched the shark’s tooth around his neck and wished he could raise more canvas. El Trinidad was struggling with three sails at the moment, and it was unlucky to sail with three.

Belowdecks, the Moor took his dagger and cut his own finger, then drew a triangle on the deck with his blood. He placed a feather in the center of the triangle, and held it there while he whispered an incantation to himself.

Forward, Lazue threw a casket of salt pork over the side, and held three fingers into the air. Hers was the most ancient superstition of all, though she knew only the old seaman’s tale that food over the side and three fingers in the air might save a foundering ship. In fact, the three fingers represented the trident of Neptune, and the food was a sacrifice to the god of the oceans.

Hunter himself professed to despise such superstition, yet he went to his cabin, locked the door, got down on his knees, and prayed. All around him, the furniture of the cabin crashed back and forth from one wall to another, as the ship rocked crazily on the seas.

Outside, the storm screamed with demonic fury, and the ship beneath him creaked and groaned in long, agonizing moans. At first, he did not notice any other sound, and then he heard a woman’s scream. And then another.

He left his cabin and found five sailors dragging Lady Sarah Almont forward, to the companionway ladder. She was screaming and wrestling in their grip.

“Hold there,” Hunter shouted, and went up to them. Waves crashed over them, smashing against the deck.

The men would not look him in the eye.

“What goes here?” Hunter demanded.

None of the men spoke. It was Lady Sarah who finally shrieked: “They’re going to throw me in the ocean!”

The leader of the men seemed to be Edwards, a rough seaman, veteran of dozens of privateering campaigns.

“She’s a witch,” he said, looking at Hunter defiantly. “That’s what it is, Captain. We’ll never last this storm if she’s on board.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Hunter said.

“Mark me,” Edwards said. “We’ll not last with her on board. Mark me, she’s a witch as ever I saw.”

“How do you know this?”

“I knew it first I seen her,” Edwards said.

“By what proofs?” Hunter persisted.

“The man is mad,” Lady Sarah said. “Stark mad.”

“What proofs?” Hunter demanded, shouting over the wind.

Edwards hesitated. Finally, he released the girl, and turned away. “No use talking of it,” he said. “You mark me, though. Mark me.”

He walked away. One by one, the other men backed off. Hunter was alone with Lady Sarah.

“Go to your cabin,” Hunter said, “and bolt the door, and stay there. On no account come out, and do not open the door for any reason.”

Her eyes were wide with fright. She nodded, and went to her room. Hunter waited until he saw the door to her cabin close, and then, after a moment’s hesitation, he went on deck, into the full blast of the storm.

Belowdecks, the storm seemed fearsome, but on the main deck it exceeded all preparation. The wind tore at him like an invisible brute, a thousand strong hands pulling at his arms and legs, wrenching him away from any handhold or support. The rain struck him with such force that at first he cried aloud. He could hardly see in the first few seconds. He made out Enders at the tiller, lashed firmly into his position.

Hunter went over to him, holding to a guideline strung along the deck, finally reaching the shelter of the aft castle. He took an extra line and looped it around himself, leaned closer to Enders, and shouted, “How fare you?”

“No better, no worse,” Enders shouted back. “We hold, and we’ll hold some while longer, but it’s hours. I can feel her start to break.”

“How many hours?”

Enders reply was lost in the mountain of water that surged over them and smashed down on the deck.

It was, Hunter thought, as good an answer as any. No ship could take such a pounding for long, especially not a crippled ship.

. . .

BACK IN HER CABIN, Lady Sarah Almont surveyed the destruction caused by the storm, and the seamen who had burst in upon her as she had been making her preparations. Carefully, as the boat rocked, she righted her candles on the deck, and lit them one after another, until there were five red candles glowing. Then she scratched a pentagram on the deck, and stepped inside it.

She was very afraid. When the Frenchwoman, Madame de Rochambeau had shown her the latest in the fads of the Court of Louis XIV, she had been amused, even scoffed a little. But they said in France that women killed their newborn babies in order to secure eternal youth. If that was so, perhaps a little spell might preserve her life . . .

What was the harm? She closed her eyes, hearing the storm howl around her. “Greedigut,” she whispered, feeling the words on her lips. She caressed herself, kneeling on the deck inside the scratched pentagram. “Greedigut. Greedigut, come to me.”

The deck pitched crazily, the candles slid one way, then the next. She had to pause to catch them in their slide. It was all very distracting. How difficult to be a witch! Madame de Rochambeau had told her nothing of spells aboard ship. Perhaps they did not work. Perhaps it was all a lot of French foolishness.

“Greedigut . . .” she moaned. She caressed herself.

And then, she fancied she heard the storm abating.

Or was it just her imagination?

“Greedigut, come to me, have me, dwell in me . . .”

She imagined claws, she felt the wind whipping at her nightdress, she sensed a presence . . .

And the wind died.