Boon Island: including Contemporary Accounts of the Wreck of the Nottingham Galley (28 page)

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Authors: Kenneth Roberts,Jack Bales,Richard Warner

Tags: #Survival After Airplane Accidents; Shipwrecks; Etc., #Nottingham (Galley) - Fiction, #Transportation, #Historical, #Boon Island (Me.) - Fiction, #Boon Island, #18th Century, #Survival After Airplane Accidents; Shipwrecks; Etc - Fiction, #Survival After Airplane Accidents; Shipwrecks; Etc, #Shipwrecks, #Fiction, #Literary, #Sea Stories, #Historical Fiction, #Shipwrecks - Maine - Boon Island - History - 18th Century - Fiction, #test, #Boon Island (Me.), #General, #Maine, #History

BOOK: Boon Island: including Contemporary Accounts of the Wreck of the Nottingham Galley
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Page 164
Soon, too, except for one thing, he was himself again. When he wasn't running errands for Captain Dean and cleaning our cabins, or carefully laying off the American coast in his notebook, he was helping Swede scale the guns, or learning the care and the use of a plane and an adze from Chips Bullock, giving him a hand at knocking together the water casks; or he was in the galley, peering at the messes Cooky Sipper concocted.
Yes, he was himself again except for just one thing. Heve wouldn't talk about the theatre or anything that had happened to him during his life in Greenwich. Swede and Captain Dean and I knew why this was, and were careful to make no reference to matters that Neal with good reason found painful. But not Langman. I'll never forget the glittering September morning when Neal was stowing fishing tackle in the
Nottingham's
small tender, and Langman stood at the top of the ladder, looking down at him with that derisive half-smile of his. Just what Langman said, we on the quarter-deck couldn't distinguish; but we heard him mockingly call Neal "Whitebait."
Captain Dean and I simultaneously started for Langman; but though we were quick, we were too slow. Swede, darting from the after-cabin, swung his long right arm scythe-like at Langman. Langman rose a little to fall across the top of the bulwarks, his arms flailing, hung there a moment; then rolled over and into the harbor with a gratifying splash.
Neal, ironically enough, gaffed him and pulled him out; and as Langman mounted the ladder to stand dripping on the ladder grating, Captain Dean eyed him impassively and told him to be more careful of his footing.
For once Langman, as his glance went from Captain
 
Page 165
Dean's face to Swede's and mine, looked apprehensive, and he set off for the fo'cs'l without his usual disdainful reply. Neal, I was sure, would be free of Langman's attentions for some time to come.
The last of sixty thousand pounds of the best Donegal butter, all packed in firkins, and three hundred Donegal cheeses had come aboard when we set sail on September 25th on a voyage that for devilishness was enough to make me wonder again and again why any man went to sea of his own free will.
During all the time the
Nottingham
sailed the great circle, we saw nothing but mountainous wavesran into winds so contrary that we spent more time blundering backward than we did wallowing forward. The men, forever shortening sail, making sail, battening everything down to ride out storms that seemed to have no ending, manning the pumps, were constantly complaining, and like all men everywhere, they blamed their misfortunes on Captain Dean until I marveled at his patience.
Our water casks sprung leaks so that we had to go on short rations: our beef turned sour.
October was a villainous cold month: November was worse; and in December the sun apparently disappeared for good in a gurry of fog and dirty gray clouds.
Early in December we sighted a shipthe only sail we sighted in all that timeand spoke her, at which Langman set up his now familiar squealing that she was a French privateer.
She proved to be the ship
Pompey,
London bound, and her captain told us only two things: that we were off the Banks of Newfoundland, and that the weather where he'd
 
Page 166
come from was worse than what we'd had, no matter how bad that had been.
On Monday, December 4th, we caught a glimpse of Cape Sable in Nova Scotia. Then the weather turned dirtier than ever.
''We could make Portsmouth in a day," Captain Dean told us, "but I've got to see the sun just once before I take any chances."
So we stood off and on, and a week passed before we saw the sun.
The wind was frigid and bitter, and in the northeast, and the seas kicked up by that northeast gale seemed to run at us from every direction, instead of from the northeast. The waves, too, were dirty and gray, as if they'd gone down deep and dredged up all the sand and seaweed from the bottom.
I well remember that Monday morning when we finally caught sight of the sun. Usually a glimpse of it after a northeast blow, Captain Dean said, meant that we'd have a little decent weather. Instead of that, the sun stayed out just long enough for us to stand in toward the land and sight the long, low coast line of New England, with tree-covered points thrust out toward us, and all the ledges and hills covered with snow.
Captain Dean was elated. "That's Cape Porpoise," he said. "Now I know exactly where we are. We'll head due south, and we'll be in Portsmouth tomorrow morning."
He'd no sooner spoken than the sun disappeared again behind a driving wall of snow.
 
Page 167
December 11th, Monday
I remember that day for other things. Our food, bad to begin with, had become steadily worse; and on that morning of December 11th there was none at all. Cooky Sipper, Langman told the captain, was sick, with a throat so full of phlegm that he could hardly swallow, and none of the other men knew how to cook.
So Swede volunteered to do the cooking until we reached Portsmouth; and when he went to the galley, Neal went along with him to help, not only to carry food to the after cabin, but to dish out to the men forward when they came to the galley with their mess kids.
We wallowed creakingly south, with those dirty gray seas and stinging snow squalls hissing all around us, until nightfall, when the captain turned over the deck to Mr. Langman, and Neal brought us boiled beef, boiled potatoes and ship's bread; then disappeared. We ate our supper as well as we could in that heaving, lurching cabin beneath the dim lights swinging in their gimbals.
The cabin felt empty without Swede and Neal, and as
 
Page 168
time went on I worried about them and so climbed on deck to go forward to the cookhouse. The quarter-deck, except for the helmsman, was empty; and when I half slid, half skated forward to the galley, I found Langman braced in the doorway of that narrow cubicle. Inside it the lamp cast a flickering light on Swede and Neal, both of whom were staring at Langman with eyes so shadowed that they seemed sunk in their heads.
When, to steady myself, I caught hold of the doorpost beside Langman, he opened his mouth as if to say something: then shut it again, turned, and worked his way back to the quarter-deck.
"Miles," Swede said, "something smells around here, and it's not the cheese. Langman's been in the hold after extra meat for White and Mellen."
"He's got no business tampering with the provisions," I said. "That's for the captain to do."
"Yes," Swede said, "and he also wants to head straight out to sea."
I couldn't believe my ears. "Straight out to sea! What for, for God's sake! We're running southwest before a northeaster. If we turn at right angles, we'll be in the trough and on our beam-ends before you can say Scat! Why would anyone want to take her straight out, anyway?"
"Tell him what you heard, Neal," Swede said.
"It was when he gave Mellen the meat," Neal said. "He said, 'If we can't wait for this blow to let up, we'll be in Portsmouth tomorrow.' Then he said, 'Tell 'em I'll get 'em more water too.' "
"That's what Neal heard," Swede said, "and as I see it, there's no two ways about it. Langman wants this ship for
 
Page 169
himself. He's waited till the last minute, all along, hoping for a fair wind and blue skies that would make it safe for him to take her over on one excuse or another. Well, he'll never get a fair wind or blue skies tomorrow, and he knows the only way to get 'em is to put straight out to sea and wait for the wind to turn. If he doesn't, we'll be in Portsmouth, and he'll have lost his chance."
I stared at him; and only now did I see clearly what I should have seen long ago. "Of course," I said. "And the extra meat and the extra water would be for bribes to get the others to side with him."
"What else?" Swede asked.
I told Swede to dowse the lantern, lock the galley and get back to the cabin with Neal as quickly as he could-and because I didn't like the way Langman had abandoned the quarter-deck to argue with Swede and Neal in the galley, I went behind them to make sure they got there.
When I reached the quarter-deck, I could just make out Langman in the snowy dark.
"I didn't see a lookout up forward," I told him.
"Lookout! What's the good of a lookout on a night like this?" I could sense the contempt on his swarthy thin face.
In the snug cabin Captain Dean had his coat off, readying himself for bed; but when I followed Neal and Swede through the door and started telling him what they had told me, he reached behind him for his coat.
Henry Dean, lying fully dressed on his bunk, climbed out heavily and pulled a knitted cap down over his ears.
They heard me out: then Captain Dean angrily pulled on his own hat, picked up the loggerhead from beside the cabin stove; and all of us went out again into the whirling snowflakes.
 
Page 170
Langman wasn't on the quarter-deck. Captain Dean spoke to the helmsman, "Where's the mate?"
Gray, the helmsman, said, "He went forward, Captain."
"He went to the hold," Swede said. "That's where he went: to the hold for water."
The door to the hold swung open and Langman, carrying a lantern in one hand and a water jug in the other, stepped out on the snowy deck.
"You're supposed to be on watch, Mr. Langman," Captain Dean said. "Where's your lookout? You have no business in the hold. What are you doing with that water jug? You know everyone on this ship is on a strict water ration!"
"That ain't so," Langman said. "You have all the water you want, and the crew gets half enough! They're sick of you and your ways. They say you're aiming to run this ship ashore, now, tonight! They say you've got to alter your course and take her straight out to sea if you want to prove you're not aiming to wreck her."
"Wreck her?" Captain Dean shouted. "In a northeaster? Are you crazy, Langman? Do you think I want to commit suicide? I took my bearings from Cape Porpoise! There's no place to wreck her unless I steer due west. Wreck her at night? Wreck her in a northeaster? Wreck her in a snowstorm? Talk sense, Langman! And get a lookout forward!"
"By God," Langman said, "you'll take her out to sea or we'll know the reason why!"
Captain Dean raised his head and seemed to sniff the air. "Swede!" he shouted. "Go forward! Keep your eyes peeled!"
Swede left us, scrambling, his right arm hanging low,
 
Page 171
ape-like, as if to keep himself from falling on the scum of slush amidships.
To Langman Captain Dean said, "I'll take no orders from you, Christopher Langman. You'll stop inciting this crew to rebellion! If you don't start acting like the mate of this ship, I'll take steps! What in God's name are you running without a lookout for?"
"How can a lookout keep his eyes open in gurry like this?" Langman demanded.
"He could hear, couldn't he?" the captain snapped.
Langman turned contemptuously away, and found himself squarely confronted by Henry Dean, who reached out and took the water jug, almost as though he took a child from its mother's arms. Langman resisted, shouting, "Mellen! White!"
On this Captain Dean stepped forward and brought the loggerhead down on Langman's skull. When Langman swayed but didn't fall, Captain Dean hit him again. Langman dropped to his knees, but, unfortunately for all of us, staggered to his feet again and reeled toward the cabin.
We heard Swede shouting something from the bow.
The captain ran forward, sliding precariously on the sloppy planks. Almost immediately he ran back past us to climb to the quarter-deck again and I was conscious of a hoarseness in the air about me, a sort of raucous wet humming that seemed to fill me with a deadening fright and turn my arms and legs to water.
"Starboard!" Captain Dean shouted to the helmsman. "Hard to starboard!"
The deck surged up beneath us. The whole ship lurched and seemed to cough, as a man, coughing, convulses himself.

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