Chapter 98 – "Lucky" is not the word
The loud, crashing noise produced by the rough wave when it hit the ship frightened all the passengers. And they freaked out even more when, despite the use of lee cloths, most got thrown out of their berths and onto their cabin floor with the impact, when the ship tilted nearly parallel to the water line.
"Oh my God! What was that?" Victoria cried, panicking while the ship was on its side. "Are we sinking?"
"I hope not," Diego said, helping Victoria up when the Santa Eulalia got upright again.
They could hear the men outside shouting, but with all the noise of the wind and the rough sea banging the sides, they couldn't understand what was going on.
"I'll find out what happened." Diego said, taking his thickest coat.
"But the captain ordered us not to go outside!"
"I know, but it's the only way to find out. Besides, it looks like those men out there could use some help."
"Be careful please!"
"Always," he said, repositioning her lee cloths. "Stay in bed. It's safer than staying up."
When he got out of his cabin, he found other passengers in that corridor, also wondering what had happened, and some of the fresh deckhands, including Chief Officer Ojeda, who were about to replace the crew members who had been working outside on that foul weather for several hours. Before he ventured out with the sailors, Diego checked on Doña Margarita first.
"Doña Margarita, it's Diego," he said, knocking on her door. "Are you all right?"
"Diego! Come in, please!"
He found the older woman still on the floor, trying to get up, bleeding from her forehead because she had banged her head when she fell from her berth.
"Oh, my God, let me help you!"
He helped her up to the bed, and quickly checked on her injury, which wasn't serious.
"What happened? Are we sinking?" she asked.
"I don't know what happened, that's what I'm trying to find out. Why don't you come to our cabin and stay with Victoria while I do that, so you two can take care of each other?"
After he left Doña Margarita in their cabin, making sure both women were all right, he headed for the stairs to the upper deck.
ZZZ
After several hours battling that storm on deck, as the ship progressed at a snail's pace to double Cape Horn, Captain Ulloa was already soaking wet and chilled to the bone.
Just before they got hit by that huge rogue wave, he was counting the minutes left to be replaced at the bridge by his second in command, the Primer Oficial Ojeda, so he could take shelter below deck, wrapped in a thick blanket while sipping brandy and hot coffee. However, that shivering cold was nothing in comparison to the thermal shock he suffered when he jumped overboard.
That initial splash in the freezing, turbulent waters, left him totally stunned and out of breath, unable to take any air in. Besides, his drenched clothes felt suddenly too heavy, dragging him down while he tried to get some air into his closed windpipes.
That was a stupid idea! What the hell's wrong with me? Ulloa thought, deeply regretting his reckless action when he realized he was probably going to die in one of the most unforgiving, forsaken places in the planet, and his body would become fish fodder.
When he spotted the injured sailor waving his arms, already drowning, Ulloa remembered the purpose of his lame move, and what should be his focus.
After a few, desperate gasps, Ulloa's lungs got working again. Then, he swam a few meters in the turbulent waters to reach Martínez. He grabbed that man from behind, trying to keep his head above the water line, but Martínez was panicking so much, he turned and held onto the captain which such desperation he pushed him down, under water.
Let go of me, ungrateful bastard! Ulloa thought while desperately trying to get his head out of the water again, fighting with that terrified man who had got gripped by a blind, irrational panic. By then, the sailors on board were already pulling from their lifelines, trying to get the fallen men closer to the ship, adding to Ulloa's misery as they pulled from his abdomen while he was trying to get upright.
During the struggle, both men wasted precious energy in a totally senseless effort, and in the end, Ulloa had to resort to desperate measures to survive, like hitting the injured man's broken leg. When Martínez stopped thrashing about, going floppy, Ulloa finally managed to get to the surface to take a deep breath, but water splashed his face and he swallowed some.
"Captain, are you all right?" Ojeda cried from above.
Ulloa could not answer immediately, while coughing salty water, but he pointed at Martínez and then up.
"Lift him up!" Ojeda ordered.
As Martínez was unconscious, when they pulled from the rope it dug into his abdomen, and he bent forward in an awkward position, nearly upside down, with his head back in the water.
"Wait! Throw another line, or you're going to kill him!" Ulloa cried when he could talk again, holding Martínez's head above the water one more time.
By then, the two men were so close to the ship, the waves thrashed them mercilessly, banging their bodies repeatedly against the hull, splashing water on their face, not helping matters at all.
Almeida dropped another line. The captain tied it under the injured man's arms with shaky, rather slow and unresponsive hands. Then, the boatswain and two other sailors hoisted Martínez up to safety.
Cold shock was setting in. Ulloa knew he didn't have long before his heart would stop beating due to the cold. He tried to hold onto his lifeline to be lifted, but he lacked the strength. Ojeda realized he was struggling and threw him an already looped line, because it looked quite unlikely the captain could be hoisted up safely only by the waist lifeline, as it had happened with Martínez.
"Hold onto that line, Sir!" the chief officer cried. "Pass your arms into that loop!"
Using all of his willpower, Ulloa barely managed to follow those instructions, and then his men pulled from both ropes to get him out of the freezing water. The ship kept rolling while they did that, thrashed by the strong winds, and Ulloa's body, suspended from the ropes, banged against the hull a few more times. Luckily for him, as he was already losing consciousness, he hardly felt it.
By the time Ojeda grabbed his collar to pull him over the gunwale, he had already passed out.
ZZZ
When Diego was about to open the storm hatch to get outside, Almeida and another sailor opened it, rushing downstairs while carrying an unconscious man.
"Don Diego! Please, help us!" the contramaestre cried, looking relieved to find him there. "We could do with your medical knowledge!"
"What happened?" Diego asked, following the men into the cockpit, the place at the rear of the ship that served as infirmary, on the lower deck.
"A piece of the broken mast fell on him, and then he fell overboard," Almeida said when they rested that man on the floor. "He's got a broken leg, and he doesn't look good."
But Diego wasn't too worried about the leg. That man was cold and unresponsive, staring at the ceiling with eyes wide open, and he could not feel a pulse.
"It may be too late," Diego said, starting chest compressions, but water kept coming out of the man's mouth every time he did that.
"Was alive when we fished 'im out," another sailor said. "I felt his ticker."
Diego turned the unconscious man over, on his stomach, and more water came out, but he didn't move. He had drowned.
"I'm sorry, he's gone. There's nothing I can do for him."
"Dammit! It was all for nothing then," Almeida said.
"All for nothing? What do you mean by that? What happened?"
Almeida told him about the freak wave hitting the ship, and how the captain had tried to save that man from drowning. As he finished telling the story, Ojeda and another sailor got into the cockpit carrying Ulloa.
Diego examined him quickly, feeling relieved when he could feel a faint pulse on his neck, but he was unconscious and hardly breathing.
"We need to warm him up. He's alive, but hypothermic," he said, starting to remove the captain's soaking wet clothes.
"Thank you for your help, Don Diego," Ojeda said, also relieved to find him there. For a moment, he looked around, hesitating, as if not sure what to do, overwhelmed by the situation. Then, he addressed the sailors that came with him. "Come on, we have to clear the deck and reset the rest of the rigging! Almeida, you and all your men from the first shift take a break to warm up!"
"Yes, Sir, but I think we should help you to —"
"That's an order, not open to discussion!" the stressed officer snapped. Then, when he saw Almeida's hurt expression, he added in a softer tone: "Yes, I could use your help on deck right now, thank you, but I'll also need you all fresh and rested at the end of our shift. Take care of the captain with Don Diego, please, and take care of yourself."
"Yes, Sir!"
While Diego and Almeida tended to the captain, the Santa Eulalia kept rolling in the rough sea. In those unstable conditions, starting a fire inside a ship seemed like asking for trouble, but that's what a couple of sailors did, choosing the lesser of two evils, keen to get warm quickly.
"You don't look that good yourself. You should also take off those clothes and warm up."
"In a minute. Let me help you with him first."
Almeida brought a few blankets and a bottle of brandy, and helped Diego to remove the captain's clothes. When they did that, they realized how battered and bruised his whole body was, and how cold his skin really felt.
"I'm afraid they hit the hull a few times while we pulled them up," Almeida said, quickly assessing the captain for any broken bones. "There was nothing we could do to prevent that."
Soon, the cockpit got full of exhausted looking sailors, all wrapped up in blankets, drinking rum and brandy while trying to warm up close to that fire. The helmsman looked particularly spent, after so many hours getting constantly sprayed with cold water, hardly moving from his position at the wheel.
"We got brass bottles to use as bed warmers. I'll boil some water," Almeida said.
"We can't wait until the water boils. Skin to skin contact will be faster to warm him up. Someone should lie under the blankets with him."
Diego looked around, but none of the hypothermic sailors were in the position to share body warmth with anybody, even less Almeida, still on his soaked clothes and in dire need to be warmed up himself.
"I'll do it. But let's take him into his cabin, because all this smoke is not going to help his lungs at all, and we should raise his temperature slowly and evenly. Warming by the fire may make more harm than good."
ZZZ
Outside, the new man at the helm struggled to keep the ship going forward in the desired direction.
Ojeda and his men worked hard to free the damaged portion of the foremast from the mainmast, so at least those sails could work as they should, and the brig slowly continued its perilous passage into the Atlantic.
After a while, the wind slowed down a bit, and although smaller waves kept rocking the ship, things seemed to be finally under control.
ZZZ
Diego removed his clothes to lie beside the captain in his berth, sharing his body heat with him under the blankets, spooning his back as he would do with Victoria, in close contact with him, although the experience wasn't as pleasant.
This felt like embracing a dead body, or even worse, a chunk of ice, but Diego felt he owed Ulloa the discomfort, because the righteous captain only got in that sorry state while trying to help one of his men. Like Zorro would have done in a similar situation, which said a lot about that man's courage. Besides, what if Ulloa had got jinxed after giving up his "good luck" rituals, and this was all his fault, as Victoria had pointed out?
For a scientific mind like Diego's, that notion was ridiculous, but… what if?
A knock on the door got him out of that reverie.
"Yes, come in!" Diego said, thinking it would be one of the sailors bringing the brass, hot water bottles. He was surprised when Victoria walked into the captain's cabin carrying them instead. And for the look on her face, she was surprised as well to find him like that.
"Diego, are you all right? The contramaestre told me you were here, helping the captain, but… what the hell are you doing in bed with him?"
"I'm trying to warm him up. It was the fastest and safest way I could think of while that water boiled," he justified himself, pointing at the bed warmers she carried, but Victoria had a hard time buying his explanation. "Don't worry, my dear, just go back to our cabin. I'll be there as soon as I can."
"But Diego, this is not right… This is… Gosh, I don't know what this is!"
"Trust me, I do. And everything is all right. Go back to our cabin, please. Take care of Doña Margarita."
After she left, Diego checked the captain's pulse again, feeling his wrist. At least, it was picking up a bit, because for a long time his heart was beating so slowly, he thought it was going to stop. When he moved his hand, which was finally starting to feel warmer than winter morning frost, Ulloa mumbled something then, only half conscious, stirring a bit.
"Quita, maricón… I'm not that kind of sailor."
That comment made Diego chuckle, because it was in line with Victoria's misguided thoughts.
"I'm Diego de la Vega," he said, and then added in a whisper, closer to the captain's ear: "And don't fret. I'm not that kind either."
The captain mumbled more incoherent words. Diego got up and got dressed, happy to see that brave man on the way to recovery. He got a bottle of brandy and made him drink a few sips. Soon, the captain opened his eyes, blinking, and after a while, he focused them on Diego, showing a glint of recognition.
"Damn, De la Vega… I should have walked around that mast..." he said dragging his words, with a hoarse, croaky voice, humouring himself, but without a trace of reproach.
"It would not have made a damn difference, and you know it," Diego said, placing the bed warmers close to the captain's body, but not in direct contact with him, wrapped in towels. Then he repositioned his lee cloth, tucking him in with the blankets, like a small child. "Rest now, please. And don't worry: your ship is in good hands. Your men are doing a great job."
"I knew they would," the captain said, followed by a worrying bout of coughing. Diego gave him a bit of water. When Ulloa settled, he asked about the sailor he had tried to save.
"Martínez… Did he make it?"
"No. He was already dead when they brought him in. With those injuries in the freezing water, he didn't stand a chance. And you're lucky you didn't drown with him."
"Lucky is not the word, De la Vega..." Ulloa muttered slowly, drifting back to sleep.
ZZZ
It took Ulloa a whole day to overcome the hypothermia, and then, not surprisingly, he suffered from pneumonia, turning the tables from feeling cold to boil with a raging fever, so he ended up staying in bed in his cabin for two weeks, most of the times drifting in and out of consciousness, unaware of his surroundings.
One morning, when the fever subsided and he felt much better, he realized the ship was not swaying, and instead of the howling wind outside, all he could hear was the sound of hammers at work.
"Almeida, where are we?" he asked the contramaestre when he came to check on him. "Are we anchored?"
"So nice to see you fully awake, Captain. It was time!"
"How long have I been in bed?"
"Just over two weeks, Sir."
"Two weeks?" Ulloa said, surprised. "That long?"
"Do you remember what happened?"
"Vaguely… Martínez didn't make it, did he?"
"No, Sir, but let me ask you something: why did you jump overboard? It should have been me. Martínez was my man, my responsibility, not yours."
"You are married, with a wife and kids waiting for you at home, while I'm not. Besides, what good would that do for anyone sick onboard if our "doctor" drowned at sea?"
Almeida thought about that for a moment.
"Yeah, there is some twisted logic in that, Sir. Although Don Diego took on the role of doctor for us. He's very good, by the way; you should recruit him."
"Yeah, I'm sure a caballero like him has nothing better to do than embarking in a merchant brig as medical help," he said with an unusual, wry smile. "So, where are we? You didn't answer before."
"Puerto Deseado, Sir. We're using the abandoned garrison while we repair the foremast. But I'm afraid we can't find a long and thick enough tree around here to make a new one."
"Help me up, please. I need some fresh air."
Almeida helped the captain to get dressed, and supported some of his weight so he could climb the stairs to the upper deck. Once outside, the sailors cheered happily when they spotted him up and about, in a spur-of-the-moment display of affection.
"Three cheers for the captain!" the man that got trapped under the mast with Martínez cried.
"Hip-hip-Hooray! Hip-hip-Hooray! Hip-hip-Hooray!" the sailors cried enthusiastically.
Not surprisingly, after his failed but heroic attempt to rescue Martínez, Ulloa's popularity among the crew had soared. After all, what sailor wouldn't love a captain who would risk his own life to save one of his men, specially a low-ranked, deckhand?
"Welcome back, Captain. You had us all worried for a while," the chief officer said.
"Thank you, Ojeda. It's good to be back," the Captain said, shaking his first mate's hand. He looked around, making a quick assessment of the damage and the state of the undergoing repairs. "I see you've done well, doubling the Horn and getting us to safety in a sheltered spot to repair the ship. Well done. I'll make sure you get a commendation when we arrive at Cádiz."
"Thank you, Sir!"
Ulloa faltered then, still too weak to support his own weight for long, so Almeida held him up while a sailor brought one of the folding, canvas low chairs the passengers used on deck to sunbathe during the good days.
"Take it easy, Captain. Get some fresh air, but don't overdo it. Doctor's orders," Almeida said, helping him to the chair, covering him with a blanket. "Tamayo, bring some coffee!" he ordered to the cook.
"I'm not used to be pampered like this, but I won't complain," Ulloa said, sinking on that canvas chair, facing the sun. It was a nice, calm and sunny day, nothing like the foul, stormy weather his eyes had seen last. "Where's Don Diego de la Vega? I would like to talk to him."
"Most of the passengers disembarked today while we repair the mast, Sir," Ojeda said. "They are taking quarters at the old Spanish Fort."
"Who's with them?" Ulloa said, frowning.
"The second mate and Suárez. The rest of the men are here, helping with the repairs."
"What about the Indians? It could be dangerous to be up there if they are hostile."
"I don't think this area is that populated, Sir. We haven't seen any Indians since we anchored three days ago. Everything looks quiet. The soldiers were probably bored to death before they left a few years ago."
"Believe me, these Indians are like ghosts: if they don't want to be seen, you won't see them. Get a few men at that fort with guns and rifles and bring everybody back on board. And by the way, it may be a good idea that the men practice firing at shooting targets with the rifles, not only with the cannons. But don't engage the Indians unless they attack, please. I don't want any senseless massacres."
ZZZ
Diego and Victoria strolled lazily by a solitary, rocky beach, hand in hand, enjoying their time ashore, quite fed up of the confined, suffocating spaces of the ship. But funnily enough, now that she had got used to its swaying, staying on solid ground was also a dizzying experience for Victoria.
"I can't believe how dizzy I am now! It's like going through that storm again," she said, stopping to sit on the sand, in a small recess. "What's wrong with me?"
"Nothing. It's quite normal to feel like that after so many weeks at sea, if you are not used to it," Diego said, sitting by her side.
"Why don't you feel it then?"
"I don't know. I guess when that shot at close range damaged my tympanic membrane, I got enough vertigo to last me a life time."
"Kiss me."
"What?" That petition got him totally by surprise.
"You heard me. Maybe one of your wonderful kisses will take this horrible feeling away. And if it doesn't… Well, kiss me," she repeated with a sassy smile.
Because she had felt so sick most of the time since they embarked, and then she had suffered the miscarriage, they hadn't had sex for the duration of the sailing trip, but now, she finally felt like getting back in the saddle, totally ready for the white paper experience.
"As you wish, mi ama," he replied with a cheeky grin, leaning over her to find her lips.
He started with a tentative, soft kiss, that soon became a furious, passionate one, because after all that time on board, they were so hungry of each other, they longed for that kind of contact. After all, this was their honeymoon trip, and they hadn't had sex for months, except for the quick fix Victoria had managed to perform for her husband on her good days. Soon, they were tugging at their clothes, carried away, willing to get intimate in that secluded beach, away from the rest of the passengers and anybody else. When he uncovered one of her breasts, suckling her budding nipple, she arched her back and moaned while stroking his dark hair, melting in his arms, aching for more.
"Are you sure about this?" Diego said, leaving her breast to look at her in the eye, panting with desire. "You don't want to risk getting pregnant again while on that ship. It's still a long way until we reach Spain."
Victoria nodded, closing her eyes.
"Doesn't matter. Take me. I want this." She opened her eyes again to look at him with such love, he couldn't resist. "I want to bear your child. I'm ready."
Diego looked around. Nobody was there, and he wasn't expecting anybody to walk that far from the fort. Realistically, he reckoned they were both so excited, it would not take long, so he lifted that skirt and carried on fondling his wife, skilfully taking her to the verge of coming without intercourse. But then, when he fumbled with his trousers to free his erection, she opened her eyes and let out a horrified cry, hastily covering her naked body with her clothes. He quickly moved off her and turned around to check who was behind him, only to find an arrow head pointing at his face.
ZZZZZ
A.N – Yeap, the mighty Zorro got caught with his pants "nearly" down (at least I saved him from the humiliation of being interrupted mid-shag; it's bad enough as it is, like this, "just about to"). Poor guy, but… in the captain's words: "lucky is not the word", hahahaha.
I wanted them to have wonderful sex on a beach, in a new instalment of the 50 shades of Zorro, but realistically, at the Patagonia would be cold, and the area is not really as inviting as a Caribbean beach, so… Tough, they didn't. Besides, to find a good spot to anchor the damaged ship also gave me a headache. In the end, I found out there was an abandoned Spanish Fort in that "Puerto Deseado", so problem sorted.
(The Fort was in use between 1790 and 1806, and the next visitor to the area (other than Diego de la Vega, of course) was Charles Darwin in 1833. Or so says Wikipedia.)