By The Sea, Book Three: Laura

by Stockenberg, Antoinette

  He didn't know what to do. He was too tired to open his eyes, too wet to stay where he was. He should've taken Colin's saloon berth when it was offered; but then where would Colin go? It was all such a mess. Everything was a mess. His blanket was soaked, and his pillow, and he was just so tired of it all. He had been trying very hard to be tough and strong like the others and to smile when he was afraid. But this wasn't fair. Nobody else's berth leaked. When they got back he was going to make his father sell the boat and get a house, and then he could sleep in a dry, steady berth all night long, and have a dog.

  And he was cold, colder than he'd ever been. His teeth were chattering, and he was shivering and wrapping himself with his arms, but it didn't do any good. It seemed to him that the noise on deck was worse than ever, and the Ginny was getting slammed by seas more often than ever, and he started to cry. Not enough so that Stubby and Billy could hear him, but enough to relieve himself of some of his misery. After two or three minutes he reached a decision. He tied his shagreen bag to his belt and climbed out of his berth. Stepping down with difficulty in the pitching boat, he began to make his way aft in the dark with the utmost caution: Stubby's rat could be anywhere.

  The noise in the cargo hold was tremendous. It was nothing but an open space, and any sounds on deck reverberated below. He could hear water sloshing in the bilge, and it sounded high. The rough-hewn planking of the sole of the cargo area was wet under his bare feet, and he became worried about slipping and falling and the rat biting his leg. It seemed to him that every time the boat lifted and fell, he heard flagstone cracking, a horrible sound since it had been his job to pack the straw between the slabs.

  At last he emerged in the main saloon, but here, too, it was dark. Only the tip of the wick in the kerosene lamp glowed, the way it did when the lamp bowl was empty but the wick was still a little wet. He could not see whether Colin was asleep or not; he hoped he was, because he did not want to be seen crawling, like a baby, to his mother for comfort. He felt his way by heart across the saloon, holding on to the table, then the seat, then the fireman's pole at the foot of the companionway steps to steady himself, until at last he was at the door of his mother's cabin.

  He lifted the latch carefully and pushed the door open a little. "Mama?" he whispered in a furtive voice. "Mama, it's me."

  There was no light in his mother's cabin, either. But as he stood there whispering, "Mama?" in an inaudible voice, moonlight broke through the clouds and streamed through the cabin portholes, burning the scene before him into his memory for all time: two people, mere shadows, in his parents' berth, and one of them wasn't his father.

  He stood there, his mouth ajar, his hand still on the cabin door. The boat lurched and his hand went up inadvertently, lifting the latch, which fell back with a little "click." It was nothing, a tiny sound in nature's wild cacophony; but Colin heard it. He turned and saw Neil. And then the moon went away and the cabin went dark again, so dark that he could not see his mother.

  Which made the anguish in her voice all the more plain. "Neil—"

  But he could not bear to hear any more—he wanted so desperately to cling to the notion of the mother he knew—so he slapped his hands over his ears and ran from her cabin until he stumbled into something and fell. He crawled after that, not trusting his balance and not even thinking about the rat, all the way to the forecastle. When he got to his berth he tumbled into it as if it were a secret cave, and sat listening to the sounds of the storm, hearing nothing.

  ****

  "Oh dear God. What have I done?" Laura kept repeating, grabbing wildly at any clothing that she saw. "What have I done? He'll never understand." She fumbled with buttons, pulled on pants that were too big, threw them off with horror. All of her actions, all of her utterances were supercharged with emotion; she was raw with it.

  "He will understand, Laura," Colin insisted, trying to get hold of her. "If not now, then later."

  Laura twisted away from him. "You don't understand him. You don't understand him. This will destroy him," she wailed. "Oh God. What have I done?"

  She bolted from her cabin in pursuit of her son. In the moonlit saloon she could see that he was not there. Somewhere her subconscious registered that the skies had begun at last to clear. The wind was shifting, though not decreasing; even in her distraught state she could feel the pattern of the boat's motion changing. The cargo hold, with no portholes to let in moonlight, was like a coal mine. Laura bounced off one object and into another, her hands outstretched before her, feeling her way to the forecastle.

  Her hand was on the cold porcelain rim of one of the bathtubs when the unthinkable, the incomprehensible, happened. The Virginia, lifted high on a crest, fell with a nauseating, soul-searing crash of splintering wood and cracking timbers: she had hit bottom.

  Hit bottom hard. Laura was thrown violently forward, landing with bruising force up against one of the cement bags that was stowed in the tub. It broke her fall, possibly saved her life. Stunned and with her breath knocked out of her, she lay against the bag with aching, sore breasts while the Virginia lifted on another crest, fell with another crash, more sickening than the first: all Laura heard was the sound of breaking bones, of poor old Virginia being methodically brutalized. There was a dragging sound as cargo shifted; the granite slabs were breaking loose. Laura struggled to her feet and made her way blindly forward through the tumult; she had to find Neil.

  Another lift, another fall, more breaking. Laura was thrown against a supporting column with such violence that the head of a protruding nail tore through her shoulder. With a cry of pain she grabbed at the wound: blood, sudden and warm, flowed freely. The lumber on deck began to break away from its moorings, creating unspeakable noise above, as if they'd been boarded by an army of marauders. The multiple heavy layers of canvas that had been nailed over the hold were torn away like so many sheets of paper, and great volumes of water came cascading through the now exposed hatch, flooding the hold and washing over Laura with apocalyptic violence. "Oh no, oh no, oh no, oh no," she kept repeating numbly as she stumbled and crawled and drove herself forward.

  When she found Neil he was clinging to the foremast the way he had clung to her leg when he was in diapers. Billy was trying to pry him loose, and gesturing to the booby hatch above. In the middle of her despair Laura felt her heart lighten: Billy was loyal, and her son was alive.

  When Billy saw Laura he shouted, "Can we go back that way?" In the moonlight that poured through the booby hatch he looked like Sam, only frightened.

  "No. The cargo's loose," Laura shouted over the din. She was knocked down, struggled painfully to her feet, was thrown forward. It was drier in the forecastle, away from the enormous open cargo hatch; but even here there seemed to be water everywhere. "Help me lift Neil out of here," she shouted, taking her son firmly by his wrist. He seemed limp to her touch, and she thought he might be in shock.

  The angle of the schooner was becoming more acute as the boat was driven further and further aground. Despite that, and despite the pain of her injuries, Laura managed to hand Neil up to Billy and Stubby, who were both lying flat on deck now, hanging their arms through the hatch to grab Neil. Stubby's face was excited but hardly terrified, and Laura thought, he still doesn't understand. They yanked Neil up through the hatch; Laura followed.

  On deck it was impossible to stand. The Virginia was almost flat on her side, her heavy masts nearly horizontal, the tiny storm jib still drawing, still doing its best to keep the boat steady. They had to climb to the high side—there was no path left along the leeward deck—and crawl their way aft with excruciating slowness, like human caterpillars. The seas were breaking on the hull with such appalling violence that the water streamed straight over their heads, leaving them relatively unscathed; Laura had been in more danger of drowning in the cargo hold. In a split-second lull she caught a moonlit glimpse of land, but it was hundreds of yards away.

  They were on a reef, then, and between the reef and the island was more water
. How deep, how navigable, she had no idea.

  When they got aft it was worse than Laura had feared. The main boom had splintered in two, with one section, still attached to its running rigging, waving a deathly finger at the sky above them. The cockpit was half filled with water, and she could tell by the way the steering wheel was poised motionless that it was no longer connected to the rudder. The skylight over the after-cabin had carried away, and water was crashing into the cozy galley and saloon, which seemed like the greatest outrage of all. Where could they hide? Her mind went blank for a moment; and then Colin appeared, and she snapped out of it.

  "Colin! Where were you?" she screamed over the horrendous noise of wind and sea and wreckage.

  "Looking for you in the hold," he yelled back. "Everyone here?"

  He was perhaps three feet away, and yet she had to strain to hear him. She saw, even in the moonlight, that he was hurt. Blood streamed down the side of his face; he had done battle with the loose cargo, looking for her. It was pointless to ask whether he thought he'd be all right. She shouted instead, "Do you think that's Pineapple Cay?"

  "No way to tell," he answered in kind.

  The Virginia was lifted again by a sea, but not quite as violently; she was filling with water, becoming sluggish, too beaten, too broken to fight back much longer. It filled Laura with panic, as if she had stumbled upon someone suffering from convulsions and had no time to react. "Should we let her try to bounce over the reef into the water? If that's Pineapple Cay it will be deep enough on the other side, and we can get out through the break in the reef."

  "We don't know that. I think our best bet is to use the yawl-boat to kedge off an anchor and try to keep her from being driven farther on the reef. It's low tide. We may be able to float her off at high."

  All this was screamed into her ear through his cupped hands. Laura nodded vigorously, fired with hope that all wasn't lost after all. Just then a sea, higher than the half dozen preceding it, washed over them all, drenching them anew. Someone would be washed overboard for certain, despite the footing the cabin house afforded them. "Let me stow Neil below," she shouted back to Colin. "Wait for me. Stubby can't row—we can't count on the engine—and Billy will have to work the windlass. I'll go with you. Wait for me."

  He nodded once; she wasn't sure he'd heard her. Fearful that he'd try something heroic, she grabbed up Neil and with great difficulty got him below. The saloon was awash, though not badly. But she'd forgotten, in the space of the time she was on deck, how horrifying the sound of the hull being dragged over the reef was. It echoed and re-echoed in her ears, a death rattle. "Neil," she said in a clear, loud voice to her utterly silent son as she dug out a lifejacket and tied it around him, "listen to me very carefully. I want you to stay below until we're finished. We're going to kedge off, just like Dad and Billy have done a dozen times. Don't be afraid. You'll be safe here. Climb up on my berth; it's on the high side. Stay there until one of us comes for you. Someone will, don't worry. But do not, no matter what, leave the Virginia. Don't try to swim to shore. Stay with the boat. Do you understand? You'll be safe here. Safe."

  He stared at her.

  "Neil? Neil. Stay here. Stay here." She wrapped her arms around him and hugged him tight, unwilling, despite everything, to let go. "No matter what, I love you."

  The Virginia lurched again, pushed up further on the reef like a beached whale. In an agony Laura released her son and climbed back up on deck. Colin and Billy were at the stern, next to the davits on which hung the yawl-boat, still miraculously intact. They were pulling back its canvas cover, getting ready to lower it into the water breaking over the reef.

  Whether she and Colin could successfully manage to get the yawl-boat through the surf and around to the Virginia's bow, hold it steady while Billy and Stubby lowered the kedge anchor into it, and then row the anchor out to a suitable spot while dragging the two-inch rope that Billy would be paying out from the Virginia ....

  Laura looked at the island, so fetchingly close, so irresistibly safe. They could wait until the storm blew out, then take the yawl-boat ashore. Sooner or later they would be found, even if there were no settlements there, which there might well be. "Colin!" she suddenly shouted. "It's too late! Let's let the boat go!"

  Colin turned to her and gave her a rueful smile. "Sam would never forgive us!" he yelled back.

  To some it would have seemed an utterly insane, even infuriating response, but Laura took it at its worth. Amid all the chaos, all the danger, it struck her that that was why she'd fallen in love with Colin Durant: because more than anyone she'd ever met, he understood people, saw into their souls. He had been right about Neil, and he was right about Sam. If she was going to live with herself—if she was going to live with Colin—they had to try to save the Virginia.

  She wondered whether she'd gone over the edge with love for him as she nodded into the stinging spray and shouted, "All right. Let's do it."

  ****

  Neil had stayed in the saloon as long as he dared, but the water was rising. It covered the leeward settee fairly quickly, forcing him into what used to be his old sick bay, Colin's berth. Above the fury of the storm he heard the sound of the yawl-boat being lowered in the water. It amazed him that the blocks could still squeak so, drenched as they must be in the pounding surf. He tried to consider dispassionately whether it would be hard to row the yawl-boat around to the bow to receive the kedge. If they stayed under the lee of the Virginia, he supposed it could be done. And then he remembered who "they" were, and he began to cry again.

  The Virginia was so far over on her side that Colin's berth wasn't much higher than the settee; soon the water would be over that, too. Loath as he was to go back into his mother's cabin after what he'd seen there, he had no choice. The high side was the safe side. He waded, then climbed, slipping and sliding, into his parents' berth. The bunkboard kept him from falling out; even so, he found himself nearly standing on it, so great was the angle. Eventually he managed, by rearranging the mattress and pillows, to keep himself secure, despite the continued pounding of the Virginia on the reef.

  He sat in his little nest for a long, long time, stupefied by events, registering only good and normal data: the ting-ting of the ship's clock in his parents' cabin; the sound of his own voice as he hummed his father's favorite chantey; the smell of his father's tobacco; the clank-clank of the windlass as it payed out the anchor rope. Everything else—the mindless fury, the pitiful destruction—he let go by. After a while he heard only the rhythmic, peaceful sucking of his thumb.

  ****

  No morning dawns so bright as the one after a norther. The sky was brilliant blue, the air washed clean of the sweat of men. It was as if Nature had said to her adversary, "If you want to try again, you may."

  Billy and Neil were standing on the side of the Virginia, scanning the beach. Neil, for one, thought it was a desecration, like standing on a dead body for a better view, but he was looking for his mother, and he didn't know where else to be. Billy had told Neil that when morning came they'd no doubt find Colin and Laura on the beach, waving to them, because it was the most logical place for them to end up. But it was morning, more than morning, and they weren't seeing anything but white sand. Then Stubby came up with the binoculars, which he'd somehow managed to fish out of the flooded cabin, and handed them to Billy. Billy took them eagerly and focused on the sand, making methodical sweeps back and forth across the beach. But after a while he stopped, and lowered his binoculars, and cleared his throat. So Neil took the glasses.

  He knew, without scanning, where to focus. Something in his mind's eye had recorded a dark speck on an otherwise virgin beach. Clear as anything he saw one of the yawl-boat's oars, which he himself had painted bright blue to please his mother.

  ****

  "25 September, 1934. It's over. We have won the race and the Cup. We almost lost it on the second leg when we set a bad sail. Vanderbilt went below, always a bad sign. But foxy Hoyt took over and led Sopwith down the
garden path again. Where Hoyt goes Sopwith cannot help but follow. After that we beat the Endeavour fair and square by less than a minute. It was a great race. Yet for me it tastes like chalk because of race 4. This is what the Brits write about us—Britannia rules the waves but America waives the rules.

  So Laura you are right after all. The money was good, I have saved nearly all of it. We can fix the Gin up proper now. But when you come down to it there is not the honor I hoped there would be. I thought of your tale of King Arthur. His dream was good and true, but it was only a dream."

  Chapter 14

  In a tangled heap of coastal scrub and splintered planking, and hidden from the view of the boy and two men standing on the wrecked remains of the Virginia, two bodies lay lifeless.

  The tide, having ebbed less than usual after the storm, was continuing its relentless march up the sand, determined to pull what it could into the sea. It went after the woman first, tugging at her sodden clothing, wrapping its wet warmth around her ankles, her calves, her thighs.

  And after her, him. He was higher up on the sand, but facing east where she lay west, his arm around her shoulders, his last conscious act a defiant attempt to keep her from being torn away from him.

  A surge of sea, bolder than before, licked at his hair, eager to claim him for its own. It wouldn't be long now.

  Perhaps deep in the dormancy of her soul, Laura knew it. Whether her pained, improbable moan was a cry of despair or a cry to battle, it had the effect of rousing Colin enough for him to lift his head. The wave washed ineffectually against his chest.

  They were alive. Against all odds and despite their deeds, it was not their time. Laura pulled herself up and sat groggy in the sand as the waves lapped over her legs. She might have been a child at the shore on a Sunday, innocently enjoying the sea. She tried to stand, couldn't, sat back down.