"The Arrival" (Short Story, Part 1/3)

This is the first part of a short story we made for a local competition called Script Road, with Macau as a backdrop for the prose. This one is based on the first arrival of the Portuguese to Macau and how they ended being given the land by the Chinese as an offer for liberating the city from the scourge of the local pirates. And so it begins:

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The year was 1516.

Sitting with his sore back against the arched wooden hull of the ship, friar João Silva tightened his tough rough-spun tunic around his shivering shoulders. The coarse cloth, although hopelessly drenched, was thick and heavy and sheltered him from the bitter ocean wind that came cutting down through the square hatchway that linked upper and lower deck.
Little Salvador, the crew's own Portuguese Water Dog, who took a liking for him ever since he fed him a slice of his honeyed-ham on his very first night aboard, was sitting quietly beside his thigh and shuddered from time to time.

Sharing that damp and confined space with them were the wooden barrels and boxes tied up against the walls, as well as his other thirty-three Portuguese countrymen that weren't part of the sailing crew and also went under to take shelter from the rage that was raining down on them. Entrepreneurs, explorers, traders, politicians on their way to the far land of Macau.

Although he had became quite acquainted to some of them during the trip, down there the darkness was so thick, he could not distinguish faces, he could only hear the relentless rhythm of fast-paced breathing and give graces for the proximity of their body warmth, for the night was so cold it made his fingers stiff and his toes numb.

Every so often, a lightning kindled the night, charging from the black skies through the opened hatchway and the cracks in the seams overhead, hurling its silver fury over the blackness for the duration of half a heartbeat, always followed by the unhurried roaring of the thunder as if a mighty sea beast had just woken up to devour every other noise.
No one dared to break the silence, except for the occasional cough as hypothermia took its toll, but then again, there was nothing much to say in those nights when the raw forces of Nature flipped a coin for their lives, except to hope for the soft morning light and calmer seas.

It wasn't the first storm, since they sailed out of Portugal's sunny shores, sometime close to sixteen months back, but it was certainly the worst. The wooden hull creaked and groaned loudly against the slap of the waves and the ship sometimes bent to such angles, that it seemed to be sailing sideways. The overflow of water that had collected in the floor of the lower deck swung with this dance and soaked thorough their bones to their very souls.

In the dark, they kept each other close and warm and hoped that the vessel they had trusted their lives upon could withstand that inexhaustible power of the ocean. They were supposed to be close to land, at least he remembered someone say such some days before, when the sun still shone and the winds were softer and warmer.

"Be strong...", he thought to himself to keep faith, "don't lose your mind fretting over that which you have no control..." This self-realization seemed to soothe his mood and quell his fears for the moment, so he sighed, petted Salvador on the head once more and huddled the mantle closer.

Overhead they could hear the sailors shouting and cursing in harsh Portuguese. "To the fore! Tie it all the way to the fore, you lazy drunks!", someone roared as the iron tone of authority hoisted his orders throughout the ship, as a different voice cautioned "Ease up on the main sail, lest the wind takes it from us!" followed by yet another shout, this one sounding strangely cheerful "Would you look at that! So thirsty we've been... And now there is plenty of water to go around!", followed by a mad laugh.

Sometimes a bigger wave would overthrow the wooden handrail and washout through the deck, pouring down through the hatchway, bringing in a new batch of sea water and remembering them just how cold the ocean was on the outside. Every time it was wearily uncomfortable.

Suddenly there was a crack, as if something from the upper deck had crashed against the wooden planks above them, followed by a gruesome scream of pain. Out of nowhere, Salvador promptly got up and leaped from under the mantle. The friar tried to hold him, but wasn't fast enough, so the dog jumped over water and passengers and ran up the wooden stairs just as another wave was coming in, ushering dense thickets of white surf inside.

"No, Salvador! No!", the friar shouted, but the dog was deaf to his call.

Unthinkingly, he got up, grabbed one of the ropes that ran all across the ceiling for balance and staggered all the way to the flight of stairs that led to the hatchway.

"Get down you fool! You are going to kill yourself", he heard from one of his countryman. He knew it to be sound advice, but he also knew the sailors were too busy to keep their eyes on the dog and he couldn't just let Salvador drown.

The weight of his drenched clothes made his movements slow, but he struggled to reach the stairs and climb one wooden step at a time, pushing himself to the upper deck where the rain fell thick and cold on his tonsured head and the wind roared in vicious twirls.

He managed to step on the floor of the upper deck and grab the handrail even though the ship was so tilted to one side that the merciless black torrent of the ocean was rushing by his side, no more than five feet away. When he looked aft he could see Salvador standing near a fallen crew member which had one of his legs twisted in a very unnatural angle. His name was Jorge, he remembered. He hoped to call to him, but as the salt burnt his eyes, he was fighting to keep balance and not be tossed overboard.
Suddenly an unexpected wave swallowed the ship, so huge it overtook it and washed down the opposite side like a massive waterfall, cutting his grip on the handrail. The friar managed to get a hold of the ratlines for a moment, as he was being washed away, but the power of the water was just too strong. The last thing he saw was Salvador and Jorge being washed away overboard as well.

And afterwards, nothing.

Nothing, but cold needles stinging deep into his being.

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(End of part 1/3)

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