The Danger

07 September 1665

The black wave curled high above the Griffin, and came crashing down on the barque with a roar like a wild beast. Tons of water washed over the streaming deck. As thetim in the air with enough sudden violence that men were hurled off the ship to disappear into the raging sea. Such was the nature of the great storm that pounded His Majesty’s privateer fleet in the autumn of 1665.

Young Samuel Higgins was still aboard the Griffin when she righted herself. But this was only because he had been lashed to a bulwark by York, the ship’s barber and medical officer. York had been ordered by Captain James Blade to see to the welfare of the thirteen-year-old cabin boy. The barber took this responsibility seriously. Seamen who disappointed the Griffin’s cruel master often felt the bite of his bone-handled snake whip.

The sails were down to bare poles, and the captain himself had hold of the wheel. He steered his vessel straight into the wind, howling curses at the gale.

“You’ll not stop me, by God! The Griffin will yet ride low with a belly full of Spanish gold! No storm can change that!”

There was a crash as loud as a cannon shot, and the mizzenmast snapped clean in two. One hundred feet up, the top of the pole — thick as a century oak — began its plunge to the deck below.

Samuel tried to run, but the same tether that had saved him from being pitched overboard now prevented his flight. He was trapped — trapped in the path of hundreds of pounds of falling wood. A scream was torn from his throat, but it disappeared into the shrieking of the relentless wind.

The hurtling mast struck the tangle of ratlines and rigging, halting its destructive drop less than a handspan from Samuel’s head.

Lucky. That was his nickname among the crew.

But no amount of luck would save him if the Griffin foundered in the onslaught of nature’s wrath.