[Flying Dutchman 01] - Castaways of the Flying Dutchman

The captain laid a short, fat musket on the table. It had six stubby barrels, which could discharge simultaneously at one pull of the trigger. A pepperpot musket of the type often used in riots with devastating effect in enclosed spaces.

“Aye, your eyes are too honest to lie, boy. Stay here, lock the door, and admit nobody but myself.” Concealing the weapon beneath his tattered cloak, the Dutchman swept out of the galley.

Locking the door securely, the boy, trembling, was left with his dog. They sat staring at one another, Denmark laying his head upon his young master’s lap, gazing up at him with anxious eyes.

Neb had no idea how long he sat thus, awaiting the report of the fearsome musket. But none came. He thought that maybe the crew had overcome their harsh captain and thrown him overboard. The boy’s eyes began to close in the galley’s warmth, when Denmark stood up, suddenly alert. Somebody banged on the door, and a voice called out.

“Open up, boy, it’s your captain!”

Trembling with relief, Neb unbolted the door. Vanderdecken strode in and sat at the table. “Bring my log-book, quill, and ink from my cabin.”

Whilst he made more coffee, Neb listened to Vanderdecken intoning as he wrote in the ship’s log:

“We sail back to Cape Horn at dawn’s first light. This time the Flying Dutchman will make it ’round the Horn. Every man will be on deck working. Tonight I quelled a mutiny among the crew; now there are no voices raised against my command. Sindh, a Burmese deckhand, was the ringleader. He no longer has to wait until we get back to Copenhagen for judgment and execution. Using my authority as captain to stem mutiny and preserve good order aboard the vessel, I summarily tried and hanged him myself!”

Vanderdecken glanced up from his writing at Neb’s horrified face. For the first time the boy saw what appeared to be a smile on the captain’s face. “If ever you command a ship, which isn’t very likely, always remember this, boy, should the voyage prove risky and the returns valuable, it is wise to sign up your crew from all nations. That way they lack any common bond. A disunited crew is the easiest one to control. Take my word for it.”

Those were the last words Vanderdecken spoke that night. He slept sitting in the chair, the pepperpot musket on the table in front of him.

Neb and Denmark lay down together near the stove by the far bulkhead, watching the strange man. Red reflections from the galley stove fire illuminated his harsh features: they never once relaxed, not even in sleep.

Four days later the Flying Dutchman was off the coast of Tierra del Fuego again, with Vanderdecken as steersman and all hands on deck, striving in the depths of midwinter to round the cape once more. It was sheer madness and folly to attempt such an undertaking at that time of year, but none dared say so. Armed with sword and musket, the captain drove his crew like slaves. Sleep was snatched in two-hour shifts, rations were reduced to half fare, men were constantly forced aloft to cut away, repair, or adjust battered rigging.

Neb was kept on his feet night and day, rationing out boiling coffee, cooking the meager scraps that were the crew’s diet and battling constantly to keep the galley dry and the fire going. It was extra difficult, because most hands slept there now—under the table, on empty sacks in all four corners, catching what rest they could until lashed out by the knotted rope end of Mister Vogel, the mate.

Vanderdecken drove himself even harder than his crew, retiring only briefly once a night to his cold, stern cabin and eating both little and infrequently.

Neb had never imagined the sea more wild and cruel. Under the hurricane-force winds, icicles formed sideways, sticking out like daggers astern. There was no lee side to anything on Cape Horn. Now and again, through the sheeting mixture of sleet and rain, the coast could be glimpsed. Gigantic dark rocks, with a nimbus of ice and spray framing them, looked for all the world like prehistoric sea monsters, waiting to devour anything that sailed too close. Cold and wet became a thing that had to be lived with. Some of the crew lost fingers and toes to frostbite, two of them on the same day fell from the rigging to their deaths in the bedlam of freezing waves. Sometimes Neb imagined he could hear thunder in the distance, or was it just the boom of tidal-size waves, crashing upon the coastal rocks?

Driven forward one day, then twice as far back the next, the ship tacked sideways and often turned completely about, sails filling to bursting, then slacking with tremendous slapping sounds. Half the cargo of ironware was jettisoned into the sea to keep the vessel afloat. One morning Neb was recruited to join a party in the midships hold, where groaning timbers were leaking water into the hatch space. All day he spent there, plugging away at the cracks with mallet, flat chisel, and lengths of heavy tarred rope they called oakum.