Quintspinner (16 page)

“He’s burnin’! Cook’s burnin’ alive! The pitch’s tipped!
” Panicked screams carried up onto the deck, but none so loud or anguished as the first.

At once the deck was covered in a swarm of bodies, crushing and jamming themselves down the companionway, as men grabbed buckets of water and wet rags, and slid or jumped down the steps, disappearing with them into the deck below.

“Oh my Holy Christ! Please let ‘em put it out!” Smith pleaded out loud to himself. William saw fear in Smith’s eyes and that same fear of an unknown danger set William’s heart to hammering inside his chest again, his breaths shallow and tight.

“Wha–what’s going on?” William yelled.

“The pitch’s spilled! If it was hot enough to burn a man’s flesh, it’ll have started the planks an’ timbers on fire! C’mon!”

“Where to? What are we doing?” William gasped. “Surely we’re not going back down to the galley? If Cook’s burned himself, there must be someone who can take care of him–”

“Oh, fer Chrissakes! You’re bloody stupid!” Smith screamed at him in exasperation. “They don’t give a rat’s black arse about Cook! It’s the powder! We need to wet the powder or we’ll not have to worry about burnin’ up or drownin’ if she burns through! Doncha’ understand? If even one spark burns through to the deck below it, an’ hits the powder room, we’ll all be blown outta’ the shittin’ sea!” With that, Smith whirled about on his feet, and grabbing up a wet mop, he raced towards the companionway. William followed in close pursuit.

The deck below was a scene of mass chaos. The previous dimness in which William had come to rely on to navigate his way around below deck had been replaced by a heavy impenetrable blackness. The far end of the lower deck was illuminated only by a menacing orange glow that flickered off the walls and upright timbers. The air, already thick and hot with oily black smoke, rolled over William, stinging his eyes and gagging him. Cries and shouts of the crew ahead of him were punctuated by the harsh coughing of heat-seared lungs. William tore the sleeve from his shirt and wrapped it over his nose and mouth, tying it at the back of his head. When he looked up again, he realized he had lost sight of Smith.

“This way!” Someone was tugging at his arm, but he could not be sure of whom it was. He followed the sailor ahead of him down another set of stairs, down into the deck below. The air here was not as heavy with smoke, but being so deep in the bowels of the ship, it was oxygen starved just the same. William gulped hungrily as his lungs sought more precious oxygen where none was forthcoming. A lantern lit the area ever so slightly.

“Bucket that water! Convoy those buckets, Sirs! Make haste! Fierce work now!” It was the voice of the Captain. William was sure that he recognized it.
He’s down here with his men!
A bucket swung out of the dark, dangling from the end of a sailor’s arm, smashing into William’s arm, and soaking him with the bucket’s sea water. William grabbed the bucket and blindly passed it across his body towards his other side. A pair of hands took it from him just as another bucket slammed again into his shoulder just as the first one had.

“Mr. Taylor, faster if you please! It’s our powder supplies that require wetting, not you, Sir!” Captain Crowell shouted.
He knows me, even though I have my face covered like this!
William redoubled his efforts and passed the buckets on, over and over, until his shoulders ached from the effort. The putrid air by now had an ominous tarry odor to it.
The smoke is settling down here too! Dear Lord! Have they not put it out yet?
William detected the smell of wood fire and burning flesh mixed in with the burning pitch. Screams from overhead confirmed what his nose was telling him.

“Give me some sweat now lads, and show a leg! Wet the timbers overhead!” the Captain yelled. William hoisted the buckets to sailors in front of him. It was all he could do to pass the bucket forward. His arms felt heavy and limp. It seemed to William that the buckets were coming slower now, as though the convoy line was losing man power. Everyone around him was moving in a curiously slow motion dance. The yelling seemed to be stretched out into long piercing shrieks and grisly howls. Even the collapse of men around him seemed to be a slow motion nightmare, as William felt his own legs go soft beneath him.
Don’t wanna’ burn, don’t wanna’ … the ocean will be so cool…
he slurred to himself and the flooring planks rushed up to meet him.

The stabbing pains in his head competed fiercely for his attention against the burning throb in his left ankle. As the fog in his head began to clear, William slowly became aware of the groans and voices around him. He struggled to prop himself up on his elbows, only to find himself sandwiched in between two bodies, which in turn, were part of a carpet of sailors, all laid out side by side, upon the plank flooring of the open main deck. Some, like he, were attempting to sit up; others moaned and writhed with the pain of their seared flesh; still others laid ominously still. Two soot stained sailors emerged from the companionway, a crew member’s lifeless body swinging heavily between them. A third and forth carried up the lifeless bodies of the two full grown goats.

The air was still thick with the smell of burnt wood and raw wounds. William gingerly probed the gathering swelling around his ankle. Toes wiggled; nothing crunched. Not broken then. Carefully he got to his feet and gritted his teeth against the pain that shot through his ankle and foot when he attempted to put weight on it.

“’Here, wrap it up with these,” a gruff voice commanded from behind, “then give a hand to them what needs a drink, won’cha?” William recognized the voice as being the one he had first heard when his wrists and ankles had still been bound. The man, like so many of the others on board, was shirtless and showed a well built torso laced with scars–some thin, some thickened, and some consisting of large rippled patches. The man’s head was wrapped in a grimy bandana from which a few strands of limp brown hair hung down. A cloudy grey film covered one eye, and he tilted his head at an odd angle as he spoke. “This be the good rum, not the grog, ya’ understand. Help yerself as ya’ need, too.” He shoved a handful of cloth strips and small wooden shims at William, and then passed a ladle and a full bucket of rum over to him.

With his ankle wrapped and braced as best he could, William stumbled among the men, ladling out the dark clear liquid in liberal amounts to each of them. As medicine, familiar comfort, and painkiller, the rum soothed their pain, and diluted their worry and thirst.

Under the direction of the ship’s surgeon, the injured were shuffled and sorted into sections according to the likelihood of their survival. Those remaining unconscious were sorted from the already dead by the surgeon’s very own, very effective test–a finger tip, ear cartilage, or upper lip of the man in question was pinched firmly with pliers, or crushed in several cases that William observed, until the man moved or moaned, or until blood seeped from around the pliers’ tips. Most of the men had roused; only four remained unresponsive to the good surgeon’s inquisition. Three of those looked unharmed, as though they had simply fallen asleep there on the floor. The mouth of the fourth victim however was stretched open in an eerie death grimace, stiffened in his last moments of life by what William imagined would have been the man’s last scream. Blackened and burned beyond recognition from the waist up, the sailor’s right leg ended in a familiar stump.

“It’s the smoke’s poison vapors what done them in,” a familiar voice explained and a hand clapped William on the shoulder.

“Smith?” William whirled around to see a soot stained face grinning at him.

“Ya’ got any more in that bucket fer the one what saved yer skinny arse?”

“Saved me? That was you?” William scooped a full ladle out and passed it to Smith, who gulped it down, then passed it back for a second round, downing that one too, without a word.

“One more, Willy Boy, won’cha?” Smith prodded William in the ribs with the empty ladle, and then drank down the third offer with as much vigor as his first.

“You
saved me?” William asked again, his gratitude barely contained.

“Nope,” Smith replied and with a satisfied belch, he smiled then wiped his mouth on the back of his hand. “Actually, it weren’t me at all. I was just askin’, in case that one there should be wantin’ any!” and he pointed to a man sitting on a low bench. Both of the man’s arms were raw, his forearms and hands blackened in places and already blistered where skin still clung.

William’s heart lurched. His Da’.

“Hey! He burned rescuin’ the Captain, not just you,” Smith offered, seeing William’s stricken face. He continued softly, “He pulled many of ya’ outta’ there, he did,” and then summed the situation up. “Be glad fer him. This crew’ll never abandon him now….”

William refilled the bucket from the large barrel into which a pouring spigot had been inserted and returned to his father.

“Da’?”

The man slowly lifted his blistered face to look at William. His eyebrows and lashes were gone, burned away William realized, and his eyes were beginning to swell shut.

“Da’?” William spoke again, not caring who heard him address his father. “Some rum?” William held the edge of the ladle to the man’s blistered lips and gently tipped the liquid down his father’s throat.

“We’ll be joining the Captain and his officers for tonight’s evening meal,” Tess’s father informed his family. Mrs. Hanley, being the family’s servant, had not been included in the invitation.

“Charles, I simply cannot,” Tess’s mother pleaded. “Give him my deepest regrets but I am in poor health tonight. Assure him that I shall endeavor to make his acquaintance as quickly as my countenance should allow it to be so.” The boat’s rocking motion had set all of their stomachs on edge, but none more so than hers. She had been unable to keep even weak tea down, and now spoke through gritted teeth, her eyes tightly closed as she lay upon their bed.

“Very well.” He did not push the issue. “Shall I bring you something back? A warm biscuit with butter perhaps?”

She groaned at the suggestion. “I doubt that there will be anything offered that I would find palatable at the best of times, let alone now. No, I shall persist with Mrs. Hanley’s tea. Go and enjoy yourself. I am quite certain that I will be here upon your return.”

In fact, the supper meal spread out before them at the Captain’s table was quite delectable. Tess stared at the gold rimmed plate set before her. A hot, thick slice of roasted beef and another of seasoned pork crowded the boiled potatoes next to them, the meat’s salty juices creating a lake around the neatly arranged cooked greens. Biscuits were offered, with toppings of butter and sweet marmalade. All of the guests at the table washed the main course down with several glasses of rich red wine.

Just when Tess felt certain that she could not consume another mouthful, small bowls of warm buttered rice and currants were served with a generous sprinkling of cinnamon, ginger, and sugar on top. Cups of sweet tea completed the meal for the ladies, while the men’s brandy snifters were replenished without end.

“I do not know of any time at which I have had a finer meal,” declared Dr. Willoughby. Others at the table murmured in agreement. Tess studied the faces of those around the table. Besides themselves, there were three unfamiliar gentlemen, and four officers looking splendidly official in their white and blue uniforms. The gentleman with whom her father had spoken at the ship’s railing earlier in the day was one of the men in attendance. He looked vaguely familiar and Tess thought that he was probably one of her father’s wealthy clients she had seen at their house at one time or another.
Perhaps he is even another physician.