[Flying Dutchman 01] - Castaways of the Flying Dutchman

Ben mentally answered his friend’s idea. “Thanks, pal. Now let’s see if I can discover it without giving away our secret.”

Jon was stroking his beard, looking this way and that.

“Hmm, baptismal font, every church has one, though I’ve never thought of a font being in this old place. Hmmm.”

Ben patted Ned as he lumbered by. He spoke aloud to the dog, so his three friends could hear.

“What’s the matter, old boy, not comfy enough under there? Let’s take a look.” Dropping on all fours, he crawled under the table. “Hahah!”

At the sound of Ben’s exclamation, Amy crouched and stared under the table at him. “Something there?”

“I think so, it’s a sort of raised square bit with a broken part sticking out the middle. Will that be it, Jon?”

The old ship’s carpenter nodded to Alex. “It may be. It may be. Let’s move this table. You take one side. Lass, take care of the two bricks under the leg. Stay there, Ben!”

The table was moved, the boy stayed on all fours by the remnants of the baptismal font, looking up at Amy for approval. Instead, it was the Labrador who received her hug.

“Good old Ned, it was due to you we found it, good boy!”

If a dog could ever smirk, Ned did. He flicked his tail toward his master. “Sorry about that, pal, but credit where it’s due, y’know. Nothing like a hug from a pretty girl, eh!”

But Ben was more intent on solving the mystery than bantering with Ned. He watched Jon trace the graven lettering around the limestone base with his clasp knife blade, reading aloud. “ ‘In nomine Patris, et filius, et spiritus sanctus.’ In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit—I remember that from Sunday Mass when I was a lad. This is it. This stub is probably the column of the font basin. How did the rhyme read, boy?”

“Take the Commandments paces west,

away from the bless’d naming place.”

Alex walked over and stood by the font base. “Ten paces west from here. Anyone got a compass?” He met Jon’s slightly disapproving stare blankly. “How’r we supposed to know which way west is?”

The old ship’s carpenter smiled. “I can tell you’ve never been to sea. Show him, lad.”

Ben faced the open rear windows, warm with afternoon sunlight. “West’s where the sun sets, over there.”

Alex began measuring out ten paces solemnly in the right direction. Amy sat down on the floor beside her strange friend, and whispered to him. “Jon said that as if you’d been to sea. Have you, Ben?”

He tried to shrug off the question. “The sea? Oh, for just a little bit, nothing much really.”

She stared curiously into his clouded blue eyes. It started to race through his mind again—how could he tell her: wind, waves, storm, the world of waters. A dumb boy and a half-starved dog, crouching in the galley of the Flying Dutchman, with a captain (Vanderdecken) roaring oaths at the heavens as he tried battling his way around Cape Horn in the teeth of winter gales. Murder on the high seas, an angel dropping to the deck, the numbing shock of being plunged into an icy green maelstrom of ocean.

He was wrenched back to reality by Jon clapping a huge arm about his shoulders. “Are you all right, lad?”

The feeling ebbed. He shook himself. “Er, yes, mate, I’m fine. Bumped my head on that table when you moved it. I’ll be all right, it’s nothing.”

His dog had caught Ben’s thoughts. To distract Amy he leapt on her and began licking her face.

She tried laughingly to push him off. “Hahaha, what’ve I done to deserve all this? Get off me, you great silly dog!”

Ben shook a finger at her as he held Ned’s collar. “Don’t blame him, Amy, you started all the hugging off!”

Her brother called, “I’m about three feet from the window here. That’s ten paces. What happens now?”

The old ship’s carpenter took over. He paced out ten steps, going past Alex to arrive one pace outside the open windows in the churchyard. “Your pace was shorter than the person who wrote the rhyme, mate. Mine is slightly longer, I think. But it’s somewhere about here.”

They joined him outside in the late afternoon. Amy brought the translation with her, she read the next part.

“To where the heavenly twins stand ever

gazing at Sol’s dying face.”

Alex winked at Jon. “That’s got nothing to do with going to sea, I’ll bet. Come on, mate, let’s see you solve this one!” A real friendship was beginning to show between the hesitant boy and the old carpenter.

Jon ruffled Alex’s hair as he looked around. “Give me a bit of time, matey, we’ll crack it!”

The Labrador snickered as he passed Ben a thought. “The heavenly twins, that could be us!”

The boy struggled to hide a grin. “Heavenly? Not you, mate. Now stop fooling about and help us.”

Amy sat on the windowsill. “Heavenly twins. . . . Maybe it’s those two stars, you know, the sign of Gemini. They’re always called the heavenly twins!”