My cabin was cast in an eerie white glow. No sun could penetrate that thick, freezing fog pressing against the stern windows, and what little light did filter through the glass behind me was cold and colourless.
The old yellowing sea charts rustled slightly as my pencil scratched over the surface, tracing the line of the sea current south from our last known position.
“The rot has set into the peas and grain too, Captain,” Thomas reported. “The salt pork and klippfisk seem to have escaped it, but without fresh water to draw out the salt, we’d be better off chewing on our boots.”
“The current should take us straight into Bear Island,” I said, my eyes still fixed on the chart. “By then we’ll have cleared the ice. As soon as we catch sight of that rock, we’ll sight a bearing and run the latitude south until we hit Norway. A true line will bring us straight to Tromsø. But God willing, this fog will have cleared, and our compasses righted long before then.”
“That’s going to take too long!” Nils exclaimed, his eyes following the line I’d just drawn. “By your reckoning, at one knot, it’s going to take two days to reach Bear Island. Then, under full sail and with a favourable wind, Tromsø is a further two days out. Without water, the men will be dead long before we see our families.”
“Put the boats out,” Jens’ voice rattled, his unblinking, glassy stare never left me. “Fetch the ice.”
“Have you lost your mind, man?” Nils snapped, his eyes fixed on me. “We can barely see our hands in front of us out there. Drop the boats in this and they’ll be lost.”
“Tether them,” I said, my eyes sweeping across the three men standing hunched and crowded in my cramped cabin. “Tether the boats to the ship. The men can hook any passing growlers or scrape the snow from the lower floes.”
I knew it was a desperate gamble. While melting young sea ice would be no better than drinking the ocean itself, older ice or the packed snow from the tops of the floes would be fresh.
The echo of the pistol cracked in the air, ringing in my ears.
“Ice at three-quarter mile.” The crisp call from the crow’s nest floated down to the quarterdeck.
The ice lanes were closing in, but we still had time.
“Nils, drop the boats,” I called out.
“Heave!” Nils’ voice drifted through the fog as two whaleboats were lowered over the side. With the creak of the pulley blocks filling the air, twelve men vanished into the white abyss below. Thick hemp lines ran out from the bows of the vessels, snaking their way through the ship’s scuppers and finally securing tightly to the thick mooring bitts on deck.
“Port boat is waterborne,” Christian’s voice carried from the port side bulwarks, where his small team groaned and strained against the heavy ropes.
“Starboard boat in too,” Nils replied from across the deck, where he stood with the Larson twins. “Keep vigilant on watch!” he cried out, his voice echoing above the creaking timbers. “If any large floes come within a quarter mile, we haul the boats up until they’re clear. I don’t want them getting crushed down there because you lads got caught napping.”
For the next three hours, I paced the deck.
Wrapped in a suffocating, bone-chilling white shroud, our world had been reduced to a few hundred feet of icy timber. The gruff shouts of sailors, the groan and creak of timbers and the regular crack of the watchman’s pistol were the only sounds in that otherwise eerie silence. Then, cutting through the gloom came the distant thud, thud, thud of picks grinding against ice, drifting up from the abyss.
The frigid air crept under our woollens, biting and gnawing at our joints.
Nils moved with disciplined purpose, footsteps crunching as he went from post to post, his voice low but clear, ensuring that every member of the skeleton crew knew their duty.
Jens marched the length of the deck, boots thudding heavily back and forth. His eyes were fixed only forward, his lips pressed tightly in silence.
Then the hacking of the picks stopped.
“Erik! Johan!” Nils’ voice called out. “Take the starboard line. Haul them up and see what they’ve managed to get.”
As one, the twins ran to the rope. Their hands closed around it and gave a great heave.
The rope didn’t resist. The two men stumbled backward, losing their footing and crashing onto the deck.
“There’s nothing on the end of it.” Johan’s voice quivered. “They’ve slipped the line.”
My stomach lurched, a cold knot tightening as I scrambled for the rope.
Grabbing the severed end and holding it up, it was clear to see that the fibres weren’t frayed or worn; they had been sheared flat and clean.
The rope hadn’t snapped under strain. It had been deliberately cut with a blade.
“Christian, this has been cut!” my voice tore out, raw and grating, scraping in my throat. “Check the port boat!”
“The same here, Captain,” his shaking voice answered. “Cut through with a knife.”
My knees buckled beneath me, tumbling to the deck. My heart pounded, each beat loud against my eardrums.
Then, through the oppressive grey gloom came a sound that sent a shiver crawling down my spine. The dim, muffled clang of a ship’s bell.
Once, twice… twenty times it tolled. Each one a hollow echo rolling over the ice-covered sea.
Twenty tolls for twenty dead men.
On my hands and knees, the world melted into a blur around me. I hardly noticed the bitter chill that snapped at my fingers or the splinters that had somehow managed to burrow through the thick canvas of my oilskin trousers.
Erik’s screams thundered across the deck, but his words just slipped through my mind like a mainsheet through oiled blocks.
Two-thirds of my crew were dead by my hand. Two-thirds dead by my stupid, insatiable greed. They had called me their captain. I had played the part, but the whole time I’d had my own interests at heart. I wasn’t worthy of that honour. I wasn’t even worthy of scraping the greasy blubber from the salt-crusted decks.
Suddenly, rough, mittened hands grabbed my shoulders forcefully, yanking me upright.
“Captain!” Christian screamed, red-faced just inches from me. “Trouble in midship, Captain! You’re needed below, now!”
It was then that Erik’s words finally crashed into my mind.
The Jonah!
My hands slid down the tarred hand rope. The rough yarns burnt my palms. My feet slipped on the wooden rungs as I took them two or three at a time. From the dim gloom below me, the din of angry cries boomed.
Below, Thomas stood in front of his bunk, the wicked, spike-tipped walking cane held out before him.
“He’s just a boy!” the old man shouted, his body quivering. “You’ll have to kill me before I’ll let you lay another finger on him!”
“I don’t see that being too much trouble, Engelskpakk,” Erik snarled, stepping forward with a heavy, iron marline spike gripped tightly in his hand.
“Nils, stand the men down!” my voice resounded off the low beams as I barked the order.
Nils moved quickly from his position in the corner. Elbowing a path through the half-dozen men crowding the narrow sleeping compartment.
“No, Captain,” Nils said, his voice tight as he stepped beside the Larson twins. “I’ve followed you. I’ve taken your orders regardless of their sanity. But this is too much. The fog. The compasses. The rot. We’ve all seen things we can’t explain, but nothing like this. It’s not natural.”
Nils fixed me with a stony glare, his eyes sharp and unyielding as he spoke. “What about the boats today? Someone cut those lines. Has the boy still got the rigging knife you found him with? You brought a corpse and a Jonah onto this ship. He’s the curse, and we’ll not be rid of its ill fortune until he’s cast overboard.”
“He can’t walk!” Thomas protested, his voice cracking with desperation. “How can he—”
Suddenly Johan’s fist slammed into the old man’s stomach with a sickening thud, forcing him to crumple to the deck with a muffled grunt.
Silence fell heavily over us, the men fixing me with narrow, piercing glares.
Click. Crack.
Nils’ eyes rolled back into his skull, his body toppling backwards as a crimson stain spread across his forehead.
“You will obey your captain,” Jens’ voice rasped dryly from over my shoulder, his blank stare fixed on the remaining men, a still smoking pistol held firmly in his grip.