[Flying Dutchman 01] - Castaways of the Flying Dutchman Read Free

sail!”
    The blue scar contracted as the Burmese smiled. “Aye, aye, Kapitan, we make sail!”
    With floodtide swirling about her hull and the stern fenders scraping against the wharf timbers, the vessel came about facing seaward. Staring ahead into the fog, the captain brought the wheel about half a point and called, “Let go aft!”
    A Finnish sailor standing astern flicked the rope expertly, jerking the noosed end off the bollard which held it. The rope splashed into the water. Shivering in the cold night air, he left it to trail along, not wanting to get his hands wet and frozen by hauling the backstay rope aboard. He ran quickly into the galley and held his hands out over the warm stove.
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    The boy was half in and half out of consciousness, numbed to his bones in the cold sea. He felt the rough manila rope brush against his cheek and seized it. Painfully, hand over hand, he hauled himself upward. When his feet touched ship’s timber, the boy pulled his body clear of the icy sea and found a ledge. He huddled on it, looking up at the name painted on the vessel’s stern in faded, gold-embellished red. Fleiger Hollander.
    He had never learned to read, so the letters meant nothing to him. Fleiger Hollander in Dutch, or had the lad been able to understand English, Flying Dutchman.

2

    MORNING LIGHT FOUND THE FOG HAD lifted, revealing a clear blue icy day. The Flying Dutchman plowed past Goteborg under full sail, ready to round the Skagen point and sail down the Skagerrak out into the wide North Sea. Philip Vanderdecken, captain of the vessel, braced himself on the small fo’c’sle deck, feeling the buck and swell of his ship. Light spray from the bow wave touched his face, ropes and canvas thrummed to the breeze overhead.
    Valparaiso bound, where his share of the green stones would make him a rich man for life, he was never a man to smile, but he allowed himself a single bleak nod of satisfaction. Let the shipowners find another fool to sail this slop-bucket around the high seas. Leave this crew of wharfscum to pit their wits against another captain. He strode from one end of the vessel to the other, snapping curt commands at the surly bunch that manned the craft. Often he would wheel suddenly about—Vanderdecken neither liked nor trusted his crew. Judging by the glances he received and the muttered conversations that ceased at his approach, he knew they were speculating about the trip, plotting against him in some way probably.
    His solution to this was simple: keep the hands busy night and day, show them who was master. Vanderdecken’s quick eye missed nothing; he glanced past the steersman to the ice-crusted rope left trailing astern. Signaling the Finnish deckhand with a nod, he pointed. “Stow that line and coil it, or the seawater will ruin it!”
    The deckhand was about to make some remark; when he noted the challenging look in the captain’s eye, he touched his cap. “Aye aye, Kapitan!”
    Vanderdecken was making his way amidships when the Finn leaned over the stern rail, shouting. “Come look here—a boy, I think he’s dead!”
    All hands hurried to the stern, crowding the rail to see. Pushing his way roughly through, the captain stared down at the crumpled figure on the molding below his cabin gallery. Crouched there was a boy, stiff with seawater and frost.
    Vanderdecken turned to the men, his voice harsh and flat. “Leave him there or push him into the sea, I don’t care.”
    The ship’s cook was a fat, bearded Greek, who had left his galley to see what all the excitement was about. He spoke up.
    â€œI don’t have galley boy. If he’s alive, I take him!”
    The captain gave the cook a scornful glance. “He’d be better off dead than working for you, Petros. Ah, do what you want. The rest of you get back to work!”
    Lumbering down to the stern cabin, Petros opened the window and dragged the