Nobody's Slave Read Online Free PDF

his hands for another roar.
    ‘What ship?’
    But it was some time before they could answer that. The ship vanished into a trough, and then the squall that had been following came upon them, blackening out the sky utterly, and lashing them with wind and hail, so that they could hardly see twenty yards, and did not notice when the reefed foresail was split to rags, so busy were they holding on. But at last it passed, and while grim seamen on the foremast struggled to replace the sail, a freak shaft of sunlight caught the distant ship, and Tom thought he recognised the red and gold quartering of the Angel , the smallest ship of the fleet, scarce bigger than the ferry that crossed from Dartmouth to Kingswear.
    ‘There you are!’ he laughed at Simon, when they had called down to the deck below. ‘If she can survive in this, surely we can! I'll wager there are worse storms still, after this!’
    But it hardly seemed so. After a while Master Barrett called them down, another wild climb in which Simon twice clung to the shrouds in terror, unable to  move his hands or feet until Tom unfastened his terrified fingers one by one and moved his hand to the next rope below. Even though they tried to time it carefully, when they reached the ship’s waist they were caught in a swirl of green and white water that surged around their thighs and washed Simon up against the lee bulwarks. But when they reached the quarterdeck there was no chance of rest.
    ‘Get away below to the carpenter!’ the Master yelled. ‘All hands needed to plug the leaks!’
    Below deck, the sudden stillness of the air in the sheltered cabin seemed to wrap around them like a soft, blessed blanket. But the wild motion of the lurching ship continued, and the darkness made it worse. In the great cabin it was not so bad, for some light came in through the streaming stern windows, to illuminate two of the gentlemen who lay slumped, green with misery, on the floor; but below, on the gundeck, the only light was that of a lantern. It swung crazily from a hook above their heads, and sent huge shadows of the struggling men there leaping around the walls.
    It was not quite the only light. As Tom looked where the men were working under the direction of the ship’s carpenter, he saw a truly terrible sight. The ship’s timbers around the great oaken sternpost actually moved apart, leaving a gap as wide as a man's hand, or even wider! And through these gaps came huge torrential bursts of white water which brought fish – live fish! – flapping and swimming round their feet. The sternpost had the massive girth of a young oak, and the beams that joined it were little smaller, yet the sea was forcing them apart, like a child poking its fingers through a basket. The seamen were plugging the gaps with sails, and rolls and bolts of the precious cloth they had brought to trade with.
    ‘More cloth! Here, you two lads, come with me!' A small, hard hand gripped Tom's shoulder, steadying him against a further lurch of the ship and pulling the two boys back along the deck, to where another madly swinging lantern lit the hatch down into the further depths of the hold.
    A leap of the lantern showed the twinkling eyes, dark curling hair and reddish beard of Francis Drake, the Master's mate, another cousin of his. Francis was a short sturdy man with a loud laugh and endless energy who had been at sea for most of his twenty-five years, learning his trade like a common sailor, the tough way.
    ‘Come on, lads, let's get that cloth! Woa, catch young Simon!’
    Another combined pitch and roll of the ship sent Simon slithering into them, so that for a moment all three cousins hung there under the lantern together, held in place only by Francis's grip on a beam above his head. They formed a picture: the short, burly, bearded Francis; the sturdy, auburn Tom already as nearly as big, though ten years younger; and the slight, pale Simon, gasping with exhaustion like a fish out of water, skinny as