The Coming of the Whirlpool (7 page)

If he could just turn the boat!

Heart thumping, Dow studied the tiller in his hand and the rudder in the water. He studied the sail and the boom and the rigging.

And he
saw
. If he took hold of
that
rope, then he could steady the sail. If he swung the boom
that
way, then the wind would fill the canvas, shoving the boat forward and giving the rudder purchase. And if he pushed the tiller
right
, then the boat would steer left, out of the Rip.

Dreamlike, balanced unthinkingly, one hand on the rope and the other on the tiller, Dow gathered the boat beneath him, a living thing with a will of its own, but which could be tamed and bent to command. The wind caught the sail with a thud and they were away, slicing across the black water, almost effortlessly in the end. Exultation filled Dow. The water and wind might fight against him with more strength than he could ever muster, but with cleverness the water could be cheated, and with skill the wind could be made to work against itself.

Laughing, he guided the boat clear of the Rip and slammed it headlong back into the chop of the channel.

It was harder there, in the sharp swell – harder to balance on his feet, harder to control the sail and hold the rudder to his course. His elation faded and fear took him again, and the cold. His hand on the rope began to cramp. But he fought on, tacking the boat back and forth clumsily as the channel widened northwards.

At last he was clear of the inner point of East Head. He came about one last time and set a course directly for Stromner and the shore.

The boat felt leaden now, sluggish. In the bow, Nathaniel moaned and spat blood, but Dow was barely aware of him. He was too focussed on the strip of sand ahead, and on forcing his hands to retain their grip and his quaking legs to remain unbent. He was barely aware, either, of the men that had gathered on the beach, or the others that were hurrying down from the village.

He knew nothing about how the craft might be stopped. He merely sailed on, paralysed at the helm, until sand rasped against the keel and the boat jammed hard in the shallows and the sail tore the rope from his hand. Everything heeled over, but Dow clung to the tiller, upright still.

Men came splashing through the waist-deep water. They climbed aboard, their expressions oddly shamefaced as they pried his fingers loose, telling him, ‘It's okay, boy, it's okay. You're safe home.'

He wasn't home. This place would never be home. But he was alive. Released from fear at last, Dow sank to his knees and wept.

D
ow woke to night and to a dim, small room he did not recognise. For some time he had no memory whatever and could only stare about blankly. The chamber contained nothing but the bed in which he lay, and was illuminated only by a glow that came through a hazy pane of glass over the door. From above came the cold sound of rain and wind beating against the roof, and a part of Dow wanted to simply roll over and sleep again, for the bed was warm. Yet somehow he knew it was but early in the evening, and that he should not really be in bed.

He blinked the sleep away. How had he got there? What had happened to the day? Then, distantly, it all came back to him – the storm, the Rip, the madness of the old fisherman. And afterwards . . . yes, he recalled now; the men of Stromner had carried him up to the inn and sat him before the fire, and women had appeared and fed him warm soup and sweet tea, and finally he had been escorted upstairs to this room and this bed. He must have slept the entire day through.

Dow yawned and stretched, testing the stiffness of his limbs. The fear was gone, and also the strange lassitude that had come over him afterwards, but he felt as sore as if he had spent a week cutting timber.

He was hungry too. And thirsty.

He rolled out of the bed, gathered up his coat and shoes, dressed himself, and carefully opened the door. It led out into a hallway. A single candle burned there, in a sconce set in the wall. Dow took it up and ventured along the corridor; he had scarcely been awake when they'd conducted him to his bed, but he did at least remember in which direction the stairs lay.

He passed by many doors, some of which stood open. They led to rooms identical to the one he had just left, narrow beds waiting within. What a strange place this inn was. Back home in the Barrel House, visitors counted themselves lucky if they could find a place to sleep under the tables, or on the rugs before the great fire. Here rooms and cots were provided. But it also seemed that no one had used any of the accommodation for some time. The rooms were bare and dusty and dark, and the beds had all been stripped back to the boards.

Dow came to the stairs and descended. At the bottom he passed through a doorway and entered an open, shadowy space where cold draughts set his candle flickering. Raising the light high, he saw that he stood in a large chamber which, in size, might indeed have rivalled the interior of the Barrel House. There was even a great stone fireplace. But if this was Stromner's meeting hall, an age had passed since anyone had gathered there. The hearth was choked with ancient ash; stacks of broken crates and casks gathered dust in the corners, and there were no tables, only some benches piled carelessly against a wall.

At the far end was a curtained doorway, through which leaked a weak light. From beyond came hollow voices, murmuring indistinctly. Dow made his way to the curtain and pushed it aside. It led to the small drinking room he had visited the night before. He was viewing it from the opposite side now, but otherwise everything looked the same; the peculiar objects hanging on the walls, the few men assembled by the mean fire, huddled over their cups – and off in one corner, sitting alone, her face turned to the floor, was the old blind woman, one hand resting on an upright black cane.

Dow could not understand it. What had happened to this village? Where had all its people gone? Clearly there had once been enough of them to crowd the hall behind him, and to fill the beds above. But now . . .

One of the men looked up finally and noticed Dow in the doorway. He nudged the man beside him, and a silence fell as the other drinkers turned – their faces not hostile, but not welcoming either.

Then Boiler Swan emerged from behind the counter. ‘Awake at last, lad,' he said. ‘Come through, come through.' And with a meaty hand he ushered Dow to the fireside. The other men hastened to make space at a table, and before Dow knew it Boiler had placed bread and stew in front of him, along with a mug of beer. ‘Eat,' the innkeeper instructed. ‘Drink.'

Dow needed no further encouragement. Under the men's watchful eyes, he ate and drank greedily for a time, barely pausing for breath until, outside, the wind suddenly rose to a howl and rain lashed hard against the shuttered windows. Dow stared up in apprehension at the sound, his meal forgotten.

‘Aye,' observed Boiler, who had sat down across from Dow and was drinking now from his own mug of beer, ‘it's blown all day out there, and looks, like enough, to blow all night again too. But never fear. There'll be no more boats putting out from this port till the weather's cleared. None of this idle lot are going anywhere, that's for certain.' The other men laughed, but Boiler held Dow's eye, his red face unsmiling. ‘Not Nathaniel, neither. We'll make sure of that.'

And the laughter stopped as the men all nodded earnestly.

‘What's wrong with him?' Dow asked, voice hoarse.

The innkeeper frowned. ‘Nathaniel?'

‘It was like he wanted to die out there,' Dow said, staring. ‘In the Rip. I think he wanted us both to die.'

A scrawny fellow at the rearmost table spoke up. ‘And what would you know about it – a boy who's never been to sea before today!'

‘Belay such talk now,' Boiler ordered softly. ‘The boy piloted that boat back all on his own, through the Rip and through the storm. Who amongst us could have done that our very first day out?'

The man scowled, but said no more.

‘Is Nathaniel mad?' Dow addressed Boiler again.

‘Mad? I wouldn't like to say so. But grief . . . grief has tried him hard these last few years. And it was a cursed fortune that you arrived when you did.'

‘Why? What did it matter?'

The innkeeper glanced away to some of the other men, then shrugged. ‘It was his son and his grandson, you see. Yesterday was ten years to the day since they died – drowned the both of them, out in the Rip.'

Ah. So that was it. Dow had known, of course, even before leaving Yellow Bank that the old man's son and grandson were dead, but he hadn't known
how
. ‘What happened?' he asked. ‘Was it in a storm, like this one?'

Boiler shook his head. ‘It was a storm, but not like this one . . .' He hesitated as if unwilling to say more, and all the other men stared.

Something hard rapped once on the floor, and a voice, high but unwavering, came from the corner. ‘Go on. Tell him. Tell him how it happened.' It was the old woman, her head hanging low, but her knuckles clenched white upon the knob of her walking stick. ‘Tell him of the maelstrom.'

Dow gazed at her in confusion, aware of a strange dread in his heart. The
maelstrom.
It was a word he knew only from childhood stories, a thing like sea monsters and other faraway fantasies.

‘The maelstrom?' he said to Boiler. ‘But—'

‘Mother Gale speaks rightly.' The innkeeper's stare was haunted now. ‘It was the maelstrom that stole away Nathaniel's kin.'

‘Aye,' nodded the old woman, ‘but I'm no one's mother, boy. Not ever. Memory is what I am. Tell him the truth, Boiler Swan.'

Boiler sighed. ‘The truth of it then.' He paused a moment to gather the tale, or perhaps the courage to tell it. ‘Rarely, very rarely, so rarely that a man might see it only once in all his life, the maelstrom opens between the East Head and the West. Only the greatest of storms can summon it from the deep, a storm that blows not from the west, as it does this night, but from the south. A storm that blows not for a single day but for days on end, and which piles the ocean waters through the Rip and into the Claw, so that the bay rises, and even on the turn of the tide its waters cannot escape because of the wind, driving always from the south. In a storm like that the Claw rises so high that beaches are swamped and towns are flooded. But that's not the worst of it. Not the worst of it by far.'

He paused again as the wind whistled about the building, and the fire spat and cracked in a sudden draught.

‘You see, lad, there's a mighty current in the ocean hereabouts that flows from sou'west to nor'east across the southern half of New Island – which means that it runs at an angle right across the mouth of the Heads. It's old and strong, that current, and unfailing. Sailors rely upon it to make their way east along the coast; the Ship Kings, for one. But it's also the reason the Rip is such a dangerous stretch of water – every day, as the great tides from the Claw ebb southwards through the Heads, they run up against that current and all manner of turbulence results. In stormy weather it's even worse. As you saw for yourself this morning.'

Dow nodded, remembering the black water and the way it had rippled and pulsed, but more, the way it had moved in a great circle . . .

Boiler continued. ‘But a
southern
storm now! After day upon day of gales from the south, the amount of water trapped in the Claw becomes truly tremendous, a monster held caged only by the wind. And when the storm dies and the winds fail, as all winds must, then the monster is unleashed. All that unimaginable mass of water is finally free to rush back out through the Heads. But there it collides directly with the nor'east current; two vast and irresistible flows, clashing head-on in the Rip. From that dire meeting is born the maelstrom . . .'

The faces of the other men all seemed to have gone grey, their eyes no longer seeing the room or the tables or the drinks in their hands.

‘Who can fathom the mysteries of the deep,' Boiler pondered, ‘or explain the motions of the sea? Not I. Still, I have seen the maelstrom, as have we all here, so heed my words. Where the two flows meet amid the rocks and reefs and gulfs of the Rip there forms in the tortured waters a great rotation, the opposing currents spiralling about each other, tighter and tighter, faster and faster, until there exists, consuming the Rip entire, a whirlpool that is fully a mile across.'

Dow blinked in awed disquiet. He would have thought such a thing inconceivable – but had he not seen a hint of it that very morning, in the ominous coherence of the waters in the Rip? It had been only the merest of forewarnings, perhaps, but it had been the most frightening experience of his life.

‘It defies the mind to behold.' Boiler was still staring at some inward vision. ‘At the whirlpool's rim the water races with terrifying power, foaming and smashing against the rocks of the shore, and the noise is ceaseless thunder. But the true horror lies at the centre, for there the ocean opens into a black whirling hole, a great funnel plumbing away out of sight, devouring anything that comes near. To witness this thing even from the safety of land is to know nightmares for the rest of one's days. To encounter it in a boat upon the water – that, my young friend, is death, one of the most hideous known to seafarers.'

Dow cleared his throat. ‘And Nathaniel's son, and his grandson, they were caught . . . ?'

Boiler nodded solemnly. ‘They should not have been out there that day, not with the south gale blowing. But understand – it had been many, many years since the maelstrom had last raged, so long ago indeed that there were none living who had witnessed it, not even among our oldest folk. The great whirlpool had become a thing almost of legend, and all the warnings that had been handed down to us, we scarcely gave them credit. So there were many boats out that day, despite the fact that the south gale had been blowing half the week. And all those boats returned safe. All, that is, except the last.

‘It was Nathaniel's craft, but as fate would have it he was abed with a fever that morn, and so his son and grandson had shoved off without him. It was not so unusual; the son was full grown, a fisherman tried and true, and the grand- son was a stout lad, well on his way to learning the trade. Even without Nathaniel, no wind or wave should have been beyond their skill. But as it happened they sailed further out to sea than any other boat that day, battling against the south gale, and they fished for longer, so that they were the last to turn for home.

‘It was evening by then, and all the other boats had already passed safely in through the Rip, but Nathaniel's son and grandson would not have been worried, for the south wind was their friend now, filling their sail and speeding them towards the Heads. Until, that is, sudden and treacherous, the south wind spluttered and fell away, and they were becalmed.

‘Swiftly they manned their oars and pulled for the Rip. They might not have understood their true peril yet, but they would have known their situation was hazardous nonetheless – caught outside the Heads with the great out-flowing of the Claw about to begin. No doubt they hoped to cross the Rip before the flood became too great. Meanwhile, many of us from the village had climbed to the heights of East Head overlooking the channel, for upon the dying of the wind we were eager to witness the emptying of the bay, little suspecting the horror that was about to unfold. From that vantage we spied their boat and grasped their intent. Indeed, we cheered them on. If they could but cross the Rip in time . . .