FIVE

IN JUST OVER TWO DAYS’ TIME, FOR THE WIND DROPPED OFF CONSIDERably, Barclay had Rascal at the entrance to Hamilton Harbor on the southwest of Bermuda. Barclay was stooped and gray but his age was indeterminate. He seemed to have been born just as he was, for no one on Bermuda could remember him looking any other way except stooped and gray. He was a taciturn man who appeared and disappeared silently and, after Fallon, was the best navigator aboard Rascal. He had been particularly helpful in tutoring Aja in his study of the stars, and the two could be found talking on deck and looking at the heavens on many nights.

The coral clogged entrance to Hamilton was complicated, but Barclay had been there before, and soon enough they were inside. Clapboard buildings dotted the shoreline of the harbor, some with docks that reached into the water like brown fingers. There were ships at anchor or carrying on their business, loading and unloading cargo, ships from many countries except France and Spain. Caleb Visser scanned the harbor with a telescope, then with his bare eyes, then with the telescope again before finally lowering it slowly.

Jocelyn was nowhere to be seen.

Fallon and Beauty watched him quietly, not knowing what to say or do. But it was Aja who approached him from behind, putting his hand on Visser’s shoulder in sympathy. Visser was grim, for he feared he had not only lost his ship but perhaps his brother and all their money and all hope of rescuing his father from a life of slavery. His shoulders sagged and his legs almost buckled under the weight of his failure.

Aja leaned closer, well acquainted with loss and hopelessness from his time as a kidnapped slave himself. Though Ajani meant He who wins the struggle in his native homeland, he knew a bleak future when he saw one.

“There is a proverb my father taught me, Caleb, sir,” he said softly. “The poorest man in this world is not the one without money. But the one who is without people. You have people, Caleb, sir.”

Quietly, Beauty and Fallon came up to join Aja.

“Yes, Caleb, you have friends around you,” said Fallon. “And you have us behind you. The day is not over, and your mission is not lost. You are behind in innings, sir, but you shall have the match!”

And with that note of optimism they all put their hands on Caleb Visser’s shoulders and he hung his head and set his jaw, for he wanted very much to believe them.

Later, after they had left word with a dock boy in Hamilton to ride like the wind to St. George Town if Jocelyn should sail in, Rascal threaded her way out of the harbor and sailed off on larboard up the northern coast of Bermuda. Visser understandably kept to himself at the taffrail, staring at their wake, lost in his own helplessness.

It was dusk when Rascal rounded up and let go in St. George’s harbor. The little bay was virtually empty, the only vessel a Somers salt packet swinging slightly at her anchor. The sunset’s light painted the shoreline cottage windows red, a flaming red to warm a returning sailor’s heart. As soon as Fallon saw the ship secure, he and Caleb were rowed to shore in Rascal’s gig.

Walking up the road from the harbor, Fallon could see that the candles still burned in Ezra Somer’s office. That was no surprise, and he hoped he would find Elinore there, as well. They had been apart over a month, more than he’d planned for this last cruise but the sea kept its own calendar.

As Caleb and Fallon ascended the stairs to the office they could hear voices, one of which belonged to Elinore, and Fallon’s heart leapt. When he stepped through the open door of the office, however, he was unprepared to have her leap into his arms, sobbing. Somers was there, as well, along with Little Eddy, and they all crowded around Fallon, leaving Caleb off to the side, awkward and invisible.

“I was so worried, Nico!” Elimore cried. “But this is you! You’re here! You’re back home!”

“Safe and sound, back home,” said Fallon softly into her ear. “We have a wedding to plan, remember? I always come back, love. Always.”

“Welcome home, Nico,” said Somers, slapping his captain on the back. “I never doubted it.”

“Doubted what, Ezra?” said Fallon. “Why was everyone so worried?”

“It was the gale, Nico,” said Elinore, wiping her eyes. “It was so horrible and we were so worried. For some reason it scared me this time, more than the other storms. It’s not that I doubted you, or Beauty, I just became frightened because I knew you were sailing through it to come home.”

“And there was a shipwreck, sir!” yelped Little Eddy. “At North Rock it was. There’s lots of wood on shore!” Little Eddy, the scrounger turned newsboy.

“And who is this you’ve brought home?” asked Somers, ignoring Little Eddy’s dampening outburst, and extending his hand to Caleb.

“Caleb Visser, at your service, sir,” said Caleb tightly, the alarming news from Little Eddy’s mouth having entered his brain and travelled to the pit of his stomach, where it was now forming a knot. “But tell me, if someone can, about the wreck?”

“Oh, I don’t think it was a ship from around here,” said Somers, trying to lighten the mood in the room. Elinore still had not let go of Fallon, and Little Eddy was rummaging in a sack he’d brought to Somers’ office.

“I found this, sir!” said the boy. And he struggled to pull out the piece of name board he’d scrounged from the wreck, the letter “J” clearly visible.

Caleb Visser staggered as if he’d been shot.

“My God,” said Visser, more to himself than anybody else. “My God.”

There was silence in the room as every eye watched Visser take the “J” from Little Eddy and stare at it, then rub the letter with his hands. His mouth opened several times to speak but nothing came out.

“Ahem,” said Fallon quietly. “Captain Visser is from Boston, a cod fisherman, and he and his brother were on their way to Algiers to pay a ransom for his father, also a cod fisherman, who was captured by corsairs working for the dey of Algiers. They left Boston in two ships, his brother was captain in the other one, and they were separated in the gale. We were able to pick up Caleb and his crew before their sloop sank. But… the ransom gold was in the other ship. Her name was Jocelyn.”

There was a collective gasp in the room and, instinctively, hands went out to comfort Visser, who was fighting hard to hold back tears, his eyes down and closed.

“My God,” was all he could whisper. And no one else could think of anything better to say.