The Palace Library (12 page)

The
Captain emerged from the hold and came running to see them.  “Thank God
you are all still alive.  We’ve lost the Sailing Master and nearly half
the crew.  Those who are left and aren’t injured must work all day if
we’re to survive the night.”

Harry
saw sailors toiling all around him.  So much seemed broken.  Barrels
had broken free from their bindings against the side of the ship and had rolled
across smashing everything in their way, spreading their contents aimlessly as
they went.  He thought they should do something to assist:  “How can
we help, sir?”

The
Captain looked at them, three children and a mute maid.  Instead of being
sarcastic or telling them to go and stay out of the way, as a normal adult
might, he took Harry’s offer at face value.

“I
can spare no men to check the stores until I know the ship is water-tight and
there are no more leaks.  We’ll need food and water.  There are
injured men too who need help.”  All of the crew looked battered and
bruised.  Harry had sore ribs from where Eleanor had landed on him, but he
was clearly in a much better state than many of the crew.  Some of them
had giant splinters in their legs and arms.  Others were crushed and being
laid out in a makeshift hospital amongst the wreckage.  Even the fittest
looking were bruised and battered.

Eleanor
stepped forward and pulled Eloise with her.  “We can do that, can’t
we?  Let’s hope my herbs are still here.  My book is safe under these
robes and was protected from the rain.”  She pulled it out of her pocket
with some relief, unwrapping it.

“We
have no idea where we might be,” added the Captain. “Without some guidance, I
don’t know how we might get back home.  I need to someone to discover
what’s left of the chart room and the compass box.”

“We’ll
do that, sir,” said Harry.  “Come on navigator Grace.  I think it’s
time we showed our worth.”

The
Captain could not be sure what Harry meant by ‘navigator’ Grace, but did not
question it and said, “Thank you.”

While
Eleanor and Eloise went off towards the front of the boat, the bow, to find the
injured and some supplies, Harry and Grace turned towards the stern, to look at
what was left of the chart room and cabins.  Before they did that, they
went up to the poop deck to look for the compass box.  They had seen it
earlier in front of the great tiller that steered the boat, mounted on a pillar
and protected from the elements.  It had not been protected enough. 
It had gone.

Harry
was distressed and said, “We’ll never find our way now, not without a compass.”

“Yes
we will,” said Grace confidently.

“How?”
replied Harry.

Grace
looked around.  She was still nervous about being accused of being a
magician or worse a witch.  “Come down to the chart room and I’ll show
you.”

So,
this time, it was Grace’s turn to lead Harry.

The
chart room was in chaos.  The chart table in the centre of the room had
been bolted to the floor, but all the drawers were thrown open.  The
Captain’s cot had been thrown across the room, and his spare clothes were all
over the floor.

Harry
smiled.

“What
is it?” asked Grace.

“It
looks just like your room at home that time we visited!”

“No
it doesn’t!  Anyway, I’ve no one to help me tidy up at home and now you’re
going to help in here.”  She stuck her tongue out at him.

“Oh,
all right,” Harry answered.  “Now what were you going to show me?”

Grace
pulled the watch and chain from under her neck.  First of all, she opened
the watch.  “I couldn’t wind it up last night.  I hope it still
works.”

She
held the watch to her ear and gratefully heard the sound:  “Tick,
tock
, tick,
tock
, tick,
tock
,” before winding it carefully.  “That’s good.”

“But
how is a watch going to show us where to go?” asked Harry.

“Here’s
how.”  Grace opened the back of the golden pocket watch and held it in the
palm of her hand.  There, beautifully engraved with north, east, south and
west around the side was a tiny compass.

“Now,
if we can find some maps and my star chart, we can work out where to go. 
Easy!” she added confidently.

“Cool. 
You really are a navigator!”

Grace
suddenly looked a little uncertain.  Her eyes began to fill with
tears.  “I don’t think I am,” she said.  “Do you think we’ll ever get
home?”

 “Of
course we will,” he said cheerfully, but quite uncertain himself.  He
hugged her and then added, “Now shall we clear up?” knowing the best thing for
both of them would be to be busy.

It
took them three or four hours.  Once Eloise came in and brought them a
beaker of murky water and some very tough and salty meat to chew.  But the
salt in the meat made them want the water, however murky, and the meagre meal
revived them.  They wanted to ask how things were going, but of course
they wouldn’t understand the answer.  In any case, Eloise did not hang
around long enough.

After
they’d finished tidying, the little chart room looked almost normal - except
for the pile of the Captain’s clothes on the cot.  They both agreed it was
not their job to clear up his clothes, however busy he was.

Then,
they began to look at the charts.  Some had great stains of water all over
them, but others were quite clear.  They looked different to any maps they
had ever seen before.  Even where places were marked that they recognised,
the coastlines were different.  Harry said they looked like Roman
maps:  all wobbly and wrong.

Eventually
Grace said, “I think this is Cornwall on this one, with the sea all around, but
the Scilly Isles aren’t marked.”

“The
Scilly Isles?” asked Harry.

“Yes,”
said Grace.  “I’m sure that’s where Hell’s Bay is.”

Harry
stared at some rough marks on the map. “Maybe it’s here.”

“They
just look like rocks.”

“Well
the whole place was covered in rocks, if you remember.  The boats had to
zigzag all over the place to get to the land at low tide.”

“OK,”
said Harry. “If it is, how do we get to it?”

Grace
was crestfallen again. “I don’t know.”

Then
she added, “Why don’t you look at your silly book.”  But she hit a nerve
with Harry, who was beginning to think his book was rather silly.  He bit
his tongue and swallowed the sharp words he had been about to say.

Instead
he reached into his pocket in the waxed jacket where his slim green book had
been protected from the rain and the storm and said, “Let’s both look at our
books.”

So
they both placed their books on the chart table.   Grace put the
compass next to it and Harry asked a question.  It was similar to a
question he had asked before, but he thought he would try again.  Harry
didn’t see why the book should answer differently this time, “How do we get to
Hell’s Bay?”

There
was plenty of light to see by as Grace had opened the star chart.

The
gothic writing on the page said, “Go outside, use your eyes and look for a
false dawn at night.”  Cryptic as ever, but this was a new answer.

Then
something else happened.  It was as if an invisible hand was
drawing.  Slowly, ragged lines appeared and joined each other to form an
island.  Then another.  Then more lines appeared and a funny symbol
appeared like a little child drawing the sun with rays all round.

Harry
was watching this when Grace said, “Harry.  The stars have changed. 
And the watch.  The hands keep moving from one time to another.  From
the time now to half past nine.”

Harry
looked at the stars projected onto the ceiling and then at the watch. 
Then Grace looked at Harry’s book.  “It’s a map,” she said.  “It’s
much better than these charts.  And there’s the volcano.”

“How
can you tell?” asked Harry.

“It’s
smoking,” said Grace.  “Volcanoes always smoke from the top of them.”

Then
Harry looked again, and saw that it really was smoking.  The funny symbol
had changed into a tiny little mountain climbing out of the page.  “Our
books are working together Grace.  We should’ve known we need to act as a
team.  We’re nearly there.  We just need to think and work it
out.  What do you think we do next?”

Grace
looked at Harry as if he was simple,  “Come on, Harry.  We ‘go
outside and use our eyes.’  It’s obvious. Your book told you.”

“What are you doing?” asked
Harry.

They
had come up onto the deck and again they had used what was left of the old ship
compass housing as a makeshift table.  Grace was lying down on the deck
looking at the sky.  Sophie had trotted across to join them and lay next
to Grace with her legs in the air, looking intently upwards as well.

“I’m
trying to see the stars and work out how to use this all together now.”

Harry
looked at the sky.  He couldn’t see anything from the star chart there at
all.  It was quite unlike the effect indoors where the star book threw its
light strongly on the ceiling.  It was daylight and as far as Harry was
concerned, they couldn’t see a thing, which was probably just as well since
they had both forgotten about avoiding showing off their magic books in front
of the crew.

“I
can’t see anything at all,” said Harry.

“I
can,” replied Grace, “but only just.  Look - there’s Sirius, the Dog
Star.  It’s one of the brightest.  We’ll have to try again when it’s
dark.”  She stood up and they went to find the others.

During
the time they had been clearing up the chart room, the rest of the ship had
been busy.  Things had been tied down properly and there was a sail on the
remaining mast.  Once again there was a man at the tiller, and the Captain
was instructing the crew to set sail.  Everyone was exhausted but the ship
was seaworthy and could sail.  Once again the movement of the ship became
gracious, rather than sick-making.

The
Captain gathered up the children and Edwin, and took them to the chart
room.  He would have asked Eloise as well, but she could not be seen.

“We’re
lucky to be alive.  Thank you for all your help, but I must tell you our
mission is at an end.  Without a compass, we can do little other than
navigate home.  Since the wind blew us west, we’ll turn back to find
England, but that in itself will be difficult enough.”

“We’ve
come too far to fail now,” said Edwin.  “We must go on.”

“It’s
not that I don’t have the will to go on,” said the Captain.  “It’s just
that we can’t navigate without a compass, especially to a place no one has
heard of!”  He was angry now, from exhaustion and from his own inability
to achieve anything other than survival.

“It’s
time to show him, Grace.  He needs to know and then we can work together
again,” said Harry.

Eleanor
was looking at them both, but she guessed she knew it was time to trust the
Captain with the knowledge of their books and nodded.  Sophie made it
clear she agreed too with a wag of her tail.

So
Grace and Harry opened up their books and the Captain marvelled at them. 
He looked at the watch with the compass and said he had never seen such things
before.  “Where did they come from?” he asked.

The
children looked at each other and Harry just said, “They were gifts.”

“Well,”
said the Captain, “We must use them wisely.”  He put his thumb on the
chart that showed Cornwall.  I know of these rocky islands.  All
sailors avoid them.  There’s nothing useful there. The ground around is
too shallow.  There are just wrecks of those who’ve gone too close. 
But if we must go there, we must.”

“That’s
better,” grumbled Edwin.  “Something positive.”

“But
how can we use the knowledge?” asked Grace.

“The
Sailing Master would have been more use to us, but we can only mourn him,”
answered the Captain.  “But here is a guess from watching the skies at
night for 30 years.  The stars move all the time, but at the same time
every day the same stars appear in the same place.  Your magic clock shows
two different times.  What if one of them gives the time and the star
chart gives the map of the sky at that time at the place of our
destination.  It would be powerful magic indeed.  The problem will be
how to use that knowledge.”

“I
think you’re right,” said Grace, suddenly excited, “And I know how to do
it.  We need to take the book outside and try to make the stars on the
book match up with the stars in the sky and sail in the right direction. 
If the time on the watch matches with the real time, and the stars match we’ll
be in the right place.  But it’ll need to be dark.  And we can use
the compass to go in the right direction.”

The
Captain nodded, thinking it through. “That might work, but I still worry about
the rocks and how we avoid them.  And we must pray for a clear night so
that we can see the real stars.”