King John's, bearing straight for us. If they board us . . .'
If the captain said more, Faramond didn't hear him, for a wooden hatch was slammed down on top of the grate and they heard the bolts being shot home.
The men in the hold did as they were bid: despite the misery of sitting in the freezing water, they instantly ceased splashing about trying to stand. The water sloshed back and forth over their backs as the ship rolled, and the crashing of the waves breaking on the wooden hull outside reverberated through the darkness. Above them they could hear shouts and bellowed commands, but the thick wood of the deck muffled the sound. Faramond was aware of the noisy gulping of the others around him, their lungs aching from the struggle to breathe through the gas that rose from the stinking water.
Then something heavy grated against the timbers of the hull. Had the ship caught up with them? Were the king's soldiers leaping aboard, prepared to search every foot of the Santa Katarina? Despite the captain's warning, Faramond crawled through the stinking water, feeling his way cautiously towards the hull, where no light would fall on him if the hatch was opened. Around him he could hear the others doing the same, cursing under their breath as their hands and limbs were grazed on the rough beams of the ship.
They were listening hard for the sounds of feet above them, boxes being overturned or arguments breaking out, but they could hear nothing above the sound of the water, not even voices. Perhaps the captain had managed to persuade the king's men that the barrels of wine and other stores on the deck were all the cargo he carried. It was so dark that Faramond's eyeballs hurt as he strained to see into the blackness above, searching desperately for that first crack of light that might give them warning the hatch was being opened.
Then he saw it, a line of orange so bright and yet so thin he thought for a moment his eyes were playing tricks because he was staring too hard. He saw another line of light flickering. He shrank back, wondering if he should duck his head below the water and how long he could hold his breath if he did. But the light was not coming from where he thought the hatch was, though in the darkness it was hard to remember. Then he smelt it, just a whisper of it; the stench from the water was so overpowering that it was hard to be sure and yet there was a waft of something new . . .
'Smoke!' someone yelled from the darkness. 'They've set the ship afire.'
Every man tried to beat his way through the water to the ladder. They were groping around for it in the darkness, catching hold of beams and the bodies of the other men, until with a cry someone felt it. Faramond himself grabbed hold of it just moments later and found other hands as cold as the dead also grasping the ladder and trying to force themselves on to the rungs. But the first man was already at the top. They could hear him battering at the grill, shouting and yelling.
Another climbed up, pitching him off into the water; he fell heavily with a single scream, instantly followed by silence.
'It won't shift. They've locked it! They've locked us in!'
'Let me try,' others shouted, but Faramond wasn't one of them. He splashed and crawled his way back towards the side of the hull. Fumbling for his knife, he started hacking at the wood, trying beyond all reason to make a hole in the ship's timbers. As he did so, he knew it was useless. Even if he could chip his way through the wood with his small knife, what chance would he have of making a hole big enough to crawl through before the water poured in and dragged them all to the bottom? Yet still he slashed away, desperately trying to split the salt-hardened timber.
Around him he could hear men screaming or praying. Above them, louder by far now than the crash of the waves, was the roar of the flames as they raced through the oil- soaked and tar-coated timbers. Smoke was trickling down into the hold, mixing with the bilge gas. Faramond was choking. As the timber above their heads blazed, the heat rolled down as if they were trapped inside a vast oven.