When the storm hits, Francis and I are sent below decks, but we haven’t been below more than two hours when the hatchway is thrown open and a sailor, soaked with spray and rain, yells down. “We’re taking on water! Get to the pumps!”
“Quickly, lad, don an oiler,” says Francis putting on a waterproof coat. “She’ll be wild out there.”
We quickly climb the wooden steps to the violently pitching deck. Huge waves crash over the rails, and I stagger, nearly losing my footing. Francis’s strong hand shoots out and steadies me before I fall. “On the double! The pumps are this way!”
Waves as high as the deck boil black and deadly, threatening to shatter the Sylph into pieces. “Hurry! She’s filling!” shouts a sailor. “Pump or we’re done for!”
I take my spot at the pumps. The large hand crank is by the main mast and is connected to chains and buckets that run through wooden tubes down to the bilge where they pick up excess water and dump it overboard.
“Enjoying yourself, stowaway?” asks Tom, one of several sailors already pumping furiously. But there’s no time for insults. With water pouring into the ship, we’re in serious danger of sinking.
The sky, dark all day, grows darker still with the approach of night. I’m drenched from the rain and the cold spray of the Atlantic. My arms and back are numb with pain, but I keep pumping for what seems like hours. “Well done, lad!” says Francis. “Hang on just a little while longer — we’re sure to be relieved soon.”
“Aye, not bad for a stowaway,” says Tom with what appears to be grudging respect. “I might not toss you over the rails after all.” Before I have time to reply, a sudden vicious gust of wind hits the ship. It lurches forward and a sickening cracking sound comes from the main mast high overhead.
Above the wind a sailor screams: “Run! The top spar’s snapped!” The sailors leap aside as sails, heavy wooden beams and lines fall from the mast, but I’m frozen with fear and can’t move. Francis lunges and shoves me roughly aside just as a large mass of ropes and wooden beams hurtles down to the deck, landing with a crash on the very spot I’d been standing. Dazed, I get to my feet, looking frantically for the old man who has just saved my life.
“Over here!” Tom shouts, standing over a misshapen jumble. “Hurry!” I rush over and help Tom tear frantically at the pile of sails, shattered wood and rope, desperate to get to Francis.
“Nae!” I cry when I pull the last piece of canvas away to see the cook’s lifeless body, twisted and broken on the deck, his beard stained with blood. The gale gives me no time to grieve. The ship heaves and rolls violently to port as a large wave engulfs the deck, driving me into the main mast with terrific force. I feel something in my chest crack as the air is pushed out of my lungs.
In agony and hardly able to breathe, I crawl back to my feet to find Francis’s body gone, the block and the lines swept from the deck, the man who’d saved my life taken with them as well.
But Francis isn’t the only sailor who’s vanished. “Help!” I hear the faint cry. Clutching my aching side, I stumble towards the sound. “For God’s sake, help me!” It’s then I see Tom. He’s been swept off the deck and landed in the shroud, the network of ropes off the side of the ship that hold the main mast in place. He lies caught in the webbing, dangling helplessly above the cold sea.
Fighting off the pain in my chest, I stagger to the side of the ship and stretch my hand out over the side. “Hold on!” I cry, but before I can reach him, the ship plunges downward into the trough of another large wave. Tom loses his grip on the shroud and falls. With a frantic lunge, he grabs hold of a stray piece of netting and dangles off the side of the ship, nothing between him and the waves but the spray-filled air.
I wrap my hand around a line tied to a stanchion and step over the railing. Struggling for balance, I lean far over the side, trying not to look at the roiling sea.
Before I can reach Tom, the ship swings again, I lose my grip and fall hard onto the deck. My ribs take the blow and explode in pain once more. I can hardly breathe, nearly passing out from the agony, but somehow find a way to stagger to my feet, stumble back to the ship’s side, grasp tightly on the line and extend my hand towards Tom, leaning farther and farther out until I can finally grab hold of his wrist.
The rough hemp rope cuts deeply into my left hand and with the large sailor hanging on my right I feel as if my arms are being pulled out of their sockets. I squeeze hard on Tom’s wrist, desperate to keep the sailor from falling, but his skin is slippery and slowly, relentlessly, he starts to slip through my fingers. “Don’t let go, for God’s sake!” he pleads but there’s nothing I can do, and I know he’s only seconds from sliding out of my hand and into the black water below.
Suddenly strong arms wrap around my waist. “Hang on, boy, I’ve got you!” A sailor holds me fast while another grabs Tom by his belt, drags him over the railing and pulls him to safety.
Slumping on the deck beside me, Tom wheezes, “Seems the cap’n was right to keep you aboard, stowaway. You found a way to earn your passage after all.” It is the last thing I hear before my eyes close and the world goes dark.