Serpent Never Sleeps (8 page)

Mistress Horton asked him if the water was warm. The captain didn't know, so she sent her maid to find out.

William Strachey, who was the secretary-elect to Virginia, asked where we were. "It doesn't look like what I've read about Virginia." When Captain Newport was slow to answer, he said, "You're the captain and navigator. You should know."

"I do know," the captain said. "We are off Bermuda, six hundred miles east by southeast of Virginia."

"I'm bewildered," Mistress Rolfe said. "Is this an island? It seems so." Her spouse agreed.

"A lot of islands bunched together," Emma Swinton said. "If it's Bermuda, then it's a hellish place. I've read about it. Bermuda's home to haunts and devils. Its reefs are strewn with wrecks. Sailors shun its shores."

"Where would you rather be?" Captain Newport asked. "Here or on a sinking ship in the Atlantic deep?"

"Here among haunts and devils," Mistress Rolfe answered.

Emma Swinton said, "You'll come to rue these words."

Mistress Horton's maid came back to report that the water was middling hot. Mistress Horton asked the
captain if he knew more about the islands than the haunts and devils and wrecks.

"Nothing more," the captain said, "except that at any moment, while you chatter, the ship may slip beneath the sea and drown us all."

Anthony Foxcroft appeared at the end of a chain held by the king's guard. Pale and drawn, encumbered by the chain, he still walked with a defiant tread. He was pushed into the longboat, and though the guard tried to shunt me away, I leaped in beside him.

Blinded in the strong sun, shading his eyes, he said, "Do I see a white beach and palm trees and water colored like emeralds?"

"You do."

"I'm not dreaming?"

"No."

"Where are we?"

"On an island. 'Tis called Bermuda."

"Bermuda? I never heard the name before. You're certain it's not heaven I see aglitter in the offing?"

The longboat slid up the beach. As he was being dragged away, I pressed the serpent ring against my heart and called, "Yes, 'tis heaven."

Bermuda

Our ship did not slide into the sea as Captain Newport said she might. She was wedged hard, her long beak caught between two prongs of a coral reef. And albeit pitched forward at an awkward slant, half of her length lying beneath the sea, most of the things not ruined by the storm were carried ashore that afternoon by longboat, some on the backs of the bolder men.

There was no immediate need of shelter. The day was windless, the shore a wide, curving stretch of white sand, ideal for camping. The Reverend Bucke hung the ship's bell on a palmetto tree and set it ringing.

We gathered around him gleefully—one hundred and fifty souls—those exhausted from months cooped in a ship meant to carry only half that many, the sick, the lame, the injured, the homesick. We half-listened to his long sermon, which began with the Lord's Prayer, continued to the lessons of Jeremiah, and
ended hopefully, with a plea that we show thankfulness for being saved from certain death by loving kindness to our neighbor.

We needed no sermon from the Reverend Bucke. Strong men knelt and kissed the earth beneath their feet. Women wept. Children romped on the beach. People sang until heaven resounded.

And little wonder. The endless sea, the scorching sun, the cold, maggoty food, the smells, the quarrels, the tiny ship that rolled and pitched ceaselessly, the storms, the hurricane that turned awful days into awful nights—all lay behind. Instead, as if conjured up out of a sultan's dream, was a place of sparkling seas, broad beaches, groves of palmetto trees, an island paradise.

At twilight we were camped on the beach. Driftwood fires burned brightly and three pigs were roasted on a spit. Our own surviving pigs, six of them, taken from the wreck, were hide and bones. One had wandered off into the woods and come back with three fat boars, which were tame and easily snared.

Captain Newport informed us that he had read about Juan de Bermúdez, who discovered the island a hundred years before and had left a herd of swine when he sailed off.

"The Spaniard had an eye on the future," he said. "His swine would feed upon the lush grass and multiply, furnishing ample food for the Spanish colonists yet to come. We have three of his swine
already and without effort. There are more wandering around in the woods. Hundreds, thousands perhaps."

Everyone shouted at the prospect and stuffed themselves with roast pig.

After the feast I went in search of Governor Thomas Gates. I found him on the beach, about to step into the sea with Sir George Somers.

"The Reverend Bucke," I said to them, "asked us in the name of Christ to be kind to each other. To keep Anthony Foxcroft in chains is not kind. 'Tis barbarous."

Sir Thomas, a stocky man of fifty or so, broad in neck and shoulder, peered at me in dismay, edging off toward the plashing waves.

"Besides, 'tis foolish," I said. "We're marooned on an island. Our ship is wrecked beyond repair. We're six hundred miles from Jamestown. How can Anthony Foxcroft escape? He cannot walk away or swim like a fish or fly like a bird."

"I have heard this before," Sir Thomas said. "You have but a single note to your flute—Foxcroft. Foxcroft this, Foxcroft that. It's a tiresome tune you play, and I for one have become mightily sick of it."

In the fading light his black beard, which came to a point, looked like a blade, a threatening dagger.

"How's it with you, Sir George? Are you likewise sick of the name Foxcroft?"

Sir George tried the water with his big toe, mumbled, "Warm as country milk," and said, "I think that
the young lady's remarks are sound. How can Foxcroft escape? No more than on the ship, I'd say. Furthermore, Fitzhugh has set a watch on him. This means men robbed from your meager force."

"Not men. Fitzhugh has assigned three of the young gentlemen to the watch: Payne, Lipscomb, and Taylor. All of little use, as you know. As for Foxcroft himself, he never condescended to clean his own quarters. He'll not be missed."

"We're without a ship," Admiral Somers said. "One will have to be built, a ship seaworthy and large enough to berth one hundred fifty people.
Sea Venture
has to be taken apart, not an easy task jammed on a reef as she is, but every plank and rib must be removed, brought ashore, and used. New timber has to be cut, sails repaired."

Governor Gates was in the water floating on his back, gazing up at the starry sky, remarking how pretty it was. He had on a pair of red drawers and his round stomach shone white. He didn't look at all like a governor, which encouraged me to tell him what I had told Admiral Somers, that Anthony had not deliberately killed anyone.

"'Twas an accident," I said, "and the king has not sent for him. It is Robert Carr who wants him."

"The two are the same," Sir Thomas said. "They're loving twins. Injure one and you injure the other. Pinch one, the other screams."

"What's more," I said, "you treat Anthony as if he were a felon, already tried before the assizes and convicted. 'Tis wrong of you to pretend that you're both judge and jury."

The governor was playing whale, sucking in water and spouting it out. He rose at my words and jerked a finger at me.

"But I am the judge, also the jury," he shouted. "And my verdict stands. Foxcroft stays in chains."

Admiral Somers, to his knees among the small waves, reached down, took up a handful of water, and rubbed it over his chest.

"At sea," he said to Gates quietly, "you failed to recognize me as commander of the fleet. Equally now that we're on land, I hereby refuse to recognize you as the commander. You're the duly elected governor of Virginia, true. But we are not in Virginia, not yet. Perhaps we never shall be.

"We're on an island that by discovery belongs to Spain. It's our temporary home. When and if we leave here, it will be by ship, in which case I'll be in command. Until that day it's best that we divide the honors. It is my judgment that Foxcroft be allowed his freedom. Since we differ about this, let us ask Captain Newport to cast a vote and break the tie."

"That would be fair," I said, believing that Newport would agree with Somers.

The governor crept out of the sea. "Young lady," he said in a rage, "women are at work in camp, cleaning up from supper. I suggest that you hie yourself thither and join them or else I'll have you punished."

I thought it best to leave. I didn't go back to camp.
I went no farther than a grove of palmetto trees, hid myself, and listened.

I heard nothing of the argument, save violent sounds, but when Gates stalked by and Admiral Somers followed at a distance, I knew that this feud, which had started the first day at sea, had not come to an end.

I ran out and overtook the admiral. "What was decided?" I asked.

"Sir Thomas insists that as governor of Virginia he's also the governor of Bermuda."

"I mean what was decided about Anthony?"

"He remains under guard."

"For how long, pray tell?"

"Until he is sent back to England."

"There's nothing you can do?"

"Little. The camp's unsettled. Sir Thomas has his followers, especially among the young gentlemen. If I make an issue of Foxcroft, it can cause trouble at a time we can ill afford trouble." He turned away and called back over his shoulder, "Be patient."

That night Sir Thomas Gates officially took command. A stiff old warrior who wanted things done at once, he divided the camp into two groups: workers and their families in one; the pampered young gentlemen, some thirty of them who during the voyage had shown a strong dislike of work, in the other.

"There's much to do," he said. "And I shall see that it's done."

After breakfast early next day, workers were sent afield. Hunters were to bring in swine, conies, squirrels, birds—whatever they could find. Women were to gather fruits and plants; fishermen to fish the reefs.

The women came back at night with heaping baskets of cedar berries and the white hearts of palmetto tree, which proved to be flavorful. The fishermen, Admiral Somers himself casting a line, caught more than a ton of bass, barracuda, and tuna, in addition to two giant turtles so huge that just their flesh would have been sufficient for our dinner.

Birds were everywhere. White herons flew about us in flocks; sparrows tried to light on our shoulders. Hunters bagged snipe, doves, ducks, and moorhens. That first morning, two women collected sixty dozen bird eggs, hundreds of turkey eggs, sweet as butter, and nearly a thousand turtle eggs.

With two giddy boys and a stout girl, I went to dig clams in a cove just beyond our camp. We tramped the water up to our knees, finding the clams with our
toes. In less than an hour we had dug five bagfuls of round ones called cockles.

Tom, the silliest of the boys, waded into a cave where the tide ran fast and came out shouting that he had seen a green monster.

"It's as big as a dog—a big dog—and it's got claws."

I took my time getting to the cave, thinking that the green monster was one of his scatterbrained notions.

"There," he said, pointing.

The lip of the cave was low and I had to stoop to see in. The water was clean and swirling. I saw claws and a pair of eyes, shining and black as night, sticking out at the end of two long stalks.

"It's a lobster," I said. "It's big. Leave it alone."

But Tom crawled into the cave. He fought the lobster for most of an hour, and I pulled them out, with the help of the stout girl, in a tangled mass of arms and claws. Tom caught three more lobsters in the cave, but none nearly so large as the monster, which was five feet long and a foot wide.

The camp feasted upon the day's gathering and smoked what was not eaten. Except for the palm hearts, we hadn't found any vegetables. But Admiral Somers had brought lettuce and onion seeds from England, which he planted, hoping they would grow.

Water was a problem after the first week. The casks we took from the wreck ran dry. There were no streams on the island where we were camped, but
there were hundreds of small islands, a chain of them, to the east.

Governor Gates sent out a party in longboats to make a search for water. They found none, save pools where rain had collected. Then he had six shallow wells dug, found enough water for everyday use, laid out the ship's sails to catch run-off, and set up a small dam. The Reverend Bucke prayed for rain.

It came in a sudden burst that washed the dam away, downed the sails, and made us realize that we could not camp on the beach forever. Cedar, a fine, fragrant wood, grew on the island. Trees were cut and boards sawed, and carpenters put up a row of one-room huts roofed with palmetto. The construction went so well that Governor Gates announced he would soon set them to work building a ship that could take us all to Jamestown.

Through these few weeks I made no further attempts to free Anthony Foxcroft. But one night after supper, listening to Emma Swinton, I heard that some of the colonists were so taken with life in Bermuda they were laying secret plans to revolt against Governor Gates. They had no wish to leave this Eden when the ship he was planning to build sailed for Jamestown.