“We can’t go!” a voice called back. “Steve Turlock’s ashore with a party of three.”
Rowing faster than he had ever done before, Matt bellowed, “We sail without them!” And as soon as the rowboat banged against the side of the Ariel he supervised the attaching of lines, and sailors hauled the boat aboard, with him in it. Leaping onto the deck, he shouted, “Get her under way! Out to sea!”
Mr. Goodbarn, a cautious man, ran up to ask, “What’s happening, sir?”
“Gatch! The Dartmoor’s hiding upstream.”
Mr. Goodbarn choked, then pointed out, “Sir, we aren’t forced to leave port. The Brazilian government won’t allow Gatch to attack us so long as we stay inside.”
“I want him outside,” Turlock said as the ship began to move.
“Halloo, Ariel!” came voices from the shore, and Turlock bellowed back, “Swim!” and Steve Turlock leaped into the bay, followed by his companions.
“Our papers haven’t been cleared,” Mr. Goodbarn warned.
“To hell with papers.” And gradually the Ariel caught the late-afternoon breeze and began moving more swiftly, and a Brazilian guard boat sailed out to protest the departure, but its attention was distracted by the fact that the English ship of war was also leaving without proper clearance.
The Ariel had a slight start, which it improved when the shore was left behind, but the Dartmoor, hoping to increase speed as the winds strengthened, did not propose to allow her enemy clear sailing. In the fading daylight a salvo of well-aimed shots tried to knock down the Ariel’s rigging, but fell short. Before the gunners could reload for a second try, the Ariel had moved out of range and during the long night she stayed ahead.
At dawn the two vessels retained their relative positions, because no matter how swiftly the Ariel sailed, the rising wind enabled the Dartmoor to keep pace, and a worried Mr. Goodbarn told his captain, “Sir, they’re keeping up.”
“That’s what I intend.”
“But in this heavy wind they may overtake us.”
“I want them to,” Turlock said, and Mr. Goodbarn, whose neck would also be stretched if the Ariel was captured, looked back at the menacing Dartmoor and shivered.
“Break out the topsails, Mr. Goodbarn,” Turlock said.
“Sir, the wind is rising.”
“That’s what we want,” and Turlock watched approvingly as the two square sails climbed to the tops of their masts. “Now we’ll see if he’s a sailor.”
It was a dark overcast day, with a heavy breeze from the shore, and for nine hours the two ships pounded eastward, decks awash and the wind beginning to howl. At dusk they remained separated, and through the long night Captain Turlock kept all sails aloft, even though the Ariel was listing perilously to starboard. Twice Mr. Goodbarn asked if he wanted to lower the topsails and twice he was asked, “Has Sir Trevor lowered his?”
In the darkness the Ariel began to shudder from the impact of tall canvas and rough seas, and some of the sailors expressed apprehension: “He’s drivin’ us to the bottom of the sea.”
“He knows what he’s doin’,” one of the Choptank men replied, but as he spoke the schooner took a sickening drop to starboard, twisted in the trough between the waves and roared upward with a sudden wrench to port. “Jesus!” the Choptank man said.
The only sailor who actually relished the chase was Spratley, who remained at his gun as if action were imminent, staring back in the darkness to catch sight of the Dartmoor. When dawn broke under scudding clouds, and the sun appeared for a brief moment, throwing the pursuers into golden relief, he shouted, “We still have ’em!” as if he were a fisherman teasing an important catch closer to the rowboat so that a net could be dropped. When Captain Turlock passed, inspecting the deck, Spratley winked at him and said, “This day we’ll take him,” and Matt nodded.
All that day the chase continued, and whenever it looked as if the Ariel might spring clear, through the excellent management of its sails, Turlock dropped off the wind a point or two, enabling the Dartmoor to catch up. One of the sailors complained, “Damn it, we should be half a day ahead of them,” but Spratley corrected him, “We don’t want to be ahead. We’re sucking that bastard into the jaws of hell.” And he stayed by his gun.
During the third night Captain Turlock had to catch some sleep, so he turned the Ariel over to Mr. Goodbarn, telling him, “I think you know what to do,” and the mate nodded. At dawn the Dartmoor had moved closer, and when Turlock saw this he was pleased. All that day he sailed through the growing storm in such a way as to keep the British schooner in a position from which she might want to use her guns, but since he did not lower his sails, Captain Gatch could not lower his, either.
At noon Captain Turlock studied the Dartmoor through his glass and asked Mr. Goodbarn, “Has she moved her cannon forward?”
“Two of them. The rest are fixed.”
“But they are forward?”
“They are, sir.”
“Good. Does she seem a mite heavy in the bow?”
“She always has been, since the British captured her.”
“You can see it, too?”
“She’s heavy, sir.”
“I thought so. Gatch is a fool.” And he ordered Spratley’s movable gun to be shifted far aft. Then he swung his clipper slightly so that it made maximum speed.
A ship, like a human being, moves best when it is slightly athwart the wind, when it has to keep its sails tight and attend its course. Ships, like men, do poorly when the wind is directly behind, pushing them sloppily on their way so that no care is required in steering or in the management of sails; the wind seems favorable, for it blows in the direction one is heading, but actually it is destructive because it induces a relaxation in tension and skill. What is needed is a wind slightly opposed to the ship, for then tension can be maintained, and juices can flow and ideas can germinate, for ships, like men, respond to challenge.
At three that afternoon Captain Turlock, ignoring the signs of fierce wind about to sweep the South Atlantic, had his maximum sails aloft, his course laid so that the wind came at them from two points forward of the starboard quarter. He maintained a port tack, for like every other ship that sailed, the Ariel performed slightly better on one tack than the other, and her greatest speed came on the port. From his long acquaintance with the Whisper, he suspected that the Dartmoor sailed best on her port tack, too. So the two ships were now in a posture of maximum performance.
The duel began. No gun was fired, because Captain Turlock kept tantalizingly just out of range, but from the manner in which he sailed, it must have seemed on the Dartmoor that he was about to fall behind, so that the eight heavy guns could riddle him. At any rate, the Dartmoor maintained pursuit, and as Captain Turlock watched her plow into the growing waves, bow down, he told Mr. Goodbarn, “Before sundown.”
At four the wind started to blow in gusts so strong that the mate said, with some urgency, “We’ve got to lower the topsails.”
“They stay,” Turlock said.
“You’re placing our ship in great danger, sir.”
“And his,” Turlock said.
At five the sky began to darken and by five-thirty it was as foul a day as the Ariel had seen. Spratley, convinced that the two ships must close before dark, had ordered his helper to bring six more cannonballs on deck, and the two other gunners had done the same, but when Turlock saw this he was aghast. “All extra cannonballs to the bottom of the hold! And everything else of weight!” For the next fifteen minutes the crew stowed everything movable below-deck, with Captain Turlock yelling into the hold, “Place it all aft! Everything aft!” And as the men did this, he told Mr. Goodbarn, “We’ll stay stern-heavy. Let him have the bow.”
It wasn’t enough. Turlock, testing the deck with his feet, sensed that his ship was in peril, so he shouted, “Spratley’s gun! Overboard!”
“Oh, sir?” the little Englishman protested, but Mr. Goodbarn and his men edged the heavy gun to the rail and pushed it over
. As it sank unused, Spratley groaned.
Just before darkness set in with that incredible speed it shows in the tropics—daylight one moment, night the next—the sun broke out beneath the cloud cover and illuminated the Dartmoor as if she were a golden ship painted upon a porcelain plate used by a queen, her spars, her sails, her decks aglistening. Only for a moment did the light prevail; then, as it began to fade and great winds roared across the ocean, the lovely schooner began to bury her heavy nose in a towering wave, digging deeper and deeper, until she had buried herself completely.
Not a cap floated on the dark Atlantic. The sun vanished. The gold was gone.
From the Ariel rose a spontaneous shout, then individual cries of victory, and Spratley danced about the remaining cannon, crying to the captain, “Down he goes!” But Turlock, agitated beyond control, swept his left arm in a violent circle, knocking the gunner to the deck. “You weren’t fit to tie his shoe.”
Spratley was not to be denied his victory. Leaping to his feet and ignoring the captain, he set a match to one of the guns, and a cannonball shot out across the turbulent waves, skipped once and sank to join the Dartmoor in the vast, dark caverns of the sea.
“You may drop the canvas, Mr. Goodbarn,” Turlock said. “This night we’ll ride a gale.”
VOYAGE EIGHT: 1822
IN THE REMOTE WASTES OF NORTHERN CANADA, WHERE man was rarely seen except when lost and about to perish, a family of great geese, in the late summer of 1822, made their home on a forlorn stretch of Arctic moorland. Mother, father, six fledglings: because of a freak of nature they had come to a moment of terrifying danger.
The two adult birds, splendid heavy creatures weighing close to fourteen pounds and with wings normally capable of carrying them five thousand miles in flight, could not get off the ground. At a time when they had to feed and protect their offspring, they were powerless to fly. This was no accident, nor the result of any unfortunate experience with wolves; like all their breed they lost their heavy wing feathers every summer and remained earthbound for about six weeks, during which they could only hide from their enemies and walk ineffectively over the moorland, waiting for their feathers to return. It was for this reason that they had laid their eggs in such a remote spot, for during their moulting period they were almost defenseless.
Onk-or, the father in this family, strutted about the bushes seeking seeds, while his mate stayed near the nest to tend the fledglings, whose appetites were insatiable. Occasionally when Onk-or brought food to the younglings, his mate would run long distances as if pleased to escape the drudgery of her brood, but on this day when she reached the top of a grassy mound she ran faster, flapped the wings she had not used for six weeks and flew back toward her nest, uttering loud cries as she did so.
Onk-or looked up, saw the flight and sensed that within a day or two he would be soaring too; always her feathers grew back faster than his. As she flew past he spoke to her.
Maintaining a medium altitude, she headed north to where an arm of the sea intruded, and there she landed on water, splashing it ahead of her when her feet slammed down to act as brakes. Other geese landed to eat the seeds floating on the waves, and after weeks of loneliness she enjoyed their companionship, but before long she rose on the water, flapped her long wings slowly, gathered speed amidst great splashing, then soared into the air, heading back to her nest. From long habit, she landed short of where her fledglings lay, moved about unconcernedly to deceive any foxes that might be watching, then collected bits of food, which she carried to her children. As soon as she appeared, Onk-or walked away, still unable to fly, to gather more food.
He and his mate were handsome birds, large and sleek. Both they and their children had long necks feathered in jet-black, with a broad snowy white bib under the chin and reaching to the ears. When their wings were folded, as they were most of the time, the heavy body was compact and beautifully proportioned, and they walked with dignity, not waddling from side to side like ducks. Their heads were finely proportioned, with bills pointed but not grotesquely long, and the lines of their bodies, where feathers of differing shades of gray joined, were pleasing. Indeed, their subdued coloring was so appropriate to the Arctic moorland that an observer, had there been one, could have come close to their nest without noticing them.
On this day there was an observer, an Arctic fox who had not eaten for some time and was beginning to feel the urge of hunger. When from a distance he spotted the rough nest on the ground, with the six fledglings tumbling about and obviously not prepared to fly, he took no precipitate action, for he had learned respect for the sharp beaks and powerful wings of full-grown geese like Onk-or.
Instead he retreated and ran in large circles far from the nest, until he roused another fox to make the hunt with him. Together they returned quietly across the tundra, moving from the security of one tussock to the next, scouting the terrain ahead and developing the strategy they would use to pick off these young geese.
During the brightest part of the day they lay in wait, for long ago they had learned that it was easier to attack at night, when they would be less conspicuous against the Arctic grass. Of course, during the nesting season of the geese there was no real night; the sun stayed in the heavens permanently, scudding low in the north but never disappearing. Instead of blackness, which would last interminably during the winter, there came only a diffused grayness in the middle hours, a ghostly penumbra, with geese, young and old, half asleep. That was the time to attack.
So as the sun drifted lower in the west, on a long, sliding trajectory that would never dip below the horizon, and as the bright glare of summer faded to an exquisite gray matching the feathers of the geese, the two foxes moved slowly toward the nest where the six fledglings hid beneath the capacious wings of their mother. Onk-or, the foxes noted, lay some distance away with his head under his left wing.
It was the plan of the foxes that the strongest of the pair would attack Onk-or from such a direction that the big male goose would be lured even farther from the nest, and as the fight progressed, the other fox would dart in, engage the female briefly, and while she was awkwardly trying to defend herself, grab one of the young geese and speed away. In the confusion the first fox might very well be able to grab a second fledgling for himself. If not, they would share the one they did get.
When the foxes had attained a strategic position, the first made a lunge at Onk-or, attacking from the side on which he had tucked his head, on the logical supposition that if the great goose were not instantly alert, the fox might be lucky and grab him by the throat, ending that part of the fight then and there. But as soon as the fox accelerated his pace, knocking aside grasses, Onk-or was awake and aware of what was happening. He did not try evasive action or do anything unusual to protect his neck; instead he pivoted on his left leg, swung his moulted wing in a small circle and with its bony edge knocked his adversary flat.
Onk-or knew that the fox would try to lure him away from the nest, so instead of following up on his first blow, he retreated toward the low pile of sticks and grass that constituted his nest, making sharp clicking sounds to alert his family. His mate, aware that the family was being attacked, drew the fledglings under her wings and studied the ominous grayness.
She did not have long to wait. As the first fox lunged at Onk-or again, the second swept in to attack the nest itself. She had only one flashing moment to ascertain from which direction the attack was coming, but she judged accurately, rose, spread her wings and pivoted to meet the fox. As he leaped at her, she struck him across the face with her powerful beak, stunning him momentarily.
He soon recovered to make a second attack. This time she was prepared, and a harsh swipe of her wing edge sent him sprawling, but this terrified her, for instinct warned her that he may cunningly have seemed to fall so as to distract her. If she struck at him now, he would slyly dart behind her and grab one of the fledglings. So as the fox fell, she wheeled on her right foot, placing herself and her extended wings be
tween him and the nest. As for the rear, she had to depend upon Onk-or to protect that from the other fox.
This he was doing. In the half-light he fought the clever fox, fending him off with vicious stabs of his beak, knocking him down with his powerful wing thrusts and filling the Arctic air with short cries of rage and challenge. The fox, who had never been confident that he could subdue a grown male goose, began to lose any hope that he could even hold his own against this infuriated bird. Furthermore, he saw that his partner had accomplished nothing at the nest and was, indeed, absorbing an equal thrashing.
Hoping in vain that the two geese would make some fatal mistake, the two foxes battled on for a while, recognized the futility of their attack and withdrew, making short, chattering noises to one another as they did.
When daylight came the two parent geese knew how necessary it was that their six children proceed with the business of flying. So on this day Onk-or did not leave the nest to forage for his family; he stayed by the odd collection of twigs and grasses and nudged his children out onto the moorland, watching them as they clumsily tried their wings.
They were an ungainly lot, stumbling and falling and vainly beating their long wings, but gradually attaining the mastery which would enable them to fly south to the waters of Maryland. Two of the young birds actually hoisted themselves into the air, staying aloft for short distances, then landing with maximum awkwardness and joy.
A third, watching the success of her siblings, flapped her wings clumsily, ran across the rocky ground and with great effort got herself into the air, but as soon as she did so, Onk-or felt a rush of terror, for he saw something she did not.
Too late! The gosling, unable to maintain flight, fluttered heavily to the ground, landing precisely where the two foxes had been waiting for such a misadventure. But as they started for the fallen bird, Onk-or, with supreme effort, flapped his wings not yet ready for flight, rose in the air and endeavored to smash down at the foxes. His wings were not equal to the task, and he, too, fell, but before the dust was gone from his eyes he was on his feet, charging at the two foxes. Insolently, the first fox grabbed the gosling, killing it with one savage snap of the jaws, and sped away. The second fox ran in circles, tantalizing Onk-or, then disappeared to join his partner in their feast.