Devil of a Fix by Marcus Palliser

Author:Marcus Palliser
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: McBooks Press
Published: 2021-02-12T00:00:00+00:00

14

REEF ENCOUNTER

‘If only I were back in Wimpole-court, I would publish the volume myself,’ said Will Wrack, sitting on the quarter with the Spatchears tables open on his knee. ‘That would solve all difficulties — keeping them out of Flamsteed’s hands, and the Navy’s.’

The Diamond rode sweetly in ten fathoms at full stretch of the anchor’s cable in a deep, little-known pool, into which the printer from near the Fleet had steered the leaking schooner. Dashing in through a secret gap, we found protection from the swells, for all around an invisible sill broke the power of the rollers, reducing them to a mere chop. Yet there was no land to be seen, only the wide sea all around, stretching west all along the Colomby Coast to the Darien, and east for a thousand leagues to Africka. Riding in Culpepper Pool was like nothing so much as being moored in the ocean itself.

We had struggled with the damaged planking at the turn of the bilge, the growing inrush keeping us at the pumps for half of every hour. By the end of the second day, we had sistered in a new timber, strengthened the nearby frame and caulked it all as tight as a tar in a rumshop. At last relieved of pump duty, Will Wrack and I lay exhausted on the quarter-deck in the last of the evening sun while Adam slept below. Soon we would be benighted and safe in the pool till daybreak, for certainly no vessel would brave the difficult entrance in the dark. Only under the high sun could the reefs and the channels be seen, the dangers revealed by the colour of the sea, blue for deep, green for shallow.

I had told Will Wrack the whole tale of the Spatchears tables, my desire to deliver them to the Royal Society and see them published, and how we were wanted men bent on acquitting ourselves of false charges. Now I sought his help.

‘Mister Wrack, as you know manuscripts, will you examine the tables? Perhaps you can offer a clue to where the flaws might lie.’ I leaned across and tapped the open page. ‘Take this star here — Aldebran. When I practised with the cross-staff on Isla Grande in the Witness Isles, I could never make the figures come right.’

He laughed. ‘I know little of the proper Navigation. But I confess I am hardly surprised there are flaws, for so many scribblers leave errors in their works.’ He cradled the volume, running his hands over its cover. ‘But it’s an excellent example of the binder’s art. Good weighty parchment, fine-grained too. And it’s enscribed in the best of inks, written in a strong hand — steady, flowing and well-worked, most probably not the author’s own. Look here in the Introductio.’

I had been unable to tackle the Introductio because it was in Latin.

‘This is grave and long-winded stuff,’ he said, ‘written by a pedant who obfuscates the simplest of matters, a failing common amongst many learned folk or academicians who come to the business of writing.

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