“What ship?”
“Er…I don’t know the name of it.”
“Lost how?” asked the smallest cabin boy, Jeffy, who looked to be about nine years old to Ella. He was blond and had a perennially worried look on his face. She was surprised he joined into the conversation. From the looks some of the men gave him, she guessed that little Jeffy had been the resident plaything until her arrival.
“I’m not sure,” she said, amazed that these men were at all interested in her story and possibly even in helping her. “Maybe fell overboard.”
“Thrown over most like,” Roger said. He looked at Ella and shrugged apologetically. “Not saying he was, mind.”
“You said the pirate, Sully, found a giant on an unchartered island recently.”
“Don’t she talk quare? Almost like royalty. Ye ain’t royalty, are ye? Or maybe a duke’s bastard?”
“I heard it from a bloke who heard it direct from Cap’n Sully’s quartermaster. They had the Dutchman—”
“Oy! I saw the Dutchman!”
“Ye never!”
“I did! Coming back from Fifi’s, I saw the Die Hard’s master himself with Edward Toad. Between ‘em they had the poor devil, scared out of his shorts, so he was.”
“How’d ye know it was the Dutchman?”
“Who else would it be? His hands was tied in front of him, wasn’t they?”
“Can we please get back to the giant?” Ella asked patiently.
“Right. Ansel Hind off the Die Hard tells me hisself they caught them a giant living on an island when they stopped to careen their hull after the set-to with Eendracht.”
Ella found herself getting excited. It had to be Rowan. It fit perfectly.
“Why did they bring the Dutchman into Casablanca and not the giant?” she asked. “Did this Ansel person tell you?”
“Not in words but I got the idea the Dutchman was bartering, ye ken? He had a treasure to trade for his life.”
Ella nodded. Rowan had no treasure to bargain with. “Did you…did you happen to hear what they did with the giant?”
“Ye think might be this giant is your brother? Because yer a wee thing, lass, and Ansel said this fella was ten feet tall, so he did.”
“They won’t kill ‘im unless he causes trouble, if that’s yer worry. Someone that big would be worth two men for crewing a ship the size of Die Hard.”
“How long do you imagine Die Hard will stay in Casablanca?”
“It lifted anchor a few hours before we did.”
Ella felt her heart sink. Had they really briefly been within a mile of each other?
“Any possibility we’re going the same way?”
“No, luv. We’re heading to Cape Breton Island. Die Hard winters in the Dry Tortugas.”
Ella felt herself break out into a light sweat. “How far away is that from us?”
One of the crewmembers—a man with only one arm—wrinkled up his nose. “Five thousand?” he ventured.
Miles? The floor under her feet seemed to move independent of the motion of the ocean beneath it. “How long is that in days?”
“You mean months,” Roger said, helping himself to another bowl of the spicy fish stew. “What think ye?” he said to the one-armed man. “Five months, is it?”
“Aye. If the weather’s fair.”
Ella burst into tears. She felt the men sitting next to her edge away, although Roger hesitantly patted her shoulder.
“Aw, lassie, avast,” he said, fretfully. “Belay that. Come now. It’s not so bad.”
Ella tried to put her thoughts into order. Rowan was on a ship heading to the Florida Keys, a trip that would take him—and me if I follow him—five months? Was that possible? Can I really think of being gone so long from Tater?
“Cor, if she’s that hard took with Die Hard, best not tell ‘er how long it’s gonna take us to get to Nova Scotia.”
That night, Ella wrapped up on a hard pad on the kitchen floor. She’d already seen three rats and thought half the reason Cook wanted her in here at night was to guard the larder from them. She lined up an arsenal of small pots and pans to throw at them.
Five months. Rowan was on a journey that wouldn’t reach its destination for five months. Nearly half a year…unless something bad happened and the trip ended before then.
She covered her face with her hands. How could this have happened? The plan had been to find him in Casablanca, or word of him, and to go wherever he was and then the two of them would return home.
She glanced in the direction of the lone porthole and leaned her head tiredly against the wall of the galley. It was the end of the second day. Two days since the Constantine left port. She didn’t know how fast the ship was moving, but she knew it was moving away from her hotel room in Casablanca and in the wrong direction from the Florida Keys. She didn’t know much at this point, but one thing she did know was that one way or the other she had to get off this ship before she ended up in the middle of the North Atlantic Ocean servicing fifteen randy and extremely malodorous seamen.
That meant she had a timeline between immediately and three days from now—which marked the time when her period would be finished.
A dark shape appeared on the shelf six feet from her head and she screamed and threw the nearest pot at hand. She missed the rodent by a good foot. The clattering noise prompted no shout or accompanying oath from people trying to sleep and it occurred to Ella that she wasn’t sure where the crew slept. She stood up and went to the porthole. It was night and all she could see was black. She couldn’t even tell the sky from the water. She heard the waves crashing against the sides of the ship but that was the only indication, aside from the rocking motion, that they were at sea.
Does it matter that I’m alone at this end of the ship? There’s no way off the boat and no moon even if I managed it. Dejected, she slumped back down to her pallet on the floor, another pot clutched in her hand, when her eye caught the soft glow of the embers in the cook stove. She stared at the small fire through the iron latticework of the stove’s door.
Did she dare?
She got to her feet. What was she saying? How could she not dare? She was pretty much out of options. Looking around the kitchen, she saw a pile of greasy hand towels next to the dishes. Grabbing them up, she went in search of the kindling Cook used to keep the stove hot and dragged the whole can across the wooden floor to the stove.
She had no real idea how this was going to turn out—which was very different from her crystal-clear picture of her future three days from now.
She opened the door to the stove.
Thank God they hadn’t thought to lock her in the kitchen, although she probably should have confirmed that before she started catching things on fire. Assuming she was trapped on the boat with no chance of escape—and the fact that they’d all been so congenial at dinner—it probably hadn’t occurred to Cook that she still hoped to get off the damn ship. The blaze in the kitchen was big enough to attract notice, but so far nobody had come. She peered down the darkened passageway outside the kitchen and then crept down it and vaulted up the half stairs to the top deck. There she could see the first mate and three other men. It was a clear night, if moonless, with steering and navigating seemingly pretty straightforward at the moment.
While she frankly didn’t care if the whole ship went up in flames, it seemed prudent to at least appear to sound the alarm lest she be blamed for deliberately starting the blaze. Ella wasn’t sure what kind of maritime justice there might be out here in 1825 for defenseless women but she wasn’t eager to find out.
Pulling her blouse open a little in order to remind the first mate that she was, indeed, female, Ella stepped out of the shadows and called to him.
“Excuse me, sir?” she said.
Instantly, all three men whirled around to stare at her. The first mate—a skinny Spaniard with bad skin—left the bridge and hurried over to where Ella waited.
“Senorita,” he said, tersely. “Back to your quarte
rs at once.”
“I think there’s a problem below decks,” Ella said, wringing her hands and looking at the man with her best weak-little-woman expression. The first mate turned to look at the bridge as if hesitating to abandon his post when a scream from behind Ella snapped his attention back again.
“Fire! Fire!” a man’s hoarse scream exploded from the direction of the hall in front of the kitchen.
“It’s what I was trying to tell you,” Ella said, worried now that she wouldn’t get credit for raising the alarm. “There’s a fire in the kitchen.”
The Spaniard spoke quickly in Spanish to the three men on the bridge and one of them bolted away on the other side, presumably to alert the rest of the ship. The Spaniard pushed past Ella and charged in the direction of the kitchen. The man below continued to howl and now Ella could tell he was screaming in pain.
Oh, crap! How did that happen?
Deciding that keeping out of everyone’s way was the best recourse for someone who didn’t want to be blamed for the disaster in the first place, Ella slid into the shadows of the top deck to wait out the pandemonium. Within moments, the ship was crawling with sailors. Most of them, half-dressed and half-asleep, stumbled about grabbing rope and buckets in a clear panic as if they were being boarded by Blackbeard himself.
It occurred to Ella as she saw the fear on all of their faces that fire onboard a wooden ship was a very bad thing indeed. If there was even a hint of a suspicion that she’d deliberately started it, she was going to be lashed to a mast and fed to the sharks.
At the very least.
Wondering how sophisticated arson forensics could possibly be on an 1800s ship in the middle of the ocean, Ella began to seriously second guess how great her idea was of assuming a superstitious sailor’s hesitancy to touch a menstruating woman could transfer to the idea that all women on board ship were bad luck.
If I followed the logic of that argument to its natural conclusion, she thought, the brisk wind on deck slicing painfully through her thin blouse, they might as well just slit my throat as drop me off at the next port.
Be a lot more convenient, too, she thought as she stared into the dark, depthless deep of the black water as it lapped the side of the ship and pushed further into the shadowy recesses of the ship topside.
Although it seemed to take forever, in the end she knew it hadn’t really. After watching most of the men disappear below deck to try to battle the blaze in the kitchen, it didn’t take long before she saw one or two—and then more—come back to the deck and wander about as if they were looking for something.
Looking for me.
She knew hiding in the shadows made her look guilty, but she was reluctant to give up her small moment of peace. She knew the accusations, the tears, the assault would begin as soon as she showed herself. But it had to be done—and done convincingly—if she wanted to survive this night.
She took a long breath to steady her nerves and emerged from the shadows.
“Oy! There she is! I found ‘er!”
Figures it would be that turd Roger, Ella thought, trying to stay brave in the face of three men descending upon her. They grabbed her arms and dragged her to the center of the deck near the bridge, where she could now see the captain was standing with Cook. Unfortunately for her, she could see that Cook was nursing a bloody lip—clearly an admonishment from the captain.
“It was an accident!” Ella blurted out. Up until that moment her plan had been to claim she was as surprised as everyone else. She wasn’t sure what made her say what she did.
“An accident, my arse!” Cook said, making a fist and shaking it at her. “Ye burned down me galley, ye vicious harpy!”
“I didn’t mean to! I’m so, so sorry.” Ella turned to appeal to the captain, who looked, if not educated, at least a little more civilized than his crew. “There were so many rats and I was trying to…I thought if I used smoke I could drive them away. I thought I was helping!”
Whether the captain or many of his men were married Ella couldn’t know, but she could see they had little to no respect for women in general—and her, specifically. She knew her only hope was to use that disrespect to get them to believe her.
“Stupid bitch! Are all women so stupid?”
Step two. Tears. Ella crumpled up her face. “I wanted to help but, especially during this time of month, I don’t always make the best decisions…”
She watched two men step back from her and one of the men holding her let go.
“And it’s not only the rats but the spiders. They’re huge!” Ella said to the captain, sniffling and dabbing at her eyes with the sleeve of her blouse. “I was just trying to help.”
“Arrr, cap’n,” a voice bellowed out. “Didn’t I say women were trouble? And Petey’s burned ‘is beard completely off just coz he was wanting a cracker at bedtime.”
Ah, so that was who discovered the fire. Ella sincerely hoped Petey wasn’t too badly hurt.
“Right,” the captain said, turning back to Ella. “Lock ‘er in the aft brig and post a guard so she doesn’t try to ‘help us’ any more this night.” A begrudging spatter of laughter followed. “In the morning, at first light, she’s over the side. You…” Ella saw him look at Roger. “She causes any more damage tonight yer going over with ‘er.”
Ella watched Roger nod solemnly, his normally tan face pale as he took her by the forearm and, holding her at arm’s length, marched her away from the crowd.
It worked! It was all Ella could do not to skip alongside her captor. He pushed her down the corridor that led to her original cell and slammed the door. She heard the wood groan as he slumped to a sitting position in front of the door. She could lock it or not as she liked. She wasn’t going anywhere tonight.
As Ella groped in the dark to find a spot to curl up in that wasn’t too awkward, an insidious thought niggled its way into her brain that soon made it impossible for her to shut her mind off in order to sleep.
What, exactly, had the captain meant—she’s over the side?
Five hours later at just before dawn Ella found out.
She was still asleep when the door to her cell lurched open, and Roger and another man grabbed her and hauled her down the corridor to the upper deck. Her terror awakened her quickly enough. So quickly were they hustling her that her feet weren’t touching the wooden planks of the ship flooring.
“Stop!” Ella cried. “Let me walk! Stop this!”
They ignored her, marching and half carrying her to where the weasel-faced first mate stood at the ship’s railing. Roger and the man threw her down in front of him and Ella fell awkwardly on her wrist. She crouched huddled at the first mate’s feet, cradling her hand tenderly when she heard the distinct sound of a sword leaving its scabbard.
She forced herself to look up at the Spaniard who stood over her, a wicked blade unsheathed and in his hand.
“You must go now, Senorita,” he said solemnly, his head jerking in the direction of the ship’s railing.
Dear God, they were pitching her over the side of the ship.
She got shakily to her feet, hugging her injured wrist to her chest and holding it with the other. She glanced at Roger and the other sailor—clearly there to prevent any last minute dashes back toward the rest of the ship where she’d no doubt create more mayhem. It was still dark, but she could at least see the ocean waves now, white caps popping into vision now and then.
The sea was rough this morning.
Ella swallowed and looked at the Spaniard. “This is murder,” she said. “I have people who will be looking for me. You can’t do this and not expect to spend years rotting in an English prison.”
“I speak English not good,” the first mate said with a shrug. “You must go now.” He gestured with his sword.
Ella looked over the side of the ship where he wanted her to jump and saw, for the first time, the rowboat that pitched and rocked by the ship.
Out of the frying pan…
“How am I to get dow
n there?” Bypassing the Spaniard, Ella looked at Roger, who it seemed was beginning to show definite signs of guilt.
“There’s a rope ladder,” he said, pointing to the rim on the underside of the railing.
Ella nodded. It was the best she could hope for and she intended to work on finding herself grateful for not being murdered outright. Her wrist had started to puff up. Best to get this done before it became totally useless. She hesitated and then turned back to Roger.
“A jacket, at least? Or a hat?”
He hesitated and then dashed down the hallway. Ella looked at the first mate, but now that it was clear she would go he seemed tolerant of the delay.
Roger was back in short order with a heavy cotton jacket and a large floppy hat. One would protect her from the sun, the other from the night’s chill. It wasn’t an iPhone with a GPS app, but it was better than nothing.
“God speed and good luck to ye.”
Ella shrugged into the jacket and positioned the hat on her head, then crawled out on the ship’s railing until her foot met the first rung on the rope ladder. Immediately, she felt the wind try to pluck her from the ladder and her hurt wrist screamed as she clung to the side of the ship. A strong pair of hands clamped down on her arms. Roger held her securely in place until the wind died down.
“Thanks,” she said hoarsely, and slowly descended the rungs—slipping only once and then catching herself—until she jumped the remaining distance of six feet into the boat. She grabbed the oar and pushed away from the ship until she could manage a steady pull on the oars.
The Constantine was tacking against the current. To go in the opposite direction of the merchant ship she would, thankfully, be rowing with the current instead of against it. Within thirty minutes, she was amazed at how far away the ship was. In an hour, it was only a speck on the horizon. Two hours later, the sun was nearly at its apex in the sky but the temperature was falling.
And she was totally alone.
10
Race to World's End (Rowan and Ella Book 3) Page 10