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Rough Passage to London(18)

By:Robin Lloyd


Morgan persisted.

“But this old salt who found me spoke with the sailor who sailed with my brother. He told me that this John Taylor quoted scripture, something from Jonah.”

Old Jeremiah stroked the long strands of his gray beard. He said nothing as he continued to look out at the sea, his thin nostrils moving, sniffing the breeze like a dog.

“Now that’s a different pannikin of wine altogether. There’s the Devil’s mischief in those hogsheads. Do you know what a Jonah is, son?”

Morgan shook his head.

“A Jonah is a sailor who brings bad luck. Sometimes the only way to overcome that misfortune is to sacrifice that sailor.”





5





1824

Morgan looked around the darkness of the forecastle. The wet sailors dressed in their damp oilskins were silent, gathered in small groups under the glow of a single gimbaled lantern. The ship was pitching and heaving. The summer storm had pushed them far off course into the Bay of Biscay, and as a result the mood was grim. As he scanned the weathered faces of the men in the gloom of the dark forecastle, Morgan’s mind wandered back. Two years had passed since he first had stepped on board the Hudson. After eight voyages across the Atlantic, he was now an apprentice sailor. He was strong and nimble as a squirrel in the rigging. The bristly stubble on his face and the thickness of his neck were testament to his growth from boy to man. His muscular arms and shoulders were tattooed, a compass rose on his left shoulder and an anchor on his right. Two signs of hope, he had told Hiram. His friend had scoffed at him and proudly showed off the big-breasted mermaids he had tattooed on his two shoulders. “These doxies are all the hope I need,” he said. Like many of the sailors, they both chewed tobacco now, regularly sharing each other’s quids as a sign of their friendship.

In the flickering yellow light of the forecastle, all eyes, including Morgan’s, were now on Jeremiah, who was talking like a biblical prophet. The old tar’s deeply creased face looked like a badly rutted country road. A thin white scar ran across the bridge of his nose, crisscrossing the deep fissures that traveled across his forehead. On his head he wore a headband and a leather hat. His stone blue eyes were sunken into his head, and in that yellow light, with his imposing gray beard, he seemed to Morgan to be a man possessed.

“The storm petrels done come alongside the ship and are riding the wind with us,” he muttered. “I reckon they’re warning us about this here storm.”

The lantern’s light reflected onto Jeremiah’s face, as he ominously held up a small dark bird with white plumage on its tail. Its head was bloody, its eyes still and lifeless. He paused for a few moments as if for dramatic effect.

“I ’ave found one of them petrels lying on the deck. It’s dead.”

The men stared at the lifeless bird. They had just come off watch. A heavy rain had driven them into the safety of the damp forecastle. Most of them were still in their dripping oilskins. They were wet and hungry. Within minutes, most of them were reaching into their hiding places and pulling out the rum bottles that were forbidden on board ship. The forecastle was filled with the gray haze of tobacco smoke, adding to a sense of foreboding.

“It’s no good that dead bird ain’t,” Jeremiah intoned. “I’ll warrant it means considerable misfortune. Any of you men know of any dead sailors who had something troubling their souls?”

Instead of the swearing and coughing that usually filled this damp, dark underworld, there was a strange silence. Morgan thought how cursed this voyage had been. They had been becalmed for days in the English Channel. The ground swell and the pull of the tide had carried them into the Sea of Iroise near the coast of France. They had almost run up on the rocks off the deadly coast of Brittany near the islands of Ouessant and Molène. Now a bad sea had kicked up, and it was clear to all aboard that a big storm was brewing. The captain had tried to reach across the English Channel toward the Scilly Islands, but the winds and the waves had knocked them down to the south, forcing them far off course into the Bay of Biscay. It was as if the Devil himself didn’t want them to complete this voyage.

This passage had started well under fair skies and freshening wind just one week ago on the first of July. The Hudson had floated down the Thames, the stars and stripes fluttering over the mizzen peak, colorful pennants streaming from her masts and rigging. It was the official inaugural voyage of the new London Line, a loose-knit business partnership between Grinnell and Minturn’s Red Swallowtail Line and John Griswold’s company, the Black X Line. The X was for express, signifying fast, dependable delivery of the mailbags, passengers, and cargo across the Atlantic between London and New York. Along with the Red Swallowtail Line, the Black X Line now joined the other American packet lines to England—the Red Star, the Blue Swallowtail, and the Black Ball. There were other American ships, of course, that traveled to Liverpool and London, but they were freighters, not packets. Morgan had felt a surge of pride run through him.