New Found Land (3 page)

Bos said: “I will take that chance, sooner than starve here.”

“I, too,” said Curtius. “And I think we will kill a few of the Iroquois before they kill us.”

“I might agree,” Brad said, “if there were no alternative.”

Simon said: “Starving to death, freezing to death, getting killed in an attack on the Algonquians, being tortured to death by Iroquois . . . not just alternatives: we have a multiple choice.”

Brad ignored him. “North and west, Algonquians, for hundreds of miles. South, more Algonquians, followed by Iroquois who seem to be rather worse. There's still east.”

“Sure,” Simon said, “the ocean. Three thousand miles of it. Quite a swim.”

An early storm had brought seas sweeping high up the beach to batter a hole in the side of the ship which had brought them from England, and later storms had completed her destruction. Curtius in particular had
been depressed by the loss of this solitary link with his homeland, remaining gloomy for days.

Brad said: “You know how cold the water's been here, even in summer? It's caused by a strong current from the north that skirts this coast. The
Stella
's finished, but we could make a raft out of her timbers. The current will take it south. We might be able to miss Iroquois territory altogether. At least we'll be heading towards a better climate.”

He looked around at their faces.

“What do you think?”

“I think,” Bos said, “that we will start right away.”

•  •  •

It wasn't easy; it was murderously difficult, in fact. They had to break the
Stella
up to get at the deck timbers. Although it didn't snow, the wind remained easterly, howling over the grey breakers and peppering them with freezing darts of spray.

When the raft was half-built, the disheartening realization came that it was not only well above the tide mark but would be too heavy to drag down once completed: they were obliged to break it up and begin again at the water's edge, with bitterly cold waves breaking over their legs. They took turns in
going back to the hut to thaw themselves out. Then they had to drive in heavy stakes to anchor it against being carried away by the incoming tide.

All this time they were under observation by the Algonquians. Since the purpose of their activity was so obvious, Simon wondered whether the Indians might intervene to stop them, but they never approached nearer than a couple of hundred yards. The reason, it eventually occurred to him, was that, in Red Hawk's view, putting out to sea on a raft was the equivalent of going into Iroquois territory, as far as the outcome was concerned: the moment they did it, they were as good as dead. He straightened up from hammering and looked across the heaving swell. It seemed to stretch into eternity, grey sea merging into grey sky. Red Hawk was probably right, at that.

At last it was finished. They stacked what was worth taking with them, including the meagre store of food, in the centre of the raft. Curtius wanted to set fire to the cabin, but the others said no: it might provoke the Indians to see their prospective spoils going up in smoke. The last thing Bos took was a pouch, which he tied securely to his belt. In it were roots of vines in a protective cocoon of moss. He had brought
them with him from the emperor's own vineyard in Rome, and his promise to himself was that someday, in some place, they would grow, and flower, and fruit; and he would make wine from the grapes.

It only remained to float the raft. That wasn't easy, either. They had to struggle, knee-deep in near freezing water, to move it. At last it bobbed clear, and they scrambled on board. It was about fifteen feet across, with a low surrounding gunnel. It would have been a mad idea for four men to entrust their lives to such a craft even on a placid lake in summer. They had erected a small mast and had a sail but could not use it with the wind blowing steadily towards shore. They paddled the raft out through the breakers.

It helped a bit when they could strip off their soaked clothes and put on dry. The ridge beyond the reach was crowded now with figures; Simon thought he recognized Red Hawk in the centre of them. Gradually they dwindled in size and began to fall away astern.

“That's it!” Brad said. “We're in the current—heading south.”

T
HE MOTION WAS UNPLEASANT TO
begin with, and rapidly got worse. Simon would have been sick if there had been anything in his stomach; as it was, he spent a long time retching helplessly over the side of the raft. All their faces, in the fading light, had a greenish grey look. They bobbed along about half a mile off a shore so featureless that it was hard to believe they were making any progress. Past the sea's heaving grey, the land was a white desert.

When darkness fell, they huddled together to keep warm; but seas slopped over the gunnel and
from time to time a wave drenched them. Nausea gradually gave way to ravening hunger. They chewed dried meat and sipped water from a leather flask, though sparingly. It was bitter and resinous, but very precious. They could die of thirst, if cold and exhaustion did not do the job first.

The night was wretched. They had been mad, Simon decided, to fall in with Brad's scheme. Even if they had starved to death in the hut, they would at least have been dry and warm, with solid ground beneath them. He felt a resentment which, as the hours ground by, turned to something close to hate. It was not just the raft. Brad had been the one who assured them that the Indians were trustworthy, just as it had been Brad who had come up with the crazy idea of a voyage to discover America. In fact, going back to the beginning; it had been Brad who had insisted on going forward to investigate the fireball, instead of doing the sensible thing and backing away from it.

Bos had managed to fall asleep and was snoring. Curtius was groaning softly.

Brad said suddenly: “I think the sky's lightening.”

Angrily Simon said: “Shut up. We've had enough out of you.”

“Over there.”

He could barely make out Brad's pointing arm. It was ridiculous; the night was as stygian as ever. But as he peered it did seem that the blackness might be slightly less in that quarter. Or was it an illusion?

Bos, who had woken up, said: “It is the beginning of dawn.” He sighed vastly. “It will be good to see land.”

“And when we do,” Simon said, “we make for it, whatever kind of Indians are waiting.”

Curtius groaned again. “I agree. Any place, even Hades, sooner than this.”

As light slowly grew in the east, Simon strained his eyes in the opposite direction, where the coast must lie. The others were doing the same. Bos stood up, his arm around the mast. It was he who said at last, in a tight grim voice: “There is no land.”

Simon stood up too, holding on to the big Roman as the raft rolled. He gazed to the west; far across the waves sea and sky came together, with nothing breaking their union. Although he knew it was pointless, he stared south and north as well. There was nothing but churning water and an empty sky.

Curtius said bitterly: “That was something else
you promised us, Bradus—a current that runs close by the shore and will carry us south to warmer lands. Where is it?”

“I don't know.”

Brad's voice was dull; his old ebullience had gone completely. Great stuff, Brad, Simon thought, from the guy who knows all the answers. But he felt too wretched to voice it.

Bos pointed something else out: the wind had changed and was coming from the southwest. They could not use the sail to any purpose. Bos proposed using the paddles, but did not persist in the notion when he failed to get any support. They were all close to exhaustion, and the effort seemed pointless against the surrounding vastness of the ocean.

All day they drifted, seeing nothing except the occasional sea bird. Simon was slightly encouraged by the sight of the first until he recalled that many birds, such as petrels and shearwaters, thought nothing of crossing the Atlantic. This one was too far away to be identifiable.

Night fell a second time, and they huddled together in silence. Eventually fatigue overcame discomfort, and Simon drifted off. He dozed fitfully,
then suddenly awoke, confused and disoriented but aware of light. The sky had cleared; there was a new moon low down, and the constellations gleamed overhead. He managed to pick out the Plough, and from that the North Star. It was on his right, and he thought that must mean they were heading west, towards land. Then he remembered this was a raft not a boat, with neither bow nor stern, and no fixed external point to serve as a reference: there was no way of knowing in which direction they were travelling.

He slipped back into sleep. His next awakening was more abrupt. He had a sensation of something being close by; and looked and saw it. A hillock stood up, black against the moonlight, seeming almost close enough to reach out and touch. Land! He cried out, and Bos answered: “What is it, lad?”

“The paddles! It's . . .”

He broke off. He could see another hillock dead ahead and a third way over to the right. He could also see that the hillocks were relatively small, and surrounded by water. Suddenly the one nearest slowly sank beneath the waves.

“Whales.” Bos's voice was tensely calm. “We are inside a pack of them.”

They no longer looked small. Not far from where that one had submerged, another rose enormously. Simon reminded himself he had always been in favour of whales—that they were intelligent and peaceable creatures. But his instinctive reaction to these vast things coming out of the sea was terror.

Whispering, Brad said: “Better keep quiet. They have good hearing.”

Hoping for reassurance, Simon asked: “But they're harmless, aren't they?”

“Depends what you call harmless. If they just got curious, it might not be funny.”

Simon saw the point. None of them spoke as the whales slid by, roller coasting in and out of the waves. And as time went by and nothing happened he began to feel less frightened. However large the pack, they must come to an end of it eventually. Was that open water, beyond the next dark hulk?

Then he cried out as the timbers beneath him tilted without warning. The raft lifted and twisted and he felt himself falling backwards. He grasped for the mast and managed to get a hold, but lost it when Bos involuntarily cannoned into him and knocked him away. Sliding again, he hit the gunnel
and made an unsuccessful grab at that. He sank into stingingly cold water and felt his nostrils fill as he went deep down.

He had no coherent thoughts, but his arms moved of their own volition, beating a way back to the surface. He broke water and gasped in breath. With a shock of despair, he saw empty sea before him: no whales, but no raft either.

The call came from behind, and he turned, treading water. The raft was about thirty yards away but it seemed a lot further; beyond it, one of the retreating whales blew a spume of spray into the moonlight. The cold bit deeper as he swam towards the raft, and his arms felt more leaden with each stroke. He had an impulse to ease up, let go—wasn't drowning supposed to be an easy death? But he heard their voices urging him on, Bos bellowing above the rest, and managed to keep going. His senses were hazing when his fingers touched wood and he felt them hauling him on board; his teeth chattered and he was shivering violently. Bos and Brad joined arms around him, holding his cold wet body between theirs.

They held him in that fashion till daybreak. This
time there was a sunrise, but he could take no interest in the golden disk slowly lifting from the horizon. He felt it had no heat in it; despite the warmth of other bodies, chillness held him in a vice. He heard the others talking, but their words were meaningless. Bos tried to make him eat, but it was too much effort. The climbing sun was turning the sea's grey to green, but he felt indifferent to it, to everything except the paralyzing cold.

Even when Bos shouted “Land!” it meant nothing. They left him to scramble for the paddles and he had the vague thought that he ought to lend a hand, but all his energy was taken up in shivering. He drifted along the edge of consciousness. After a long time he was aware that Brad and Bos were holding him again, and that the raft still floated. So there was no landfall after all. It didn't matter: nothing mattered.

•  •  •

He fell eventually into a deep sleep. Awaking he felt a bit better and even managed to sit up. The sun was at its zenith; and while he was far from warm, the cold was not quite so bitter. He felt thirsty and asked for water. He learned something unpleasant then. The
amphora which was the main freshwater container had gone overboard when he did. Only the contents of the flask were left—a few mouthfuls each.

He asked about the land Bos had sighted. They told him it had been in view upwards of an hour, but though they had fancied at first they were making progress towards it, the current had carried them on past. He said: “I ought to have helped.”

Bos shrugged. “It would have made no difference. A kitten would have pulled as strongly. Eat, Simonus, so you can help next time.”

While he chewed on a piece of meat, Brad spoke to him in English: “I was right about the current. What I got wrong was our original position. I figured we were somewhere on the Maine coast, but I realize now we must have been much further north—Nova Scotia, probably. The current did take us south-west, but across open sea. The land we saw was probably Cape Cod. And if we're on the same drift, there's a chance of making Nantucket. We've three or four hours of daylight, and that should be enough to give us a sighting.”

Simon started to reply, but was prevented by a cry from Curtius.

“Look over there! Is that land?”

There was something, certainly, that was neither sea nor sky. Sunlight glinted from a long level whiteness. They were drifting slowly towards it.

It was Bos who spoke: “No, not land. Sea mist.”

As they got nearer, its appearance became less uniform; there were rifts and eddyings. Tendrils of mist began to curl up out of the sea. The sun dimmed, brightened slightly, dimmed further. It was a disk of pale yellow, of white and barely visible against the white all round; then it was gone. The mist hemmed them in completely, a filthy grey now and sharply chilling.