Fire Sail

A stiff breeze chilled us to our very bones as we stood portside, looking out across the water through the black. Charlie stood shoulder to shoulder with me. He was trembling, and not from the cold.

He pointed a finger. “Is that the Spanish boats? The lights out there?” 

I nudged him with my elbow. “That’s them. Won’t be long now.” I took a deep breath.

“There’s an awful lot of ‘em,” he said. “It’s awful dark. What if we get lost adrift?”

I offered him a reassuring smile, but our faces were barely visible in the moonlight. No lanterns lit the ship. Besides the moon’s glow, the only light was its reflection on the ship's brightwork. I wondered if the poor sobs who’d spent hours polishing it had known the boat's next journey would be to the bottom of the English Channel. “We’ll be fine. We’re gonna be heroes, remember? Even the great Wren will know our names.”

We stood in silence, save for the creaking of the wooden boat, a decommissioned carrick. We were on the lead ship of a flotilla of over a dozen retired ships, discarded from use despite clearly still being seaworthy enough. 

The lights on the Spanish ships grew steadily closer, until finally two short sharp whistles blew out. At once the ship was alive with movement, small flames sparking into life as boys carried them throughout the ship.

Charlie didn’t move. “Come on Charlie, that’s the signal.” Still he stood frozen. I put a hand on the back of his head. “Come on. For Queen and country!”

“For Queen and country,” he repeated quietly. 

I lit my own flame, and made my way towards midship. I rushed below deck, to one of the old cabins, and touched the rags and sticks with hot fire. The glowing light danced in the darkness, and for a moment I was mesmerised. Then a shout from above wrought my attention back, and I dropped my flame and headed back topside.

It was dark no more, as the great sales flamed above me, obscured only by clouds of black, acrid smoke that caught in my throat. Boys ran backwards and forwards. “Charlie?”. Blinking through tears, I tried to identify my young friend amongst the dwindling complement.

“Abandon ship, abandon ship!” came a cry. The fire was roaring now, oppressive heat prickling my face. I crouched low, and felt around for the starboard side of the ship. I coughed once, then again. No longer able to discern aft from bow, I tried to quell the rising panic in my chest. I hadn’t expected the flames would grow so quickly. Suddenly I felt small and vulnerable.

I tried to call out my friends name again, but instead barked out a dry, painful cough. Surrounded by blinding light and deadly black smoke, fear took hold. Ducked close to the floor to avoid the thickest of the smoke, I felt along what I assumed to be the starboard side, moving towards the stern of the once great ship. I made good progress, until I stepped on something soft, and stumbled to the ground. Feeling along the deck, I found an arm. 

“Who’s there?”

“Charlie Jon-” The last of his words were choked off by a hacking cough.

I pulled his arm up around my neck, and continued aftwards, nearly falling up the stairs to the upper deck. I clambered up, literally dragging the boy behind me. A blood-curdling scream echoed from somewhere amidship, but I had no time to tarry, no will to intervene. We had to get off the ship, even if it meant throwing straight out into the freezing waters. 

It was with shock I found one of the small boats still harnessed up. I climbed aboard, hauling Charlie in beside me. When I reached up to release the boat, searing hit bit at my hand. A flaming rig had fallen across the frame, and fire burnt its way down the holding ropes towards the dinghy. With no way to reach the boat release, I began to sharply tug at the flaming cords. 

One of them gave, and we were nearly tipped out back onto the deck. I reached out towards the opposite rope, but then suddenly the floor fell out from under me. We dropped down with the boat, landing with a crash onto the sea, a sharp twinge of pain shooting through my right leg. It was a miracle we didn’t capsize.

We’d made it off-ship, but had been joined in the dinghy by burning rope and splinters. I threw a tarp out into the icy water, and then with superhuman effort yanked it back up, pulling it over top of myself and Charlie for protection.

We huddled together under the cold, sodden blanket, rocking in the choppy ocean. I was desperate to look out, to see what was happening, where we were drifting to. Yet I waited, for fear the Spanish would see us, as though the wet sheet had some kind of magical ability to render us invisible.

Finally, patience gone, I poked a head out. Looking out across the water, my mouth hung open. It seemed the very sky was lit up with a wall of flame and glowing smoke. There were no Spanish to see us. No great ships were visible at all. Just an almighty wall of deep reddy-black.

Small boats floating around us, a few with boys coughing or crying, some with no occupants at all. “I think we did it, Charlie.” He did not respond, so I shook him. “Charlie?” He made no move at all. Pulling the sheet away, I knelt down beside him, slapping his face. “Charlie?” His face was paler than the moonlight illuminating it, his chest completely still. Once again, tears welled up in my eyes, but this time there was no smoke. “We did it Charlie,” I said, wiping the back of my hand across my cheek. “For Queen and country.”