Enders immediately barked orders to lower more sail. Hunter knew that could only mean one thing: they were very close to the reef passage. He squinted forward into the glare, but still could see nothing.
“Linemen! Starboard and larboard!” shouted Enders, and soon after, two men at either side of the bow began to alternate shouted soundings. The first unnerved Hunter. “Full five!”
Five fathoms - thirty feet - was already shallow water. El Trinidad drew three fathoms, so there was not much to spare. In shoal waters, coral undersea outcroppings could easily rise a dozen feet from the bottom in irregular patterns. And the sharp coral would tear the wooden hull like paper.
“Cinq et demi” came the next cry. That was better. Hunter waited.
“Full six and more!”
He breathed a little easier. They must have passed the outer reef - most islands had two, a shallow inner reef and a deeper one offshore. They would have a short space of safe water now, before they reached the dangerous inside reef.
“Moins six!” came the cry.
It was already growing more shallow. Hunter turned again to look at Lazue, high on the mainmast. Her body was leaning forward, relaxed, almost indifferent. He could not see her expression.
…
LAZUE’S BODY WAS indeed relaxed; it was so limp she was in danger of falling from her high post. Her arms gripped the top railing lightly as she leaned forward; her shoulders were slumped; every muscle sagged.
But her face was tight and pinched, her mouth pulled back into a fixed grimace, her teeth clamped together as she squinted into the glare. She held her eyes nearly shut and she had been doing this for so long that her lids fluttered with tension. This might have been distracting, but Lazue was not even aware of it for she had long ago slipped into a kind of trance state.
Her world consisted of two black shapes - the island ahead and the bow of the ship just beneath her. Separating them was a flat expanse of shimmering, excruciatingly bright sunlit water, which fluttered and sparkled in a hypnotic pattern. She could see almost no detail in that surface.
Occasionally, she had a glimpse of coral outcroppings awash. They appeared as brief black spots in the blinding white glare.
At other times, during lulls in the gusting wind, she had a momentary image of eddies and currents, which swirled the uniform pattern of sparkles.
Otherwise, the water was opaque, blinding silver. She guided the ship through this shimmering surface entirely by memory, for she had marked, in her mind, the position of shallow water, coral heads, and sand bars more than half an hour ago, when the ship was farther offshore and the water ahead was clear. She had made a detailed mental image using landmarks on the shore and in the water itself.
Now, by looking directly down at the water passing amidships - which was transparent - she could gauge El Trinidad ’s position relative to her mental image. Far below, she saw a round head of brain coral, resembling a gargantuan clump of cauliflower, pass on the port side. She knew that meant they would have to bear north; she extended her right arm, and watched as the black silhouette of the bow nosed around, and waited until they were in line with a dead palm tree on the shore. Then she dropped her hand; Enders held the new course.
She squinted ahead. She saw the coral awash, marking the sides of the channel. They were bearing directly for the gap. From memory, she knew that before reaching the gap, they had to veer to starboard slightly to miss another coral head. She extended her right hand. Enders corrected.
She looked straight down. The second coral head went past, dangerously close to the hull; the ship shivered as it scraped the outcropping, but then they were clear.
She held out her left arm, and Enders changed course again. She lined herself on the dead palm again, and waited.
Enders had been electrified by the sound of the coral head on the hull; his nerves, straining to hear exactly that dreaded sound, were raw; he jumped at the tiller, but as the crunching continued, a vibration moving aft, he realized that they were going to kiss the coral, and he breathed a deep sigh.
In the stern, he felt the vibration approaching him down the length of the ship. At the last moment, he released the tiller, knowing that the rudder was the most vulnerable part of the ship below water. A grazing collision that merely scraped the hull of barnacles could snap a hard-turned rudder, so he released tension. Then he took the tiller in his hand again, and followed Lazue’s instructions.
“She would break a snake’s back,” he muttered, as El Trinidad twisted and turned toward Monkey Bay.
“Less four!” shouted the lineman.
Hunter, in the bow, flanked on either side by the men with their plumb lines, watched the glaring water ahead. He could see nothing at all forward; looking to the side, he saw coral formations fearsomely close to the surface, but somehow, El Trinidad was missing them.
“Trois et demi!”
He gritted his teeth. Twenty feet of water. They could not take much less. As he had the thought, the ship struck another coral formation, but this time there was only a single sharp impact, then nothing. The ship had snapped the coral head, then continued on.
“Three and one!”
They had lost another foot. The ship plowed forward into the sparkling sea.
“Merde!” yelled the second linesman, and started running aft. Hunter knew what had happened; his line had become snarled in coral, and caught; he was trying to free it.
“Full three!”
Hunter frowned - they should be aground now, according to what his Spanish prisoners had told him. They had sworn El Trinidad drew three fathoms of water. Obviously, they were wrong: the ship still sailed smoothly toward the island. He silently damned Spanish seamanship.
Yet he knew the three-fathom draft could not be far wrong; a ship this size must draw very nearly that.
“Full three!”
They were still moving. And then, with frightening suddenness, he saw the gap in the reef, a desperately narrow passage between coral awash on both sides. El Trinidad was right in the center of the passage, and a damned fortunate thing, too, for there was no more than five yards to spare on either side as they passed through.
He looked astern to Enders, who saw the coral on both sides of him. Enders was crossing himself.
“Full five!” shouted the linesman hoarsely, and the crew gave a jubilant cheer. They were inside the reef, in deeper water, and moving north now, to the protected cove between the island shore and the curving finger of hilly land, which encircled the seaward side of the bay.
Hunter could now see the full extent of Monkey Bay. He could tell at a glance that it was not an ideal berth for his ships. The water was deep at the mouth of the bay, but it turned rapidly shallow in more protected areas. He would have to anchor the galleon in water that was exposed to the ocean, and, for several reasons, he was unhappy with that prospect.
Looking back, he saw the Cassandra make the passage safely, following Hunter’s ship so closely he could see the worried expression on the linesman’s face in Cassandra ’s bow. And behind the Cassandra was the Spanish warship, no more than two miles distant.
But the sun was falling. The warship would not be able to enter Monkey Bay before nightfall. And if Bosquet chose to enter at dawn, then Hunter would be ready for him.
“Drop anchor!” Enders shouted. “Make fast!”
El Trinidad shuddered to a stop in the twilight. Cassandra glided past her, moving deeper into the bay; the smaller ship with her lesser draft could take the shoal water farther in. A moment later, Sanson’s anchor splashed into the water and both ships were secured.
They were safe, at least for a time.
Chapter 28
AFTER THE TENSION of the reef passage, the crews of both ships were jubilant, shouting and laughing,
