Desire in the Sun (14 page)

Mrs. Mingers died that night, as did two slaves. The storm was so fierce the next morning that the bodies had to be consigned to the sea hastily, in the teeth of the howling wind, by two sailors lashed to the deck with ropes. The only prayers were muttered by those who stayed below, listening in vain for the splash that would tell them that more of their number had gone to their final reward at the bottom of the sea. The splash was never heard. It was drowned out by the raging of the wind and the sea.

With the stoves unlit, there was no hot water for nursing the sick, no hot food to sustain the well. The interior of the
Swift Wind
was cold and dark, damp and terrifying. The ill had to be tied into their bunks to keep them from being thrown to the floor by the pitching of the ship. The few who were recovering—Kevin among them—were fed thin gruel crudely mixed from oats and cold water. The voracious appetite that was a hallmark of those who had had the cholera and survived was not satisfied by this meager diet, and the convalescents were constantly calling for more food. Lilah had nothing else to give them. She was hungry herself, but it was nothing compared with her weariness and fear.

Night came again with a clap of thunder. The wind outside increased in fury until it sounded like thousands of banshees screeching from the bowels of hell. Waves higher than the hills around Heart’s Ease crashed over them repeatedly. The
Swift Wind
shuddered at each onslaught and plunged on.

Every couple of hours or so two or three of the men would stagger below for food and rest. Lilah and the
other women ministered to their needs according to who was about at the time, wrapping them in blankets as they reeled down the stairs sopping wet, offering them dry clothes and what food was available. Joss came in out of the storm on the same rotating basis as the others. Lilah was present in the common room only twice while he was there, and both times he was already being taken care of. Once it was Betsy who hovered over him, wrapping a blanket around his shoulders as he gulped the thin gruel. The sight of her maid making solicitous noises over the man she, Lilah, had forbidden herself to even think of took her aback. After one look she went on about her business, but the unwelcome picture stayed in her mind for some time to come.

Day was nothing more than a thinning of black to gray. Waves sloshed unceasingly under the closed hatch leading to the deck. Water spilled down the stairs and ran along the passageway to seep under the cabin doors. On Dr. Freeman’s orders, the sick were all moved to the common room, which was both the largest and the driest accommodation the ship had to offer. The hard plank floor was soon covered with makeshift pallets laid end to end. Despite the crowding, and the stench, it was much easier to have everyone in one room. Lilah was faintly cheered by the presence of so many others as she saw to the stricken in cold, damp darkness. To comfort themselves, those who were able recited prayers aloud together. Lilah held basins and mopped brows to the muted chant of “Our Father, who art in heaven …” and other familiar prayers.

Three days into the storm there was a tremendous cracking sound above them, followed by a huge boom. The ceiling vibrated over their heads as something enormously heavy crashed down upon the deck. The ship shook like a wet dog. Lilah froze in terror, sure the end had come. Screams pierced the gloom as the others faced the same fear. Crying out, Lilah crouched on the floor
and threw up her arms to protect her head from the unlit chandelier swinging dizzily above. It seemed sure to fall. … Kevin, whom she had been feeding more of the weak gruel, wrapped his arms around her and pulled her beneath him, shielding her with his body as they all awaited the end with baited breath. But the
Swift Wind
fooled them, and went on.

“The mast must have gone,” Dr. Freeman announced shakily when at last they all dared to breathe again. Lilah sat up, smoothing her skirt and wiping the tears from her face. The ship had survived again, but she didn’t know whether to be glad or sorry. If they were destined to die, surely it would be best to get it over with and end this torturous terror.

“Lilah …” Kevin began as she tried to wipe from his blanket some of the gruel she had spilled in her fright. All about the room, the women were wearily going about the tasks they had abandoned. Until they were faced again with approaching death, they saw no alternative but to live and aid the living. “My dear, I want you to know …”

He got no further. Just then a wild-eyed, drenched sailor burst through the door.

“Ballast broke lose when the mast hit and knocked a bloody great hole in the prow!” he cried. “Captain’s ordered everyone on deck now! We’re abandoning ship! Hurry, for your lives, hurry! She’ll sink in a bloody whisker!”

“You’ll have to help us, man!” Dr. Freeman cried as the sailor turned to leave. “We’ve the sick to carry, have you forgotten? We need every man Captain Boone can spare us!”

“Captain needs every man he’s got on deck to keep the bloody ship afloat until we can get the lifeboats out! Oh, aye, aye, all right then, I’ll get you what help I can!”

He vanished, to return moments later with three other
men. “Let’s go, let’s go! She’s listing bad to port and could go over at any minute!”

Now that the worst had happened everyone was strangely calm. A lantern was allowed to be lit to assist the evacuation, and it swung from Dr. Freeman’s hand as he pointed out those most in need of help. Those too ill to walk were hurriedly laid together on two stretchers made of blankets and hoisted between the shoulders of the sailors. Dr. Freeman lifted little Billy Patterson in his arms while Mrs. Patterson held on to the tail of the doctor’s coat. with grim-eyed determination not to be separated from her son. Those of the sick who could walk leaned on each other. Betsy had her arm around an elderly lady whose name Lilah couldn’t remember, while both Mrs. Gorman and her daughter supported two convalescents each, a man and a woman. Lilah turned to assist Kevin with the frantic exhortations of the sailors to hurry, hurry, ringing in her ears.

“Can you stand?”

“Yes, don’t worry.” But he was so weak he had to pull himself up by holding on to the wall. Lilah helped him as best she could, but even with the recent weight loss brought on by the disease Kevin was a heavy man. She prayed that they would make it. The common room was emptying, and Lilah noted to her horror that the floor had a definite slant to it. The ship was going under. …

“Hurry, Kevin!” she breathed.

“I’m ready,” he said, and pushed himself away from the wall. He was swaying on his feet, his muscles weak and barely able to support him after his illness. He was clad only in his nightshirt, but there was no time now to worry about anything except getting off the ship before it plunged to the depths.

With Lilah’s arm around his waist as he leaned heavily against her, they managed to make it into the companionway. It was already crammed with people staggering
toward the deck. Lilah and Kevin were halfway up the stairs when the ship tilted a few more degrees to the left. Someone screamed. Most of the women were weeping, and the few men who remained below were grim-faced.

As the ship tilted, Kevin lost his balance and fell to his knees. The people behind them pushed around and over them in a frantic rush for the deck as Lilah struggled to help Kevin to his feet,

“Help him!” she screamed, but her voice was drowned out by the sobbing of the women and the wailing of the storm. Those pushing past were not free to help her in any case; they had their hands full with sick people of their own. At last Kevin managed to rise, and with her arm around him again they made their way up the remaining stairs. They were the last ones out of the passageway.

The scene on deck was like something out of her worst nightmare. The sails had been torn to ribbons by the wind. The tattered remnants whipped around the two remaining masts like some giant cat-o’-nine-tails. The sky roiled like a boiling pot above; the sea rose and crashed below, showering the deck with salt water that was indistinguishable except by taste from the rain that fell in torrents. Ropes had been strung along the deck, and it was to these that the passengers clung as they made their way to the rail by what was left of the forecastle, which had been stove in by the fall of the main mast. It was from that point that the lifeboats were being launched.

Eight to a lifeboat, and there were four lifeboats. Only thirty-two souls had survived the cholera. Roughly half of those were ill. Most of them likely would not survive. … None of them would likely survive. The lifeboats were tiny, they were far from land, and the sea was a monstrous, hungry thing. What chance had their puny boats against such fury?

Kevin made Lilah go ahead of him along the deck. It was all she could do to maintain her grip on the rope while the deck pitched and dropped beneath her and the wind tried to snatch her away with it. Her hair blew free of its knot and whipped around her face, blinding her. Wave after wave crashed over the deck, promising to suck the unwary down into the ocean’s depths. Thunder boomed, and lightning lit up the churning blackness of the sky. Lilah, numb with fear, lost her footing more than once. The taste of terror was in her mouth, the fear of death strong inside her. She also feared for Kevin, who clung grimly to the rope behind her. How could he find the strength to make it to the lifeboats, weak as he was?

As they fought their way across the deck, the first lifeboat was lowered with a tremendous splash. It was immediately caught up by the waves and lifted high. Lilah caught a brief glimpse of terrified faces and hands clinging to the sides of the boat before it plunged down into a trough, out of sight.

The deck was tilting steeply now, and the fight to get in the lifeboats was more frantic. Through the driving rain Lilah saw Betsy clamber into the second lifeboat, saw too that it was manned by two slaves. As the boat hit the surface of the water the two men bent to their oars. Their effort was wasted against the mighty strength of the waves. She caught only one more glimpse of the boat before it was whirled away.

There were two more boats to be launched. Dr. Freeman clambered into the next one with Mrs. Patterson and Billy, the Gorman ladies, and two others besides the men needed at the oars. Lilah miraculously reached the rail with Kevin behind her as this boat was filled. Clinging for her life as the deck bucked like a wild horse beneath her feet, she realized that she had not seen Joss at all. He was not in the lifeboat, nor in the little group of people waiting, nor had he come below to aid the
evacuation. She looked frantically around without ever admitting to herself why she was doing so. It was always possible that he had been in the first boat, or that she had missed him in the second. …

But no, there he was, and she was conscious of a great feeling of relief as she spotted him farther along the rail. His black hair was soaked and plastered to his head and his clothes were clinging wetly to him as he worked one of the winches that lowered the lifeboats with another of the slaves. He saw her at about the same time she saw him. She got the impression that his shoulders relaxed a little, as if he was as relieved to discover her whereabouts as she was to discover his. Then he returned his attention to his task. The other boat was swung out over the side and lowered away.

There were six people left to fill the last boat. She was the only woman remaining. Captain Boone had lashed the tiller, hoping to keep the ship as steady as possible until they were away. The
Swift Wind
was taking on water at an alarming rate. She would not last much longer.

Lilah scrambled into the lifeboat with Kevin behind her, and took a seat near the stern. Wind and rain lashed her face so that she could barely see. Her hair was soaked, the long strands whipping around her shoulders until she caught them and thrust them down the back of her dress. The cold slick wetness against her spine made her shiver. The taste of fear was stronger than the salt on her lips. She licked them, clutching the bench seat for dear life as wave after wave rose to threaten them, suspended as they were high over the sea.

Captain Boone climbed aboard, followed by a compact little man who Lilah thought was named Mr. Downey. Captain Boone motioned to the man to join him in the prow, probably to even out the weight distribution in the boat. The
Swift Wind
was empty now save for Joss and the other man working the winches. Both were
slaves, their lives evidently of little value as it became obvious that they were going to be left behind.

“What about them?” Lilah screamed even as the lifeboat swung out and then hurtled downward, falling toward the sea with sickening speed. No one answered, if they even heard. The howling of the wind and roar of the waves reduced all other sounds to nothingness.

The lifeboat hit the water with a smack, jolting Lilah almost off the seat. The tremendous splash generated by the boat’s landing drenched them as the little boat was caught and driven up the side of a wave. Lilah saw that the ropes holding her to the
Swift Wind
were not yet cast away. Looking up at the ship towering above them, Lilah felt sick as she thought of the men who had been left behind. Then her heart rose to her throat as she saw Joss clinging like a monkey to the rope still linking the prow of the lifeboat to the
Swift Wind.
His legs were wrapped securely around it as he lowered himself by his hands with the grace and speed of a circus performer. The other man slid down the rope leading to the stern. Waves washed over them, the mother ship reared and threatened to plunge down on top of them, the wind buffeted them wildly. Lilah thought that they could not possibly make it—but they did! No sooner had their feet touched the decks than the ropes were cast off. The lifeboat was on her own in a dark and vengeful sea.

XIV