Jump Ship to Freedom (6 page)

We got through the second day of the storm, and the night, too, standing double watches and trying to get a little sleep in between times, with the waves smashing around and the wind roaring and the ship creaking and crackling like it was about to bust in two.

The next morning it was worse. When we slid down into the valleys, it seemed like the waves were near as high as the mainmast, just looming way above us like a great roaring wall. It didn't seem possible that we could stay afloat. During my watch I clung to the rail near the stern, mostly just hanging on, ready to help with the tiller if they needed me. Forward, the oxen lay on the deck, sliding back and forth, too tired even to bellow anymore. They'd slide across the deck as far as their tether ropes would allow, and then slide back again, smacking up against the rail post. Suddenly there came a crack you could hear over the noise of the wind and the waves, and the tiller busted clean in two. The men who were handling it fell to the deck, and the rudder began to flap back and forth, banging on the stern with great heavy thuds. The ship shuddered and swung around into a trough between the waves. Now we had no control of it at all.

Captain Ivers suddenly shot up out of the hatchway, struggled onto the deck, and began working his way toward the tiller, clinging to the railing. “An ax,” he shouted. “An ax.”

I dropped down to my knees, crawled over to the hatchway, and dropped down. There were axes and other tools in a locker in the hold. I worked my way along the wall to the locker, fumbled inside for the ax, and worked my way back topside again. The ship was now broadside to the seas, just bumping and banging and heeling way over after each wave. One of the sailors had got the spare tiller and was clinging to the railing with it, waiting for the stub of the old tiller to be knocked out.

I slid across the deck on my hands and knees with the ax and handed it to the captain. He took a big swing at the place where the broken end fitted into the rudder and knocked the piece out. The sailor slipped the new tiller in place, and the captain banged it to with the butt end of the ax. Then the four of us leaned on the tiller, two on each side, and swung it over. The ship hung there for a minute, and then it came around. Suddenly the sails filled with a slap that you could hear over the sounds of the storm, and we began to move forward again.

Just as we did, I happened to look forward and noticed two of the oxen's tether ropes with nothing attached to them, streaming out in the wind. The oxen had broke loose and slid over the side. I looked back behind us to the roaring sea. There wasn't a trace of them to be seen.

The storm had been on us now for two days. It seemed like it had gone on forever. I hardly could remember how it had been before, when it was calm and we'd sailed along so easy. It felt like the storm had always been there.

It didn't show signs of dying down, either. In fact, when it began to get lighter on the morning of the third day, it seemed to me like the waves was even higher than before, high as the mainmast almost, I reckoned, although it was hard to judge with everything moving every which way all the time.

But I knew they were higher than they were before, because now just about every wave would crash across the deck of the ship, so for a moment we'd be standing in a foot or two of water, all swirling around us, gray-green and foaming, and if we weren't hanging on to something, we'd maybe get washed right over the side. It was awful hard on the oxen. They'd try to struggle up out of the water washing over the deck, staggering and falling all over the place. It was worse for the chickens, though, for the ones in the crates at the bottom couldn't go anyplace but just had to stay underwater for a minute or two until the decks cleared. I could see that more and more of them were drowning all the time.

We stayed on deck most of the time. There wasn't any use in going below to sleep, because it was about as wet down there as it was topside, and we couldn't sleep anyway. So we'd go down only when we was on duty at the bilge pumps, and then we'd try to eat some biscuit and sneak a little rest.

By the middle of the day we knew we were in real trouble. The waves were breaking across the ship regular now. The railing was splintered in a half-dozen places where the oxen had banged into it. Most of the chickens was drowned now, just lying in their cages soggy and dead. One of the oxen had drowned, too, and lay there on deck, his eyes open and his tongue hanging out, sliding back and forth as the ship rolled.

At noontime Birdsey and I went off duty and climbed into the hold to get something to eat and lie down a little. With all the hatches closed but one, it was pretty dark down there. We didn't dare light a lantern, so we sat in the dark eating cold biscuit, feeling wet and miserable and scared.

We was sitting there like that when there came down through the hatchway the voice of the first mate. “Captain,” he said. He was standing and he was shouting, otherwise we couldn't have heard him for the wind. “Captain, we're sure to go over if we don't reduce the load. Better cut loose the deck cargo.”

We didn't hear anything for a minute except the wind and the waves crashing around, and the creaking of the hull. Then the mate said, “I know it's pounds and shillings, Captain, but it ain't worth drowning for.”

Nothing but the storm for a minute; and the mate said, “I'd just as lief let my share go as risk foundering the ship. A share ain't much use when you're at the bottom of the sea feeding the fish.”

Then the storm again; and the mate said, “I'm willing to take my risks, sir, but there's risks and risks. Better safe than sorry. I'd just as soon see that cargo cut loose right now.”

More storm: “I know you're the captain, sir. I just hope you don't wait too long.”

There wasn't anything further after that. Me and Birdsey sat in the dark.

“Birdsey, what's the use of cutting the cargo loose?”

“It lightens the ship, so we'd ride higher in the water. There's less chance of getting swamped.”

“I wished he'd do it, then.” I wasn't looking forward to being sold off to the West Indies, but drowning in that boiling sea struck me as worse.

“He won't be in no hurry about it. That deck cargo is worth two hundred pounds.”

“It ain't worth much if it's at the bottom,” I said.

“It'll hurt business to cut it loose.”

It crossed my mind that the crew could throw the captain overboard and say he got washed away in the storm. It would be a great thing for me, because there wouldn't be anybody to sell me off if we ever got to Stacia. And I was about to say so when something stopped me. It was the way Birdsey was talking. It was coming to me that Birdsey was on Captain Ivers's side all the way. He wasn't on my side, he wasn't even on the crew's side: he was on the captain's side.

It kind of bowled me over to realize that. But when I thought about it for a little bit, I could see plainly that I shouldn't have expected anything else. If Birdsey went along with Captain Ivers he stood to do right well for himself. The Iverses didn't have children of their own. Birdsey was the only boy they got. Once he learned his navigation and got a little bigger, he'd get to be mate, and then maybe Captain Ivers would get another ship and make Birdsey captain of it, and after a while Birdsey would end up being a partner in the business and get to be rich, like Mr. Johnson. I'd heard it wouldn't take so long, either: there was men who was captains when they was eighteen years old.

If you looked at it that way, the deck cargo belonged to Birdsey, too, sort of. It made me see why Birdsey didn't tell me that the captain was going to sell me off. He was on the Iverses' side now, not mine. Oh, I didn't think he wanted me to be sold off; we'd been friends too long for that. But he wasn't going to get himself in trouble with Captain Ivers about it, neither.

It made me feel just so bitter that he'd switched away from me over to the Iverses. But down inside I knew that if it had been me, I'd have done the same. I decided to shut my mouth about throwing Captain Ivers overboard. That was mutiny, and I knew from my daddy that for mutiny a captain could up and hang you from one of the spars on his own say-so. According to the law, on a ship the captain was boss; he could do anything he wanted. Of course no captain was about to hang a person worth eighty pounds, mutiny or no mutiny. But he'd sure lash me down to the bone. I was too tired to think about it, though. We climbed into our bunks and tried to get a little sleep.

I woke up suddenly and found myself sitting in a pool of water. The sea was cascading down through the hatch. “Wake up, Birdsey, we're sinking,” I shouted.

But he was already awake and struggling up out of his bunk. “Let's get out of here,” he said.

We staggered through the water sloshing around in the hold and worked our way up the ladder to the deck. The wind was higher than ever, whistling through the rigging like the shriek of somebody being murdered. Rain was driving along almost horizontal, and the spume from the waves was blowing along with it, too. There was so much water in the air it was hard to know if we was under the sea or on top of it. It was near as dark as night, too, but every couple of minutes there'd be a flash of lightning that turned everything into bright day, and right afterward a clap of thunder, like a cannon shot. When that lightning hit, all of a sudden we'd see the most tremendous cliff of water standing straight up over our heads. We'd ride up the side of it, with the men on the tiller heaving until their eyes like to bulge out of their heads, and then as we rode up near the top, the wave would break over us and a foot of water would wash across the deck. We was riding too low. Sooner or later one of those waves was going to break before we'd rode up it very far, and we'd be swamped.

The crew were all on deck now and beginning to lash themselves to the railing or the masts or whatever they could. They were all looking back at the quarterdeck, where the mate was standing in front of Captain Ivers, waving his arms and shouting. I couldn't hear what he was saying over the wind and the waves, but Captain Ivers kept shaking his head.

“Tie yourself in,” Birdsey shouted. It didn't seem like there was much point in it. We was all going to drown shortly, like enough. Hanging on to the rail, I began to look around for a piece of line. Then two things happened at once. First there was a flash of blinding light, as bright as I'd ever seen, and right on its heels the most tremendous crash that near deafened me. And in the flash of light I saw the pile of lumber lashed to the deck sort of rise up, looking about as big as a house, and come flying across the deck. The next thing I knew the mainmast was falling down on me, with the mainsail flopping and the rigging trailing along behind it like vines. I leapt across the ship and flung myself down on the decking. There was a great smashing, ripping sound. The ship shuddered and began to heel to port. I jumped to my feet and grabbed on to the railing.

The mast was lying at an angle across the ship, with the broken butt end lying just below the quarterdeck and the other end floating way out in the sea. Lying like that, it was pulling the ship over to port; but the broken lines attached to it were all tangled around everything so the mast couldn't slide off. One good wave from the port side would swamp us.

The mate had got hold of an ax and was working his way to the butt of the mast through the mess of lines and splintered wood. A couple of other sailors were coming slowly along behind him. Birdsey and I moved up, too. The mate reached the butt end of the mast and gave it a couple of hits with the ax to free it. Then he began moving up the mast, hacking away at the tangled lines like a man trimming a fallen log. Me and Birdsey and the others grabbed on to the broken end and gave it a heave. We raised it up a foot, but it was still so tangled in the lines we couldn't heave it free. The mate went on hacking.

By now there were cut ends of lines everywhere standing out straight in the air. I snatched at one and wrapped it around my fist, and just then there was another great flash of lightning and I saw standing over us the tallest wave I'd ever seen, like a giant wall. The top started to crumble and cascade down its own side. I squeezed both hands around the line and closed my eyes. The water hit, and I felt myself flung out straight like I'd been belted by a great hand.

I opened my eyes. I was underwater. I gave a couple of heaves with my arms and came up on top. The ship was half underwater, and I couldn't tell if I was on it or out of it. Then I realized that I still had line wrapped around my fist. Just then I felt something bump me. I turned. It was Birdsey, his eyes wide open, his arms waving as he tried to swim against the current washing across the ship. “Help,” he cried.

I reached out for him, but he was gone past me, and then I could only make out the shape of his head in the dark. I felt the ship rise and water race past me as it drained off the deck. At that moment there was another flash of lightning. In the instant of light I saw a confusion of water and railing and loose lines, and that great mast plunging over the side into the swirling sea. And alongside of it went Birdsey, the mate, and two other sailors.

“Birdsey,” I cried as the light went out. The ship, freed of the weight of the mast, righted itself. I found myself up against the rail, the line still wrapped around my fist. There came another flash of light. There was two heads in the water staring up at the ship. One of them was Birdsey's. He was looking straight up at me, and his lips was moving. I couldn't hear him over the wind, but I reckoned I knew what he was trying to tell me about. Then the light flicked out, and I stood at the rail all cold and numb, wondering what Birdsey was feeling like out there in the water by himself, drowning. But even while I was thinking that, the thought came to me that with the mast gone and the hull leaking and at least two men missing, there was no way the
Junius Brutus
could make it to the West Indies. Oh, I was ashamed of myself for thinking that with Birdsey out there somewhere trying to keep himself afloat on those terrible waves; so ashamed I came near to jumping in and trying to save him. But I wouldn't do that, I knew. Just then Captain Ivers gave the order to cut loose the deck cargo. But it came too late for Birdsey.