No doubt the men’s supper conversation was colourful, thought Emily. What she wouldn’t give to have been a fly on those walls! She suddenly became aware of the rise and fall of the ship. “We’re at sea, Mr. Brockley?”
“Aye, we pulled anchor hours ago, Miss.” He pulled in his tongue to give her a grin. “Yer exercise above deck must have tuckered ya out.”
“It did indeed,” she said, avoiding his bright eyes. “Thank you for the soup.”
“Holler when ya want yer pudding.”
Osmund gawked at her a moment, then left. Emily dipped the spoon into the thick green muck and slowly brought it to her mouth, banishing all thoughts of its cook and his crumby whiskers.
Later on, as she finished the last of her pudding and contemplated a dull, restless evening, she heard tentative steps approaching. Gus Walby cleared his throat.
“Come in. Please.”
Gus slipped through the curtain into her corner and stood by her hammock holding Sense and Sensibility. Emily could see that his blue eyes were full of excitement.
“Have you come to rescue me from my boredom?”
“I promised to come and read to you before my watch.”
“But the First Watch has already begun, has it not?”
“My watch begins at midnight. I’ve never done the Middle Watch before. Captain Moreland must have confidence in me for we’ll soon be entering enemy waters again.”
“May I watch with you? I’d give anything to be away from this bed.”
Gus’s cheeks reddened. “You’d better not, Em. You caused quite a stir this afternoon.” He reached for the stool at the foot of her hammock and sat down upon it. “When you didn’t return to the hospital, Dr. Braden asked me to look for you, as he had his hands full stitching up the head of a sailor that’d fallen from the shrouds. But I couldn’t find you anywhere. I was mad at myself for leaving you, but I never thought Magpie would have led you to the mess.”
“Magpie did no such thing! When it was time for him to return to his duties, I told him I was quite capable of finding my own way back to the hospital. I soon discovered I was quite lost and not capable at all.”
“Is it true, Em? Were you really drinking beer with Biscuit and his mates?”
“Did Dr. Braden tell you that?”
“Oh, no.” Gus lowered his voice to a whisper. “I was invited to dine with the officers this evening and it was there that Mr. Lindsay announced he’d been informed you were drinking beer with a group of men that were saying lewd things to you. All Dr. Braden said was it was obvious the men had no idea they were in the presence of a lady; otherwise, they wouldn’t have been so vulgar.”
Emily leaned closer to Gus. “Is this Mr. Lindsay the same man that teaches you writing?”
“Aye, he’s a first lieutenant.”
“Fascinating!” Emily said, more to herself than to Gus.
“Were you quite offended by the men’s remarks?”
“Not at all. I’ve had occasion to hear far worse. It’s not just men on the sea who misbehave.”
Gus looked embarrassed. “I shouldn’t have said anything at all …” His voice trailed off when Dr. Braden entered the hospital. In one brisk action, Gus opened Jane Austen’s novel and randomly began to read.
In the lamplight, Emily could see Leander’s shadow stop next to his desk, where he raised his head and stood unmoving as if listening to Gus’s reading. For a full chapter, he stayed in that position, and when it was complete, he called out, “It’s late, Mr. Walby.”
“Good night, Em. Sleep well. I hope we can continue tomorrow.”
Emily replied with a silent nod.
When Gus was gone, she lay swinging in her hammock, listening to the wind howling through the tiny cracks in the ship’s timbers and the sea crashing as the Isabelle battled her way through the waves. Periodically, a bell sounded, an order was shouted, a whistle was blown in the distance, but the rest of the ship was eerily silent. There was no entertainment above deck this night. Near Emily’s head, the gunport was closed up, and her little corner was dark and lonely. She hoped Leander might check in on her, might be in the mood for some conversation, but the only sounds outside her canvas curtain were the moans and snores of the wounded men in their cots, and the scratch of a pen. Emily closed her eyes and waited for sleep to come.
The first crash of cannons sounded in the early morning before light. Emily sat upright in her hammock and blinked in the blackness of the lower deck. As yet, no lanterns had been lit in the room where they all slept. Through the cracks in the ship’s timbers, she could see flashes of light that were followed by thunderous outbursts of guns. The hits to the hull of their merchant ship rattled Emily’s teeth and landed her on her back as she scrambled out of her cot. There was confusion and chaos above her head as the crew raced to defend themselves with their guns. In the darkness of the large cabin the women started screaming and the children began to wail. Emily could not see a thing as she groped her way to the next hammock and, with trembling hands, felt around for the terrified child who lay there. She scooped up the youngster and shouted to the other women to grab their children and take them to the corners of the room. But no one answered her. No one seemed to hear her. All around the ship the explosions and ensuing battle cries were deafening.
Before long, the American captain ordered his men to lash the ships together for boarding. As she crouched down in a gloomy corner, Emily could smell the stale stink of the enemy seamen as they crept through the decks with their pistols cocked and cutlasses in the ready position. She held her breath, hoping somehow they would not find her, and calmed herself by rocking the unknown child in her arms, feeling its soft hair against her cheek, wiping away its tears, but it was impossible, as the women and children sitting in the darkness next to her were hysterical. Voices – frantic voices – called out her name, over and over again. Suddenly, the silhouettes of three men came upon her and lifted a lantern to her face. The tallest one wore a cocked hat. He tore the child from her arms and held his pistol to her breast …
Emily awoke and cried out. Her heart pumped madly in her tightened chest and she gasped for air, her dark thoughts dragging her into an abyss where there was only oppressive sadness. Feeling icy cold, she began to shudder.
Within seconds a hospital lantern was lit and Leander stood next to her bed. “It was a dream … just a dream,” he said gently, pulling the blankets she had cast off in her fitful sleep up around her shoulders. “Breathe in deeply and exhale slowly through your mouth.”
Emily closed her eyes and tried concentrating on her breathing. “It was so black,” she mumbled on her pillow.
“Keep breathing – slowly and deeply. I’ll be right back.”
Fighting the temptation to revisit her nightmare, Emily lay there alone, trying to restore her breathing and heart rate with pleasant memories of her childhood home in England. It had been such a lovely house: three storeys high, stucco and beam, full of cosy corners, secret cupboards, and happy people. And the surrounding gardens had been so fragrant, all riotous colour, humming with tiny creatures. Father was there, smiling and waving to her as she played near the pond under the willow trees …
But it was no use. The haunting sounds of sobbing women and children, and the delirious voices of her unseen companions as they ran about, calling out to her in the shadows, kept interrupting her images of England … kept echoing through the corridors of her mind. Where were they now? Caught in the ship’s remains, their scattered bones lost in the ocean’s dark depths? Try as she might, Emily could not flee from her fear and her guilt that somehow … she had been responsible for their fate.
Leander returned quietly