Signals of Distress Read Free Page A

dry over the disturbed sand. She’d
gathered three more loads of weed before the seine boats of the fishermen appeared beyond the bar and breathless Miggy, her breeches caked in mud, her pulse quickened by the run and what was
promised by the Belle , reappeared amongst the kelp, the wreckage and the cattle on the beach.
    O NE MAN – Nathaniel Rankin, a seaman from Boston – was dead, concussed by falling timber in the night and drowned. But sixteen had survived.
They had been fortunate to end up on the bar. The three seine boats that came to rescue them were secured to the Belle ’s hull in water hardly deep enough for their keels. The dozen
oarsmen helped the Americans to climb into the boats. They wrapped the men in blankets and gave them corn-brandy in water from their flasks. Comstock brought his charts and letters of command. He
ought, perhaps, to leave a crew aboard or stay aboard himself. He ought to love his ship more than he loved his own life, but he didn’t. The gear was clewed and stowed. The sails were off.
The larboard bow was holed, but it wasn’t shipping much water. Yet. What else was there to do? He dignified himself and called down from the damaged deck, ‘I trust you gentlemen will
help us salvage what we can when we are warm and dry.’
    There were a dozen cries of ‘Yes!’ They all were keen to get back on the Belle again. Next time they’d charge a fee.
    ‘There’s one more man,’ Comstock added. ‘I ought to be the last to leave. We’ve got one injured party, on the orlop. Three men can shift him out.’
    He took command and pointed at the nearest three – a boatman called Henry Dolly, his wildly weathered, dark-haired son, Palmer, and one of their casual hands, an old and silent bachelor
known locally as Skimmer. They followed Shipmaster Comstock below decks to Otto’s berth. When the cattle had been driven into the sea, a crewman had released him from his chain and wrapped
him in his palliasse to keep him warm. The cloth, to some extent, had stemmed the blood. The wound and swelling on his forehead were mauve. His ankle was stiff and raw with pus. He was conscious
but inert. Only one eye opened. Only one eye could.
    ‘Are you sleeping, Otto?’ Comstock said. He was embarrassed by the silence and the stares of the three men. Perhaps they blamed him for the wounds. But they were speechless from
surprise. They’d never seen an African before. The darkest they encountered was a youth like Palmer, a ripened russet face with sable hair. They weren’t used to this topography. They
couldn’t tell his age or temperament or judge his character. His hair was like black chimney moss. He seemed to have a woman’s lips. He hardly had a nose. They were reluctant to hold
him by his arms and legs. They couldn’t bring themselves to touch his skin. Instead they lifted Otto in his palliasse. He was a very heavy man, and it took twenty minutes negotiating the
carcasses of cows, the timber debris and the companion ladders, before they reached the deck. They put him in the Dolly boat and pushed off for the beach. Already there were forty people and a
dozen carts waiting with Rosie and Miggy Bowe. Two wagon-harnessed horses and one horse ridden by the agent, Walter Howells, and made frisky by the irritation of a loosening shoe, stood on the
shingle with their backs against the sea. It was too cold to wade in to help the Americans ashore. They had to manage it themselves – except that when one older man, John Peacock, fell into
the water, Walter Howells, to some derision mixed with cheers, rode his horse into the breakers and hauled the sailor out by the collar of his cork safety-jacket. ‘Save a sailor from the
sea,’ someone recited, ‘And he will prove your enemy. He’ll have, once he is out of water, Your life, your money and your daughter!’
    Otto was not touched. Comstock threw sea-water in his face to rouse him. Otto found the energy to swing his damaged legs across the