Free Battle Fleet (2007) by Paul Dowswell Page B

prize. I threw my own shirt. Other men spun their hats. One man even hurled his precious shoes at them. Not all the natives were prepared to be distracted by our offerings. But as we beganto scull for our lives towards the
Orion
, only a few still raced through the surf towards us. As it dawned on them they were now outnumbered, they stopped running. A last handful of rocks sailed over. In our confusion and haste to dodge them we failed to notice an incoming spear, aimed with deadly accuracy into the middle of our boat. Thomas Bagley was a target you could hardly miss. The spear hit him full in the chest and he lunged forward with a look of total surprise on his face, spitting blood over the back of the man at the oars in front of him.
    ‘Hold him down,’ said Evison heatedly as Bagley writhed in agony, ‘before he does for us all.’
    Bagley shrieked pitifully as Garrick pulled the spear out. Then Garrick held the poor man in a bear grip, lying him down as gently as he could in the bottom of the boat. ‘Keep still, old mate, or we’ll all be slaughtered,’ he whispered.
    ‘Put him over the side,’ said Lieutenant Hossack. ‘He’s as good as dead.’
    ‘We’ll do no such thing,’ said Evison. ‘Now row for your lives.’
    I had seen men with these sorts of injuries linger for days. Mercifully, Thomas Bagley did not live to see our return to the ship. He went a deathly pale and his legs began to tremble and after a few agonised spasms his body gave up the ghost.
    In a few short minutes the
Orion
loomed before us. Silent faces stared down from over the rail. Bagley had been well liked on the ship. He was not a moaner or a carper and he mucked in whenever he was needed. Evison read the funeral service to a sombre, thoughtful crew. It could have been any one of us wrapped in that canvas sheet, food for the fishes thousands of miles from home. At least we were able to give him a proper funeral, and spared him the ordeal of being butchered by a frenzied pack of natives in the shallows of the shore.



CHAPTER 8
The Speckled Monster
    We sailed through the oceans and the weeks merged one into the other. Our creaking ship braved the rigours of the sea and although men were frequently ordered to pump water from the hold, the
Orion
carried us through the Indian Ocean. Close to the Roaring Forties, we stopped briefly at the Cape to reprovision, then continued into the sluggish horse latitudes and doldrums.
    As we approached the Equator west of Africa, there was no breath of wind for days on end. Our salty diet of dried meat and dried peas and beans produced a terriblethirst in us all, especially on days when the heat was so fierce it melted the tar between the planking. Our water supply was sufficient but it was brackish and foul, even after a red hot poker heated in the galley fire was plunged in to purify it.
    This was the worst part of the journey – there were no hostile natives or pirates to distract us, no volcanoes … We all lapsed into a glazed-eyed lethargy. Evison tried to keep his crew busy but we were too weary to grow restless and mutinous. Once every couple of days, to prevent an outbreak of disease, vinegar was sprinkled liberally below decks and the ship was smoked out with sulphur fumes. The sour smells lodged in our throats and made our thirst worse.
    Although it was often hard to tell, we were making progress. The crew had long forgiven Richard’s and my initial arrogance but they remained fellow travellers rather than friends.
    The hull held, despite the attentions of the teredo worm, although John Garrick was firm in his opinion that once home the
Orion
would be unfit for another deep water voyage. Even the mast Garrick had fashioned from the tree trunk stayed in place. Evison was wise enough not to employ its full complement of sail, but it supported the yards we placed on it well enough.
    What did fall apart was Lizzie’s friendship with Lieutenant Hossack.
    I overheard them talking one afternoon