The Unknown Shore

  Mr Eliot had always insisted that scurvy was to be classed among the diseases of the imagination; and certainly in the last few weeks there had been three striking facts that supported his theory. A little after the loss of the Wager’s mast the Pearl and the Severn vanished – they parted company in rain and sleet so thick that you could not see the ship’s length, and they were never seen again. Secondly, when the squadron had been beating to the westward for so long that the navigators reckoned themselves at least ten degrees of longitude, or three hundred and fifty miles west of Tierra del Fuego, in spite of the strong current that set against them, orders were given to steer north; the larboard tacks were hardly aboard before the news spread through the ship – they were bound for the warm, calm waters of the true Pacific; the rigours of beating up in snow, ice and hurricanes were over. Then at two bells in the middle watch, the Anna pink fired every gun she had; the moon, shining for a few providential minutes through the racing clouds, had showed her the appalling spectacle of Cape Noir right ahead, with the surf rising a hundred feet up its side. Providentially, again, the wind that was carrying them right on to the land, shifted into the west-north-west, and they came safely off. But the whole wretched task of making their westing was still to be done – they had not allowed enough for the current and for their own leeway. Thirdly, after a still longer reach to the south west and another turn northward, the squadron was scattered by still another appalling storm, and from that day on the solitary Wager had plunged northwards through a black and lonely sea, so utterly alone and in such a sea that men doubted the reality of things, and half suspected that they were already dead and condemned to a sailors’ hell.

  Each of these three happenings had been followed by an increase on the dead-list that Tobias gave to the captain and the purser; and the coincidence of extreme disappointment and death from scurvy was so striking that Tobias was almost convinced. Yet on the other hand he did not consider himself a fanciful creature; a less imaginative one was not to be conceived, in his opinion: but he knew that he was entering the third stage of the disease himself. He had seen it too often in others to be mistaken. The symptoms were many and various, and although blotches growing and spreading, swollen legs, bleeding nails and gums, teeth going were usual, they were not inevitable; but the third stage, difficulty in breathing, followed by extreme weakness and prostration was, in his experience, invariable. He had seen it so often – a man at the pumps or the halliards would drop sometimes as suddenly as if he had been struck down, but more often slowly, staggering away a few steps and crumpling up; and his mates would carry him below to his hammock. No one who had reached that stage had ever come out of his hammock, except to go over the side; at least, no one aboard the Wager.

  And the idea that this disease, as well as the seasickness that had haunted him so long, should be set down as in any way connected with his mind, nerves or imagination, was inexpressibly vexing.

  ‘How can it be classed among the diseases of the imagination?’ muttered Tobias, frowning and clapping his hand to his forehead.

  ‘Eh?’ cried Andrew, holding up the lantern.

  ‘Andrew,’ said Tobias, after staring about for a moment to recollect where he was and what was to be done next, ‘Fetch the sweet oil, if you please. I must go to see the master.’

  Mr Clerk had been injured when the starboard shrouds of the foremast parted, and in addition an old wound, healed twenty years before, had reopened – a usual consequence of scurvy – and he needed tender handling: but during these months of almost continual crisis, with all ordinary rules and customs gone by the board long since, Tobias’ waking hours had been spent either in the sick-bay or at the pumps, or hauling on a rope, or even lying aloft in some emergencies, and his hands were as hard and horny as a seaman’s. They were quite unsuitable for the work he was to do, and as he went aft to the master’s cabin he rubbed the sweet oil in to make them a little softer.

  He passed Jack, who was hurrying on deck still half asleep, and they passed the time of day; they rarely saw one another now, for when either was not on duty he turned in, dead to the world, however great the noise. Jack looked anxiously after him as they parted, but Tobias went steadily on to the master’s door and disappeared. Jack ran on deck, and judging the roll to a nicety, he stepped straight over to his usual place at the break of the poop. The Wager was standing to the north-north-west, and for once the wind had shifted out of the west and south-west and had come into the east-south-east, blowing in over the Wager’s starboard beam – a strong wind, three parts of a gale, with occasional squalls of sleet, and she was making about six knots under her courses. Ordinarily she would have been showing her topsails, reefed or perhaps double-reefed; but with her masts so frail she had spread no more than her courses these many days. Besides, there was scarcely a sound piece of storm-canvas left in the ship: the topsails that were now bent to the yards were the last they had, and they were so worn that they could not be relied upon in a blow; but even if the sail-room had been full of new sails, there were not enough upper-yard men left to use them.

  Jack was a little before his time. Mr Bean and what remained of the starboard watch were still on deck; the lieutenant, one of the master’s mates and Cozens under the lee of a tattered strip of weather-cloth, and the hands forward, huddled in the shelter of the gunwale, looked wretched, blue and surly. Jack was feeling blue as well, for the cold, although it was not quite freezing, was of a peculiarly penetrating damp nature, very disagreeable before breakfast; but he was better able to withstand it than most, being surprisingly fit and well; apart from a great weal across his face, where a lashing strip of topsail had nearly blinded him, he was in excellent condition. This topsail was one of the many that they had lost: it was furled up tight to the yard and kept there not only by its gaskets but by a whole doubled set of storm gaskets as well, and yet the wind had found means to work into the folds, to balloon the sail out, to burst its bindings and so to loose it to the full, whereupon it split in every seam and thrashed about so as to endanger the yard, the top and all the rigging near it. It had to be cut free, and that was a desperate task, on a black, black night off the pitch of the Horn, with the sea running monstrously high and the shrouds and yards all coated with ice: they had lost four men, at one time and another, doing this, and a fifth was so injured that he was in no way to live.

  Campbell came on deck, looking yellow and exhausted; he nodded to Jack, and as he did so, eight bells struck. In these times many naval ceremonies slipped out of use – for example, Jack was dressed in a curious hairy garment called a grieko, which made him look not unlike a bear, and beneath it showed a foot or so of crimson waistcoat, chosen for warmth rather than uniform appearance – but many were so firmly rooted that they would stay as long as the shattered vessel held together. The watches succeeded one another in due order, the quartermaster handing over the helm repeated his course with the traditional solemn exactitude, and now in a minute the gunner would relieve Mr Bean as the officer in charge of the quarter-deck. The watch on deck went thankfully below to what cold comfort they could find, and a new set of men took up their stations.

  Precious few of them, reflected Jack; and those few difficult to work with. They had never been the same since the commodore had been lost to sight. Mr Anson was held in great respect throughout the service, and it seemed as if his presence alone, somewhere within the bounds of the horizon, had kept the men to their duty; certainly they had been far less biddable since the Centurion went.

  But what kind of example did they have? The gunner had been openly criticising the captain’s orders these weeks past. Every time he relieved Mr Bean he said, ‘Well, sir, and what do you think of a lee-shore with the ship in this condition?’ – it was becoming a sort of unwholesome ritual. Bulkeley, the gunner, and the other inferior officers, were certain that the ship ought to be carried to Juan Fernandez: the master was of this opinion, and the master’s mates, but Bulkeley was the only one to say it publicly on the qu
arter-deck. And anything said on the quarter-deck was retailed below, on the gun-deck, within a very few minutes: no wonder the men were not in good heart.

  ‘Well, sir,’ said the gunner, in his high, complaining voice, to Mr Bean, ‘and what do you think of a lee-shore with the ship in this condition?’ He cast a look up at the low torn clouds, and bit his nails.

  ‘Oh, I cannot tell,’ said the lieutenant in a non-committal tone, and he went below.

  The fact of the matter was that the gunner, ever since they came into the southern ocean, had been suffering from fear, self-importance and wounded vanity; but above all fear. It was natural enough; the circumstances were very frightening indeed and everybody aboard had spent a great deal of the time in a state of alarm – a state bordering upon terror. But in the gunner it had the unfortunate effect of making him loud-voiced and talkative: he was convinced that he could handle the ship and navigate her better than anyone else, and no considerations of decency, respect or modesty (they being overcome by fear) prevented him from saying so, in a high, persistent, nagging shout.

  ‘The captain did ought to consult his officers,’ said Bulkeley, meaning that Mr Cheap should submit to his guidance, particularly in the article of steering away from the coast of Chile and making for the safety of Juan Fernandez.

  It was a grave reflection upon Captain Cheap that things should have reached this pitch. This was his first experience of command (apart from a little while in the Tryall) and he had tried to impose respect by ferocity towards the men and haughty reserve towards his officers; but he had not been consistent in this attitude, and at times he had allowed and even encouraged liberties which even a very easy-going captain would never have permitted. He had also been very much out of order – painfully ill at times – and this had made him more offensive than he might have intended.

  In the course of their navigation he had naturally consulted with the navigating officers about the ship’s position; that is to say, he had taken notice of the observations of the lieutenant, the master and (in this unusual ship’s company) the gunner. But he had made the great mistake of sometimes allowing a difference of opinion over their longitude degenerate into an argument about their destination, which was nobody’s business but the captain’s. It was generally believed aboard the Wager that Juan Fernandez, an island some five hundred miles to the west of Chile, was to be the squadron’s rendezvous in case of separation. This was an inaccurate rumour, however, for the last council of war aboard the Centurion had decided upon a meeting-place off the island of Socorro, in order to attack the Chilean town of Baldivia; and it was only if the ships should fail to meet there within a certain time that they were to bear away for Juan Fernandez. This decision was secret, of course: the orders that were given to the captains were not shouted from the maintop but delivered under seal.

  Yet so persuaded was the gunner of the truth of the rumour about Juan Fernandez (and that remote island seemed wonderfully attractive after they had been beating round the Horn for a few weeks) that he scarcely believed it when the captain, in the course of one of these undignified wrangles, said that his orders directed him to Nuestra Señora de Socorro, in 44° South. Bulkeley had then begun to talk about the captain’s discretionary powers: Captain Cheap had the right to vary his orders, because to sail for Socorro would carry them all the length of the coast – the winds, tides and currents all set in towards the mainland – they would be on a lee-shore all the way – it was madness to attempt it with the ship so shattered – they could do nothing even if they got there – would be of no use – any captain had the right and the duty to vary such orders, for the good of the service, and all the officers would agree …

  Captain Cheap did not choose to be told his duty and he felt that in any case the talk had gone far beyond tolerable limits. He silenced the gunner, but in doing so, and after he had done so, he never referred to the whole point of the rendezvous as a gathering-point for the attack upon Baldivia. It therefore appeared to the gunner that the captain was standing in with the coast either out of pig-headed obstinacy and ignorance or out of a furious desire to reach it before the others, to have the earliest chance of prizes and the first hand at the Spanish treasure.

  This was the gunner’s opinion, and he made it widely known. The captain was already unpopular for his brutality and for his habit of listening to tale-bearers and favourites; but now he was represented as an incompetent navigator as well, and as a commander who was careless of his ship and the lives of his crew. Many people believed the gunner, and the Wager sailed northwards towards Socorro in a wretched, discontented, distrusting and fearful state of mind – a condition that made the inevitable hardships even harder and the daily perils even more dangerous.

  Jack had heard of the plan for the attack on Baldivia (not all the officers of the squadron were as discreet as Captain Cheap) and he saw the vital importance of carrying the Wager to the rendezvous – you cannot conduct military operations against a fortified town by land without field-pieces, siege-guns and the like, and everything the squadron possessed of that kind lay in the Wager’s hold and he honoured the captain for his determination to be at the appointed place. It was a most respectable determination, he thought: though natural enough, in all conscience, aboard a real man-of-war – if you were ordered to Sodom or Gomorrah you proceeded thither under all sail conformable with the weather, and you either arrived there or perished on the way; and at no time did you consult with the various members of your crew to make sure that your course was exactly to their liking. That, at least, was the simple philosophy that Jack had learnt aboard the ships in which he had served hitherto, and it still seemed sound enough to him. Suppose, he thought, they were now to sail off to Juan Fernandez and after that to tell the rest of the squadron that they had not chosen to bring the artillery to Baldivia, because the sea was rough and the coast unkind …the supposition was so monstrous that he snorted, flapped his arm, and walked over to the rail.

  ‘But for all that,’ he said to himself, fixing a torn raft of seaweed with his eye to judge the speed and leeway of the ship from its movement on the heavy western swell, ‘for all that, I wish he would keep more of an offing until we are at the height of Socorro.’ They had been seeing patches of weed for the last two or three days, as well as some birds like comorants; and in general these are never seen far out in the open sea.

  ‘Hey, Mr Byron,’ shouted the gunner, over the roaring of the wind. ‘You have young eyes. What do you make of that?’

  Jack followed the gunner’s outstretched arm, and balancing to the great rise and fall of the deck he looked into the thick leeward clouds just long enough not to be too uncivil. ‘A cloud, sir,’ he said. The gunner was always seeing land, and Jack was not going to gratify him by flying into a panic. The quartermaster, Rose, was clearly of the same opinion: not that he said anything, nor made any contemptuous motion; but his stone face spoke volumes.

  ‘Keep her –’ began Bulkeley, but a double crash forward and a huge flapping cut him short. The fore-yard was down and the sail was billowing away over the larboard bow, wrapping itself about the bumkin, catching on every projecting remnant of the smashed rails and timbers of the head. The stupidest man in the watch knew that the sail must be saved, and they flew to bunt it to the shifting yard – they bundled it up, clewed it up as best they might while the yard, loosely held by the starboard lifts and the yard-tackles, ground heavily to and fro over the deck. Jack knotted his gasket tight and skipped out of the way as the hulking great yard lurched over to pin him: at the same time he saw the gunner, waist-deep in the leeward foam, whip a turn about the yard and the cathead, making all fast so quickly that he was back inboard before the ship pitched again. It was all very well done, and now they could secure the yard without much danger – Bulkeley could act in a seamanlike manner in an emergency. It was when he had time to think that the gunner was so unpleasant, and now he had scarcely discovered the cause of the disaster betöre he was complaining again. ‘T
he jeer-blocks, the strops of the jeer-blocks is broke. It is the end of everything – I never seen the like – a proper hulk we are now, along of this carrying too much sail.’

  The captain was there, looking wretchedly ill, with Mr Bean behind him. The din had brought every able-bodied man on deck – a thin company now, for where the waist of the ship would once have been crowded as thick as bees on a comb, scarcely a dozen hands stood gazing at the wreckage, and away aft no more than three of the soldiers showed their pale faces. For a moment the captain looked distraught and haggard, as if the breaking of the jeer-blocks were more than he could encompass: then he said, ‘They must be new-stropped. Have it done at once, Mr Bulkeley.’ Before the gunner could reply, he turned away and hurried below.

  The falling yard had done a great deal of damage, and there being so few men in the watch it was hours before the foc’s’le looked in any sort of order; but at last the yard lay trimmed on deck, and the jeers were ready to be rove: Jack, the gunner and the master’s servant were in the foretop to deal with the upper block, and it looked as though the task would soon be done. They did not intend to sway the yard up, but to get it ready to be raised when the damaged mast and rigging should have been repaired to some degree. The day had been clearing as they worked, and it had grown colder; by cruel experience they knew that this often meant a harder blow – in those regions almost no change was for the better – and during a pause Jack looked up into the sky and round the horizon in a search for portents. The green light that foretold a storm was there, surely enough, but it was not the light that made his blood run cold. It was the line of high land, black and topped with snow, that lay right under their lee. The land stretched away far to the right and the left, and it bore north-west of them on the larboard beam: it was impossible that land should be in that quarter. By the charts it was impossible that there should be any land to port. And yet there it was, and the ship was driving bodily upon it.