“Dick is faster than me, sir,” says Will, glowing. “Mrs. Henley, would you tell me of your husband? I long to hear about Trafalgar. Pray, what ship was he on?”
“TheNeptune.”
“Under Captain Fremantle! I wonder if your husband met Lord Nelson?”
“He did,” Isabel says. “I shall tell you about it on our way to France, if you like.”
Oppy says, “She’s not just a widow of Trafalgar, Will. She’s the daughter of the Sea Bucca.”
“You’rethe Sea Bucca’s child they’re talking about?” Will wrings his cap.
“I’m not really,” she says, stepping away from the others to watch Jack, who has taken the basket with the fish to the bottom of the cliff, where a cave pushes deep into the rock. He places the fish on a stone at the entrance and says something she cannot hear over the wind.
When he returns, she says under her breath, “You don’t really believe the Sea Bucca will take that fish.”
Jack says, “It’s a lucky gull that gets it, most likely. It doesn’t matter whether I believe it or not. My crew believes it.”
“That’s why you do it? Because your men are superstitious?”
“I wouldn’t call it superstitious. Cautious, rather. But yes, that’s why I do it—that and the off chance there may be a way to gain fair winds from the Bucca after all.”
“You’re mad,” she whispers. “All of you are mad.”
He chuckles. “And you choose to sail with us.”
The surf washes over her leather slippers as she steps into the rowboat. There’s water in the bottom, which Dick bails out with a bucket before they push off from the beach. The sky is dark as if it’s already dusk. Rain whips her face, but through the rain curtain, a pale, fuzzy sun is visible, low above the headland, or is it the moon, risen early?
Waves rock the boat. The men pull on their oars, muscles straining under their shirts. “We’ll have to tack out of the cove,” Jack says, “before we can get the wind behind us.” The ship is much taller than it looks from the beach. Getting into it from the rowboat will be like climbing to the roof of the cottage with the cottage jerking about like a fish on a line. A Jacob’s ladder dangles down the hull, leading up to the deck.
“I’ll go behind you,” Jack says, steadying her as she reaches for the ladder.
The gap between the boat and the ship yaws. Her stomach lurches, her hands slip on the rope, and then she’s across, scrambling up the slick, wet side of the ship. Two pairs of hands grab her under the arms and lift her onto the deck, and for a moment she’s on her knees, catching her breath, her hands flat on the deck, searching for something to hold onto.
“Welcome aboard,” Jack says, helping her up. “You’ll want to clap a hand on there. You’ll get your sea legs fast in this weather.”
Her stomach continues to lurch as she stands. If it’s this bad in the cove, she cannot imagine what the sea will be like outside the shelter of the cliffs. Maybe this was a mistake.
Jack disappears the moment she’s on her feet. She hardly sees him during the next two hours as the men prepare theRapidefor departure. Night folds over the cove, stealing away the clouds. As the rain abates, the three-quarter moon casts a silver path on the seething water. Once the anchor is weighed, Jack calls a series of commands: “Stations for making sail! Lay aloft sail loosers!” Followed by, “Lay out and let loose!” once Will and a red-haired man called George Cox are aloft. When everyone’s ready, his voice booms across the shriek of the wind: “Stand by! Let fall sheet!” And, to a boy not much older than Will, “Look alive there, Betham!”
The wind blows hard into the north part of the cove and it takes the crew a full hour to tack out of it. At last, theRapideclears the arms of the cliff. The ship jerks, and then they aren’t sailing but flying along the headland, the moon riding high and the waves black around the hull. Isabel wants more than anything to savor this moment, but the nausea simmering in her rises so sharply into her throat she barely makes it to the edge of the deck in time, gripping the ropes strung there for safety with both hands as she loses the biscuit she had for lunch to the heaving sea.
A cold sweat drips down her face and the nape of her neck, runninginto her stays. The smell of wood and rope and tar is in her nose, mixing with that of the ocean and the bile in her mouth. The ribbons of her bonnet have come loose and she has not the strength to retie them, so she clutches the hat with one hand while gripping the rope with the other.
Spray hits her in the face and she shivers as she retches again, spitting. The wind whips the sea into a frenzy. It goes on forever. Eventually, the sickness subsides enough she lies down on the deck, still holding the rope, the pitching sea just beneath her.
After what feels like a small eternity, she crawls back to the center of the ship, and as suddenly as if someone has snuffed out a candle, the nausea is gone. Wiping her mouth with the sleeve of her cloak, she rises to her feet and, gripping the lines, makes her way along the slippery deck to the rear of the ship, where Jack stands next to Oppy, who holds the wheel.
“How are you holding up?” Jack calls when he spots her. His woolen jacket drips water. He’s clutching his hat, a black tall felt affair with a narrow brim, in one hand. His hair whips around his face. “Fair bit of wind, isn’t it? We’re making fifteen knots!”
“Is that good?” she asks, pushing the wet hair out of her eyes as she reties her bonnet. She must’ve lost several hairpins.
“Good? It’s bloody amazing! I’ve not seen her go faster. Have you, Oppy?”
“I haven’t, Captain.”
Jack says, “Does your constitution agree with sailing a heavy sea, Isabel? You looked a bit peaky earlier.”
“Losing my lunch seems to have cured me,” she says, holding on to the nearest line with both hands. “Though the same can’t be said for some of your crew. I saw at least three others cling to the rope with their heads over the edge.”
