AT THE RESURGENCE OF THE STORM, EDVARDA WAS hurled on her beam-ends. AT THE RESURGENCE OF THE STORM, EDVARDA WAS hurled on her beam-ends.
Carronades broke loose from their train tackles. On the orlop, their cargo of tea and opium had shifted to the lee. Men slid across the waist or clung to belaying pins, all watches now on deck. A fresh sort of fury came over the storm, the likes of which Tomaj had never seen.
Many hands gathered about the wheel, the natural gathering place of hands during a gale. Tomaj, Zaleski, Youx, and Broadhecker debated the possibility of going below to the steerage compartment to attach relieving tackle to the tiller arm, then sending Zaleski out the great cabin’s stern windows with a lifeline to cut loose the spars and rigging from the rudder.
At Tomaj’s command, several men dashed forward to relay the message below, and Tomaj grasped Bellingham’s shoulder with his fingertips, as the lad attempted to run forward, too.
“Avast, you little shit!”
For once, Bellingham closed his mouth, the better to keep rain from it.
A sudden surge of wind and water knocked them both on their asses. Sleet pelted their faces as they clung to the binnacle. Tomaj was assured enough of his handhold to loosen one hand and clutch the shoulder of Bellingham’s peacoat to his chest, sucking water into his lungs as a vast wave surged over them.
When he was able to squeeze water from his eyes, lift his head, and breathe, a new hand clung to the binnacle.
Raising himself on an elbow, Tomaj shouted, spitting water at Sal, “What’re you doing here? Get below!”
“I need air!” Sal cried, clinging equally to the binnacle and to Bellingham’s shirt.
Tomaj inhaled deeply, the better to bellow, “God-damn your ‘air’! Do you know what a god-damned—”
In another rush of water, Sal vanished.
Tomaj and Bellingham gaped at each other, spitting fountains of water. Tomaj knew the boy would surf down the deck, most likely hurling himself into the sea, if there was a chance to save Sal.
Sal had gone over the bulwark beyond the salvation of the rigging, just a flash of a peacoat and mother-of-pearl hair.
Tomaj wrenched Bellingham by the lapels. “If you move from here, I’ll have your hide!”
Bellingham nodded, his eyes sparking with fear.
“Call ‘man overboard!’ Round her, and lower the boat!”
“S … s … sir!” Bellingham shrieked in a stutter. “‘Tis foolhardy to lower a boat in these waters! How about we heave the life buoys and the nets what Stormalong brings up fish in—”
“Man overboard!” Tomaj yelled so loudly the words scorched his throat. “Lower the boat!” He caught the ear of Hegemsness, who appeared to be sliding off to execute the command, so Tomaj raised himself on his palms, and was instantly vaulted to the bulwark, where he nearly hurtled over the newly raised height.
Sal’s head bobbed at the crest of a wave fifty feet high. The whiteness of his face, and his arms that flailed pointlessly, were specks in the great wall of the sea.
Tearing off his oilskin, which fluttered behind him and slapped against the deck, Tomaj grasped a line and jumped onto the gunwale, no time to take off his boots. He executed a divine dive, his feet springing off the wet solidity of the wood, and sailed into the drink.
He had good aim. Sal’s white face was only about ten yards away.
As they rose and fell in the turbulent sea, Tomaj kicked harder to get closer to Sal, who couldn’t swim. Let the current take your body, Tomaj remembered, and positioned himself to the weather gauge so he would sink onto Sal’s body.
The next swell pushed Sal closer to the ship, and Tomaj farther from it. They were grabbed by one of those vicious cross-seas that occur when winds swiftly change direction. Tomaj was lifted from another trough and held nearly vertical for the few seconds necessary for him to kick off his boots.
Hands lined the larboard rail—in between sheets of pounding rain, they appeared to Tomaj as a row of coruscating black disks waving their arms like so many fuzzy spiders—but he saw no one move to lower the boat, and he thought of Bellingham’s words. Bellingham was right—it was foolhardy to risk anyone further, and the life buoys the hands heaved were driven back against the hull by the raging wind.
Tomaj watched the life buoys, and thrashed like mad with all the power at his behest to swim to where he’d be caught in the wind’s current, and perhaps thrown back toward the ship, too.
Is Dagny up there at the rail? Tomaj hoped to God she wasn’t. Imagining her as one of the black blobs jumping up and down at the rail, Tomaj discovered a new spurt of force in his limbs, and on the next upheaval of powerful water that raised him to the level of his quarterdeck, he positioned himself obliquely, and shot down the tunnel head-first like a gull swooping for a herring.
Ah, he could almost see the hull of his ship!
He broke the surface at the bottom of a trough, choking and expressing saltwater through his nostrils and mouth in great spumes of nauseating bile. Spitting and coughing, he waited to rise to the crest of the next wave.
He had not gained a single yard on the Edvarda. The ghostly hull he’d seen was just the bottom of another rolling, sea-green trench.
Yet there was Sal, nearly hove into Edvarda’s hull, a speck of ivory against a swell of malachite green.
They bobbed furiously up and down, as though a cruel god meant to send them directly to heaven. On a particularly high crest, Tomaj was thrown even farther from Sal. Arms buffeting the surface, Tomaj gasped, seeking the spaces in between gushes of water that would fill his lungs with a shred of air. His gut bloated with water, tiredness overcame him. This particular god wrested them apart, and there must come a time when he, as Emir-el-Bahr, must admit defeat.
I’m not in control of the water. The water controls me.
The sea, he’d always known, was more powerful than him. He thought he had come to terms with her.
Dagny Edvarda. How I have loved you. Your love brought me to a higher place. For that I will be eternally grateful.
Tomaj looked down upon the scene from on high. His mind remained lucid as his limbs thrashed no more, and his body sagged as water flooded his mouth.
From the ship that lurched like a toy, a sudden flash, a bronze ball of fur vaulted from the gunwale, plummeting like a flood of liquid copper into a bucket. Stormalong.
Upon the crest of a serene wave, Tomaj watched the powerful dog paddling in the surf. Each crest brought her closer to Sal, who was now merely a hand sticking up, grasping a vast bottomless valley of water.
She looked at Tomaj. She looked at Sal.
Save Sal, Tomaj thought.
Stormalong gave Tomaj one last terrified glance. Paddling furiously, she gained another crest, then skated down a mountain of water. Skittering and flailing in her velocity, she nearly bypassed Sal, but stretched her neck like a seal, and grasped Sal’s shirtfront in her mouth.
Tomaj smiled. Dagny. How I wish I could have stayed with you.
There is no end like the eastern forest…
He let the sea into his lungs. He swallowed it gratefully. There was nothing but peace in this realm.
Spewing mouthfuls of water, Dagny struggled to the wheel where Hector and Youx both fought to right the helm. Men glided across the deck on waterfalls, crashing against the longboat, which they proceeded to unlash with frantic speed. Dagny had almost gained the wheel when someone gripped her shoulders, digging fingers into her flesh and hurtling her back upon the skylight.
“You must get below!” Broadhecker spat mouthfuls of water on Dagny’s face, rain streaming from his myriad of tiny braids. “This is no place for a lady!”
Dagny cried, “Someone yelled ‘man overboard!’ Where is Tomaj? Who’s overboard?”
“Broadhecker!” Youx shouted. “Tell them not to lower the boat until we’re well round!”
Broadhecker growled, “Aye!” and shook Dagny some more for good measure before sloshing off to the longboat.
She wended her way to the wheel, where Hector bawled, “She’s gaining sternway—we might heave into them!”
“Get to the boat! Keep an eye on him—you’re the signalman!” Youx gave Hector a powerful shove with his free arm, and the youth flailed away from the wheel, skidding down the deck toward the ladder. Cupping a hand to his mouth, Youx yelled, “Tell me what you see!” His dark Gallic eyes flashed at Dagny. “Get below, woman!”
“Who went overboard?”
Youx only jutted his lower jaw out, the picture of the salty quartermaster, face weathered by sun and wind.
She would get no answers here. Descending the ladder, it was a simple thing to wait for the next scend to slide her along the deck, allowing the wind to buoy her up, until she slapped against the gunwale, all air painfully expressed from her lungs.
“Dagny!” Hector cried, at her side. “Get below! We don’t want to risk losing you, too! Go on, get out of here!”
“Who went overboard?”
Hector’s eyes flashed furiously at her, but he also refused to answer her, turning his face back to the sea. It seemed near every hand now lined the gunwale, screaming various orders.
“There she blows!”
“That’s the way to go! Bear a hand!”
“Steady, Stormy!”
“Pull! Pull like vengeance!”
Stormalong swam furiously about ten yards off amidships, her drenched bronze head a curious speck rising and falling with the gigantic swells. Her teeth flashed as she battled toward the hull, a strip of someone’s shirt in her mouth, three or four life buoys bobbing uselessly against the hull.
“Who is that?” Dagny screamed. “Who is Stormalong pulling?”
Zaleski slammed against them, wrapping an arm around Dagny’s shoulders, and tearing Hector from the gunwale with the other. “Tell Youx it’s pointless to lower the boat!” he shouted.
Hector bawled, “It were the Cap’n’s last order, before he—”
“We’re casting the fishing nets that Stormalong’s accustomed to! Every last man jack is willing to get into the boat, but I’ll not risk it.” He shouted more gently into Dagny’s ear. “You must get below. I’ll not be responsible for—”
“You’re the fourth person who’s told me that, and I won’t go below until—”
The dog reached the hull, or the ship had bumped into the dog, and Stormalong struggled frantically, scrabbling her paws and legs to gain a footing in the net. Hoisting herself onto the gunwale and swaying by a shroud, Dagny saw the dog dragging a torso from the water.
Sal.
Shoving Zaleski away, Dagny jumped to the deck and dashed to where the crew had cast the net over the side.
She clambered back onto the gunwale, viciously elbowing aside a few hands. “Stormalong! Come, girl, come! Good girl!” So many hands had gone larboard it seemed their weight was heeling the ship, and Stormalong and Sal would be sucked under the keel at any moment. “Sal! Sal! Grab the net! Wake up! It’s me, Dagny, your sister! Grab the net!”
A sudden spate of water sent Dagny sprawling on her behind off the gunwale. She swung from the shroud, seeing only bare poles above. She whirled freely until someone clutched her hips and stayed her. Uncaring who her savior was, she raised herself up tall in time to see a wave recede from the hull. Zaleski had clambered down the precarious net, twirling and buffeted about by the wind, unfurling it and straightening it properly so he could haul Sal into its cradle.
Suddenly all hands stood still, the only sound the slamming of waves against the hull. Many crowded about Dagny’s feet, silently watching Sal’s rescue. No one spoke now that rescue was certain.
“Are they leaving Stormalong out there to go get—” a hand started to say, but Broadhecker, somewhere by Dagny’s feet, said, “No. We’re hauling her back up in another net.”
The hand standing behind Dagny on the gunwale, gripping his own rope, put his face against her cheek and said, “He’s gone, Dagny. He’s too far for Stormalong to try for.”
“He’s not gone!” Dagny cried to Zeke. “Look! He’s moving his arms, he’s in the net! He’s almost to the top!”
Indeed, they hauled Sal over the gunwale, and Dagny tried to leap back to the deck to rush to Sal’s side, but Zeke shook her mercilessly.
“No,” he bellowed, pointing. “Look out there, at the horizon.”
Oh, what was Zeke talking—
Someone else bobbed on a ridge of water, some seven mountainous ridges away. Between the curtains of driving rain, Dagny saw the speck of a man as he rose and fell, floating on his back with limbs spread wide, then vanishing into the trench beyond.
Her brain felt as if it were bleeding inside her skull. Suddenly she had no legs, and had to rely on her weak arms to keep a hold on the rope, though now that didn’t seem to matter so much.
“Tomaj,” she whispered. “Where is Tomaj?”
Zeke clutched an arm round her waist and held her fast. “He’s gone, Dagny. There’s no hope. Come, let’s go see Sal. It’s dangerous here.”
Dagny waited for the next scend. The speck of a man was barely discernible, merely a head bobbing upon the tremendous, powerful arm of sea. All hands were silent, crowding round her feet.
She dove from the gunwale.
For a moment she hovered there. For a fraction of a second, serenity cocooned her, as she was happily certain of hitting the water and being propelled deep beneath. It was the only way she could be with Tomaj again, and she was happy. With mouth wide, she sucked water from the sky. The more water she sucked into her lungs, the more assured she was of joining with him.
That was all she wanted. She had worked too hard, had lived too long, had spent her life saving everyone, and now it was time for her and Tomaj to save each other.
Enough of this life. I don’t want what it gives me.
What it gives and takes away …
But this God had even more heartless plans for her. A dozen hands grasped her in midair, laying themselves over every inch of her body, holding her aloft, lifting her forcibly down to deck.
Dagny thrashed, howled, bellowed to the pouring sky above. “Let me go! Let me go! Let me go!”
She screamed that over and over, for hours. She had never screamed so loud and for so long. She fought, tried to kick and punch the men, but their bodies entombed her. She was mummified, and she had to submit to their unwanted salvation. If she could only get out of her body, she could escape them, and join again with Tomaj in the peaceful place where one didn’t have to wake, or eat, or sleep, where they could soar out beyond the planets and have intelligent conversations. But the seamen’s hands kept her firmly sepulchered in this detestable land of the living.