September 14, into a red, swollen sun setting over Cardiff. But I lay in a cabin belowdecks, racked with head pain.
“Are you all right?” Father asked, peeking over for the dozenth time.
For the dozenth time I lied. “Yes.”
“Then come abovedecks. The air will be good for you.”
I followed him out of the cabin and up the ladder. Above and around us, the crew set the rigging, hauled in supplies, checked lists. English, French, Greek—their shouts kept my mind off the pain. Silently, I translated. What I didn’t know, I learned from context. I had never heard the Malay tongue, but the words floated through the air in rapid cadences. They were spoken by a powerful but diminutive deckhand named Musa.
My love of languages is not why Father hired these motley men. It was the only group he could get together in such a short time.
He knew the clock was ticking on my life.
Five weeks earlier I had collapsed during a cricket match. I thought I had been hit accidentally by a batsman. But when I awoke in a hospital, Father looked as if he had aged twenty years. He was talking to the doctor about a “mark.”
I didn’t know what he meant. But from that day, Father seemed transformed. The next two weeks he seemed like a madman—assembling a crew, scaring up funding for a sturdy ship. Impossible at such short notice! He was forced to interview vagabonds from shadows, to beg money from crooked lenders.
We sailed with a ragtag crew of paupers, criminals, and drunks. It was the best he could do.
As Father and I came abovedecks, I fought back nausea. The Enigma was a refitted whaling ship that stank of rancid blubber. Its planks creaked nastily on the water. Back at the port, Welsh dockmen mocked us in song: “Hail, Enigma, pump away! Drooping out of Cardiff Bay! Hear her as she cracks and groans! Next stop, mates, is Davy Jones!”
Our captain, a grizzled giant named Kurtz, hurled a lump of coal across the bay at them, nearly hitting one of the men. “Let me at them leek-lovin’ cowards,” he grumbled.
“Pay them no heed,” Father said.
“Not that they’re wrong, mind ye,” Kurtz said, his eyes flashing with anger. “Us heading for the middle of the ocean to find nothing.”
As he lumbered away, I looked at Father. My head pain was beginning to ease. “Why does he say this?” I asked.
Father took my arm and brought me to the wheelhouse. He took out an ancient map, marked with scribblings. In its center was a large X. Directly under that was an inscription in faded red letters, but as Father skillfully folded the map, the words were tucked away. “Kurtz sees no land under this mark, that’s why,” Father said. “But I know there is. The most important archaeological discovery I will ever make.”
“Could not we have waited and gathered a better group of men?” I asked as I glanced toward the foremast, where two Portuguese sailors were brawling with Musa. As the Malay drew a dagger to protect himself, Father ran toward them.
He did not know that I had seen the inscription he’d folded away. It was in German: Hier herrscht eine unvorstellbare Hölle.
“Here lies a most unimaginable hell.”
We reached our own Hölle early.
We were in open ocean. The sky was bright, the sails full, and the Strait of Gibraltar had long faded from sight. Eight days into the voyage, I was making progress in understanding Malay. Not to mention many of the saltier words and phrases used by these men in many other languages. I tried to help as often as I could, but the men treated me as if I were a small child. I must have seemed like one to them. My headaches were becoming more frequent, so I often went belowdecks to rest. Father would often join me for a card game or conversation.
It was during one of the games that we heard a scream above.
We raced upward. What we saw knocked us back on our heels.
The freshening sky had given way to an explosion of black clouds. They billowed toward us as if heaven itself had suddenly ruptured. Captain Kurtz was shoving sailors toward the mainsail sheets, shouting commands. First Mate Grendel, so quiet I’d thought he had no voice, was shrieking from the fo’c’sle, rousing the sailors.
The Enigma lurched upward. As it smacked back to the water, men fell to the deck. The wind sheared across the ship and the mainsail ripped down the center with a loud snap. In the thunder’s boom, I stood, paralyzed, not knowing how to help. Rain pelted me from all directions. I saw a flash of lightning, followed by an unearthly crack. The mizzenmast split in two, falling toward me like a redwood. A hand gripped my forearm and I flew through the rain, tumbling to the deck with Father. As we rolled to safety, I saw the crumpled body of a sailor pinned to the deck by a jagged splinter of the mast.
I tried to help, but my feet slipped on the planks. The ship tilted to starboard as if launched by a catapult. I was airborne, flailing. All I saw beneath me was the sea, black and bubbling. Three sailors, screaming, disappeared into the water. I thought I would be propelled after them, but my shoulder caught the top of the gunwale railing. I cried out in pain, bouncing back hard to the deck.
“Sea monster!” a voice called out. “Sea monster!” It was the sailor named Llewellyn, dangling over the hull.
I held tight to the railing. Beneath me was a horrifying groan. I took it to be the strain on the keel’s wood planking. I looked downward and saw the churn of a vast whirlpool.
In its center was a man’s arm, quickly vanishing.
Where was Father? I looked around, suddenly terrified by the thought that the arm might have been his. But with relief I saw him coming toward me, clutching the railing. “Come!” he cried out.
He grabbed my forearm. The ship was rocking. I heard a deathly cry. Llewellyn’s grip had loosened and he was dropping into the sea. I pulled away to try to grab him. “It’s too late!” Father insisted, forcing me toward the battened-down hatch.
He yanked it open, shoving me toward the ladder. Overhead I thought I heard the flapping of wings. A frightening high-pitched chitter. “What is that?” I called out.
“Must be the angels, lost in the wind! Looking out for us!” Father shouted, trying desperately to be cheerful. “Now go!”
My fingers, wet and slippery, untwined from Father’s. I fell from the ladder. Before my voice could form a cry, my head hit the deck below.
I awoke squinting.
To heat. To blaring light through the cabin porthole.
The sun!
Immediately my heart jumped with relief. The storm, the whirlpool, the devilish noises—had it all been a dream?
I called for Father, but he was by my side. I felt his hand holding mine.
“How’s the boy?” came First Mate Grendel’s voice.
