Cast Off (23 page)

November 1663, Indian Ocean
Latitude: 39˚ S, Longitude: Unknown

I pressed a hand against my sore rib cage where there was a fresh bruise from a sailor who'd bumped me outside the galley. Barometer Piet's protection kept the mutineers from beating me outright, but in the few weeks since I'd been found near their meeting in the hell, I'd been tripped, jostled, spit on, and threatened.

The tide had finally turned on the fever—at last there were fewer men arriving at the sick bay than leaving each day, including Louis, who'd gone back to his own hammock weak but well. There were still some fever cases, but few enough to fit in one room. The toll had been heavy. Between the sickness and the battle with the
Lusca,
only forty-five soldiers remained out of an original hundred. The sailors had fared better: their number stood at 151, down from 200.

The captain had given orders to sail for Java. We'd have to be lucky in wind and weather now that we were sailing during monsoon season, and De Ridder said he hated to depend on luck. Instead he drove the men hard, working them watch upon watch so that no one rested more than four hours at a time. Much as the men hated the work, they didn't hate their captain for it. Though they each had their own reasons, everyone wanted to get to Java. The
Lion
sped through the southern latitudes toward the very bottom of the world, wind and waves growing with every sea mile.

“Gentlemen, I do believe I see the floor of our humble office for the first time since September,” Clockert remarked. “In fact, I'm certain of it. I know that very bloodstain. I made it myself.”

I tilted my face up to the grate and relished the crisp breeze, but the fresh air did nothing for my head, which felt like the steel between the smith's hammer and anvil. I rubbed my burning eyes and tried to remember the last time I'd eaten a proper meal or slept for more than an hour or two.

“Krause, Jochims, would you please be so kind as to clear away the muck and lay down fresh sawdust and a sprinkling of vinegar. After all, it's spring here in the southern hemisphere. We're overdue for cleaning.”

I moved for the broom in the corner of the cabin, but although my feet traveled in the right direction, the walls stretched farther and farther away. I reached, my fingers floating on air, long and skinny, like the legs of a squid. And now the floor tilted madly up toward me. I thought the ship must be cresting a wave, only we didn't come down the other side. The floor stayed vertical, close enough that I could rest my cheek on it, just so.

“Oh, my dear Jochims,” Clockert murmured with no trace of his usual smirk. “Not you too.”

The VOC trunks was disappearing. There was twelve when Petra went down there. Now there was ten. I checked every day. 'Twas easy enough to drum up an excuse to go to the hold. I'd say I needed some supply or another. The trunks was always guarded by a crew of two soldiers and I buddied up to 'em all. Nobody noticed me looking over their shoulder to count trunks while we chewed over the latest scuttlebutt. I knew which ones was sharp-eyed and which ones nodded off if given half a chance. I knew when they changed shifts and who they messed with. What I didn't know was where the trunks went and how they did it.

We was in the forties now. The roughest latitudes in the whole of the sea. Storms night and day, waves halfway up the mast. De Ridder had the crews working double shifts. 'Twas my time off, but unlike the coves in their hammocks around me, I couldn't sleep. So I sketched instead—though the ship was rocking so hard I could scarcely hold a pencil—and tried to work out the mutineers' plan. One thing for sure, nothing could happen while we was in these latitudes. Starting a battle on these wild waters would be suicide. 'Twas hard enough just trying to stand upright.

I wished I could talk it through with Petra. I drew her on her cot in the sick bay where she was now, using the side of the pencil to sink her eyes and cheeks. I remembered what she looked like the night I found her in Grof's locker. Still didn't know the particulars, but 'twas clear from her gold necklace and the fine cloth of her dress that she was highbred. Also, she'd been clean and well fed. Now, when she climbed the rigging in sailor's togs, no one would ever guess she was a girl. She even gulped her morning gin like a regular seaman.

Clockert'd stared down his nose when I asked him if Albert would live, and I took him to mean there was no sure answer.

I could do with a few sure answers.

My hammock kept knocking the bulkhead wall. With these seas, I hoped Clockert'd tied Petra to the bed and nailed her bed to the floor, else she'd die of a broken head before she died of fever.

I gave up sketching and headed out.

Hard rain blew across the deck, and gray light leaked from behind a cloud where the moon tried to shine. Ice hung from the bowsprit line. I turned up the collar of my jacket and tied my cap tighter. Lanterns bounced in the rigging, tossing yellow beams around. I looped a line around my waist and knotted it to the fo'c'sle rail so's I wouldn't get swept overboard.

De Ridder had lashed himself to the mainmast, and next to him Van Plaes was tied to the starboard rail. Together they commanded a miserable crew all tied on to whatever they could. Even in a fierce storm like this one—especially in a fierce storm like this one—there was crew in the rigging, all over the decks, and down below working the pumps.

“Here comes another one, Mister Grof!” shouted De Ridder, stretching a long arm over the rail with a lantern and scanning the sea.

“Aye, sir!” shouted the bosun, who was at the whipstaff in the steering room. There was no working the sails—most of 'em was tied back or taken off the yards altogether. Our lives depended on the steering of a cove who couldn't see the ocean.

“Now!” ordered the captain.

A huge wave loomed, but Grof steered the ship onto its top and made for flatter water.

“Look alive, Grof!” shouted a sailor somewhere up the mainmast.

A mountain of water sped toward us.

“Surf it! Surf it!” shouted the crew.

Grof rode this one too, but the next one rolled over us before anyone saw it coming.

A loose line lashed my face and I lost my grip on the rail. After that the water took me. Threw me down on the deck, tossed me up, and slammed me down again. And again. The line whipped around, but I clapped on to it and pulled myself back to the rail. Slumped down and clutched the posts with torn-up, freezing hands.

The ship leveled out, then heaved again, hard over, my side way up over the roaring sea. If I let go, I'd roll down the deck and crash into who knows what. My arms burned, but that was nothing compared to my raw hands rubbing on the bristles of a half-froze rope.

'Twould be so easy to slip the knot that tied me to this ship and let go. Let the sea take me. Find my place in the world at the bottom of the ocean, where there was nothing but sure answers. With her fever so high, Petra'd probably join me there soon enough.

Wave after wave hit the ship, forty feet from top to trough. Death was in those waves, and with each one I asked myself if it was mine. Grof fought 'em with the whipstaff; the crew fought 'em with prayers. Try as Grof might—and there was no one better than him at the helm—he couldn't ride 'em all.

“Holy Mary,” swore a voice. I squinted into the dark and saw a giant shadow getting bigger and coming at us.

“Starboard!”
screamed the crew.

Too late. The foaming mouth swallowed the
Lion
like Jonah's whale, flooding her up to the quarterdeck. The water snatched my legs and hurled me against the mast. I reached for something to grab and got nothing. The
Lion
heeled sideways and I dangled like a fish on a pole.

If the line around my waist gave, or if I slipped the knot, that'd be it. Just one string tying me to life. One thin hope.

Turned out, one thin hope was enough. Now, when 'twould be so easy to let go, I didn't want to. Nay, I found I wanted to hang on as long as I could, if there was even a chance I'd make it through this storm alive.

“She's broached!” someone shouted.

The
Lion
was pushed to her limit. Another wave and we'd all be done for.

I gripped the rope harder, pulled harder, hand over hand straight up. My legs was swinging something awful in the wind, but I'd make it to the rail or die trying. Moving by inches, slipping as much as gaining, eyes and lungs burning with salt water, 'til the rail was there at my fingertips.

I clapped on.

Pulled one last time to wrap my arms around the posts and stayed there while the ship crashed down one mountain only to climb another. Forty feet up and down, I thought she'd flip for sure.

But she didn't. She found her balance.

I waited for the next big wave, but the worst of the storm was past. The
Lion
heaved but she wouldn't founder. I let go of the rail. Rolled to my knees, coughing up seawater. Men sprawled all over the decks, doing the same.

Van Plaes tossed his head and laughed.

“Is that all you got?” called O'Brian, shaking his one fist at the sea.

“Give us another!”

“Kiss my blind cheeks!” shouted Barometer Piet, slapping his bottom.

“You'll need more than that to take down the
Golden Lion
!”

“Mister Pietersen, go see the shipwright and ask him how the pumps are faring,” called De Ridder. “A round of gin, men! What do you say?”

“Huzzah!”

With gin warming my belly and threat of death behind me, I felt like I could sleep, but not down below, crammed like cats in a sack. I needed air.

The ship's five small boats was tied up in the waist—stacked two, two, and one—and covered in sailcloth. They'd be dry enough inside, and I could count on being alone 'til morning. The paired-up boats was no good—chickens lived there in bad weather. I squatted next to the single boat and untied a corner of the tarp that covered it. The bottom was mostly dry. I climbed in.

'Twas warmer out of the wind. I stretched out on my back—and knocked my head on something hard. A big box. I scooted down and made a pillow of my hands. My fingers touched metal. I sat up and ran my hands over the box.