Northern Lights Trilogy (47 page)

Kaatje felt numb, uncaring. Nora was like the locusts, eating away at her until she agreed. “I will come and listen. Now leave me, Nora. Leave me be.”

T
hey had weathered one storm off the coast of Chile, and two and a half days later, Peder’s crew was bracing for another. In between there had been calms—lulling Peder into hoping they might make it past the Horn without another—when the first blast of the Roaring Forties hit. Immediately, he sent his men to their quarters for oilskins. They lashed the oilskins at ankle, waist, wrist and neck, not in hopes of keeping dry, but rather to keep out some of the cold.

Elsa looked out their cabin window as Peder donned his own oilskins.

“Snow. What must winter be like down here?”

“I’d rather not stay to find out. Some captains would risk crew and ship to pass the Cape come winter, but I am not ready to take that risk.” He looked at her without wavering. “You will stay put?”

“Please, Peder. I have been practicing—you’ve seen how I do on the rigging. Like a regular monkey, Riley says. You could use another set of hands.”

“Believe me, it will be better if I do not have to worry over your
safety. Please, Elsa.” He cupped her cheek in his hand. “For me. Stay put. Tell me I do not have to worry over you.”

“You will not have to worry over me. I will stay put.” She grimaced at his look. “I promise. No adventures outside. Be careful, Peder.”

“As always, love. I’ll come and check on you as I can.”

A knock at their door startled them both. Peder opened it to find Riley, holding on to the doorway as the ship lurched and rolled. “Cap’n! Anchor came right over the starboard side before we could lash ’er down! A couple a’ men are injured!”

“Bring them in here!” Peder shouted over the wind. “Elsa will tend to them!” He turned back to her for a brief kiss, the spray of a giant wave filtering in around him, then ran toward the bowsprit where the men continued to wrestle with the huge anchor.

Within minutes, two sailors were unceremoniously dropped off, and Elsa set to work. One was unconscious, bleeding from a head wound; the other moaned over a broken arm. She shivered in the frigid air that blasted through the door and peeked outside. Thirty men were aloft, all working on furling the foresail, beating ice out of it as they did so. Fifteen others were on the starboard side, with body and soul lashings on—the lines that tied around their bodies and held them to the ship—and another fifteen on the port side. Elsa shuddered and wondered how they would all survive such fierce weather. Gritting her teeth, she slammed the door before more water could wash in.

She hoped the men had gotten the nets out above the bulwarks. They had saved four men during the last storm. Remembering her own terrifying slide down the decks, and Karl’s saving presence, Elsa prayed as she grimly set to work. “Father God,” she whispered. “Watch over my husband and these good men. Keep us all safe and see us through the storm.” She looked from one man to the other, unsure of how to proceed. Cook, who usually looked after such matters,
would be working madly to prepare food for the ravenous men, who would dash in for a quick bite whenever they could. Elsa had little medical knowledge, so she decided to simply do what was obvious.

Taking a clean blanket off her bed, she folded it once and laid it on the wood floor of the study. Then she unlashed the oilskins of the unconscious man, dumping out the water inside and patting his soaked clothing until it was damp. He was shivering uncontrollably. Deciding it was no time for decorum, she took off his shirt, hoping to bring up his frightening body temperature. With a heave, she dragged him into the study, right by the iron stove. After laying him on the blanket, she ripped a strip off an old cotton dress and wound it around the poor fellow’s head wound. It was a nasty gash.

“Tobias!” she yelled to the other sailor, who was still moaning over his arm. “What’s this man’s name?” She almost had them all memorized. But this man was unknown to her, obviously a new recruit from the last harbor in Chile. He had jet black hair and bushy eyebrows, a nice chin and mouth. He was probably little older than sixteen years of age.

“Adolfo!” the other sailor returned.

“Well then, Adolfo,” she said, settling him back onto the blanket, “I think that is all I can do for you.” She swaddled him in another blanket, then placed a hand lightly on his forehead. “Father God, I ask that you bring your healing presence to this ship and keep Adolfo safe in your arms. Restore his health, Jesus. In your blessed name I pray. Amen.”

“Amen,” Tobias said from the doorway. He watched her with something akin to awe on his face. “Ain’t nobody ever prayed over me like that, ma’am.”

“Ever had such a nasty accident as Adolfo?” she asked, rising and coming over to examine his arm.

“No, ma’am. This is about as bad as I’ve had it.”

She studied his arm, the awkward tilt of a bone in his forearm as
it protruded at the break, making a huge lump under the skin. “I assume we must get that bone back in line in order to set it,” she said to Tobias. The thought of it made her sick to her stomach.

“Yes ma’am.”

“How do you want to go about it?”

“Any way you see fit, ma’am.”

“All right. It would be better on a hard surface. Why don’t you stretch out by Adolfo in the study? That way, if you pass out, I will not have to move you, and you’ll be warm. Just a minute. I will get another blanket for the floor.”

“You needn’t—”

“Nonsense, Tobias. You deserve a little pampering,” she said, giving him a sad smile. She felt like an executioner marching a prisoner toward the noose. She would soften the blow as much as possible. He followed behind her like an obedient child, lying down on the rough wool blanket when she waved toward it.

She knelt beside him, bracing herself as the swells outside built to new heights. “Let’s get this over with before we cannot stay still long enough to do so.”

“Whenever you’re ready, ma’am.”

Elsa studied his beefy arm, looking at it from all angles before deciding on a course of action. Tobias never took his eyes from her.

“If you’ll permit me to say so, ma’am, it’s an honor to be attended by you.”

Elsa smiled at him. “Thank you, Tobias. But you may not say the same after I do what I must.”

He was silent as she traced over his skin with her fingers, gently probing. Deciding, she took his forearm in both of her hands, pushing down on the top protruding portion while pulling upward from the other side, farther down. Tobias howled. Elsa felt dizzy. After a moment, he opened his eyes. “Sorry about that, ma’am,” he ground out. “You did right. Cap’n got anything stronger in here than water?”

Elsa grimaced and shook her head. “Sorry.”

“Then how ’bout one of your prayers?” he asked woozily. “I could use a little sleep. Might feel … better when I wake up.”

“Certainly. Those I have in plentiful supply.” She prayed all the while she wrapped his arm in dress strips and sterling serving utensils. When she was done, he raised his head a bit to see it.

“Fanciest splint I’ve ever laid eyes on,” he mumbled, then passed out.

Peder had seen few storms as fierce as this one. He had passed the Horn twenty-two times in his years as a sailor, but this storm threatened his crew with plunging temperatures, frightening swells of sixty feet, and fearsome winds. All three hundred lines screamed like tortured animals, while the entire ship seemed to be bending, straining, groaning as it battled the heavy seas. He made his way toward the bow, wanting to make sure the anchor stayed lashed. In awe he watched as the bowsprit, normally fifty feet above the water, knifed through a rogue wave that caught them all unaware. The wave rose high above the deck, like a gigantic, angry grizzly on her hind feet.

Peder grabbed for the nearest lash and wrapped it around his waist, praying his frozen, stiff fingers could make fast the hitch knot before the wave enveloped him. He was just in time, sucking in a breath that held as much water as oxygen. He coughed violently, wondering if he would suffocate before the wave passed and he could again try for air.

After what seemed like minutes, his head emerged from the wave, his waist burning from the lash that held him fast to the mast against the wave’s tremendous force. He looked around, certain the
Sunrise
had capsized from the force of the wave, but God bless her, she was still upright. Awash, but upright. He felt a surge of pride that she was a Ramstad ship. His high feeling was short-lived.

“Man overboard!” Yancey was less than a foot away from Peder, but he screamed over the wind to be heard. Peder nodded and followed him amidships. A frightened boy clung to the safety netting
over the port side, too terrified to move. Riley was making his way to him. Peder blinked against the spray, desperate for the men, knowing there was little time before another wave came and pulled them both over the side.

It was the look on the boy’s face that warned him another wave was upon them from behind, but it hit before he could brace himself again. He dived for the railing, holding on tightly, but the wave sucked him under, pulling him down the deck in a desperate rush past his own sailors.

Miraculously, two lashed-on sailors reached out from either side and clung to his jacket and waistband until the wave passed. With a low growl in his throat, he clambered to the edge and looked over the side. Riley hung by one leg from the netting. The boy was gone. Screaming his fury as if challenging the devil, Peder ran aft and, without another thought, jumped for the rigging above the net. Hand over hand, he made his way to the outermost part of the yard then hung like a circus acrobat on a swaying trapeze.

“Riley!” he screamed over the wind. “Riley!” He grabbed the lash hanging at his side, and unlooped it until it was full length, just barely reaching Riley’s waist. Beyond the mate, the waves swelled and passed his head like circling, curious sharks on the hunt. It was like looking at a man with one foot in the grave, not wanting to die but unable to see any alternative.

“Riley!”
Peder screamed, salty spray filling his mouth. As if hearing the voice of God, Riley wearily looked his way. His eyebrows shot up, and he stretched for the lash. Reaching it, he pulled himself upright and back onto the netting. He glanced at Peder, communicating with him silently. They had but one chance before they were both dead men. He jumped upward, catching Peder’s hand.

The two swayed from the momentum and the force of gale winds. Sheer determination and brute strength kept them from letting go. Using Peder as a ladder, Riley pulled himself up over his captain, reached the yard and, hand over hand, made his way back to the
ship. Peder followed him, and sailors handed them each a lash as yet another wave bombarded them.

When it was past, Riley leaned close. “I lost the boy!”

“But we did not lose you!” Peder returned.

“You abandoned ship!” Riley yelled, shaking his head in wonder. “I owe you my life!”

I could do little else
, Peder thought grimly. What was he supposed to do? Sit there and watch as his first mate followed the boy into the swirling, deadly seas?

Peder ran astern, hoping to catch sight of the boy and throw him a line, but he saw nothing. The lad was gone and, in the cold waters and giant seas, as good as dead.

The next day the
Sunrise
sailed along at a good clip. About fourteen knots, if Elsa had counted them right as the sailors hauled the chip log aboard, measuring their speed. The storm was over, and once again the
Sunrise
had proven seaworthy. Unlike other captains, who considered a man overboard as yet another given of the trade to ignore, Peder led a short memorial service for Edmundo, the boy lost at sea. Elsa’s heart swelled with pride over her husband and his methods. His devotion to his crewmen earned him nothing but respect and a love that would have any of them giving his life to save his captain’s.

She supposed that that was why Riley had told her what Peder had done during the storm. Although Peder felt he had owed Riley a debt for saving the ship from the last storm and his wife from Stefan, Riley believed that Peder’s saving act was twice the job. Peder had laid aside his one duty as captain: to never abandon ship. He had risked all that he had worked for. Sailors needed to believe that their captain would always be there for them. Much as she had impulsively dived into that harbor in the Indies, so had Peder acted. Yet his act held a hundred times the ramification. Everyone on the ship knew it.

Prior to the memorial service earlier that morning after the storm
was beaten and the
Sunrise
was on safe waters, Riley had thanked Peder. Elsa, bundled up, was at last allowed on deck and witnessed it all.

“Cap’n,” Riley said, approaching Peder and Elsa. “I owe you my life, sir.”

“Nonsense, man,” Peder said, shaking his head. “I did what any man would have done for you, yet ignored my duty to my ship. I take no pride in what was done.” He squared his shoulders and stared into the mate’s eyes. “We will not speak of it again. Tell the men. Not one word, ever again.”