The Devil and the Dark Water

10

Arent had barely stepped out of the sailmaker’s cabin when a bell rang amidships, the dwarf standing on a stool to work the clapper.

‘Up, you dogs!’ he hollered, spittle flying from his lips. ‘Up on deck, all of you.’

Hatches burst open, sailors swarming up from below decks like rats fleeing a fire. Clogging the waist, they clambered over and atop one another, scurrying up the rigging and sitting on the railings, throwing themselves on to any available lap, bringing laughter and shoving.

Arent was pushed back towards the bow of the ship, until he was jammed against the very door he’d just walked out of, the air growing thick with the smell of sweat and ale and sawdust.

Guard Captain Jacobi Drecht flicked the brim of his hat, welcoming him back.

He hadn’t moved, except to lean against the wall, one sole flat against it, foul smoke rising from a carved wooden pipe gripped between his teeth. The sabre, which only moments ago had been pressed to Arent’s chest, was propped up beside him, like a friend keeping him company.

‘What’s happening?’ asked Arent.

Drecht removed his pipe, scratching the corner of his lip with his thumb. Between that large hat and the bird’s nest of his blond beard, his squinting eyes were surprisingly blue in the sunlight.

‘This is a ritual of Captain Crauwels,’ said Drecht, thrusting his chin towards the quarter deck, where a squat man with square shoulders and thick legs stood with his hands folded behind his back. A turned-down mouth suggested a grim disposition.

‘That’s the captain?’ said Arent, surprised. He was better dressed than many generals Arent had met. ‘Pretty as a predikant’s wife, isn’t he? What’s he doing sailing an Indiaman? He could sell his wardrobe and retire comfortably.’

‘You always this full of questions?’ asked Drecht, looking at him askew.

Arent grunted, annoyed at being revealed so easily. This constant curiosity was Sammy’s doing. It happened to everybody who spent time with him.

He changed them.

He changed the way they thought.

Arent had been a mercenary for eighteen years before becoming Sammy’s bodyguard. Back then, his only concern had been with sabre and shot and whatever was trying to imminently kill him. He wasn’t one to fret idly; he couldn’t afford it. The mercenary who saw the spear, then thought about it too long, ended up with half of it buried in his chest. Nowadays, he’d see the spear, wonder who made it, how it had come to be in the soldier’s hands, who the soldier was, why he was there … on and on and on. It was a wretched gift, that had left him neither one thing nor the other.

Crauwels swept his gaze across the assembled crew, taking in every detail of every man under his scrutiny.

Rain pattered around them.

One by one, conversations were snuffed out, until there was only the slap of waves and the screech of birds circling above.

He left it a second more, letting the silence congeal.

‘Every man aboard this ship has cause to see land again,’ he said, his voice rich and deep. ‘Mayhap it’s a waiting family, mayhap it’s a favourite brothel or just an empty purse as needs filling.’

Subdued laughter met the declaration.

‘To see our homes, to fill our purses, to draw one more breath, we must keep this ship afloat,’ he continued, placing both hands flat on the railing before him. ‘There’s plenty as would see it otherwise. Pirates will stalk us, storms will lash us and this damn restless sea will try to deliver us into the rocks.’

The crew murmured fervently, standing a little straighter.

‘Trust in this, if you trust in nothing else.’ Crauwels raised his voice. ‘Behind every bastard there’ll always be another bastard, and to get ourselves home, to wrap our hands around whatever’s waiting there, we’ll need to be bigger bastards than they are.’ The crew cheered, his words spreading like flame. ‘If pirates attack us, they’ll live long enough to see their comrades slaughtered and their ship brought under our flag. A storm’s naught but wind in our sails, and we’ll ride whatever waves bear down on us all the way back to Amsterdam.’

Cheers rang out as the sandglass was tipped and a solitary bell rang, scattering the sailors to their labours. Four burly men began turning the capstan wheel, the mechanism screeching as they hoisted the Saardam’s three anchors off the ocean floor. A course and speed were ordered, the instruction handed down from the captain, to the first mate, to the helm.

Finally, the mainsail was unfurled, good cheer turning to shock.

Rippling in the wind, on the great white expanse, an eye with a tail had been drawn in ash.