Kydd, knocked to his knees, was disoriented at first but saw the quartermaster leap to the fire-axe on the mizzen-mast and begin a frenzied hacking at the tangled mass of rope and torn canvas. Coming to his senses, he threw a glance up. The driver gaff had given way at the jaws, the hinging point of the long spar that ran out from the mizzen-mast along the top of the big fore-and-aft sail, then had tumbled down, rending the sail and leaving severed lines streaming out to leeward.
Crushing from his mind the knowledge of the men in the sea gasping out the last of their lives, he tried to think.
The ship was now unbalanced, beginning a fishtail slewing with canvas on fore and main only – Gilbey at the main-mast and Curzon forward would know to douse sail instantly, but where did that leave them? As near as, damn it, helpless. As if to underscore his thoughts, L’Aurore sheered to take the wind broadside; she rolled deeply and uncontrollably for she had no canvas to steady her, locked now in a drifting curve that would end in her drawn to destruction in the hurricane’s heart – the penalty for not yet having won clear of the dangerous semicircle.
In some way balancing canvas had to be bent to the mizzen-mast, but all spars and rigging had been snatched to ruin by the plunging spar and there was nothing left on which to set any kind of fore-and-aft sail of the kind needed. It was now desperate, and minutes counted before they were drawn too far in to set anything to claw their way out. The life of every soul aboard was in his hands. What was he to do?
Unaccountably a picture came to him of L’Aurore lying peacefully at anchor in Port Royal, the sun high and baking hot, but on the quarterdeck there was relief in the shadow cast by the tautly spread awning. At first he couldn’t see it – then, marvellously, he understood. The awning was of the thickest grade of canvas and not too dissimilar in shape to the ruined driver, but more than that, its design incorporated a euphroe, a piece of shaped wood that allowed multiple lines to be secured to it.
He had his sail; with the euphroe, a single block could be used to haul it up in the hammering blast and its foot could be spread by the fallen boom.
‘Mr Oakley!’ he yelled at the boatswain, who was heaving frantically at the wreckage. ‘Take a crew and rouse out the quarterdeck awning.’
The distracted man goggled at him in horror and Kydd realised he must have thought his captain had taken leave of his senses. He shouted a hurried explanation and the boatswain raced to obey. Messengers were sent to the two forward masts to prepare to get under way again while the remainder of the wreckage was cut away.
The block? Someone had to mount the shrouds to the mizzen-top to secure one tightly there or all would be in vain. Kydd gave another, searching, look up. There was the throat halliard that had previously held the jaw – it was a tackle of two blocks, now with the lower torn away, leaving the upper. It was in place. It would do.
But how? A line had to be reeved through and sent down again to the ‘sail’ for hauling up but that line had to be strong, very strong – and therefore thick and heavy. Who could take such a weight up the shrouds one-handed? No one.
In despair Kydd saw his idea fading on the practicalities. Cudgelling his wits he came up with a solution: a pair of seamen with a light line mounting opposite shrouds. They would use this to haul up the tail of the heavy rope, reeve it through and send it down. That was it, blast it!
He glanced about to select those he would send. There was Poulden at his post by the wheel. It was insanely dangerous work, but the man was a natural seaman. Another? Then a mad thought entered. It was his idea: had he the right to order others into such peril? The answer, of course, was that he had the right and the duty, but a stubborn streak took possession of him.
‘Poulden!’ he bellowed, beckoning to him.
Catching something of the urgency, his coxswain hurried up. Kydd laid out his plan. Without any change of expression, Poulden crossed to the fallen gaff and reached out for the end, snagging the signal halliards. He cut off a length, coiling it around his body, leaped to the shrouds and started mounting them.
Kydd, taking the opposite side, launched himself up. Clear of the deck, the wind was frightful, bullying and wrenching as he climbed, doing all it could to tear him from his hold. He reached the futtock shrouds and discreetly took the lubber’s hole route into the top to find Poulden grimly hanging on at each sickening roll, which, magnified by height, always ended in a brutal jerking.
The line went down to where, below, the boatswain was completing the euphroe double seizing. It was grabbed and the heavier rope bent on. Kydd grasped Poulden’s belt as he used both hands to bring up the line, and then they had it.