What, he later wondered, had caused the wind to blow this time, to twitch the dog-vane at the end of its line on the gunwale as the sun climbed overhead at the end of the morning watch? No notice was paid to it, however, for the sky was bright and clear, the wind steady, and most of the crewmen-those who hadn't yet taken ill-squatted on coiled lanyards in the messes below, peering at one another over hands of cards. But slowly a storm front appeared on the eastern horizon, implacable and bruise-black, and began edging its way across the sky like the shadow of an approaching giant. The deck-beams creaked noisily and water poured through the scuttles. Then the first of the spume broke over the bows and across the fo'c'sle deck, followed by stinging pellets of rain. Seconds later the ladders and decks were resounding with the boots of crewmen rushing to their stations. The midshipmen were already on their hands and knees on the waist, prising open the scuppers, while others who stuck their heads through the hatches were sent scrambling up the flapping ratlines. As they hastily struggled to reef the canvas-Pinchbeck was shouting orders at them from below-the first antlers of lightning split the sky.
The luck that saved the crew from the Scylla of the Dvina and the Charybdis of the White Sea had, it seemed, now deserted them. Pinchbeck clung with both hands to the mainmast, bellowing himself hoarse, until a heavy wave broke amidships and sent him staggering sideways like a drunken brawler. He righted himself only to be knocked down a second later as the stern plunged sickeningly downward and frigid water cascaded across the poop deck. Bodies scattered aft from the waist, knocked down like skittles. Then the stem dipped, the bowsprit sliced the water, and the bodies tumbled backwards. The familiar rituals turned to panic as a dozen desperate cries followed them across the decks. 'Helm astarboard!' 'Belay there!' 'Left full rudder!' Three men had lashed themselves to the tiller, which was rearing and tossing them about like an unbroken horse, its rope burning their hands and breaking one of their wrists. 'Hard alee!' 'Steady so!' And then, as one of the topmen sped spreadeagled through the air, his scream lost in the gale: 'Man overboard!'
But there was nothing to be done except to strike the sails, and pray. From the leeward side of the lurching quarterdeck, Captain Quilter watched in helpless anger as the sky rapidly unscrolled itself above the heads of the struggling topmen, above the tops of the masts that, as the sheets of rain thickened, were almost lost to view. He regarded the storm as a personal affront, as impertinent and enraging as the attack of a Spanish picaroon. There had been no warnings beforehand, not the treble ring round the moon at sunrise that morning, nor a halo round Venus at sunset the night before, nor even the flocks of petrels circling the ship a half-hour earlier-none of those things that, in Quilter's long experience, always presaged violent turns of weather. The elements were not playing fair.
Now, with the deck awash, he slipped on a board, fell heavily on to his backside, then was struck on the ankle by a rogue bucket. He pulled himself upright and, cursing again, hurled the bucket overboard. A sodden chart wrapped itself round his head before he could claw it away. It flapped over the gunwale like a mad seagull, and through the rain he suddenly glimpsed the coast looming to leeward-a hazard now more than a refuge. To survive the ice of Archangel and Hammerfest, he thought grimly, only to be dashed to pieces on your own shore!
And it appeared that the Bellerophon and her crew would not be the only ones dashed to bits. Two bowshots astern, on their starboard quarter, another ship was wallowing and plunging in the troughs, showing two distress lights in her main topgallant. A minute later she fired off a piece of ordnance, a brief spark and puff of smoke, barely audible above the rain and wind. Her bowsprit and foremast went soon afterwards, the latter struck, Quilter saw, by a bolt of lightning that knocked two of her hands into the sea. He had steadied himself long enough to raise his glass, and now he could see the Star of Lübeck, another merchantman sailing from Hamburg to London. Her ballast had shifted, or else she was hulled and making water-tons of it-for she was listing badly to port, with her masts bent at a low angle to the heaving water. He only hoped she would keep a decent offing and not drift any closer towards the Bellerophon and take both of them down…
For the next two hours the Star of Lübeck faded rather than loomed, however. Only after the worst of the storm had spent itself-at which point, perversely, the sun lowered pillars of light from between a parting in the clouds-did she reappear. By then the Bellerophon was scudding under bare poles and listing badly to starboard. The damage was much worse, Quilter knew, than in the White Sea. The sails were in rags and the tiller was cracked. The mizzen topgallant lay slantwise across on the poop deck, where it had skewered two deckhands and fractured the skull of a third. Who knew how many men had been lost overboard. Worst of all, the keel had dragged across the edge of a sandbar and then struck a rock with a deafening crack. She was probably bilged and filling with water at this very minute, giving them only minutes to plug the leak with a sail or a hawsebag. Something had to be done, he knew, or the rest of them would be lost too, turned into firewood and fishbait along the shore, which was rearing ever closer.
He made his way through the nearest hatch, beneath which, in the main and then the middle deck, the boards were slippery with provisions spilled from their casks and cupboards. The floors tilted at 45-degree angles; it was like balancing on the slope of a pitched roof. Soon the air thickened with a foul stench, and he realised, too late, how the pisspots had evacuated on to the floor. Then on the gundeck the smell grew even worse.
'The bilges, Captain.'
He had been joined by Pinchbeck, who was holding a begrimed handkerchief over his nose. The two of them were picking their way carefully across the littered boards. Water had surged through the gunports, and the floor, a litter of quoins and soaked cartridges, was a half-inch deep. Quilter could hear the cries of the sick men in the cockpit.
'Stirred up like a soup, I should think,' the bo'sun added in a muffled voice.
'Never mind that,' Quilter snapped. 'Get a team of men down to the pumps. And fetch some canvas from the sail locker. Also a hawsebag, if you can lay your hands on one. If there's a leak it'll have to be fothered fast or we're drowned.' The bo'sun shot him an alarmed look. Quilter waved an impatient arm. 'Go on-quickly now! And find every man you can spare,' he called after Pinchbeck's retreating figure, 'and send him to the hold. The cargo will have to be shifted!'
Quilter clambered down the next ladder alone. The steerage and the wardroom both were empty, their jungles of hammocks dangling limply from the beams. When he reached the orlop deck he was surprised to see that it, too, was deserted. He had been expecting to find his three mysterious passengers here-frightened out of their wits, no doubt-but they were nowhere in sight. So far they had kept to themselves; not once had he seen them on the upper decks. Greengills, he had reckoned to himself with some amusement a few hours earlier. But now he saw that their cabins were empty.
Not until he reached the ladder into the hold did he hear any signs of life. The stink from the bilges was stronger now, bile rose in his gullet as he descended the ladder. Voices from below. There seemed to be some sort of dispute in progress. He snatched one of the oil-lamps swaying from a deck-beam and picked his way down the ladder one-handed.