And if thunder was a vocal manifestation of the Almighty’s wrath then the howling of the wind had to represent the grief of ten thousand souls trapped in purgatory. Which was why Hawkwood missed the warning shout. The first he knew something untoward had happened was when he saw a knot of seamen break apart as if a grenade had been tossed into their midst.
He heard Fitch bellow, “Keep hold, God damn it!” and as he hung on to the tiller he watched helplessly as the carronade broke free from its cradle and 10 cwt of cast-iron ordnance careered towards the lee bulwark, shedding slivers of twisted eyebolt from the damaged carriage in its wake, along with threads of pared cordage that were left whipping to and fro across the deck like decapitated sea serpents.
Gathering momentum, the carronade headed for the port scuppers, trailing mayhem as the more quick thinking among Griffin’s crewmen tried to grab on to the pieces of rope still attached to the metal barrel. The slippery conditions proved too much for them, however, and they found themselves dragged along by the weight, while others scrambled aside, slipping and sliding on the water-soaked planking, some falling full length as they tried to get out of the way. The sound of the carronade hitting the bulwark was loud enough to be heard over the storm. As was the scream.
The bulwark absorbed the brunt of the collision, the remainder was borne by the one crew member who’d been unable to scramble clear in time. Sent sprawling, he’d only been able to watch, paralysed with fright, as the heavy metal cylinder hurtled towards him. As the carronade hit the raised side of the ship it tipped, trapping the seaman beneath it, crushing his chest and shoulders and shattering his ribs and pelvis into matchwood.
It took eight men under the guidance of Lieutenant Weekes to pull the wreckage free and drag the body to one side, but by then it was too late. The crewman was beyond help. Even as they strove to gather up the corpse the rain and seawater were already rinsing the blood from the scuppers.
As the debris was cleared away and the dead man was carried below, Fitch turned and glared at Hawkwood over his shoulder. Despite the water teeming down the coarse face, there was no hiding the anger in the helmsman’s eyes. “By Christ, I hope you’re worth the bloody trouble!”
Hawkwood kept silent. There was nothing to be gained by responding to Fitch’s outburst. Had he been in the helmsman’s position he’d probably have come close to voicing the same sentiment and if he hadn’t put it into words, he’d likely have thought it. Seafaring men, much more than soldiers, were prone to superstition. Any break with routine that resulted in catastrophe was likely to be deemed portentous by the less rational members of a close-knit crew. He suspected the men of the Griffin were no different in that regard. They’d now lost one of their own and despite the death occurring while the ship was effectively on a war footing, it wasn’t beyond the bounds of possibility that given the absence of both women and albatrosses, they’d place the blame for the freak accident squarely on the presence of a stranger. Which, Hawkwood supposed, was true, indirectly, though he’d had no personal hand in the man’s death. But suspicious minds had a habit of creating their own twisted brand of logic. The diplomatic thing to do, therefore, was remain silent, let Fitch vent his spleen and pray they didn’t lose anybody else.
For the storm showed no signs of weakening; unlike the cutter’s crew who, bruised and battered by the ordeal, were growing ever more weary.
Hawkwood wasn’t a religious man. Had he been, he might well have regarded the struggle being waged about him as some sort of fitting parable in which a gallant David was battling the storm’s fearsome Goliath. But Griffin was no David. There was no sling and no stone. Here, Goliath was in the ascendancy.
The wind had forestalled all efforts to gain headway. For Griffin’s crew, there was only one priority: to try and stay afloat. So far they were succeeding, but only just.
Then another spectacular streak of lightning stabbed across the sky, ripping the heavens in two and revealing, in that moment of incandescence, a dark shadowy mass, rising like a behemoth from the waters, less than a cable’s length off Griffin’s larboard beam.
Griffin’s commander turned with a stricken look on his face. “PORT HELM!”
Fitch gasped. Eyes wide with shock, his voice rose in a scream. “Pull! For the love of God, pull!”
The sighting had been so sudden and so fleeting that Hawkwood wondered if his eyes had deceived him, but the lieutenant’s warning, allied to Fitch’s frantic cry and the expressions on the faces of the men about him, confirmed that it was not some mythical sea beast that he’d seen rising half hidden behind the moving curtain of rain but the dark unbroken line of a sheer cliff face and waves exploding on to a rock-strewn foreshore beneath it.
There was no time to think; no time to reflect on the power of the storm or how it had managed to drive Griffin so close to land; no time for recriminations against an error of navigation, if such was the case. There was only raw panic.
Fitch threw himself against the helm like a man possessed, leaving Hawkwood no option but to dig his heels into the deck and follow suit. As spray burst over Griffin’s weather side and stampeded in glistening shards along the deck, Hawkwood knew that even with their combined strength bearing down, it was unlikely the two of them would be able to hold the ship steady. The pressure of the sea against hull and rudder was just too strong.
He was suddenly aware of a tarpaulin-jacketed figure clawing his way towards them. It was the quartermaster, Mendham. Thrusting himself between Hawkwood and Fitch, he clamped his hands around the helm.
Feet scrabbling, the three men hauled back on the tiller. Hawkwood glanced up towards the mast. It was vibrating like a bow stave and looked ready to snap.
But slowly and sluggishly, Griffin began to come round.
Only for her prow to rise, swept up by the sheer power of the water beneath her hull.
“Pull, y’buggers!” Mendham yelled. “Pu—!”
And almost as quickly, she was falling away again. The quarter -master’s voice was drowned out as Griffin plummeted once more into the abyss. As the sea smashed over the drift rail, the lee scuppers vanished under a rampaging tide of foam and swirling black water that raced along the deck, sweeping all before it. Hawkwood’s boots began to slide. He saw that a good number of the crew had been left floundering as their legs were taken from beneath them. Most were struggling to their feet. Others had found a stanchion or a stay to cling to, while a few fortunate ones were grabbed by their shipmates and pulled to safety.
But, momentarily, resistance against the rudder eased.
The other two felt it at the same time.
“Now!” Fitch yelled hoarsely. “Put your backs into it!”
Led by Fitch, Hawkwood and the quartermaster redoubled their efforts. Gradually, the starboard bulwark began to drop. Griffin was answering! Hawkwood sensed the cutter was returning to an even keel. Relief surged through him.
And then he looked out beyond the bow and a fist closed around his heart.
Mendham followed his gaze. The quartermaster’s face sagged. “Oh, sweet Jesus.”
Hawkwood’s first thought was that some callous twist of fate had inadvertently caused them to turn the ship completely about, and that it was the same stretch of cliff he could see, lying in wait at the edge of the darkness. Disconcerting enough in itself, until he saw that the top of the cliff was in motion and growing in height and width and he realized to his horror that it was a wave, a huge black wave, far larger than anything that had gone before, and that it was bearing down upon them and gathering speed at an astonishing rate. He felt his insides contract.
For Griffin was still partially beam on and there was no time to turn her into the approaching threat. Fitch yelled again. Hawkwood didn’t catch the words; they were borne away by the shriek of the wind. He saw Griffin’s commander staring over the rail, head lifting as he took in the full significance of what he was seeing.