15

CHAPTER 2

In his first few days on the voyage Thomas felt as if he was constantly in the wrong place at the wrong time. Where to sit, where to eat, where to evacuate his bowels, where to lay things down for a moment – he knew none of it. But he soon grew used to the strange provisional nature of life on board. There was plenty to do. The chaplain held a daily service in the hold to which no one could avoid paying some attention; Ben Macquarie unexpectedly supplemented this with readings and expositions from a well-worn Bible to anyone who would listen; the governor gave a stirring speech on the first afternoon in which he dwelt on the honour of serving King and country in distant lands; and the captain held exercise and training in arms on the after-deck every day, enlivened by amusing and hair-raising stories about battles he had survived. Almost as much of a force on the ship as Captain Smith was his first mate, Christopher Dawkins, not the soldier that Smith primarily was, but an older sailor of great experience. On top of this, Thomas looked for information from any source available. The richest settlers, who shared cabins above the main hold, kept him at a distance, but the surgeon and the alchemist on board were pleased to talk to him. He bundled up all that he could remember of what he was told and began writing it down in a letter to his family, which he kept wrapped in oil-cloth and scribbled on his knee on a thwart whenever he had a spare moment.

Above all, though, he wanted to learn how to sail. There was a division between crew and settlers but it was not absolute. Some of the sailors intended to stay in Virginia, and some of the settlers helped to work the ship. One of these was Ben, who had worked on timber ships in the Baltic. Ben had made friends with Lon Cardon, the red-bearded sailor with whom Thomas had spoken on the first day, and the pair took Thomas under their wings. He did not want anyone knowing how much harder the life aboard ship was than he had imagined – the dismal food, stale water and never enough of it, never being dry, the burning rime of salt always on one's skin, and the close, stinking air below decks - all this was hard to bear, although at least he was not seasick. Bad as it all was, he did not want to take it like the few other very young men on board. They had all come as servants to the more important settlers, and spent their free time grumbling, boasting and playing cards, except when the captain forced them to their daily exercise. Thomas did not want merely to put up with the hardship, he wanted to become a man by means of it.

He was very nervous at first, and not only because he feared disgrace. He felt a reverence he could never have explained for the ship itself. The towering masts, the webs of tensed ropes, the straining canvas and the timbers all aligned to the purpose of motion, held an almost mystical beauty for him. The men who tended this were like priests of a strange cult, or players in the music of wind and sea. At first Thomas felt that to touch anything would be sacrilege. For Lon and the others it was just a job. They would only have laughed at him had they known, yet he felt that they were wasting their privilege not to know how marvellous was the work they were doing.

As he learned he felt reassured, yet sad at how incommunicable his passion was; but he gradually became convinced that there was at least one man who felt as he did, and that was Captain Smith. The captain spoke to everyone on board at least once every couple of days, and looked to everyone's training personally. He did not single Thomas out, and Thomas would rather have died than call any special attention to himself. But he noticed the way the captain looked at the white wings of the staysails when they were particularly beautifully set, or glanced up at the flag which flew from the mainmast to get the feel of the wind, and he was almost sure that it meant you could be a real captain and still be in love with your ship; in other words, that it might be possible for him, Thomas, to become like John Smith.

There was another side to John Smith that he was even less sure he could live up to: nor did he want to have to. On balance, however, he was very glad that it was there. It became evident several days into the voyage, on an evening when Thomas had been sitting in the hold playing a desultory game of cards with a boy called Harry Dean. There was nothing to do: there had been rough seas off Cornwall and a strong smell of vomit still hung about, but now, well out into the ocean, there was a flat calm. The ship had ghosted forward through the day, moving steadily slower until now, at evening, she was going nowhere; the only motion was a lazy yawing from side to side on the large, smooth swells. Thomas kept touching his tongue to his lips where the salt water had cracked them, and there were sore patches of skin here and there under his damp clothes. At least the day had been warm, although the clammy chill now was driving more and more men below deck; they loomed up as shadowy shapes at the edge of the light of the lantern that swung monotonously to and fro.

'Tell me if you see my master,' said Harry.

'Why?'

'He doesn't like me playing cards. He's bound to find me something else to do.'

'Would that be so bad?'

'Everything's bad. At least when you're playing, you're not working. You win that one. My deal.'

Two large men leaned over the thwart. Thomas hoped it was Lon and Ben, but it turned out to be two others he had distrusted on sight, one Simon Hay, and a companion whose name Thomas did not know. 'Have you got cards?' asked Simon, at once sitting down. 'Give us a round, then.'

'No, thanks,' said Thomas quickly, 'I've had enough of it.'

'"I've had enough of it"', mimicked the second man. 'You will, won't you, Harry?' He took the half-dealt pack of cards out of Harry's hand and scooped the dealt ones up.

'It isn't a full pack,' said Harry defensively. 'I lost the queen of spades and a couple of others in the storm.'

The two men laughed heartily and nudged each other. 'That doesn't matter, we can allow for that, can't we, George?' Thomas was nervous. The bullying manner beneath the surface friendliness of the pair was obvious. He could see how little choice Harry had had about whether to play, and was conscious that, by refusing so quickly himself, he had made it even harder for him.

'Stakes?' asked Simon Hay and paused.

'A groat first time, then double,' said Harry unhesitatingly. Thomas felt less sorry for him.

Harry won the first game and the second. Then Simon won three games in a row. The stake was now four shillings.

'Come on, put your money down,' said Simon's friend, shuffling the cards.

'I haven't any more of my own,' said Harry.

'Back it with a bit of your master's, then,' said Simon. 'You're sure to win it all back next round.'

'Yes,' agreed Simon's friend. 'He's the world's worst player.'

'No, I can't,' said Harry. 'Squire Hales'll kill me if he finds out.'

Thomas sat uneasily, looking around vainly for Lon and Ben, wondering whether to go and find Harry's master, the sour-faced Squire Hales, whom he knew by sight. As matters still seemed good-humoured, he hesitated.

'No need for him to find out,' said Simon's friend. 'Look, you can't lose. I'll chuck my hand in, I'll help you, and Simon'll be on his own.'

Harry agreed to this. Simon's friend sat behind him with his arm around his shoulders, scanning his cards and choosing them for him. Sure enough, Harry won that round, and raked a small heap of coins towards himself on the thwart. Then he put down four more.

After two more rounds Thomas could see where the game was tending. The friend was leaning on Harry and pushing him this way and that as he surveyed his hand, then choosing cards at random and throwing them onto Simon's, chuckling at the absurd choices he made. Harry lost, naturally. Several more men had come up and were watching the game and laughing. Harry laughed, too. Thomas watched in disbelief, wondering how long his vanity would prevent him from protesting. He was putty in their hands. A new game started, for the biggest stake yet. Thomas could now hardly see for the crowd of onlookers.

'That one wins,' he heard Simon say.

'You haven't put anything down,' protested Harry.

'Yes he has,' said Simon's friend. 'It's the queen of spades. You said she was missing. You saw he didn't pick a card up last turn. If he had picked one up, it would have been the queen of spades.'

'That's not fair,' interposed Thomas. Everyone ignored him, but Harry echoed him: 'That's not fair.'

'Oh yes, it's fair if you're not playing with a full pack; that's the rule, isn't it, George?'

'I'm not playing any more, then,' said Harry at last.

'Well, then, time to pay. You owe me sixteen shillings.'

'I haven't got it,' said Harry desperately.

'Oh come on,' said Simon. 'I bet your master puts plenty in your pocket. Let's see, shall we, George?' He took hold of Harry by the waistcoat and pulled him forward. Harry tried to push him off, and the next moment had been lifted bodily off the thwart. Thomas dived away through the hold, looking this way and that for Harry's master. He couldn't believe that no one was going to stop this robbery. Where was the purser? Or Sir Richard, the knight from Devon? Or anybody?

'They're fighting below decks! Stop them!' he bellowed at random, scrambling up the ladder in the waist of the ship, and was shocked to find himself face to face with Captain Smith.

'What's going on, boy?' said the captain sharply, taking Thomas by the elbow and hoisting him up the last two steps.

'Sir, Simon Hay cheated Harry at cards and they're taking his money,' babbled Thomas, feeling utterly foolish. Perhaps this sort of thing went on all the time when you weren't at school any more. Hay would rob Harry, Harry's master would cuff him, and that was the end of the matter; it would be completely beneath the captain's notice.

But, 'Stay here a minute, Thomas,' John Smith said quietly and then vaulted at one spring down the ladder. Thomas obeyed; though he peered through the trap-door, he could not really see what was going on, but he heard a hubbub of laughter and yells suddenly cut through by a shout of 'Silence!' and silence there was.

'How did this boy get like that?' Thomas heard John Smith's voice, low and sharp.

'His head went in the bilge,' someone muttered.

'Who did it?'

Silence.

'It was you, wasn't it, Simon Hay?'

'What if it was?' said Simon, in surly tones. 'We only…' Then there was the crack of a blow across someone's face, then a choking bellow. 'Stand, up, man, and hold your noise,' came Smith's voice again, hard as Thomas had never heard it.

He climbed stealthily down the ladder. The onlookers were dead quiet now, and John Smith was holding Simon Hay – who must have weighed half as much again as he did – upright by the collar and the wrist. A streak of dark blood showed across Simon's pasty face.

'Perhaps you need reminding of the rules on my ship,' said the captain. 'No gambling.' He cracked Simon's head smartly against the thwart behind him. 'No brawling.' He did it again. 'No robbery. And no insolence. If I catch you at it again, you'll be flogged. Ten strokes the first time, twenty the second time. Do you understand me?'

For a moment it looked as if Simon Hay might brave it out, but then he muttered, 'Yes, sir.'

'Then give the boy his money back.'

Simon sullenly counted out the sixteen shillings.

'And you,' said Smith to Harry, 'pay attention and be more careful of your company next time.'

'Yes, sir,' said Harry sheepishly.

'Go up on deck, both of you,' Smith finished by ordering Simon Hay and his friend. 'Mate Dawkins will find some work for your idle hands.'

Not until they had gone did Smith himself turn to follow them up the ladder, to a very subdued titter of released tension among the men left in the hold. Thomas made to get as far away as possible from the captain as he passed; he was frightened. Yet John Smith met his eyes and gave him a very slight nod, as if of approval.

When Thomas next saw Harry, the latter had cleaned most of the bilge off his hair with buckets of sea water.

'All right?' Thomas asked him in a low voice.

'Yes, no thanks to you, you little fool,' said Harry bitterly. 'Why did you have to meddle? Now I'll never hear the last of it.'

Thomas did not know whether he meant from his master, from the captain or from Simon Hay, but neither of the latter, as it proved, ever referred to the business again. Captain Smith behaved as if nothing had happened; while Hay's loud voice was not at all in evidence in the hold that night. For the whole of the rest of the voyage he was remarkably quiet.

Thomas, for the first time, had an idea of how ugly the new life he had let himself in for could be. Yet, more than anything else in the world, he still wanted to be like

John Smith, if it killed him.

*****

It nearly did.

They had rough weather at times, but nothing like the storm that struck after they had been eight weeks at sea. In mid-afternoon it came up black in the east, so fast that they hardly had time to reef the sails before the masts were whipping in the wind and waves towering above the ship.

At first Thomas was more excited than worried. All the sailors had said that the Susan was a fine ship that could ride out any storm, and as the timbers shuddered and the spray flew up he felt the glory of voyaging more keenly than ever. But he saw the men's anxiety growing: orders were shouted angrily; men looked about them with staring eyes; they muttered prayers and made covert good-luck signs, and presently seemed to see only the ship and the storm and not to recognise each other at all. As darkness drew in, Thomas felt the ache of panic rising in him. Ships did founder in storms like this. It was perfectly possible that they were all going to die, and looking around him he could not imagine how they would escape. Each wave menaced the tiny ship like a black wall. As it rode up the swell, the deck tilted to the pitch of a roof; everyone had to stop what they were doing and cling on; then the waves broke and the white water poured over everything, plunging the deck under as if it were a sandbank under a rising tide. Each time Thomas was astounded that the ship could float again at all. Below decks it was even worse. In the darkness the passengers huddled on the thwarts, groaning and cursing and grabbing for handholds. To cross the hold was to wade knee deep in swirling, sucking water, becoming entangled in people's floating belongings. It was getting deeper. There was only a tiny amount of wood and air left in the world: everything else was water running loose, wild and murderous, above and below.

Thomas took a spell at a pump, and, when he was worn out, struggled to the ladder. He wanted to get up on deck again, where if he drowned at least it would be under the open sky, not trapped like a puppy in a sack. And he wanted to get a glimpse of the captain. Before Thomas went below, he had been so confused by the avalanches of water and the bucking of the ship that he could hardly remember which rope he was holding onto, or which way was fore and which aft. Yet to the captain it all made sense. To him, the ship was not a chaos of imminent death, it was a machine doing the task it had been made for. Thomas had seen him moving everywhere carefully and confidently, keeping every aspect of the ship's struggle in sight; not only that, but recognising and heartening every man he passed. Thomas thought that he himself might be able to quell his panic if he could only see John Smith again.

He crouched holding onto the hatch and looked around between waves. After a while he saw him, half way out along the main boom working with another man to put a lashing on a broken spar. His hair was so plastered down with wet that it took Thomas a second glance to recognise him. The next moment he saw something else. The cannon nearest to him on the after-deck was moving. He ran to it and clung on through the next wave, and heard the groaning of the ropes that lashed it down. Two strands snapped.

Terrified, he raised his head and yelled: 'Captain! The cannon are breaking loose!' He put his shoulder against the sliding gun, using strength he never knew he had, and succeeded in forcing it back into position until an unexpected tilt of the deck rolled it back to him again, bruising him in the face. He shook the sodden hair out of his eyes and tried again.

Suddenly John Smith was beside him, a hank of rope over one arm. 'Don't worry, Thomas,' he said briskly. 'We'll get them tied down.' He braced himself beside Thomas and, almost easily, the cannon moved back into place. He nodded to Thomas to hold it there while he began to add the extra lashing, breaking off to shout for more help. He had just crawled under the cannon and passed the end of the rope to Thomas when another wave struck. 'Hold on!' John Smith yelled, but it was too late. In the act of taking the rope, Thomas's hold had loosened. The force of the water swept him across the deck. 'I must be more careful next time,' he thought, groping for a support. He found he was in the scuppers; there was not a moment to spare if he wanted to save himself; then, in sheer disbelief, he felt himself falling, fast and far, for an endless moment before the burning cold water engulfed him. There would never be a next time. He had gone overboard.

John Smith moved quickly. There was a buckled harness and a coil of rope firmly secured to the deck, provided for eventualities like this, though to use it in such a storm might be madness. The boy had a family, had a father and mother. What did he, the captain, think he had been doing, letting an untrained boy like that take on a man's work in a storm, even for one moment? He would drown and it would be his, John Smith's, fault. John thought all this even before he heard the lookout in the crow's nest shout until his voice cracked, 'Man overboard!' and the mate, standing near the wheel, bellow, 'Stay your course! He's lost!' John buckled on the harness with wet, slippery fingers, then hailed Mate Dawkins to show him what he was doing. He heard a yell of 'No!' but by then was already backing up the slope of the deck to get the longest run possible. He sprinted to the side and leaped out with all his strength to make sure of getting clear of the hull before twisting into a diving position just as he plunged into the water.

Thomas came up and gulped air through his burning throat and nose, numbed with sea-water. 'Help!' he cried hopelessly. It was no use. They could never pick him up. So suddenly, so pointlessly, his life was going to be over, before he had done anything with it. And yet not suddenly, because he was swimming for his life. It would take him a long time to drown. All at once a darkness that had been hanging over him disappeared. The water all around was grey, silver with foam, although the waves towered so that he could hardly see the sky. Of course – he was no longer in the lee of the ship. It had left him behind. He would die alone, with hundreds of fathoms of ocean under him and the empty sky above ...

'Hold on, Thomas: I've got you!'

He was not alone. The voice was warmth, life itself: he could not imagine knowing a more blessed moment as long as he lived. A strong arm was around him. 'Take a deep breath,' said John Smith. 'We'll go under when they haul. Hold on to this. One hand. Fend off with the other when we get near the side. Now ...'

The rope pulled and they went under. Thomas heard the bursting silence and felt the pressure of the water on his face, on his lungs. He swung helpless; the pain of holding his breath was like a knife; he was choking, he could not last any longer. But he knew that the captain was still holding onto him, and felt perfect trust that he would be saved or that John Smith would drown too – which was unthinkable.

Then they broke the surface. There was air, wind, voices – 'Haul! Haul! Put your back into it!' A team of men were pulling in the rope hand over hand. Their faces loomed high above, over the black cliff of the hull. A wave swept John Smith and Thomas towards it. 'Pay out!' John Smith struggled to keep clear, and the men above, led by Lon, played the two of them like fish. Something splashed into the water beside them: a harness for Thomas. In the trough between two waves, the captain dropped it over his head, and succeeded in fastening the stiff and soaked buckle, while another wave nearly smashed them against the hull.

They were both floundering blindly, near exhaustion, when at last the men succeeded in pulling first Thomas, then the captain, clear of the water and up the side. Bruised against the hull, burned by the rope, they were caught in turn by outstretched hands and rolled over in the scuppers.

Thomas got up onto his hands and knees, coughing and retching. 'Eh, the lucky lad!' cried Ben, thumping him between the shoulders. John lay on his back, eyes closed, letting everything wash over him in a moment of overwhelming relief. Then he sat up and shook his head to clear it. 'Well, that was refreshing,' he heard himself say.

The men broke out in a cheer. 'Well done, captain!'

'Of course,' John added, breathing hard, and looking up at them with a forced smile, 'you'd all do the same for me.'

After a moment's pause came a laugh and an unconvincing chorus: 'Oh yes, surely we would!'

Just in the past few minutes the wind had eased noticeably, otherwise they would probably not have survived. John saw one of the men bring a miraculously dry blanket for Thomas and begin to help him take off his shirt and wrap himself up. He himself walked over to Mate Dawkins, wooden-faced and forty, who stared at him as he approached. 'Sorry,' said John.

'You lunatic,' said Dawkins pleasantly. 'Don't do it again. Not this voyage, anyway.'

'You're right. I'll think of something else to do.'

The mate punched John's arm. John winced; it was the one he had used to hold Thomas.

'All hands to the stern,' shouted John. When the men gathered round, he said, 'The wind's easing. Brown, Gresham, Macquarie and Cardon, check that those cannon are made fast. The rest of you, get some sail back on her. Just the lower mainsail and foresail. We can run before the wind. In half an hour you can go off watch and we'll have a measure of wine all round. And thank you all.'

He went over to where Thomas sat huddled in his blanket, very white and still. 'You can go below in a few minutes, Thomas,' he said, 'but not just yet. Mount the horse that threw you. Come on, you'd better move around a bit. Help me get this cannon tied down. Better late than never.'

'Thank you, sir. I'm sorry, sir,' said Thomas.

'No, I'm sorry,' said John. 'But not very sorry: we got away with it. What are you going to do in the New World?'

Thomas still felt sick and chilled to the bone, but a light-headed elation was beginning to take over. He was alive, he was holding a rope for the captain to tie, they were chatting like old friends. He let slip a dream that he had not spelled out to anyone before. 'I'm going to go exploring,' he bragged, 'chart all the rivers, find out what's inland, draw a great map, "The Discoverie of Virginia by Thomas Rowe" ... and if any Indian tries to stop me, I'll blast him!'

'Can I come too?' asked John. This was a man after his own heart. 'You do the map-making and I'll take care of the savages?'

'Think they'll give us much trouble?' called a sailor over his shoulder.

'Not half as much trouble as the captain'll give them!' cried Lon. He picked up a feather that was used to clean the cannons, stuck it in the head of a mop lying in the scuppers, and ducked behind a cannon. Another of the men gave a war whoop. Lon waved the mop and struck up:

'We'll kill ourselves an Injun,

Or maybe two or three:

We're strong and fierce and bold in the Virginia Company ...'

'Wine!' shouted the quartermaster from the stern.

The men crowded round, holding out their cups. The drink warmed them through, making them forget their wet, stiff clothes and cold, aching bodies. They were friends. The storm was over.

'Get below now,' said the captain to Thomas, leaning on the rail of the stern beside him. 'We've had the worst. Within a week or so we should be sighting the New World.'

'What do you suppose it'll look like?' murmured Thomas.

'Like all the others, I suppose,' said John Smith, looking out into the night, his hands clasped in front of him. 'I've seen dozens of new worlds, Thomas ... what could possibly be different about this one?'

Thomas felt a little dashed. For the first time he had an inkling that, although to have John Smith as your captain was the height of good fortune, actually to be John Smith might not be quite so wonderful. But he was too tired to give it much thought. His head swam as he climbed down the companion ladder. The hold was only ankle deep in water, lanterns were lit and swinging, and snores sounded louder than curses. No sooner had Thomas slung his hammock and climbed into it than he fell dreamlessly asleep.

The men dispersed. 'You get some sleep, too, John,' said Dawkins. 'I'll take over.'

'No, you go down and check things are all right below,' said John. 'Make sure everyone's accounted for. I'll stay here until you've finished.'

Left alone, he considered the incident. He felt his right shoulder; he had pulled something in it, but it would settle down. He had behaved like an idiot, that much was clear. Even though his old friend Dawkins had almost infinite patience with his foolhardiness, and was at least as well able to command the ship as John Smith himself, it had been an irresponsible thing to do as captain. The men would be saying that he was pushing his luck too far. And yet what else could he have done, once he had got the boy into that scrape? I must take better care of that boy, he thought. If anyone tries to take it out on him for what happened tonight, they'll be sorry. I got away with it, that's the main thing. Though I suppose Ratcliffe may have something to say when he finds out.

What possessed me to say that stupid thing, 'You'd all do the same for me?' Of course they wouldn't. No one has a right to expect it from anyone; to talk like that only puts their backs up and quite right, too.

John Smith was half conscious of the reason for his remark. He said such things every now and then because part of him wished that he could be just like the others: at any rate, that he could be an ordinary man who could walk around unnoticed, without having to deal with envy and admiration in equal measure from everyone he met; that he could try and see, maybe just for a day, how he would get on without the blond hair, without the impossible face, without the charm, without the recklessness. He had learned to make it all work for him, but sometimes he felt as if he had been left standing with a precious but troublesome burden that really belonged to someone else, and he was wasting his life trying to cope with it. He had never got over being uneasy about his looks. Of course when he first went to sea as a boy, after his parents were both dead, being so conspicuous had not always been an advantage: far from it. Come up here, Goldilocks! Yes, you! What's your name, boy? Smith? John Smith? Couldn't you have picked a fancier name to go with that face? Well then, boys, what can Johnnie Smith do for us? ...

He realised that his mouth had tightened and his shoulders had tensed, and he shook himself. All that was well in the past. He was in charge now, and there would not be any bullying on his ship. He could make sure that boys like Thomas got a good start. Energetic and fair-minded and with his family behind him to remind him who he was, a boy like that could grow to be a man of solid worth, a real leader and decider. The colony would need such men. To work for England in the wider world, to gather wealth, to pacify the savages, excellent aims all and he hoped that they would prosper.

By that time he, John Smith, would have moved on. For how long? Probably for ever. It was time he faced it, he himself was not solid. It was time he stopped looking for something over every horizon, not finding it, and then growing bitter because it wasn't there. It was there all right, but not for him. Perhaps for him there was only searching. Perhaps it was enough. It was late; it was time he got some sleep; when it grew light there would be endless trouble and complaints about the gear that would have got lost or damaged in the storm. But he stood for a good while longer holding the wheel, feeling the movement of the ship through his hands and bare feet and adjusting the steering as the deck swung and the wind blew strong and steady. This was what he was good at. Westward, westward... The clouds were clearing. He gazed out at the pale churning wake in the blue darkness of the summer night.

Somewhere ahead, people who did not know they were savages and a land they did not call Virginia lay waiting in the dark.