Chapter Ten

A steady wind was blowing that evening, waves kicking up near the lip of the fishing boat. The captain, a staunch swarthy man of French descent hooked his arm around a line and braced himself against the wheel. For days the seas had been telling him its secrets, as a lifelong fisherman he had the instinct to know when a storm was brewing and to realize when it was time to pull away. That was near two days ago, but the men had yet to receive capacity and they pleaded with their Captain to stay out just a bit longer. At Port Royal, a good hull was enough to get them through a dry summer. Hugo relented, going against every sailor bone in his body, and now they faced an impenetrable wall of gray swirling clouds.

"Blast ye." He called to the clouds and squinted his eyes. All around them the storm was closing, a hurricane by the look of it, and if they were not able to make good speed away from it, they would be lost forever.

"Captain" One of his fishers cried up to him. "We have no chance of outrunning it."

He was never the kind of sailor his father was. The old man would never have found himself caught in such a predicament. The great captain would have said to his men they did not know what he knew, and make sure he saved them all. They were now turned away from the great storm, but the wind was not catching, they were not gaining speed and the monster was about to cover them, and then there would be no escape.

"Captain. What do we do?"

The man screamed over the thrashing wind. The truth was, Hugo did not know. He was out of ideas. The only thing he could think of, "Dump the cargo!"

His men stopped the screaming for a moment, all looking blankly at their Captain, who appeared to become a lunatic.

"What are you standing around for? Do this for your own good, for your lives!" His first mate was the one to jump to action, running down the hatch and throwing it open, tying a line to the pully to bring the whole net up. He pulled and pulled and the others joined him soon, tugging with all their might. The mast the line was tied to, heaved a bit and the wood splintered at the base. "Good!"

The net was slowly raising and the men pushed, all eight of them, swinging the arm out. There was so much fish that as the net went to port, the whole of the fishing boat dipped in that direction. The first mate took a dagger and sliced at the rope, freeing all the fish they caught that morning in the swell of the storm. Suddenly as the ship righted itself the boat gained some speed. Rain hit the fishing boat instantly making everything slick and hard to walk on. Hugo braced himself that the rain would soon bring the gale winds, enough to knock the boat upside down. He had seen it and justly feared it.

"It ain't fast enough. That storm will be on our backsides in half a shake!" The first mate called.

"Then we'll have to get tricky on her!" Hugo called over the raging wind.

He turned the wheel hard, cutting back towards the storm. "What the devil are you doing?"

"We aren't catching the wind. Maybe by going into the beast, and turning, we can catch a hurricane wind."

"If you are wrong, then we will all die!" The first mate said, his eyes darting from the Captain to the storm.

"If I do not do this, we will all be dead anyway." The first mate nodded and grabbed onto the wheel with his captain.

"We go down together Captain Hugo."

The waves were increasing in size every moment as the storm enveloped them. "Men, tie yourselves down lest you be thrown overboard!"

The ship was being pulled into the storm, like ravenous fingers of a hungry animal; the currents swept the ship into its mouth. As hard as Hugo pulled on the wheel, the current would not budge, the ship could not change course. A particularly strong current, slammed into the boat and turned it outward, as if a whirlpool had caught onto the stern and was giving it a death shake. A powerful wave hit at starboard and the boat rocked so severely it could have just fallen over. The first mate, not properly tied slipped on the slick wood and his eyes widened as be gave way to gravity. Hugo reached out and took his fellow by the wrist, straining hard against the elements.

But the rain and the wind were too powerful to resist, and Hugo's longtime friend broke off the grasp, falling into the depths. Hugo cried out against the wind and put everything he had into turning the rudder. His arms extended, his body leaning, with his foot against the wood, dug in, he felt the sinews on his arms pop. Everything he had and more he gave to the fight for survival, with the wind and the rain and the oncoming doom of a storm he couldn't outrun coming on top of him.

And it turned. Slowly at first, the ship angled out to the left, and as it caught the current, it spun about. The wheel whipped back at Hugo and the jut of the wheel slammed him in the chin. Hugo nearly blacked out from the pain, and the spray of hot blood mixed with the rain.

"Trim the sail! We make the most of the wind!" He called and his men went to work adjusting the foremast and other sails. They were running, tipping over toward the port side of the boat, but going faster than the fishing vessel had ever managed. If they could only pull away at the right time, they could break free the storm with enough wind at their back to outrun the tempest.

Finally, they saw the light through the gray maelstrom, and in a few moments they would find themselves on the outside of the storm. Hugo, who had been holding his breath, sighed in relief and let the oxygen in. His lungs were grateful, and he wiped the blood from his chin and smiled. That was it, somehow they made it through the worst and he could make it all the way home. With might of his arms and the cunning of his mind, his little fishing boat persevered.

A water spout formed ahead of them, shooting high into the air. The men audibly gaped at the high spinning water tornado; many had not seen one before. Hugo was the first to react, clutching the wheel turning it, trying to stay on course and yet somehow bypass the spout. He was cursing under his breath as a second waterspout formed on their port side.

"Captain, what does this mean?" The youngest of his men called to him.

"It means the gods do not want us to survive this! They mean to take us down!" He spat. "And I'll be damned if I suffer the same fate as my father and his father's before him! I will not be drowned by the will of some lazy god!"

The men looked worried as they did not change course. Hugo knew there was nowhere to go. The physics of sea travel were such that there was not wind or current to catch that would escape the fate of two water spouts towering and a hurricane on their heels.

Hugo tied the wheel down and called to his men, "Strap yerselves in, boys! We're going on through!"

"You can't be serious!" One called back, but looking at the stern face of their Captain, they knew very well that he meant it.

The men all huddled to the center of the boat and knotted a length of rope around their shoulders and looped through the waist. The water spout was bearing down on them. Hugo gritted his teeth until he felt the copper taste of blood in his mouth and drove the needle of the stern into the belly of the water spout. The destruction began immediately, knocking their avatar from her place, tearing into the wood and rending its way even to the center mast, splitting off the giant pole, dropping the sails and shredding the canvas as if it were rice paper. Hugo felt the end coming, as he had heard it would, his life played out before his eyes in images and smells.

Never again would he enjoy a lager. Never again would he have a Christmas. A rod of water knocked him from the wheel and he slid back across the deck, effectively slamming his head into his cabin door. The sailor blacked out.

He was dead, surely. Not a soul would have survived such a vicious walloping. He could hear the calm drift of water, the drops sliding off his finger. He was laying on the cabin door. A large oaken panel served as the door, and across the top it was carved with his name. Hugo, it said, whittled with his own blade. There was bright sun shining atop of him as he blinked his eyes and rolled over. Everything seemed a bit bleached out. That was until a heavy shadow drifted over him. In the air above, and from the bottom, it appeared as the shape of a boat. If he knew his ships well enough, and he believed he did, it could have been a carrack, a ship from long ago.

What's more, this ship was flying through the air, descending to the calm water. Hugo was pinned to the spot, he looked down to his chest and stomach and he could see that he was somehow impaled. A shard of the mast was blown through him. He could not feel his legs nor sit up. Hugo was numb. He turned his face and watched the craft settle on the water. Its strange sails, the remnants of a bygone era were billowed full and engorged with wind. The men were but shadows upon its deck, all speaking in a language that sounded Spanish, but may have been Portuguese.

A man was looking at him. His uniform was strange, silver and nickel plated chest plate. On his head was a helm that curved at its edges. He had thick, dark hair and large eyes with a green haze to them. He looked down at Hugo with a mix of pity and respect. The man, the best description of him was conquistador. A blasted adventurer from a century and a half ago, Hugo must have been dead.

The man was training a musket on him. Hugo smiled and closed his eyes. If he was not dead, then at least the sea did not have him. He would die, but by his terms. A flash of a smile hit Hugo's lips as the musket fire tore into him. And everything went silent.