Oatcakes and Courage

by Grant-Smith, Joyce

Master Orr crossed the deck and stomped up the ladder to join the captain on the transom. The captain gestured toward the west.

  Master Orr peered into the night. His eyes became round and his mouth dropped open. He glanced nervously at the captain.

  “Shall I alert…?” Master Orr began.

  “Let’s not panic the passengers,” Captain Spiers said. His tone was calm, but his face was taut. “Ask the piper to finish the celebration and have the passengers retire to the hold. Make sure none of them remains on deck. Then alert the crew. We haven’t much time to secure the ship before it hits.”

  “Aye, Captain.”

  Master Orr hurried down the ladder to the piper. He whispered in John MacKay’s ear.

  John gazed at the first mate sidelong, disbelief written all over his face. When he saw the grim set of Master Orr’s jaw, he nodded curtly. He called to the passengers, “One more song, and then I must retire for the night, and so must all of you.”

  “Nay, nay!” the crowd cried. “Play on, John!”

  “Sorry, folks,” John said cheerily, “It’s late, and our dear Master Orr here tells me we may have a little wind tonight. So we need to pack up and go below.”

  “Nay!”

  “Oh, do play on!”

  “Come, come,” John said. “One more song and then off to bed.” And he began to play.

  By the time he had finished the song and the passengers were drifting off, realizing that they could not convince him to play longer, the wind had risen considerably. Master Orr ordered his lads up onto the masts to secure the rigging. They struggled to contain the huge sheets of canvas.

  There was a whistle in the wind that Anne hadn’t heard before and it filled her with dread. It sounded wild, like an eagle’s hunting call. She glanced about for Ian, but couldn’t find him. Then she heard the wail of a frightened infant and she hurried to help Janet and Baby Jane down into the hold.

  Within a quarter of an hour, the waves had whipped into froth. Rain pounded down. Anyone still on deck became drenched.

  Ian was one of the last passengers to make his way down the ladder to the hold, having helped the crew secure the lines. His hair was plastered against his head. His shirt streamed water.

  Anne met him at the foot of the ladder. “Did you see Christina?” she begged, her voice full of fear.

  “Nay.”

  “Katherine cannot find her. She’s nearly frantic. She thought Christina had followed her down here, but once she got the other girls in their bunk…”

  “Are you sure she isn’t down here somewhere? She could be in someone else’s…” Ian clung to the ladder with one hand and grabbed Anne about the waist as the Hector rolled upon a wave, tossing them sideways.

  As they righted themselves, Anne said, “We have looked and looked. Hugh has gone to search, but…”

  “I’ll go back up, too, and check,” Ian said, turning to climb the ladder.

  Anne followed him. As Ian started through the hatch he asked, “What are you doing? I’ll help look for her.”

  “We’ll both look,” Anne yelled above the screaming of the wind. Her hair escaped from its pins and whipped wildly around her head. She pointed toward the stern. “I’ll go aft.”

  Ian nodded and bent his head against the gale. He grabbed hold of a safety rope strung from the hatch to the bow and inched his way forward.

  Anne planted her feet, bracing herself. Rain pelted down, soaking her in an instant. A wave crashed over the rail and washed her legs out from under her. With a yelp, she skidded across the deck and pounded against one of the doors to the crew’s quarters. She rolled onto her hands and knees, sputtering and shaking icy brine from her face.

  Above the roar of the waves and the whining of the wind, she thought she heard a sound. She squinted up at the transom deck. She could make out nothing in the darkness.

  Anne crawled to the ladder and clung with both hands to the railing. Another frigid wave cascaded onto the deck and splashed over her. She gasped, shook the water off, and took a step upward. She pressed her body against the ladder as the ship bucked and pounded on the waves. Her fingers ached. Her knees quivered. She took another careful step. And another.

  At last she was at the top of the ladder. She peered into the gloom. She could make out a small bundle lying below the carving of the woman. She inched toward it.

  Anne stretched one hand out and grabbed a handful of soaked wool. She tugged, trying to pull it toward her. A tiny white face lifted from the bundle of cloth and two huge eyes stared at her. Relief flooded through Anne.

  “Christina!” she shouted over the howling of the wind. “It’s Anne! Come with me!”

  The little girl uncurled from the carving and slid on her belly, like a seal on a slick beach rock, to face Anne.

  “Good lass!” Anne cried, reaching out. “Give me your hand!”

  Just then, a massive wave hit the Hector. The ship reeled and tipped dizzily. Anne felt herself falling backward and desperately gripped the railing with both hands. Little Christina screamed and slid along the transom deck, washed along with the brine.

  “No!” Anne cried.

  Christina slammed against a railing post and clung to it like a barnacle.

  The ship shuddered and righted herself. Anne forced her numb fingers to let go of the railing. She scuttled on hands and knees to the edge of the transom, and grabbed Christina in her arms. The ship dropped into another trough, throwing Anne to the deck. She banged her elbows hard trying to protect Christina’s little body as she fell. Anne rolled on her side and lay panting.

  “I have you!” Anne yelled into the child’s hair. Christina was sobbing.

  Cradling Christina under one arm, Anne slithered along the wet, pitching transom deck to the ladder. She turned and slipped Christina snuggly against the ladder in front of her. They clung to the railing, their hands like claws, easing down a step at a time. Anne attempted to shield the child with her body against the worst of the rain and wind and hammering waves.

  As Anne reached the bottom step, she felt strong hands grip her shoulders. She turned her soaked face, and blinking away the rain and salt spray, she recognized Captain Spiers. He did not speak. He tucked Christina securely under his arm, then placed Anne’s hands, one at a time, on his waist. Anne curled her fingers around his wide leather belt and held on. Christina clung under his coat like a terrified monkey.

  Crouching, fighting against the screaming wind, Captain Spiers slowly moved hand-over-hand along a rope that was strung from his cabin to mid-ship. Anne inched along behind him, clutching him as if to life itself. When the captain reached the hatch he flung it open, then passed Christina to Anne. Anne wedged the child on the ladder in front of her, and they made their way slowly to the hold below. The hatch slammed closed, shutting out some of the fury of the storm.

  Anne realized that she was sobbing as hard as Christina was. She staggered between the bunks, hugging the little girl tightly as she made her way to Christina’s mother. Katherine was grimly bracing Janet and Alexa in their bunk.

  Katherine’s face crumpled when she saw Anne, soaked and torn by the hostility of the hurricane, with her equally sorry-looking daughter in her arms. She grabbed them both in a tight embrace and wept tears of utter gratitude.

  “I went to say good night to the mermaid,” Christina cried, “then it got bad. I couldn’t get back. I was so scared.”

  The Hector plunged into a trough that sent them all sprawling onto the floor, awash with seawater. They slowly picked themselves up and crawled to their bunks to brace themselves securely.

  Shivering in her bunk, Anne fretted. Where was Ian? He would not know that she had found Christina. She dared not go back onto the deck to look for him. How long would he stay out in that terrible storm? She could feel the ship shudder as wave after wave crashed over the deck. Water spilled down through the planks onto the passengers’ heads, soaking them. Ian couldn’t have been swept overboard, could he? Oh, please, not that. She squeezed h
er eyes closed and prayed.

  Presently, Anne felt a cold, sodden arm and leg press against her on the bunk. She took a deep breath and sighed, “Ian.”

  Anne threw her arms around his soaked, shaking shoulders. She felt his chest heave against her cheek. Ian clutched her to him.

  “I could not find you. I feared …” Ian swallowed his fear, and continued. “Captain Spiers told me you had found Christina. He helped me get back to the hatch. And Hugh, too. A good man, the captain.”

  “Aye,” Anne murmured, the salt of her tears mingling with the sea brine on her cheeks. “A good man.”

  “Oh, Anne. I could not bear it if anything happened to you.”

  Anne gripped Ian’s sopping shirt in her knotted fingers. “I know. I know. I don’t know what I’d do without you, Ian.”

  Ian kissed Anne softly on the top of her head. She turned her face up to try to see him but the hold was shrouded in a tomblike blackness. His lips travelled down her forehead, her nose, and then pressed against her mouth in a kiss that spoke of passion, relief and gratitude. They clung together, sharing what small comfort their closeness provided.

  The full fury of the storm slammed into the Hector after midnight. The ship reeled in the churning seas, pounded and bruised by the smashing waves.

  Anne had thought the storm of a few weeks ago was the worst that could possibly happen. It was mild compared to this brutal assault.

  Anne clung to Ian, shivering and crying, her face buried in his chest. All around her, she heard weeping and prayers.

  Anne knew that Captain Spiers would have to be manning the helm, running the ship with the wind. How was it possible that he and the crew were not swept from the deck?

  The Hector moaned as wave after monstrous wave threatened to bury her. Again and again, the sea tried to fold the Hector within its watery arms. It seemed it would not be denied this small prize. And yet, somehow, the ship fought her way to the top of every crushing wave. As she plunged into deep troughs, she lifted her stubborn bow and struggled her way upward, only to have the storm batter her down once more.

  Dawn came, though the passengers had no way of knowing in the dark hold. The hurricane raged on through the morning and afternoon. There was no food or water during all that time. No one dared move from where they were wedged. And who would keep anything in their stomachs?

  As the hours of merciless chaos wore on, the passengers – especially the children, the sick and the infirm – fell into an exhausted stupor. A kind of hopeless resignation descended over them all. They prepared themselves for what seemed inevitable.

  Anne realized that she must have actually slipped into a fretful doze. She came to as Ian shifted his weight beside her. She straightened slightly and opened her eyes. It took a moment for her to notice that she didn’t have to brace herself so strenuously to stay in the bunk.

  Ian gave her shoulders a little squeeze. He whispered, “I think the storm is passing.”

  Anne sighed. Did she dare hope?

  The hold remained as dark as pitch. How long had they been there? It was impossible to tell.

  “Too rough yet to go above,” Ian said in Anne’s ear.

  Anne nodded. The ship tossed and pounded on the waves, but the mad fury of the storm had lessened.

  Anne’s entire body ached as if she had been beaten. Her frantic search for Christina and the hours of rigid tension left her so sore she could hardly move. Her elbows were throbbing. Her skin felt raw in her sodden clothing.

  “Try to sleep if you can, lass,” Ian suggested. He settled her against him and she closed her eyes. Exhaustion washed over her.

  The hurricane moved off the following morning, thirty-two hours after Captain Spiers had spied the dark cloud in the western sky. The sea swell heaved the Hector over waves the height of crags, but the wind had abated. Passengers slowly eased their battered bodies from the hold to survey the damage.

  It had been considerable. Evidence of hasty repairs during the storm showed the extent of damage the hurricane had caused. A tattered sail, folded and stowed on the deck, waited to be sewn. Ropes that had snapped in the violence of the wind lay coiled on the deck. Crewmen were rushing to make the ship fully seaworthy again. Anne marveled that the Hector, with her leaks and rotten planks, had held together. She dropped to her knees and gave a prayer of thanks.

  The settlers were just taking in the damage that had been done when Archibald Chisholm came above and sadly announced that four children had died during the storm. Little Walter Murray and Colin McKay, both toddlers, had succumbed to the smallpox while the hurricane raged. Cousins, Ken and Katie MacKenzie, who had been lively, freckle-faced youths, were also dead. Captain Spiers grimly held a funeral service for all four children.

  The joy and celebration of two nights ago was drowned in the storm and buried at sea with the children.

  Chapter 10

  THERE WAS NO CHATTER of conversation on board. Passengers sat in silent, disconsolate groups. Hope had been torn from them bit by bit throughout this voyage till at last they were left as battered as the ship itself.

  Archibald Chisholm approached Anne, Ian, Hugh, Katherine, and the girls on the evening after the storm. His face was deeply lined.

  He took a deep breath and said, “Master Orr has told me that the hurricane has blown us off course.”

  “Aye, well, that’s no surprise,” Hugh said.

  Archibald nodded. “Master Orr informs me that it will likely take a fortnight to regain the distance.”

  “A fortnight!” Hugh exclaimed. “That can’t be right.”

  “I am afraid that the captain has plotted our position most carefully and thinks it will take us two weeks to come in sight of Newfoundland again.”

  The group stood in a horrified astonishment.

  Archibald squared his shoulders and said quietly, “And it seems our rations are becoming very… uh… meagre. We shall have to go on half rations or we may not have food to last out the voyage.”

  Katherine gathered her girls close to her. “Surely the children’s rations…”

  Archibald Chisholm shook his head sadly.

  Katherine gasped. Hugh put a hand on his wife’s shoulder and said, “We will share our rations with them, Katherine. Our girls will not go hungry.”

  Katherine gazed up into Hugh’s face and nodded.

  Archibald moved along the deck to continue spreading the news. Hugh said, “I have the oatcakes, you know. The ones that people were going to throw overboard.”

  “Did they not get ruined in the storm, Hugh?” Katherine asked.

  “Nay, I don’t think so. I have them carefully put away. I’ll check on them now, and if they are not full of sea water, I’ll take them straight away to the captain.”

  As Hugh strode off to retrieve his cache of moldy oatcakes, Ian said, “Many scoffed at him, calling him a miserly old woman. We may praise the Lord, and our good Hugh, for those oatcakes yet.”

  The sun beat down upon them the following afternoon, making the settlers all seek patches of shade on the parched deck. Anne was in her lightest cotton smock, fanning herself with a tattered handkerchief. Ian sprawled next to her, his hat over his eyes. John Stewart plunked himself down next to Anne’s other side.

  “Fierce hot,” he commented.

  Anne nodded and dabbed beads of sweat from her forehead and upper lip. She noticed John’s eyes on her. She felt rather indecently clothed under his scrutiny.

  “I don’t reckon it ever got this hot in Greenock,” John allowed. “Always a breeze off the water. A lovely place, Greenock.”

  “Is it?” Anne asked, out of politeness rather than curiosity.

  “Aye, sure. A grand place.” And John went on at length to tell Anne all about the town’s virtues.

  Anne squirmed on her seat of canvas sacks, and glanced at Ian. Ian might have been asleep, but for the occasional soft derisive snort that escaped from under the hat at key moments during John’s oration.

  John continued
, “I’ve lived there since I was a lad. My da was a fisherman. Took me out in his boat as soon as I could walk.”

  Ian heaved himself to his feet and mumbled something about needing to see Hugh. He tromped aft. Anne watched him go. John said, “A quiet sort of chap, isn’t he?” and then continued his tale about his exploits as a young man growing up in the coastal town.

  A couple of days later, when Anne settled next to the MacLeods for their half-ration supper, she noticed that Christina wasn’t eating. The little girl took a sip of water, but didn’t touch her salt meat or piece of oatcake.

  “It’s all right to eat what you have,” Anne whispered to her. “There will be food enough to see us through. Don’t worry about what Mister Chisholm said.”

  Christina looked up at Anne. Her eyes were glassy and her cheeks were flushed. “I’m not hungry,” she whimpered.

  Anne’s stomach clenched. She set her own food down and reached out to touch Christina’s forehead. It was hot.

  “Katherine,” Anne croaked, her throat suddenly very dry.

  Katherine looked up from feeding little Alexa. Her face puckered with worry when she saw the expression in Anne’s eyes.

  “I… I don’t think Christina is feeling well.”

  Katherine was beside her eldest child in an instant. “Dear merciful God,” she murmured. Then she called to her husband, who was talking with Alexander.

  “Hugh!”

  Hugh glanced over. Seeing the panic on Katherine’s face, he left his brother and came to her.

  Katherine whispered, “Christina is sick. She has a fever.”

  “What should we do?” Hugh asked.

  “I’ll take her below. You tell Captain Spiers and then look after the other two girls.” Katherine scooped Christina up in her arms and hurried to the hold, her cheeks wet with tears.

  Anne said, “I’ll watch the girls while you speak to the captain, Hugh. Then I’ll go help Katherine.”

  Hugh nodded his thanks. He hurried off.

  Anne gave the rest of her meal to little Janet. She had no more appetite.

  When Hugh returned, Anne rushed to the hold. Captain Spiers was examining Christina. The child lay like her rag doll upon the bunk.