Chapter 8
Hurricane Harry
Sleeping at sea is the best kind
of sleep. The rocking of the boat sends you under
almost straight away and your dreams are so vivid
they’re like scenes in a strange play where
you become one of the actors. This night at anchor
I had dreamed that we were moored alongside an
ocean liner. We all stepped on board. The men
and boys were wearing black bow ties and suits.
Mum and me were wearing evening gowns. There was
music playing and all the food we could eat. Then
I looked over the side and our yacht, the Endeavour,
was sailing away. I was suddenly alone. I had
to get back there. I had to get back. I had to
get back.
From somewhere I could hear a
familiar voice. “We are such stuff our dreams
are made on, and our little life is rounded with
a sleep……so says old Prospero.”
I raised my head, squinting at
the light. Staring down at me were two wild eyes
and a toothy grin. “Good morning young Miss
Mo. I brought you some soup in a special dish.
You’ll like this dish. So rare, so rare,”
he whispered in a soothing voice.
I was barely awake and blinking
in the dreamy half light, cradling the dish which
felt smooth and warming to the touch. The soup
tasted good. Tomato, my favourite.
“That’s the stuff
Miss Mo. We’ll make a lady pirate of you
yet. Just like me dear Anne Bonny,” said
Prospero. “Can’t be a proper pirate
before you’ve taken breakfast with Blackbeard,
heh, heh. We’s going to find some treasure.
We’s gonna be rich, you and me. You, me
and Blackbeard. And when you’s grown up
well you can be me dear Anne you can.”
“Prospero, what are you
talking about, and where have you been?”
“I been to fetch Blackbeard.”
I had no idea what was happening
and didn’t want to know. It looked like
it was going to be one of Prospero’s little
mysteries. I didn’t like the sound of it
but thought I had better play along for the moment,
then maybe I could go back to sleep.
“So where is he?”
“Oh he’s not quite
himself. Not all there so to speak, so I brought
you Lieutenant Maynard’s trophy.”
“What’s that?”
“The head. Maynard was
the man that sliced off his head and hung it on
the bowsprit.”
“So you’ve brought
me the head of Blackbeard the pirate? And where
might that be?” I yawned.
“You’s drinking from
it.”
I spluttered soup on to my sleeping
bag and looked down at the bowl. It had a silver
handle and support, like a goblet. But set into
the silver was what, now that I came to examine
it, looked very like a rounded piece of bone.
“It’s the top of
Blackbeard’s skull. They made it into a
drinking cup. Now what does yous think of that
Miss Mo? Magnificent hey, and a very rare honour.
Now yous is initiated into the fraternity. You
want the tattoo? I know someone could do it for
you. Come on. You’ll not be missed. He grabbed
my arm.”
“Get away, get away, get
away” I shouted.
Vince cried out.
“What’s going on,”
said Pat, walking in to the cabin, moments later.
What’s happening?
“It’s this madman
here,” I said.
“Who?” said Pat,
“Where?”
“Here, just now, it was
Prospero. He’s disappeared. He was here.
There was a skull, that’s gone too.”
“Did you see him Vince?”
“Me?” said Vince
sleepily. “I saw nuffing. Or maybe I saw
something.”
“What was it?”
“A whale. Or maybe it was
a mermaid. Or maybe it was nuffing.”
“Shut up Vince,”
I said.
“I think you were having
a nightmare,” said Pat. He was right I must
have been. But how did those red spots get on
my sleeping bag? I touched one and tasted it.
Tomato soup. I jumped out of my bunk and went
into the galley. All the pots were cleared but
in the waste bag was a crushed-up empty soup tin.
Prospero was snoring in his bunk.
I nudged him awake. “Where’s the skull?”
I said.
“What skull? What you talking
about?”
“Blackbeard’s skull.
What happened to it?”
“I don’t know Miss
Molly, don’t know what you’re talking
about. Now can you leave me be. I was late to
bed and I’m still dog tired.”
“And where’s my map?”
“What map? Have you looked
lately?”
I went back to my cabin and reached
into my shorts’ pocket. There it was folded,
just as it had been the day before.
Prospero had been playing tricks,
I knew. I couldn’t piece things together
clearly yet but I knew that somehow the map, the
dream that wasn’t dream, and something between
Timor and Prospero, I was sure, were all connected.
I know this doesn’t make sense but it was
as if an unseen hand was guiding our boat, as
if our visits to Bermuda, Nantucket and Roanoke
had been part of some bigger picture that had
its origins perhaps in those trips to the Whitby
museum. Maybe even those were meant to happen.
Maybe my whole life had been planned to bring
me to some place for some reason. Exactly why,
I didn’t know; nor did I have any idea how
things would turn out. But I had the impression
I was going to find out and sooner rather than
later. Maybe the wind had the answer. Where would
it take me next?
We weighed anchor at noon after
buying some fresh supplies and retraced our course
to the open sea. “Bring on the Caribbean,”
said Uncle Bob, switching off the motor as soon
as the sails were hoisted.
It was a long voyage to Cayman,
about 1,400 miles, so we broke the journey at
Key West to stock up with food. A motor launch
was landing a huge sail fish on the quayside.
“It’s like the one in your picture,
Timor,” said Pat.
“Sail fish were meant for
the sea,” said Timor.
The weather had been getting
hotter but the sailing had been good and so far,
at least, we had avoided any hint of a hurricane.
Every one up to now had been tracking well to
the south. But the day we rounded cape San Antonio,
the western point of Cuba, dad came on deck with
some worrying news from the weather satellite.
He showed the read-out to Timor.
“Hurricane Harry,”
said dad, “It’s still well out to
sea and should pass well south of here, but at
the speed it’s travelling it will hit before
we reach Cayman and we may get a bit of weather
from it.”
“You ever sailed through
a Hurricane, Mr Johnson?” asked Prospero
who had arranged a sail bag next to the deck rail
as a bed. “I have. They is terrifying things
but there is this bit in the middle, the eye,
where everything comes over real calm. That’s
the place I like to be, in the all-seeing eye
of a storm. That’s Prospero’s place;
Prospero’s home.”
The journey had given me plenty
of time for reflection with the others. By “the
others” I mean Pat and Badger. I didn’t
tell Vince about the skull. In fact I didn’t
mention it again to anyone. But I did share my
suspicions that Prospero had seen my map and that
somehow his presence on the boat was less than
a coincidence. “Maybe he needed my fragment,”
I said. Then something came back to me from the
Whitby museum. The card in the case had mentioned
Lt Maynard, RN; the initials stood for Royal Navy,
I knew that much. “Of course it was the
same Maynard that killed Blackbeard,” I
said. “Don’t you see. The map, the
museum map, must be real. It must have something
to do with all this.” Badger seemed more
excited than worried. “Do you think it’s
going to take us to some real pirate treasure?”
he asked, “I can’t believe this is
happening to me.”
“It’s amazing,”
said Pat.
Maybe I was remembering Timor’s
words but I found I was irritated by what they
were all saying. “You just don’t get
it , either of you, do you? This is bad treasure
if it exists at all. It was gathered at a terrible
price. A lot of people died. Blackbeard was an
evil, ruthless man who thought nothing of shooting
one of his own crew.
“But Mo that was all a
long time ago,” said Pat. “If you
think about it almost every piece of gold that
ever made a necklace has been fought over at some
time or another. How much of the gold they keep
in bank vaults has been melted down from the jewellery
of people who once owned and had it stolen from
them? Is there such a thing as clean gold? I doubt
it. It would need to be deep underground in unmined
rock. It’s tainted as soon as it’s
touched by human hand.”
“You’re right Pat,
and Timor would agree with you,” I said.
“The precious things in life have nothing
to do with gold, silver or jewellery. It’s
people that make these things precious. The really
precious things are things like friendship, the
sort of friendship we have on this boat.
“And health,” said
Badger.
“Even so,” said Pat,
“I’d still like to see that treasure.
Just once. We’ll be there in a few days.
I can’t wait.”
I rarely had much time alone
with Timor who tended to keep his own counsel,
only speaking with Bob about course adjustments,
the weather and other sailing talk. But sometimes
if I stayed on deck at night or rose early I might
find him alone at the helm. He seemed to spend
more time at the helm than anyone. It was on these
too brief occasions that I began to discover just
how extraordinary a man he was. He seemed to know
everything, and the way he knew the things I was
thinking was astounding. It sent shivers through
my spine.
“You know Miss Mo,”
he said once. “I love to travel. Travelling’s
the thing. The getting there is never so much
fun as the going. When you go somewhere for the
first time you have a picture in your mind. It’s
usually larger than life. Reality is often disappointing.
Almost everywhere you go in the world, however
exotic it sounds, there are people just living
their lives like you and me.”
“Have you been to any places,” I asked,
“Where the reality really is better than
the dream?”
“A few,” he said.
“Antarctica. Now that’s a place. Nothing
can prepare you for the miles of frozen sea and
the icebergs. And then there’s the southern
ocean, a vast watery desert, so wild and raw and
testing. It’s a place where you can think
about yourself and the life you live.”
“Did you ever think about
God there?” I asked. I don’t why I
asked him this. Maybe I was remembering Uncle
Bob’s word’s - that it was hard to
deny God in that place. And Pat wasn’t here
to change the subject.
“Whose god?” said
Timor. “Yours or mine?”
“What do you mean?”
“God seems to be different
things to different people. God and gold. How
many wars have they started?”
“God and gold never started
wars. People start wars.”
“You’re right there Miss Mo. That
General Custer; he started a war. But he didn’t
finish it. I’m sorry Miss Mo but you know
these are difficult things. Yes, I have thought
about God. I have thought about God in India,
God in China, God in Russia and God in the Middle
East. I have spoken with Buddhists, Muslims, Christians
and Jews. They all know God and most of them know
God in much the same way. But they don’t
know each other and there lies the problem. People
love their god and hate each other. Isn’t
that a funny thing?”
“Do you know God?”
“No I don’t. I know
this sea. I know the creatures, or some of them
that live here. But down in that southern ocean
I began to realise something.”
“What was that?”
“That God knows me.”
The wind was strengthening but
the solid frame of the Endeavour seemed to cope
with the choppiest of seas. We were just two hundred
miles from Grand Cayman when I saw mum, Bob and
Timor bending over yet another weather report.
Bob stood up and called down the boat. He wanted
everyone together. “It looks like Hurricane
Harry is headed this way. It’s hit Cuba
which should take some of the sting out of it
and it might swing up north of us. But the wind’s
getting up already and this could be the start
of it. Now I want you all to make sure the hatches
are tightly shut and that everything that can
move is roped down. Faustus and Caliban will have
to go in their cages. I don’t want any of
you kids on deck and that includes you Pat. Joy
is in charge down below. Put your foulies and
your lifejackets on. I will stay on deck with
Rory, Timor and Prospero and we’ll do our
best to run out of it.”
Mum put a lifejacket in Timor’s
hands. “Put that on.”
Timor looked genuinely embarrassed.
“Yes,” he said in such a meek voice
I wondered if it really was Timor speaking. Mum
had lectured Timor about the lifejacket before,
just as she did with Prospero and, like Prospero,
Timor had ignored her advice. This time it was
an order, and from mum of all people. She said
the same to Prospero who sulked, but put the lifejacket
over his dirty vest all the same. “And hank
on, both of you,” she said.
I stood by the hatch, taking
a last look at the rising sea before going below
and there, a few yards from the boat, a white
fin surfaced, bearing its familiar red gash. “Scar,”
I said. “He’s warning us.”
Two hours later the boat was
pitching like I’d never known before. It
was like a fair ground ride without the rails.
The feeling of fear in the pit of my stomach when
Uncle Bob had told us to stay below had grown
with the storm. Badger had wedged himself in the
cockpit. Mum was trying to sit at the chart table.
I was nursing Vince in my arms where we had both
squeezed ourselves in to a space in the galley.
Pat had staggered into his bunk after falling
in the gangway, bruising his back. The noise outside
was like an express train screaming through a
tunnel, a constant deafening whooshing and crashing
of waves. Timor and Prospero had taken down the
sails except for a tiny orange storm sail to help
Bob find some steerage. Dad was alongside Bob,
helping him to hold the wheel.
I crawled up the steps and poked
my head out of the cockpit as a huge wave crashed
over the deck. Bob, dad, Timor and Prospero were
crouching by the wheel and for a long second they
were lost in the wave. Then they were there, like
fixtures on the boat. The sea was foamy white,
so white you could not see where it finished and
the sky began. Everyone was retching, even Timor.
We were facing the wind. It was the only thing
to do. Timor had fashioned a sea anchor dragging
on a rope from the back of the boat to keep us
pointing into the wind. If we were to broach the
boat would capsize.
Every time the Endeavour went
through the top of a wave it sounded like a sledgehammer
was hitting the hull as the boat crashed down
the back of the wave. Now I realised why Bob had
built such a strong boat with a heavy keel. She
would never be the fastest of yachts but, goodness
me, she was strong. I don’t know when the
storm ended, possibly some time in the night.
I could not even remember finding my bunk but
that’s where I was when I awoke to a gentle
swell. Everything was wet, my clothes, my sleeping
bag, everything. Vince was still asleep in his
bunk. So was Pat but Badger wasn’t there.
I found him up top standing with
mum who had taken the helm. “So you decided
to get up then,” said mum.
“What are you doing here?”
I said.
“Someone has to sail the
boat,” said Badger. “Now what about
some hot drinks. Get the kettle on.”
“Aye, aye sir.”
Everyone was fine and the boat
had survived in good shape. Even the canoe was
still there, lashed to the deck. Bob emerged a
couple of hours later looking weather beaten,
unshaven and scruffy.
“I don’t want to
do that again,” he said. He patted his flattening
stomach and said: “I’m sure there
are easier ways to lose weight.” We took
our bearings and found we were less than 50 miles
from Grand Cayman. Bob pulled the chart of the
island from the drawer. I’d forgotten he
would have had one. This was something in which
I had a special interest. Pat came to join us
at the chart table. His back was very stiff but
otherwise OK.
The island was quite long and
thin. Pat was reading out the place names on the
north shore. “Look at this one Mo,”
he said, pointing to what the map indicated was
a rocky area on the western tip of the island.
“Don’t want to go there,” said
Pat.
“Why not?” I asked.
“It’s a place called
Hell.”
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