20
September 10th, 1737
As Anna and Maria prepared Lizzie’s body for burial, she felt a tug at her elbow and turned to see Felix. His eyes widened in shock at the sight of Lizzie on the table. “Bairn said to tell you that Captain Stedman wants to see you as soon as you are able to come.”
“Go ahead, Anna,” Maria said. “I’ll finish up.”
Anna washed, changed her clothes, combed her hair, and put on a fresh prayer covering before heading up to the main deck. Bairn strode over to meet her at the top of the companionway. She was so tired she practically collapsed in his arms when he offered her a hand over the coaming. It seemed the only time she could take a full breath was when Bairn was nearby.
“Felix told me. I’m sorry.”
“So am I,” she said, her throat tight with a wistful sadness. “If only I could have done more—”
He put a finger to her lips. “You did the best you could, under the circumstances.”
She sighed. “Christian said the same thing. He said Lizzie knows a better life now, the eternal life, warm and safe in the glory of heaven.”
Bairn looked at her with that slightly amused look of his, wanting to believe her but doubtful. She was too tired to pursue a discussion about the afterlife.
“Why does the captain want to see me?”
He bit his lower lip. “News travels fast on a ship.” He led her down the deck to the Great Cabin.
The captain looked up from his table as Bairn led her in. “I was told of trouble in the lower deck.”
“A child has been born.”
The captain stared at her. “And lived?”
“Yes, though his mother passed soon after the delivery. I don’t think the child will survive the day. He is small and his breathing is labored.”
The captain pulled out his Bible. “I’ll conduct a funeral service at sunset.” He glanced at her. “Unless your minister prefers.”
“I think Christian would want to lead the service.”
“Fine, fine.” The captain looked more than a little relieved. “’Tis customary at sea to have the child wrapped with his mother.”
“But . . . that might be too soon.” She looked from the captain to Bairn. “Surely you wouldn’t wrap the child before he’s passed.” Anna sought Bairn’s help. “Could you not wait?”
Bairn kept his eyes lowered. “’Tis most merciful.”
“Please,” she whispered. “Please, wait.”
Captain Stedman and Bairn exchanged a meaningful look, then the captain shook his head. “Only until sunset. ’Tis bad luck to keep a dead body aboard a ship.”
To Anna’s shock and dismay, Christian did not object to the custom of burying a babe with his mother. “It’s the compassionate thing to do,” he said when she explained what the captain had said. “Let us pray that the babe passes soon.”
But as the afternoon wore on, the babe had not died. Death was near, Anna felt, as his breathing had grown more shallow and his skin had gone nearly translucent. The men had already taken Lizzie’s body up on the upper deck.
As the sun was starting to drop low on the horizon, Christian came back downstairs. “It’s time, Anna.”
She swaddled the babe in a clean cloth and handed him to Peter. The grief-stricken father held him close to his cheek, tears streaming. They went up the companionway and joined the group of mourners. Christian took the baby from his father and gently tucked him into his dead mother’s arms. The baby looked even smaller now; only his downy hair was visible. As the other men started to wrap the body, a shriek stopped them.
“Don’t you dare! Give me that child!” Dorothea stomped over from the top of the companionway and grabbed the baby out of his mother’s arms. “It’s a tiny living soul!” Felix trotted behind her, with Decker’s dog on his heels. “Do we need another tragedy on this day?”
Anna put a hand on her shoulder. “Dorothea, the baby is soon to die. I’m sure of it.”
The effect on Dorothea was dramatic and immediate. She looked wildly round at everyone, thrust the baby down between her breasts, and folded her arms over him. “No,” she said. Then repeated louder, “No. He will not die.”
Anna brushed the beginnings of tears from her eyes. “Why do you say that?”
“Because I said so.”
Christian held out a hand to her. “Dorothea, even skill and love and care cannot overcome God’s will.”
“Don’t you Dorothea me, Christian. Let this child have a chance at life. Let him have a chance!”
Christian didn’t seem to know what to make of Dorothea. Nor did Anna. Dorothea hadn’t looked so spirited in . . . months. “But he is so small. How will he eat? There is no woman on the ship who can feed him.” As many young families as there were on this ship, there were no nursing mothers.
Dorothea looked frantically around her, then her eyes rested on the companionway. “The goat. The one that lost its kid.”
“The milk has dried up.”
“Not entirely. Especially since we have water now.” She jutted out her chin. “I will feed this babe. You mark my words. This child will live to see Port Philadelphia.”
Anna whispered to Christian. “Would it be so wrong to let her try?”
Christian looked at young Peter.
“Please,” Peter begged. “Please. For my Lizzie.”
Short of tearing Dorothea’s arms apart with brute force and grabbing the baby, which Christian would never have done, there was nothing he could do. He seemed astonished, then said quietly, “God’s will be done.” He nodded to Dorothea.
The men wrapped up Lizzie’s body and resumed the burial. After the body slipped into the frothy waters, Anna turned around and saw Bairn standing at a distance, a stunned look on his face.
She walked toward him, sensing his disquiet. “The little baby may not survive, but at least he has a chance.”
The baby was not on his mind. “Who was that woman?”
“Who? Which woman?” She turned to the clump of passengers as they made their way back down the companionway. She saw Maria and Barbara. “Those two?”
“No. The one who insisted on saving the babe. What is her name?”
“That’s Felix’s mother.”
“Her name! What is her name?”
“Dorothea. Dorothea Bauer. Why?”
He looked at her strangely, all tight in the face as if it pained him to try to talk. She didn’t know what had upended him. “What’s wrong, Bairn?”
A terrible shadow fell across his face. He swallowed once, then twice. “Why is she going to Port Philadelphia?”
“To join her husband. Felix’s father. Jacob Bauer. Our bishop.”
A painful light flared behind his eyes. He looked . . . stricken. For a long time, he stared at the companionway, his face like a thunderstorm brewing. “Jacob Bauer is not dead?”
“Goodness, no.” She took a step toward him. “Why?”
She began to see that all the color had left his face and his eyes had gone stark and hard. She tugged at his coat sleeve. “Bairn, what is it?”
He seized her hands and backed away from her, a fierce tension in his gray eyes. “Leave me be, Anna.” He spun on his heels and left the upper deck, left her, without another word.
Felix’s eyes were swollen and aching. He wiped the tears off his face with the backs of his hands as he returned the kettle to the galley for Cook to find in the morning.
He couldn’t get the image of Lizzie wrapped up in that cloth out of his mind. And then the worst sight of all—the sharks that snapped and tugged at her shroud, pulling it into the deep water.
He wondered how Johann would have handled that sight, if it would have bothered him as much as it bothered Felix. He expected to have nightmares over Lizzie’s funeral for a long, long time, like he did about Johann’s. He often woke up with a start, sure he could still hear the clods of dirt that filled his brother’s grave, shovel by shovel.
When he saw the baby being put in Lizzie’s arms, he panicked. He flew down to the lower deck to find his mother and told her to get upstairs, fast, to save that little baby boy from being tossed overboard.
She was sitting at the little opening by the cannon, that awful blank look in her eyes.
“Now, Mem! Now! Get up and get upstairs. They’re tossing the baby overboard to the sharks. That baby needs you!”
And to his astonishment, she did get up. She moved faster than he had seen her move in months. She took those stairs two at a time, and then she grabbed that baby just as Christian started to cover it with the sheet. She yelled at Christian. Yelled! His mother yelled at the minister.
What if that little baby had not been rescued by his mother?
Felix choked at the image, and his breath came in ragged gasps. His mouth was dry, his belly sour. He set down the kettle on a barrel and heaved into Cook’s sink. It was the first time he’d been sick on the Charming Nancy.