Serpent Never Sleeps (7 page)

"I shall, at once." But the words were scarcely spoken when a shrieking wind fell upon the ship. I was thrown to the deck and lay there half-stunned. Yet I had enough wits about me to close my hand, to clench it tight upon the king's ring, lest it be ripped from my finger. The sterncastle door flew open, and a woman took hold of my hand and dragged me to safety. She noticed the ring.

"How did you come by it?" she asked. "Did you steal it in the dark of the moon?"

"'Tis a gift from the king."

"Unlikely, yet the king is a generous man. My mistress owned such a ring. She found it an antidote for the dangers of this world. I trust that you have found it such."

"I have."

"And will continue to do so, though the ship sinks and everyone drowns, save you?"

I did not answer. In the light from a lamp swinging in gimbals, I saw a tall, bleak-looking woman of middle age with stringy hair and a long, thin nose that nearly met her chin—a child's version of a witch.

"I fear that the ship is doomed," she said. "What a tragedy that will be. The admiral of the fleet and the new governor of Virginia, both these splendid men chosen to look after us in the New World, both are here, cooped up in the
Sea Venture.
It is a bad beginning, something tells me."

With her long white fingers, she made a sign and raised her eyes to heaven.

"When were you born?" she asked.

"The twenty-third day of May in the year 1593."

"Which makes you a Gemini. Born at what hour?"

"I don't know."

"Probably at dusk, under the evening star. What's your name, young miss?"

"Serena Lynn."

"Poetic. Mine is Emma Swinton, which isn't such. I would not have selected it had I been asked. Names can rule your life."

The ship pitched to the fury of a south wind, but the lamp rested steady in its gimbals.

"You have recovered from your blow?" Emma Swinton asked.

"Almost, thank you."

"Is there something I can do for you?" she said at the door, ducking her head to keep from striking the oaken beams. "Are you comfortable here? Do you want for anything? I am on my way to read the stars for Governor Gates, who is a true believer in the science. I can say a word or two in your behalf." She looked down at me with a motherly eye.

I sat up straight in my bunk and grasped her hand. "Say to him that Anthony Foxcroft is not guilty of murder. 'Tis an awful mistake to hold him in durance."

"More than a mistake," Emma Swinton said. "It is most heartbreaking for you."

Tumult increased through the day, and day became a starless night, as if Jonas himself were flying through Tarshish. Lightning flashed, then night became day again.

Through my window I saw nothing but raging water. The
Virginia
had turned back to England days before, and the ships that had followed us so faithfully all the way from Plymouth were gone.

At dawn word came that sometime in the night the ship had begun to leak. Water stood knee-deep in the bilge. Alarms sounded and the ship's roster was divided into three shifts and sent below to work at the pumps. Even Mistress Horton, her maid, and some of the common women were assigned shifts.

Anthony was still locked away. Before I took my turn at the pumps, I hurried down to see him.

The bars were so close together that I couldn't reach through them. The air was so befouled that I could scarcely breathe. The shrieking of the wind, the pounding of the waves, the banging of the rudder
as it swung back and forth, made it impossible to hear.

I shouted that I was doing my best to free him. He shouted something back and made a gesture that I could not understand. Was it indifference or the opposite? I smiled and he smiled back. The alarm sounded again. I sent him a kiss and tore myself away.

Most of the men and half of the women were below by now. Only a group of gentlemen, who had never worked a day in their lives, stayed on deck. Admiral Somers coaxed them below by going down himself and taking a pump handle.

We took turns working at the three pumps, pumping one hour at a time, resting an hour, thousands of strokes in each watch. The rest of the company filled kettles, carried them aloft, and dumped the water into the sea.

Before noon the pump I was using clogged up. Water had broken into the stores, and sea biscuits were floating around the hold. A handful had been sucked up by the pump.

While it was being cleaned, I was given the task of gathering baskets of the soggy biscuits. The two other pumps got clogged and had to be taken apart; yet during the day we rid the ship of more than thirty tons of water.

It was not enough. The sea still poured in.

That night our watch was sent below again. My hands were blistered and bleeding from handling the
pump, so I was given a rushlight and told to search out the leak.

Twenty of us—Mistress Horton's maid, three girls I had never seen, the boatswain, coopers, and carpenters—waded in water up to our knees, up to our necks when the ship rolled, moving from bow to stern, peering at every plank we could reach, stumbling along in the darkness lit only by our candles, while the three pumps clattered and the waves pounded the ship like a drum.

We searched until noon and found neither holes nor split planks, but only a seam, no longer than my arm, where the caulking was pushed in.

The carpenters set to work on it. For some reason they were out of oakum and had to use substitutes—strips of dried beef, pieces of bedding, and torn dresses. But everything they stuffed in the crack came out.

At nightfall the wind died away. The Reverend Bucke prayed and everyone felt better, thinking that the storm had come to an end. But soon after the ship's bell had rung for the midnight watch, as I lay awake in pain from my blistered hands, I heard scurrying footsteps.

I got up and went down the passage to the sterncastle. Sailors were on deck furling all the sails they had run up at dusk except a small one in the bow, which was used to steady the ship. I wondered that they were taking in the sails, for there was no wind and the sea was calm.

I was aware of a light on the mainmast, on its very tip where no light could possibly be. It looked like a small, trembling star.

Someone on the deck below called out, "St. Elmo's fire."

"St. Elmo?" I called back. "Who is that?"

"All I know about is the fire. If you see fire like that it means a storm's coming."

"The storm has come already."

"A bigger storm will come, maybe a hurricane."

While we talked, the star sparkling in the masthead became two stars.

"If the lights move down the rigging, it means fair weather," the man said. "If they go up, it means foul weather."

As we talked, the two stars flew to the foremast and sat there, giving off a spectral glow. Then they flew from mast to mast, then hovered above us like two frightened birds.

"A bad sign," the man said. "I have seen it before. I am the only one saved from the bark
Louisa.
Dad and I were homeward bound when we hit a noisome gale. We saw the fire playing about the rigging just like that. My dad said, 'If we get out of here, I don't want you sailing in the bark again.' When I got back to Plymouth I took my pay and left. My father signed because he was the mate. And she went down the very next time, with all hands. So I am the only man preserved from the
Louisa.
"

The man disappeared. As I went back along the passageway, I had trouble walking. The ship had taken on more water, though the pumps were still being manned.

Just before dawn I was awakened by a cannon shot. The ship was no longer sailing. She was being driven by the wind, from one side, then to the other, to the north, to the east, to the west. At times it seemed as if she were moving in circles, yet always with a dangerous slant.

To put the ship on an even keel, Captain Newport gave orders to clear out everything on her starboard side. Sailors brought up hogsheads of oil, barrels of vinegar, trunks and chests belonging to the settlers, and threw them into the sea. Mistress Horton lost two trunks and three chests. Since my cabin was at the center of the ship I lost none of my few possessions.

All through that day waves swept over the bow, flooding the deck, crashing against the heavy doors of the sterncastle. The long arm of the steering rudder, which in calm weather was managed by one man, now required the strength of six.

For fear of being swept away, the settlers huddled below. Captain Newport sent me down to help the women with children. He had ordered all the pumps stopped, since they were useless. There was meat, but no fire in the cookroom to prepare it. Water stood deep in the bilge, high above the ballast. Swarms of rats swam about, trying to flee the hold.

Toward evening, one of the women went out of her head. "We're going to drown," she screamed. "So let us close the hatches and give ourselves to God."

"Yes, to merciful God," another woman screamed.

"Amen," a man said, and started for the ladder.

I edged past him, climbed on deck, and made my way to the sterncastle. Admiral Somers and Sir Thomas Gates were arguing. They were always arguing about something: Who was in charge of the ship, the admiral of the fleet or the governor of Virginia? Where were we in the endless sea? How many days from land? From Jamestown? From anywhere?

Captain Newport was on watch. He had watched night and day since the storm struck up, though now there was little to watch. He was busy talking to a sailor. I waited.

"We are lighter to starboard with half the cargo gone," he said.

"Not light enough. We should cut the top mast and heave it over," the sailor replied.

"Let's wait for the night. The seas may moderate," Captain Newport said.

Admiral Somers spoke up. "If night ever comes."

"Poor talk," Sir Thomas Gates said. "We've not sailed this far to give up now."

"We're not giving up," the admiral said. "It's the ship that's giving up. She was never built to fight a hurricane. She's a made-over fishing smack. She used to fish for flounder in peaceful waters, off Calais."

At this moment a heavy wave lifted us high. The windows streamed with water and some of it dropped from the ceiling onto the admiral's sugar-loaf hat. He removed the hat, took a handkerchief from his sleeve, and brushed off the water. Water dropped on his bald head.

"Why do you stand with your mouth open?" the admiral asked me. "It's not Anthony Foxcroft again, I trust."

"It is, sir. He's—"

Sir Thomas Gates broke in. "Who is this Anthony Foxcroft?"

"You've heard of Foxcroft," Admiral Somers said.

"Oh, yes. Foxcroft the murderer. The one that flees the king. I haven't seen him since we left Plymouth. Where is he?"

Admiral Somers, who was busy wiping his bald head, didn't answer.

"Locked up," I said.

"Where?"

"Below. Where he'll surely drown."

"Proper punishment," Governor Gates said.

"A monstrous thing to say. You can't mean it, sir."

"But I do mean it, young lady," the governor said.

He turned his back. Admiral Somers put on his sugar-loaf hat, gave me a withering look, and dismissed me with a jerk of his thumb.

A wave, a second wave, two waves in quick succession, struck the ship. She rolled from side to side, plunged her beak deep into the towering seas,
shuddered desperately as if she would never survive, and then with a great lunge rose again. Curtains of water flowed past the windows and shut off the waning day.

The three men sat in silence with their hands folded. They looked like specters in the yellowish light, like men already dead, trapped at the bottom of the sea. The Reverend Bucke entered with a blast of wind and he, too, looked ghostly.

I left them, went down the passage to my cabin, and slammed the door behind me. I waited for a moment, then I opened the door and listened. I heard the Reverend Bucke ask the three men to kneel, calling each by name. I heard him pray, then their response, "The Lord's name be praised."

I closed the door and by a longer way went to Anthony's cell, close upon the rudder. The rudder was lashed down by a heavy chain, and the six sailors who had manned it, steering when the ship could be steered, lay sprawled against the bulwarks.

A sailor asked me why I was there. When I told him, he didn't answer. He politely pushed me through the door, closed and bolted it, and left me standing in the wind. The "sailor" was Fitzhugh, the king's guard.

As I hurried along the passageway, I heard the Reverend Bucke's voice again. He was praying still, and the three men were still responding, "The Lord's name be praised."

After a sleepless night, I dozed at dawn and awakened to a prolonged grating sound, as if the wounded ship were dragging herself over rocks at the bottom of the sea. I slid from my hammock and peered out.

The window was streaked with salt, but I caught a glimpse of the sun struggling out from a bank of pink clouds. I heard running feet, frantic cries from the ship's hold, and a shattering cannon shot. Then there was a short silence followed by shouts from the sterncastle deck.

I had slept in my clothes, so I didn't need to dress. I tied my hair in a knot and ran. Before I reached the stern ladder, the grating sound that had awakened me grew faint and ceased.

The ship came to a jarring halt. A prolonged shudder crept through her planks. Then she moved on a little, groaning as though she were trying to free herself from some monstrous trap. Her bow nosed down at a frightening angle, and I was thrown to the deck.

I lay quite dazed for a while, then, clambering to my feet, I saw a stretch of still water the exact color of emeralds. Beyond, less than a half mile away, small waves ran gently up a beach of blinding, white sand. Beyond the beach stood a grove of palm trees, whose fronds glittered in the sun.

Captain Newport stood on the sterncastle deck, the only part of the ship wholly out of water, and shouted commands to the crowd pressed against the bulwarks.

"Leave your possessions," Captain Newport said
to the crowd. "Men, get yourselves ashore. The water's shallow along the reef. Women, wait for the longboat."