· 3 October 1805 ·
H. M. S. MERLIN, AT SEA
Who are you?” Nick asked one of the faces floating hazily just above his own. There was a glow of flickering light swinging to and fro above him, and faces were swimming in and out of it, in and out of the heavy gloom.
“He’s the ship’s surgeon, Nick,” said yet another face floating into the light. “You’re alive, Nick, I knew it, for all love!” This face he thought he recognized. Yes, of course, it was Lord Hawke. But who was Lord Hawke?
“Keep still lad, lay back and rest,” the Lord Hawke face seemed to say. “Don’t talk now.” Talk? About what? All he wanted to do was sleep. Sleep forever. His head hurt him something awful, and he couldn’t remember why.
“Where am I?” Nick asked, and felt a terrible bolt of pain in his temple. He groaned and tried to sit up. Then he felt someone’s hand on his shoulder and felt it gently press him back against the pillow. He closed his eyes. Above him in the gloom was that strangely bright, swinging light, and it hurt his eyes terribly.
“You’re in the Merlin’s sick bay, Nick,” Lord Hawke whispered quietly. “You’ve been asleep for some time. We weren’t at all sure when you’d wake up.” Nick saw that his face broke into a broad smile. “Or even if you’d wake up.”
Lord Hawke saw Nick squinting in pain at the light, and he took the ship’s lantern hanging above the boy’s berth and placed it on the deck, dimming the already soft glow in the sick bay. Most of the wounded men were sleeping, as it was the middle of the night. The only sound was the soft moaning of one sailor who’d finally lost his right leg to the bone saw only an hour before. The surgeon had given the man a large dollop of monkey’s blood and a leather bit to clench in his teeth when the pain became unbearable, but it hadn’t helped much.
Hawke was glad Nick hadn’t been awake to hear the sounds of the poor sailor going under knife and saw, or his pitiful wails when his stump was plunged into boiling pitch to seal the wound and stop the bleeding. Hawke himself could barely stand it, but at that point, mercifully for all concerned, the sailor had fainted. There were one or two other sailors here in the sick bay, men who probably wouldn’t live to see the sunrise. But everything that could be done to ease their pain had been done.
“Are we safe?” Nick asked, although he wasn’t sure why. Something about cannonballs buzzing by his ears and splintered timber crashing down from above. And Stiles, yes, his poor friend Stiles who’d been with him in the rigging when the whistling balls had started flying. The memories started returning and Nick choked back his feelings. Stiles was dead. Blown out of the rigging into a watery grave. A hero’s death, at least, Nick tried to console himself, the pain in his heart far more acute than the wound to his head. “Safe at last, sir?” Nick asked.
“Aye, we’re safe all right, lad,” said the whispering voice of the surgeon. “Which is in no small part thanks to yerself, boy, thanks to yerself.” The elderly ship’s physician reached over and patted Nick’s hand, which had lain motionless upon his chest since they’d carried him down here many hours earlier.
“What happened, sir?” Nick asked, his voice painfully weak. And, quietly, Lord Hawke told him.
The Merlin had ghosted northward behind the great rock just moments after Nick had been injured. To the great relief of the crew, the shadow of the towering rock fell across the Merlin’s decks and the hands looked at each other in amazement. They’d done it! Thanks to the heroic boy at the mast-head, they had navigated the reef and were safely behind the rock!
Suddenly, a great roaring cheer had gone up from the hands, all lifting their eyes skyward to the small boy hanging by his heels high in the rigging. He’d done it! He’d seen them through! Even the crews out in the four jolly boats were on their feet, whooping for joy and throwing their hats into the air for the brave lad at the foretop masthead.
But when the boy didn’t respond to their wild cheers, but just hung there limply, twisting in the wind, Hawke instantly knew something was dreadfully wrong. He’d grabbed the nearest shroud and started up. In a trice, four or five hands also shot up the shrouds nearest the foremast and they had all reached the gravely wounded and unconscious boy in seconds. The first thing they noticed was the dark blood matting his curly yellow hair. It was a head wound.
It didn’t look good. Hawke had seen battlefield wounds as bad as this. And they’d been fatal.
They had handed Nick gently, unconscious and bleeding profusely from the head, from the uppermost crosstrees down to the deck. The sailors handled his limp form with great respect, even awe. Hawke’s heart swelled with pride. After all, to the ship’s company, Nick was only a twelve-year-old stowaway. Yet he had saved them all from the specter of death and certain defeat, that they might fight another day.
One of the men removed the bandanna from his own head and wound it around Nick’s to staunch the bleeding. Hawke was touched at the reverence even the lowliest hand bestowed on poor Nick as he lay motionless on the sun-bleached deck. Some removed their hats and bowed their heads, praying, or more likely, paying their last respects.
Gunner had knelt on the deck beside the boy, cradling Nick’s head in his arms and wondering if his young friend was even aware that he was dying a hero’s death. He’d always yearned to be a hero. It was the only thing he’d ever wanted, far as Gunner knew. And now …
“You can’t die yet, boy, you just can’t!” Gunner whispered, and lifted Nick gently in his arms and cradled him to his chest. Then, his eyes brimming with tears, Gunner had sadly carried Nick below.
And now in the sickly light of the lanterns of the sick bay, they heard the doctor’s first happy words.
“You’re a right lucky one, Nicholas McIver,” the old surgeon said. “Hardheaded, too, you are! Lots of blood with head wounds, and yours was a sharp blow to the side of your temple. Stitched it with catgut so you’ll have a nice piratical scar, lad. One as charms the gentle sex. Now, had you been looking up and seen the blow comin’, well—”
The room fell into an awful stillness. Death was still hovering in the gloom and even the sleeping must have felt it. Just then, a cheerful voice full of life broke the silence.
“Oh, he’s a lucky Jack all right!” said a familiar voice in the bunk right next to Nick’s. “As lucky as they makes ’em! Bone-headed, but a right fine navigator, too!” Nick turned his head to see who it might be, a smile already breaking across his face.
Lieutenant Stiles!
Nick rolled on his side and stared in disbelief at the heavily bandaged figure lying in the next berth. His heart leapt for joy.
“Why, Mr. Stiles, I thought you were—I mean, I reckoned you had been—” Nick stammered at the miracle of seeing his friend still alive and seemingly healthy. “I didn’t think I’d ever see you again, Lieutenant.”
Nick sobbed, and realized that hot tears of relief were pouring down his cheeks and that he didn’t care who saw it. Some tears, he guessed, were justifiable.
“It was a close article for me, too, Nick,” Stiles said, and smiled up at Lord Hawke. “I was blowed right into the boiling sea! But for your friend here, me dear old mum would’ve been reading me name in the black-border lists in Hyde Park. Aye, I was lucky to have an angel such as Lord Hawke to look out for me. Why, Nick, you should have seen it! The great Hawke flew down from the barky’s rail and delivered me up from the sea, just like Gabriel himself! Swam through a hail of lead to save me, he did, too!”
Now, in the gloom and sour air of the sick bay, the young lieutenant stretched his hand across the narrow space between his bunk and Nick’s. Nick extended his hand across to Stiles, and felt the bond formed by that grip was strong enough to last an eternity.
“What’s that noise, Lieutenant?” Nick asked Stiles. His senses were coming back into focus now and he was aware of a swishing noise just outside the hull at the head of his berth.
“That be seawater, lad,” Stiles said. “Rushin’ by the barky’s sides. We’re on the wind and sailing hard nor’east for England. See how she heels? The wind is fresh on her starb’rd beam and we’ve got our lee rail down. We must be making seven knots! Hear that bangin’ and sawin’ forward? Ships’ carpenters fixin’ those holes in her starboard bows now that we got her leaned over to port. Without such chance to get her heeled and patched, why, we’d be on the bottom by now! As it is, we’ll be good as new afore daybreak!”
For the first time, Nick noticed the angle of the sick bay and the way all the lanterns were hanging. They were indeed heeled well over and making good speed. They’d made good their escape after all!
“Where’s Gunner?” Nick asked, weakly. “Is he all right?”
“He’s fine, son, asleep in a hammock they strung for him on the gundeck where he could be near his guns and his lads,” said Lord Hawke. “He’s been down here watching you, too. He was convinced you’d wake up eventually, and, thank the saints, he was right.”
“And Jip?” Nick asked. “Where’s my old dog Jipper?”
“Why, Billy’s got him, Nick,” Hawke said gently. “Remember? That’s why we’re here!”
“Where is Billy now?” Nick inquired in a low whisper. “Is he upon us?”
“Ah, I only wish we knew, lad,” Lord Hawke said. “He tried to follow your route through the reefs just as we thought he would and got his ship hung up on a mighty mess of rock, we hope. By the time he gets her pulled off and repairs the hole in his bow, we’ll have opened up a good stretch of sea between us and be ready to fight. If he didn’t, well—”
“He’s skittish as the four winds, that Blood,” Stiles murmured, and they all fell into deep thought. Each trying to imagine what course of action the pirate might take. “When old Bill is after you, all you need is a trick or a miracle,” Stiles added sleepily. Closing his eyes, he fell into a deep sleep, letting go of Nick’s hand.
A moment later, Nick, too, was sleeping peacefully.