Nobody's Slave Read Online Free PDF Page B

a child beside them.
    They waited until the ship steadied, then, Francis first, all three clambered down the ladder into the hold. A sudden torrent of water came sluicing after them from the stern, drenching Tom's head and shoulders as he climbed down.
    The noise in the hold was worse, if anything, than that above. But it was a cacaphony of different sounds; here the screech and groan of tortured timber was only the background to the squeals and bleats of the pigs, goats, and fowls who were kept in the manger forward, and the bangs and clanks of the pumps that four groups of sailors laboured at without pause, up and down, trying to throw back into the sea a dribble of the surge that poured relentlessly through the gaping seams and down the hatches, washing around their feet to mock them as they worked.
    ‘I ... I can't. It's ... eeeeeugh!’ Tom bumped into Simon at the foot of the ladder and felt the tight, thin back bent in a violent retching that could bring no relief to a stomach long empty. Even Tom himself, his head bent below the beams in the semi-darkness, close and hot because of the lack of space and the sweat of the men and animals, felt a brief spasm of sickness here. He felt an urge to escape, to climb into the free, wild wind, rather than go down into the hold after Francis. Tom was not used to feeling doubt or fear, even for a moment; it made him impatient, so that he kicked Simon, and dragged him roughly upright by the hair.
    ‘Stop that, you great child! We need the cloth, or the whole ship'll founder, never mind you!’
    ‘But ... all right.’ Simon put up a hand weakly to clutch the roof, and stumbled ahead, past the barrels of food and powder, to where Francis was heaving at a great bolt of cloth.
    'Here, you lads. Take that between you! I'll bring another!'
    It was best English broadcloth, woven in Taunton and loaded with great expense and care only two weeks before, in Plymouth; now it was twice as heavy, sodden with seawater, fit only to be stuffed between the gaping planks of a near-sinking ship. It took the boys an age to lug it along the lurching deck to the ladder; and when it was there, it was all they and Francis combined could do to drag it up to the gundeck, where the sudden surge of water and shouts of men in the stern seemed louder than ever.
    A rush of men fell on the cloth, cutting and folding it under the direction of Francis and the sailmaker, while the carpenter and others struggled to ram and nail each plug into place in the brief moments when each gap was open without the water pouring in. Twice more Tom and Simon went below to fetch cloth; but it was heartless, dreadful work, and worse for those plugging the gaps. One man lost his fingers when the timbers shut together, and a while later, when the great gap by the sternpost was at last filled, a huge sea burst through one of the gunports, smashing its lid and half-drowning them all.
    But there was nothing for it but to start all over again; that and pray, or drown. Tom had long since lost his joy of the storm, and when he saw the slight, dapper figure of Admiral Hawkins among them, he was hardly surprised at the way young Simon cried out to him.
    ‘Oh, Master Hawkins! It’ll end soon, won't it, sir? Say 'twill end! We'll all drown, else!’
    John Hawkins clung to the truck of the mizzen mast as the ship rolled alarmingly, peering around in the swaying shadows of lantern-lit gloom. He was a lithe, slender man, not above average height, and younger than many of the seamen he commanded; yet he was courtier, admiral, merchant-adventurer. It was he who had persuaded the Queen to lend them this great ship, as she had lent it before; he who invested in the venture and had pioneered the way twice before across the wild ocean; he who dared assert England's rights to trade with her dangerous ally, Spain; he who bore responsibility for success or failure; so it seemed hardly absurd that Simon should think he could conjure the weather, too,