The Rise Of An English Lawbreaker

Prelude

“Keep her steady, helmsman!” Captain Bragg had to shout above the scream of the storm that threatened to tear London’s Pride’s masts from her deck.

London’s Pride’s“I’m trying, Captain!” Isaac Winchester put all his weight behind the wheel, feeling his muscles strain with the effort of holding the ship’s head to the wind. For three days, London’s Pride had battled the gale under topsails only and with her crew praying for deliverance.

London’s PrideTied to the wheel, Winchester swayed with the violent motion of the ship and peered, narrow-eyed, into the boiling sea ahead. His jaws constantly worked, chewing the remains of a wad of tobacco that had sustained him for hours. “The wind’s not easing, Captain!”

“It will,” Bragg shouted, more in hope than expectation. “These Atlantic storms always blow themselves out after a couple of days.”

David Cupples, the second man on the wheel, said nothing. Laconic by nature, he concentrated solely on keeping the vessel as safe as possible. In common with everybody on board, he knew it was impossible to drive a wooden ship without the danger of her seams opening or something giving aloft. After three days of the wind driving London’s Pride, Cupples felt she was heavier and slower to answer the wheel.

London’s Pride“We’re making water, Captain,” Winchester spoke Cupples’ thoughts.

“Aye,” Captain Bragg agreed. “She’s sluggish.”

London’s Pride responded with less buoyancy at every heavy wave, no longer rising like a cork as she had done even a few hours earlier.

London’s Pride“Bayne!” Bragg’s roar battled the scream of the wind. “Check below! She’s taking in water!”

Gripping a safety line with his left hand, Joshua Bayne, the first mate, lifted his right in acknowledgement. He did not know whether it was safer above deck or below, but at least beneath decks, he would escape the constant pounding of wind and waves. As Bayne struggled toward the main hatch cover, a rogue wave crashed over London Pride’s stern and swept forward in a white-foamed rush. Bayne’s despairing yell was lost in a hellish cacophony of roaring water and splintering timber.

LondonPride’s“That’s Bayne gone,” Captain Bragg said. A veteran of the Seven Year’s War and thirty years at sea, he had experienced too much death to be moved by the loss of a single man.

“Here comes another!” Winchester shook seawater from his head and gripped the wheel with brawny hands.

“Hold hard, boys!” Bragg shouted as another wave crashed over the stern, pressing the helmsmen against the wheel. Bragg knew his ship was low in the water when the sea pooped her, and he had to make an agonising choice. Should he remain in the stern with the helmsmen or check below? He looked forward, where every wave filled London Pride’s main deck, glanced aloft, and swore. The main upper and fore lower topsails were flapping loose, adding to the ship’s distress.

London Pride’sRemoving the metal speaking trumpet from its bracket on the mizzen mast, Bragg roared commands.

“All hands,” he shouted. “All hands! Make the main upper topsail fast! Clew up the fore lower topsail!”

Swearing, scared, and unwilling, the hands emerged from the stinking dark of the foc’sle. Holding on for their lives, they clambered aloft, some shaking in fear, others pretending nonchalance, and a few, the bravest topmen, throwing themselves up the rigging despite the gale.

A frantic blast of wind blew London’s Pride onto her beam ends, nearly dipping the larboard lower yard arms into the sea. Cupples swore foully as the gale snapped the ratlines of the mizzen rigging nine feet above the poop. With the sails blown out of their gaskets, London’s Pride lurched further to larboard, and Cupples heard a rumble below as the cargo shifted.

London’s PrideLondon’s Pride“Bugger it to damnation and back,” Captain Bragg shouted. “Damn these Chesapeake longshoremen; they could no more load a cargo than fly to the moon! Cut away the main lower topsail! We’ll work her under bare poles, damn my eyes!”

Leaving the men at the wheel to struggle alone, Bragg dragged himself along the sloping deck, gripping the safety line as mountainous seas burst over the ship. About half the crew obeyed Bragg’s orders, working desperately with hatchets and knives, while the remainder fled to the precarious safety of the foc’sle, too scared to return to the deck.

With the last of the sails cut away, the wind exerted less pressure on London’s Pride, but she refused to right herself. She remained on her beam ends, trapped by the shifted cargo and a tangle of spars and gear. Bragg glowered at the nightmare of white water that roared over his ship’s larboard topgallant rail. No seaman, however daring and skilled, could live in that.

London’s Pride“Mr Blackstone!” Bragg came to a hard decision and roared for the second mate. “Jettison the cargo, or we’ll be over, damn it! It’s shifted to leeward.”

Isaac Blackstone was a young man, barely out of his teens, proud of the wedding ring on his finger. He stared at Bragg with his mouth open. “Captain, if we open the hatches, the sea will get in.”

“Do your duty, damn you!” Bragg roared.

Huge waves were tumbling over London Pride’s hull, breaking on the solid English oak. For an instant, master and mate glared at each other as the terrified hands clung onto any handhold and waited for a clear order.

London Pride’sLondon’s Pride made the decision for them. The pressure of the sea carried away a bobstay, and the bowsprit followed, lost to the surging sea. As the waves ripped away the fore topmast, the raffle dragged at the main topgallant mast, and in moments the ship was dismasted and rolling crazily in the mountainous seas. Those hands who had been working aloft vanished with the masts. One moment they were there, and the next, the sea took them, with their cries unheard in the roaring wind.

London’s Pride“Damn my soul!” Winchester said, clinging to the wheel as London’s Pride gyrated from larboard to starboard and back. “We’ve got a proper hurrah’s nest now.”

London’s PrideCupples nodded, chewing his quid of tobacco, and staring at the maelstrom of raging water surrounding the ship. He glanced at Winchester. “Best make your peace with your maker, Isaac. I reckon we’ll be shaking hands with Davy Jones before long.”

Winchester staggered as London’s Pride nearly rolled right over. “Maybe so, Davie, maybe so, but I think the old girl will stay afloat now the masts are gone.” He looked up. “Sky’s clearing, Davie. The storm’s blown itself out.”

London’s PrideCupples spat a mouthful of tobacco juice into the wind. “So it is, Isaac.” He forced a grin. “Better late than never. Mebbe we’ll see another day, yet.”

Before Cupples finished speaking, the storm lashed London’s Pride with its devil’s tail, sending a final wave crashing over the bow to sweep along the deck. When the force of the water smashed a hatch cover and poured into the hold, the ship gave up. She rolled completely over, throwing the men on deck into the sea and trapping those in the fo’c’sle.

London’s PrideWinchester slashed at the rope that tied him to the wheel, hearing a horrific roaring in his ears and feeling seawater rasp and burn in his throat and lungs. When the rope parted, he kicked frantically away from the wreckage to surface thirty yards from the capsized ship.

“Davie!” Winchester shouted, seeing only a chaos of confused water, heaving waves and a mess of cables and spars. Waves rose around him, spindrift-tipped marbled green mountains roaring and hissing. “Davie!”

“Isaac!” Cupples lifted a hand from ten yards away. “Over here!”

Winchester kicked closer, and both men wrapped their arms around a spar, tossing on the already moderating waves.

“She’s going!” Cupples said and watched as London’s Pride sank slowly beneath the surface, taking most of her crew with her. “God in heaven, she’s going!”

London’s PrideThe storm calmed slowly, leaving a shocked handful of survivors swimming or clinging to pieces of wreckage.

“Where’s the captain?” Cupples asked.

“Gone,” Blackstone gasped, spitting out seawater.

“We’d best keep together.” Winchester was the oldest survivor. “Try to make a raft. “Does anybody know where we are?” He looked hopefully at Blackstone.

“About three hundred miles west southwest of the Scillies,” Blackstone said. “Or we were when the storm hit. That storm could have driven us anywhere.” He glanced around at the slowly moderating sea. “Gather the spars together, men, and make a sail from some of these scraps of canvas. If we make a raft, the south westerly trades will drive us towards old England.”

For the next hour, the survivors collected spars and fragments of wreckage and lashed them together with lengths of cable. One fortunate man found a keg half full of fresh water and another a piece of canvas. Knowing that the alternative was drowning, they worked together, gasping and struggling to keep afloat.

“We’re doing well,” Winchester encouraged them as the makeshift raft gradually took shape. “Climb on board, lads!”

The survivors dragged themselves onto the collection of spars and lay there, panting as the waves lifted around them and inquisitive gulls circled.

“A sail,” Blackstone croaked. “Fashion a sail and catch the wind.”

They raised two spare spars, lodged the ends between the fabric of the raft, and attached the scraps of canvas to create a sail. Within minutes the wind caught the canvas, bellying it out to push the raft in a north-easterly direction.

“We’re making progress,” Winchester said.

“About half a knot.” Blackstone peered ahead. “We’ll need better than that, or we’ll die of thirst.”

The survivors huddled together on the raft, some nursing injuries from the shipwreck, one man praying, and all hiding their fear. Night increased the loneliness as low clouds blanketed every star and the unceasing wind kicked spume from hissing waves.

One man died during the night, rolling into the sea without a sound and vanishing. Nobody noticed his absence until dawn rose red and angry in the east.

“Jacob’s gone,” Winchester said.

“We’ll all be joining him soon,” Blackstone said gloomily. He touched his wedding ring, thinking of his wife, Leah, alone in their two-roomed house on the Isle of Dogs.

“Not so!” Cupples said. “Look over there! A sail!” He pointed to the south, where a fine three-master was bearing up on them.

The survivors stood up, raised their hands, and set up a yell, with Cupples and Winchester holding up the sail as a flag.

“She’s bearing towards us,” Blackstone shouted, his voice hoarse with salt water.

“I know her,” Winchester said. “That’s Amelia Jane!”

Amelia Jane“One of Charlie Shapland’s ships,” Blackstone said. “She’s seen us, men!”

Amelia Jane surged toward them, furling her mainsail when close. A group of men stood in the stern with a spyglass fixed on the relieved survivors.

Amelia Jane“They’re launching a boat,” Blackstone said. “We’re saved, lads!”

Winchester saw a group of men clustered around the jolly boat, with the ship’s mate giving directions, and then a tall man in the stern snapped an order.

“That’s Charlie Shapland himself,” Winchester said. He saw an officer approach Shapland, and then the group around the jolly boat scattered, and men ran aloft. Amelia Jane set her mainsail.

Amelia Jane“Wait!” Blackstone shouted, waving frantically. “We’re over here!”

Cupples saw Shapland turn his spyglass full onto the survivors on the makeshift raft, and then Amelia Jane headed away, with the sea breaking white around her bow.

Amelia Jane“Wait!” Blackstone shouted, “Oh, please, God, don’t leave us here!” The other survivors yelled and lifted their hands in supplication.

Cupples shook his head. “Shapland saw us,” he said as the wind sent a spatter of spray over the raft.

“Why didn’t he pick us up?” Blackstone asked, shaking his head. “He’s leaving us to die! The rogue’s leaving us to drown!”

“Mebbe he was in a hurry,” Cupples said. “The reason doesn’t matter. All that matters is us trying to reach safety. Put back the sail, and we’ll catch this wind.” He looked around, where the sea stretched endlessly to a distant horizon and shuddered, knowing the possibility of survival was slim.