016 -- A Sea Voyage

Andrew leaned over the Lydia's rail, fingers twined through the rigging and hair loose in the breeze. The rough, tarry mainstays were stretched taught as the brisk wind came in across the Lydia's beam. Squinting his eyes due to the glare on the water, he could just make out the mainland in the distance.

"'S alright, ain't it?" Danny shouted down from his perch much higher up in the rigging. Andrew only smiled back at him, keeping his mouth shut -- even looking up into the maze of cables and spars still made his stomach flip. He was amazed at how the crew could run run up and down the lines so easily when he had only just mastered his seasickness.

Captain Toggart had reached far out to seaward for the past three days in an effort to weather Cape Herrod. Andrew had gathered from bits of conversation that the cape was famous for its storms. When he asked Danny about it, the boy had only laughed and said "Aye, we're like to have a lively time of it!"

For now, though, the weather was holding. The Lydia gamely pushed through the unending rows of breakers that continued to send spray misting over the deck. Even though it was midsummer, the breeze and cool water meant that Andrew was on the edge of being chilly.

He thought of home. It was only just starting to become real to him that he'd left Kashi for good. Uncle Hamid had left him in Kumar only four days before, and the journey across land had only taken two weeks. He'd been glad to be rid of his uncle at that point. The man's carelessness, in matters both personal and business, was all-pervading, and it drove Andrew crazy to see all the wasted opportunities and missteps. He could tell that no one took Hamid seriously at any point along his route except for the foolish and the needy.

The swirl of activity upon their arrival in Kumar had kept Andrew too preoccupied to think much about home, his mother or his sister. Now that they were at sea, though, he finally had a chance to sit and reflect for a moment. He hoped that things hadn't gone too roughly for them with the prefect.

"Oy, there, Andrew! Yew fetch me 'a drink?" the helmsman called, shaking Andrew out of his reverie.

"Yeah, just a moment." Andrew slid through the hatchway the way Danny had taught him, sliding down without using his feet and landing with a thump in the murky darkness of the main deck. A few feet forward was the hatch down into the hold where the water casks were kept, and after fumbling for a minute he managed to get it open. He slid down this ladder as well . . .

. . . and landed in cold, green water up to his knees. "Aargh! What the -- Captain! Captain Toggart!"

A few minutes later Toggart, Andrew and a few of the crew were wading around with lanterns in the semi-darkness, trying to find the source of the leak. Muffled bangs and creaks sounded above their heads as the rest of the crew began rigging the pump.

"Captain! Over here!" shouted one of the hands. They gathered by the sailor, who was pointing at a six or seven foot section of hull. Each time the Lydia struck a wave, water swelled through the cracks in the timbers, dripping down the bulkhead.

"Looks like 'a pitch 's worked is'self loose," growled Toggart around his unlit cigar. "Git Jackson an' a pitch bucket, we'll lower 'im over the side an' --"

But another call came from the helmsman. "Captain Toggart!"

"Damn it all, what now? You t'ree, start riggin' it, I'll be back."

The three sailors nodded, and the small group headed for the ladder. "What will that do?" Andrew asked one of the men.

"Norm'lly the seams are sealed with tar an' pitch. Some must've come loose, else we wouldn't be leakin'."

Andrew followed them up the ladder, then headed up back on to the main deck. Toggart and the helmsman were in deep conversation, the latter pointing away at the horizon. Looking for himself, Andrew could see a dark black streak beginning to form. Danny was up in the rigging, and Andrew braved his barely-dormant seasickness to shout up to him.

"What do you see?!?"

"A storm -- a big one! An'd lookit t'other side!" He pointed.

Andrew followed his gaze. Barely visible on the other edge of the horizon were the sharp, black rocks of Cape Herod. The Lydia was trapped in between them.

Danny slid down the rigging next to him. "What do we do now?" The cabin boy just shrugged, his face unsmiling for the first time in four days. "It's up ta the Cap'n. We can't go back, the coast is too rough fer too far to land. I 'magine we'll try an' go forward."

"Can we make it?"

Danny shrugged again. "We'll find out, won't we?"

---

Andrew groggily regained consciousness as some poked him insistently in the side. Danny was standing beside his hammock, staggering and halfway asleep. Andrew yielded his spot to the younger boy, who collapsed into the swinging canvas. Rubbing his eyes, he staggered to the deck.

There was a mighty crash -- the Lydia heeled crazily for a moment. He could hear the seawater spilling from the deck as the ship sullenly righted herself. Making his way aft, the sound of the pump became audible over the roar of the wind and waves.

They'd been caught in the storm for three days now, although it was hard to tell day from night when each was as dark as the other. The Lydia was still clawing away from the sharp rocks of Cape Herod, but the storm showed no signs of relenting. An ocaissional flash of lightning would illuminate the black rocks, set like jagged, broken teeth in the coastline and drench in grean, swirling foam. Yesterday Andrew had heard a sailor estimate that while they had yet to loose much ground, they certainly weren't making any -- it was all the old ship could do to stay off the rocks.

The leak, though, was another story. Captain Toggart's main concern, that the pressure of the waves smashing again and again into the damaged hull would worsen the leak had yet to come to pass. However, the storm had hit with such sudden force that there had been no time to effect any repairs to the exterior of the hull, and despite the best efforts of the men the water was still rising. Danny had estimated it at about an inch every two hours. Things had begun to float in the hold; they'd had to tie some of the larger objects down to keep them from smashing at the timbers of the Lydia herself.

And the crew was getting tired. It took four men to man the pump -- endless, backbreaking labor -- and the Lydia's crew of twelve was stretched thin pumping and sailing the ship in a hurricane at the same time. After three days of two hour shifts, the men were falling asleep on the deck.

It was beginning to become clear that they were fighting a losing battle. Every time a wave hit the Lydia, she recovered from the blow a little more slowly. Eventually a large enough wave would come and she would tip all the way over on her side, defeated, and everyone aboard would drown. Their only chance was a break in the weather long enough to sail around the rocks of Cape Herrod and find a safe place to beach the ship before she sank. Captain Toggart had been at the wheel for the past three days, still as an iron statue, waiting for that moment.

At the pump belowdecks, Andrew was greeted by a nod from one of the hands. Four men, backs bare and gleaming with sweat despite the cold, worked a long iron lever up a down. Clank-clank! Clank-clank -- the sound was morbid, the sound of a dying ship. Andrew took a moment to wrap his hands in a few bloodstained pieces of canvas. Unnaccustomed to hard labor, he had blistered quickly on the first day and begun to bleed soon after.

Taking a spot at the handle, he felt the wounds on his hands open up again quickly into hot, wet pain. It didn't bother him as much as it had at first -- the sharp sting in his hands helped distract him from the heavy, cold ache that had settled into the rest of his body. The crewmember he had relieved lay sprawled on the deck, panting for a moment before instantly falling asleep.

Another crash came as a huge wave hit the ship. No one puased in their labor, but all eyes watched the lantern hanging from its staple on the ceiling as it tilted over crazily. Farther, farther . . . insane, deformed shadows flickered across the bulkheads . . . but finally it reversed its motion, coming slowly level again. Clank-clank went the pump.

The first day, Andrew had complained bitterly to himself of his fate. The second day, he had been terrified. Now, he had no energy left to feel anything at all. He just worked at the handle, his mind empy and uncaring. Ocassionally a thought would float by . . . he almost welcomed the idea of drowning, if only it meant that he could rest. If he could only close his eyes for a second . . .

A nudge from the sailor next to him brought him to his senses. He's fallen asleep at the handle. The sailor murmured a quiet, encouraging word and they went on pumping. Clank-clank. Clank-clank.

Sometime later (Andrew wasn't sure how long) there was a sudden sharp "crack!" audible even over the howling wind. The sailors looked at each other in alarm but continued their work. No sooner had the sound faded than the Lydia took a sudden sharp angle and Captain Toggart's bellowing voice could be heard above the gale. "All hands! All hands!" The crew abandoned the pump and rushed up the ladder onto the deck.

Andrew emerged into the teeth of the hurricane. The wind and rain were screaming sideways past him, stinging his eyes and tearing the heat immediately away from his body. Toggart was yelling something into one of the sailors' ears and pointing forward -- following his outstretched arm Andrew could immediately see what had gone wrong. The jib's rigging had parted under intense strain from the wind, and the loose sail had taken part of the foremast along with it. Now the mess of sail, rope, and spars was tangled and hanging off the side of the ship, dragging the Lydia sideways so that every wave struck with full force against the wounded vessel. If something wasn't done soon, they'd be capsized in a few minutes, never mind the rocks of Cape Herrod.

An axe was pushed into Andrew's hand. He followed the rest of the crew slowly towards the bow of the ship, clinging to the lifeline that was passed through his armpit as walls of green water broke over them. There was no possibility of speech, with the scream of the wind and roar of the waves overpowering all of Andrew's other senses.

A sailor pointed Andrew to one of the cables stretched taught over the splintered bulwark. Hanging on to the lifeline with one arm, he began awkwardly hacking at it with the axe in the other. Slowly but surely it bit through the tough fibers, until the last few parted with a sharp crack. Andrew cut the next cable, and the next, feeling as if he was drowning as the green water washed over him.

Finally, with a few sharp pops, the the wreckage broke free. The Lydia bobbed upright again, slowly, but facing her bow into the waves again and no longer in danger of capsizing. Andrew turned to the sailor next to him, about to try and ask what was next, when --

Crash!

A huge rogue wave hit the Lydia, coming across the side rather than against the bow along with the rest of the waves. The wall of saltwater smashed into him like a brick wall, ripping the lifeline out of Andrew's hands. He went skidding along the deck towards the bow, out of control and totally submerged. Andrew felt himself get carried along with the foaming wave over the gunwhalte and along the jagged, broken bowsprit, hands fumbling for but unable to find anything to hold on to.

Well, mom, looks like this is it for me. I guess you shouldn't have listened to Uncle Antan after all --

But there was a sudden pain in his leg, and he was above water again. The world was strangely upside down, and he was hanging, looking at the outside of the Lydia's hull. Looking up, Andrew saw that his leg had been tangled in one of the bowsprit stays, and that this slender line had been the only thing saving him from being swept out to sea. The ship plunged into the trough of the next wave, and Andrew managed to catch a quick gasp of air before he was thrust underwater into relative calm.

Emerging spluttering back into the storm, Andrew began trying to haul himself up back onto the ship. It took him several tries, and he was dunked again into the waves several times before he managed to free himself and crawl back along the jutting wreck of the bowsprit to the relative safety of the deck. He huddled there for a moment, clinging to the raw timbers of the ship, before he could gather the strength to look up.

The crew had not noticed his absence in the chaos. He could see them gathered at the stern, wrestling with something white and flapping at the direction of Captain Toggart -- a spare sail, most likely, to replace the one we lost. We can't control the ship without it. Andrew had just made up his mind to head aft along the lifeline and help them when a flash of lightnight lit of the sky and revealed a sight that nearly froze his blood.

The black rocks of Cape Herrod loomed almost directly over them. Unbeknownst to the crew, the Lydia had been blown toward the rocks while they were dealing with the wreckage of the jib sail. Now the jagged stone loomed far over their small vessel, looking more like a many-armed monster emerging from the deep than a set of deformed teeth. Some of the sailors saw the rocks too -- Andrew could see them pointing with open mouths, probably screaming wordlessly into the wind. A wave swept them up, higher, higher, impossibly high, until inevitably --

CRRRAAAASSSSHHH!!!

The shock jarred Andrew down to his bones -- only by reflex did he save himself from being thrown overboard again by wrapping his arms through a few loose cables left from the wrecked sail. He watched the deck in front of him twist crazily, and then with another series of sharp cracks the timbers split apart. Another wave came, and suddenly the Lydia was split in two, the stern swinging parallel to the bow. Andrew caught a glimpse of a few dark forms clinging desperately to the ship's wheel before the water swept the stern half of the Lydia away from him. Another towering wave, another impossible climb --

CRRRRUUUNNNCCCHHH...

And he had stopped. The wind still screamed around him, but green seawater no longer swept over what was left of the deck. Looking around, Andrew could see spire of black rock rising on either side of his half of the ship. The same freak wave that had swept the two pieces of the Lydia past one another had also lifted the bow and jammed it neatly between two spires of rock. Andrew was safe, for now, but his perch was precarious. He could feel the splintered timbers groan and flex beneath him, and it was only a matter of time before the wreck disintigrated completely and cast him into the sea.

Gotta attach myself to something that floats.

Andrew looked at the splintered remains of the foremast. Almost four feet of the massive timber still showed above deck. Crawling on hands and knees, he made his way across the slippery, tilted deck until he was sitting at its base. He looped a few lengths of rope around himself, tightening them as much as he could bear, and then tied a rough knot with the last of his strength.

Well . . . this is a shitty way to go out . . .

And Andrew slipped into unconsciousness.

---

A dull roar . . . the wind? . . . no, different . . . open . . . eyes . . .

But nothing had changed. Had it? The wind and the rain still screamed past his face. Miraculously the wreck was still hanging above the waves, wedged between the jagged black stones. Andrew still sagged, lashed tightly to the stump of the foremast. Where . . . buzzing . . .

A low drone cut through the howl of the wind. Andrew looked up to see a dark shape above him. Huh . . . well maybe that's death.

But it wasn't. As he continued to stare dumbly upward, he noticed something descending from it. A dark shape, swinging at the end of a long tether. It landed with a thump next to him on the deck, and Andrew realized it was a person. The person seemed to be saying something, waving their arms about and shouting, but Andrew couldn't make sense of it. All he could do was roll his head feebly from one side to the other.

The figure pointed again, this time at the knot binding Andrew to the mast. Want me . . . come with? He tried to untie the knot, but his hands were too numbed from the cold and he could only tug at them in vain. The figure bent over him, and there was a flash of steel as they cut through the ropes. Andrew tried to stand, but only started to slide away down the deck. The dark figure quickly grabbed him under the armpits.

"Hold on!" she shouted in his ear. Andrew felt his feet leave the deck, and they were rising up, up into the air. Hold on . . . hold on . . . hold on . . . but he couldn't keep his focus. Andrew's mind swam away, floating up and above the woman, the storm, and out of everything altogether.