did their fear of him lessen their fear of the storm, was that the intention of this grim leadership? Or was he a simply a latter-day Canute, trying to command the waves through the hold he had over the crew?
The Anne was gaining height suddenly, pushed upwards by a rapidly forming crest so that for a moment she was perched atop a peak within the ocean, gazing down on the waves below. Martin instinctively broke free of Gardiner’s conspiratorial embrace to survey the scene. He felt his heartbeat quicken as he scanned across the horizon towards the nearest summit. Here was another mountain, a mountain on the move towards them, built on a roaring wall of water at least forty feet high. He struggled to find the words for what seemed an eternity, eventually hearing himself screaming with all his might towards the captain.
‘Another one on the way, sir … starboard side. Haul the lads free! Get them to safety, sir!’
In reply, a flash of angry eyes, a glare to warn of future reproach. Captain Henry addressed his comments to the darkness of the chamber below.
‘Get our cargo fixed, hear me? Make it fast, damn you!’
Martin pushed Gardiner aside to gain access to the rope attached to the men in the hold. The ship was plummeting downward as he did so.
‘Pull them out!’
His hands were wrapped tight around the cord when the wave struck, his intention having been to drag the pair free singlehanded if necessary. Instead, the rope instantly became his means of staying aboard as the full might of the sea raged over and across the tossing deck. He held tight as the ship turned on its side whilst the breaking wave flooded the open hold and swept three hands over into the frothing deep. In that instant he could have been forgiven for believing that the Anne had become submerged, such was the force and volume of water that poured over her bows. Yet somehow she remained afloat, righting herself anew although rocking the stern deck free of another two crewmen in the process. No one saw them go, it was only their final cries for help that lingered.
The stinging of the sea-water acting on his raw hands brought Martin back to his senses. He felt a surge of despair as he looked into the hold, now filled to its very brim with the water that lapped at the hatch.
‘Bail! Bail out the hold!’
The shouts of the captain and ship’s mate had the rest scurrying for buckets and pails, the first of which began to dip into the watery space and relieve it of its unwelcome liquid cargo. Progress was chaotic and slow, the ship continuing to bob and pitch with such violence and unpredictability that seldom would a full bucketload leaving the hold contain more than half of that by the time it was raised clear, the rest spilling back to whence it came. Martin tugged vainly on the rope. Surely what he was watching was a demonstration of the wrong priority being exercised? He looked once more over the bow of the ship. It was now almost a minute since the giant wave had struck. In the moonlight he could see no sign of any other approaching. He would have to take his chance, and take it now. The penalty would be a lifetime of never forgiving himself for not doing otherwise.
The others, to a man, were all studying the entrance in glum silence as he stripped off his jacket. He tried to slow his breathing down, inhaling longer, fuller lungfuls as he lifted his leg on to the side of the hatch. His foot in place, a spring off the deck with the other had him skipping up and over the side and plunging into the uncertain waters of the hold. They greeted him with an icy shock. Reaching for the rope as a guide, he pulled against it to go down deeper, tentatively feeling for the top of the original cargo with his legs. He tried to open his eyes, but they were useless, blinded and stung by the sea salt. All he could do was fight his way down, groping for any kind of familiar shape in the numbing cold. He touched what he imagined to be wooden crates, barrel rims, other ropes and rigging as his discomfort and the lack of air began to bite. The darkness under the water he could have expected, the silence he did not, nor the relative peace this granted from the cacophony of storm and bellowed orders above. Of its own, aside from the cramps and giddiness he was beginning to feel, this was almost worth staying under for.
He had kicked to return to the surface when his left hand ran through what he thought was a mop. Instinctively, he stayed to explore the immediate area surrounding it, in case what he had touched was a scalp. He was floating horizontally and his by now frozen fingers met the texture of more wood, more canvas, more ragged splinters that had once been proud veneers; then shockingly, something less rigid – a substance, a shoulder, an arm, a hand that he squeezed with his. Martin tore blindly at the wall that seemed to have pinned down the components of the torso he had discovered. Was it his imagination or had the other hand sought his, had it pressed his palm in a feeble attempt to signal that Martin’s help was needed? He pulled on the rope with urgent vigour, hoping that those above would themselves take its fluctuating tension as a sign that they too should join the effort to free those trapped below. He was running out of air and knew he had to return to the surface, trailing his arm in the darkness a final time in order to deliver a departing handshake, a simple physical gesture that could perhaps impart a more complicated hope; I have found you, I won’t forget you, I will get you out. He kicked again for the surface.
As soon as his head was above water, the sound of pandemonium returned. Martin tried to shout as he regained his short breath. He had returned to the same scene as before, men vainly trying to empty the hold one pail at a time. The difference in the waterline was negligible and it was beyond belief that only one man held the rope that could be another man’s saviour.
‘He’s alive … For Christ’s sake pull him free, all of you, we cannot let them die like drowned dogs!’
‘Steady with the bailing, men … Master Bosun, can you feel any response to the pulls on the rope?’
The bosun looked blankly at the captain. Martin would later wonder if he had actually heard the question above the rain and wind. The lack of a ready answer seemed good enough for Captain Henry.
‘No response. You have found nobody with your antics, Doctor. The men will bail out the hold as ordered. You will join us on the deck now, sir, at once if you please.’
‘There are two men down there. I have touched one, he is still alive … I beg you, Captain, give the order to haul them out, all hands at once!’
Something in the way he had said it, rather than what he had said, made the men halt their labours. His voice had been that of reason, bereft of anger, fear or even any hint of consternation; it had simply said what had needed to be said. This was the first time Martin would learn that men will listen to a calm voice rather than an imploring one.
‘On deck … now, sir!’
All except the captain would have heeded his call. Martin gave the slightest of nods to the skipper. I have heard you. He raised his knees and ducked his head under the water again, kicking and pushing, diving down with his arms in one fluid movement.
Captain Henry confined Martin to quarters once he finally climbed out of the hold and returned to the deck. He went back to the hammock where he had been sleeping only hours before. The same hammock, the same cabin, the same ship. Yet everything had changed.
The bodies of the two young deckhands originally sent down – Jim O’Rourke and Peter McGill – were recovered just after daybreak. By then the storm had subsided and some of the water in the hold had seeped out of the ship of its own accord. Once the Anne began to sit higher in the water this process moved it faster than any army of buckets could ever have hoped to. In hindsight, the crew realized that the sudden flood had stabilized the loose cargo better than poor Jim and Pete would have managed, however heroic their efforts. May they rest in peace. Their bodies had looked battered and beaten when eventually retrieved, limbs had been broken and twisted
