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Holmes

Monday, April 23, 1821 Bay of Naples

T he eastern edge of the storm was upon them.

Several hours ago, they’d spotted the low, dark front to the west. The men had begun preparations at once. A pair of sailors had climbed the masts—a nerve-wracking task for even the bravest of seamen—and furled the topsails and mainsail to protect them from the violent gusts they’d soon face. A few sails, like the flying jibs in the fore of the ship, remained set to keep the brig as steady as possible during the storm.

Holmes himself was instructed to close and latch the hatches, while another sailor secured a rope from the Aquila ’s helm to her stern, giving the men something to hold on to once the waters grew rough.

And rough they were. Now the Aquila pitched and tossed amid the heavy swells. It was near impossible for Holmes to hear the shouts of his officers over the screeching wind and the clamor of wet canvas catching the squalls above him. Rain and sea spray pummeled his face, blurring his vision. The brig shuddered several times as she careened into the troughs between swells. More than once, Holmes was thrown to his knees.

Every man kept a spare hand on something—a railing, a post, a rope—lest he slip on the deck and go overboard. These waves would take a man under at once; there would be no saving anyone, not today.

A few swells came over the main deck. As water seeped through the closed hatches, a pair of men began to work the bilge pumps. Others eyed the masts, which undulated back and forth with the Aquila ’s rolling.

Lightning flashed all around them, and Holmes sent up a quick prayer: bad as the sea was now, a lightning strike would be worse. This vessel was made of wood, after all.

The brig plunged into another trough between waves. Amid the deafening gales, Holmes heard shouting toward the bow. It was Quinto, pointing toward the flying jib at the very front of the ship.

The rigging meant to keep it taut had—snapped.

In an instant, the sail collapsed in on itself. It began to shred apart at once.

“We’ve lost it!” Quinto shouted, a flash of panic in his eyes. Fore sails such as this one were imperative for keeping a ship sound in turbulent weather.

Holmes’s stomach lurched. Indeed, the flying jib was now little more than a torn kite flapping in the wind.

It was all happening just as he’d intended.

***

That morning before the storm, while briefly docked in Naples, the officers had disembarked, but not before giving the crew a slew of tasks to perform aboard the Aquila : swabbing the deck with linseed oil, stuffing oakum into cracks between planks.

Holmes and several others were instructed to tar the standing rigging, which protected the lines against rain, seawater, salt, and the like. It was the least pleasant task of all: the tar itself reeked, the buckets were heavy, and it required climbing the masts to reach the uppermost rigging.

After more than two hours of work, Holmes took a long stretch, a drink of water. His tarring was finished, but he kept the bucket and brush with him. He made his way to the front of the ship, keeping a furtive eye on the activity around him: the officers had not yet returned, and the other sailors had retreated to the berthing deck, their work complete.

Now was the time.

Quickly, Holmes went to the bow, portside. He attached his paintbrush, now doused in wet tar, to the end of a pole. Leaning over the railing, he extended the pole and quickly painted a circle of black tar, roughly twelve inches in diameter, inside the yellow band stretching across the Aquila ’s hull. From any distance, it would resemble a porthole.

With this done, Holmes set down his tools and crawled onto the base of the bowsprit, slick on account of its copper sheathing. The Fratelli Mazza insisted on copper-sheathed bowsprits on all of their ships. Vanity, Holmes surmised. A display of affluence.

At the end of the bowsprit, the flying jib was furled. This sail would be deployed as soon as they were underway. Especially with a storm coming.

Holmes reached for his knife.

A gift from his father when he first went to sea, Holmes always kept his rosewood-handle knife on his hip, tucked in a taut leather sheath.

Over the years, he’d used it to cut through old rigging; to gut tuna; and, once, to defend himself against a drunk who’d crawled his way up a rope ladder during the midnight watch.

More recently, though, he’d used it to peel oranges for Mari or cut loose threads from her gowns.

Always, Holmes used his knife for good: protection, or repair, or sustenance.

Until now.

He glanced at the storm building to the west. Grabbing a few of the lines that would be necessary to deploy the flying jib, Holmes quickly began to saw away at the rope. He didn’t cut wholly through any of the lines; rather, he shaved away at the hemp fibers, greatly compromising the integrity of them.

The gales would take care of the rest.

Finished with this, he sheathed his knife, retrieved his bucket of tar, and made for the companionway. On the cargo deck, rather than returning the tar bucket to its storage chest, he carried it toward the bags of clean, dry canvas, meant for repairing sails. Next to these were neatly coiled piles of spare rigging—meter upon meter of perfectly functional rope.

None of it was locked or hidden away, for what sailor would dare assault the very things keeping his vessel aloft? It would be like throwing food overboard, or rum.

With a quick glance over his shoulder, Holmes lifted the bucket, turned it upside down, and poured the tar into the bag with the clean canvas. Like warm butter, it slowly seeped between the layers of fabric. In a matter of minutes, it would thicken into a sticky, coagulated mess. There would be no fixing it.

He might have gone for a second bucket—he hadn’t had enough tar to pour over the coiled rope—but he heard voices somewhere above him. The officers were back onboard.

Holmes put the empty tar bucket into the storage chest, wiped his hands clean, and returned to the main deck.

***

Steadying himself against the Aquila ’s rolling, Quinto reached for one of the snapped lines. He brought it close to his face, inspecting the place where it had failed.

“Frayed,” he muttered to himself. With the back of his hand, he wiped rain from his brow. “Dare I say, cut .”

He led a few of the men, Holmes included, to the cargo deck. “We’ll need fresh rigging,” he yelled as they descended the ladder, “and the damned sail needs replacing, too. As soon as we can.”

Together, the group approached the bags of spare canvas, the coiled piles of rope. Holmes walked with an unsteady gait on account of the storm, his nerves. In a matter of moments, Quinto would look into the bag of canvas and find it doused with tar.

His throat tightened. He kept his eyes low, so better to keep his expression in shadow.

Quinto pried open the bag. He fingered the fabric and pulled his hand away, frowning at the gummy black tar on his thumb. He lifted a corner of canvas out of the bag, his expression aghast.

“Who did this?” he said, eyeing the men. Then, as though remembering the frayed rigging on the bowsprit, he said, “Show me your knives. All of you.”

One by one, they unsheathed their knives to let Quinto inspect. When Holmes handed his over, Quinto gave it a long look, grunting when the blade caught the light. “Clean as I’ve ever seen a knife,” he hissed.

Perhaps, Holmes thought, he should not have polished it so well after his misdeed.

Suddenly, another swell rose beneath the brig, and they were all thrown forward, landing on their hands and knees. A crack of thunder followed. Quinto left everything as it was and motioned for the men to follow him up.

As they returned to the main deck, Holmes’s heartbeat slowed. Quinto hadn’t assigned blame. And how could he? All of the men had knives on them. All of them had access to the cargo deck. Any one of them could have done this.

The storm went on, unrelenting, and the Aquila continued to list from side to side. One sailor stood at the stern, clutching the railing, trying to keep his balance as he vomited over the edge.

The captain ordered two of the men, including Holmes’s friend Nico, to go aloft and unfurl the mainsail. It wouldn’t compensate for the lack of a flying jib, but it would steady the brig somewhat.

In the minutes it took to deploy the sail, the Aquila drifted closer and closer toward land, which was precisely where they did not want to be. In such a storm, deep, open water was safest, for a vessel like the Aquila could handle swells, so long as nothing threatened her hull. But the shallower they got, the more likely their keel would run aground. The waters off Naples were beset with shoals and reefs and sunken Roman villages.

At the helm, the captain loosened the rope looped around his waist, which had kept him secure against the brig’s thrashing. He threw the loop to a nearby sailor, commanding him to the helm. Holmes knelt close by, trying to fix a broken latch on one of the hatches now letting in water.

The captain spotted Quinto. “Christ,” he shouted. “Where have you been?”

“Belowdecks!” Quinto yelled. He slammed the heel of his hand against a barrel as he approached him. “Someone has ruined the sails below—poured tar over the lot of them.”

The captain frowned, mouth agape. He didn’t speak for a moment, then, “When did you intend to tell me of this?”

Quinto glared. “What the hell do you think I’m doing now?”

The captain looked ready to give him a good blow across the face for his insolence, but something must have caught his eye, for he began to run toward the forecastle, yelling unintelligibly. Holmes followed him, a pair of pliers in hand.

Then, through the cold, blinding rain, he saw it. Blood. Bright red blood intermingled with rain and seawater, seeping toward the edges of the brig. Holmes followed the trail of it, his stomach lurching as he recognized Nico lying immobile on the deck, just beneath the mainmast. He bled from his mouth and nose, and his leg was bent at an ugly angle, turned outward at the hip.

“My God,” Holmes whispered, falling to his knees alongside his friend. He began to openly weep as he surveyed the injuries.

Holmes knew, at once, Nico’s pelvis was broken. Perhaps even his spine. His eyes were closed, and he groaned unintelligibly. He wasn’t dead, much as he probably wished he was. The captain knelt beside him, clearly anguished. He reached for Nico’s hand, where a deep red rope burn stretched across the length of his palm.

“He fell?” Quinto bellowed through the rain. He rushed to join the men, but his bowlegged gait slowed him down.

Another sailor stepped forward, shaking rainwater from his hair. “From the very top.” He pointed at the heavy, wet canvas mainsail. Sailors often fell from masts during storms, but usually the outcome was not this grisly.

Quinto went pale. He glanced at Nico’s buckled leg again, then turned to Holmes. “Get him belowdecks. Find him some whiskey.”

Suddenly, the vessel shuddered.

“Have we—” the captain went still “—have we just run aground?”

A few men began to shout, and panic crossed Quinto’s face. If they had indeed run aground, it was not a question of whether there would be damage to the hull, but how bad it would be. And if the storm continued on…

Holmes glanced westward, glad now to find that the sky had lightened, even if just by a small measure. The ship had suffered enough damage—more, even, than he’d hoped. If this storm did not let up, the Aquila would soon be a mess of splinters and sea chests, and they’d all be swimming for their lives.

Holmes steeled himself. He threw Nico over his shoulder, doing his best to ignore his friend’s cries of agony. Nico’s injured leg swung awkwardly as they went, leaving Holmes to suspect that the fascia and tendons within were severed, as useful as the ropes he’d sliced through with his knife. A heart-shaped locket necklace slipped from Nico’s shirt. Within, Holmes knew, was a lock of his young daughter’s hair.

If not for Holmes’s tampering with the flying jib, the captain wouldn’t have needed to deploy the mainsail at all. Now his friend was gravely injured because of it. Perhaps , Holmes thought with a deluge of deep remorse, I ought to have thought on a different, better plan.

He laid Nico on the floor of the berthing deck and went in search of the cook, who was vomiting profusely into a bucket, swearing he would never go to sea again. Cook supplied Holmes with some whiskey, and no sooner had Holmes given it to Nico than the brig ceased her rolling. The rain let up, and the vessel began to move again; she had loosened from whatever had caught her below.

Holmes took a long breath for what felt like the first time in hours. Nico was in very bad shape, but not all had been a failure: the Aquila had been rendered impotent, her progress toward Positano greatly hindered. Though Holmes could not hear any water gushing into the vessel, there would surely be hull repairs, and Quinto would need to call for a tender to bring fresh sailcloth onto the brig.

And most importantly, Mari would get his letter before the Aquila arrived.

Still… Nico . Had Holmes’s plan been worth it given what had happened to his friend?

Someone lifted the hatch, and slow footsteps descended toward him. It was Quinto, alone. Kneeling, he placed his hand on Nico’s forehead. Nico had gone pale, his skin like ice. He was unconscious. Holmes suspected—hoped, even, for Nico’s sake—that he was unlikely to survive the hour.

“I vow to find who caused this,” Quinto said, true compassion in his voice. “And when I do, I won’t give him the courtesy of dealing with him myself. Matteo can decide what to do with him.”

He shook his head and stood to go, leaving Holmes to stand vigil over the only friend he had on the Aquila —a father, a husband, and an innocent man he’d unwittingly sent to an early grave.