“Run!” Jack shouts. Veering to the left, he yanks her along the deck, going straight for the gunwale. They’re steps away from the side of the ship. Everybody is running, Jack and her, Dick Pascoe and Will Pengelly, the six other men who were imprisoned with them, the bosun’s mate who stopped them, and at least ten other members of the ship’s company. Some of the topmen who had already gone up to their stations are coming down again.
“Stop them! They’re prisoners!” cries somebody—an officer, she thinks, but she’s not sure. Everything is a blur of shirts and uniforms, and sticking up above the throng, a sword and two cutlasses, their blades catching the glint of the sun.
Two of the impressed men plunge over the side of the ship. A third, the man who said he couldn’t swim, hangs back. The deck is a writhing mass of officers and seamen trying to get to the gunwale. A shot rings out, followed by a cry. Was it hers or someone else’s? Jack is pulling on her arm and her feet are stumbling on the tilting deck and there’s the gunwale and the safety of the waiting sea, just four steps away, three…
A hand claps on to her shoulder and drags her back. Her fingers slip from Jack’s. There’s ice at her throat. The bosun’s mate who tried to stop them keeps her in place, one arm digging into her waist, the other holding the flat of his cutlass against the soft skin of her neck. The man smells of his ration of grog. “Halt!” he shouts. “Or I’ll run the boy through!”
In the sudden hush, several men grabble for Jack, but he throws himself onto the deck and rolls out of their reach. Getting back to his feet, he says, “I’m the one you want. You don’t need the boy.”
“No!” she cries.
But the bosun’s mate snarls, “Quiet!”
Jack steps closer, until he’s less than a yard away. His arms hang loosely by his sides, the pistol in his right hand points at the deck. From the corner of her eyes, she watches another of the impressedmen clamber onto the gunwale. The splash when he hits the water breaks the silence. Several of the crew rush to the side of the ship. A lieutenant and two midshipmen come hurrying down from the quarterdeck. “What’s going on here, Hancox?” the lieutenant calls from some distance.
“These prisoners were trying to escape, sir!” the bosun’s mate calls back. He puts more pressure on the blade against Isabel’s throat and she can’t get at the air; it’s right there, but it won’t go down.
Without thinking she grabs the cutlass with both hands and wrests it from her throat as she sucks at the air. The sharp of the blade cuts her palms; the sting snatches her breath away again. The bosun’s mate pushes the steel into her skin once more. Then a shot rings out and the cutlass slips away. She doubles over and retches. Behind her, the bosun’s mate slides down to the deck, his left hand grasping his right shoulder, blood trickling through his fingers.
Unable to reload, Jack throws the pistol onto the deck and picks up the dropped cutlass. “Come on!” he shouts, and she’s back on her feet again, her hands dripping blood as she runs, but this time it’s Jack who abruptly stops. “Will!” he cries.
She whips around. Jack is already halfway across the deck, rushing to Will’s aid as he tries to defend himself with the meat knife against an opponent twice his size who wields a cutlass like it’s a sewing needle. Will is bleeding from his right leg and dancing to keep from getting cut again when Jack engages his opponent with the bosun’s mate’s cutlass. “Go!” he calls to Will. “Take Isabel!”
But when Will grabs her bleeding hand and tries to pull her over the side of the ship, she shakes him off, wincing at the pain. “Not without Jack!”
She barely hears the lowering of the anchor. All of her is focused on Jack, whose opponent counters every blow. The pair’s movements are so quick and light it’s like watching the wind play with a leaf. She isn’t sure which of them is the wind and which the leaf; they’re too well matched. Stiff with nerves, she watches, taking in the concentration onJack’s face while the man with the cutlass grins as if he’s enjoying himself.
The men on deck watch with her. No one tries to help either party as they fight just steps from the side of the ship. A sound makes her look away: more officers run down the steps from the quarterdeck, Captain Hamer himself in front.
“Jack, they’re coming! We must go!” she calls. Jack looks at her, then in the direction she’s pointing. The man with the cutlass strikes, and this time, Jack doesn’t counter the blow. Flinging his arms out, he staggers back. The tip of the weapon only just misses him.
She gasps, weak with relief, but then he trips over the leg of a man standing behind him. The cutlass hits the deck as his hands search for something to grab on to, and then he’s falling. She watches as if it’s not really happening, as if it’s not really Jack who hits his head on the gunwale and drops over the side of the ship like a rock. There’s a ringing in her ears, a creaking mixed with a high-pitched noise, and she realizes it’s her, she’s screaming, her mouth wide. It lasts perhaps three seconds and then she’s flying.
Chapter Twenty
She doesn’t know how it happens, whether she jumps or runs or shoves people out of the way or all of these things at once. She only knows she’s suddenly at the gunwale herself and then she’s going over it, face forward, arms out.
The plunge blinds her. The world is made white, foam, and bubbles. Her hands sting where she cut her palms. When the water clears, so does her head. She turns toward the bottom and kicks her legs. Below her is a shape, blurred by the sea and partly shielded from view by the hull of the ship.
She’s flying again—only now it’s underwater flying. She swims as if her legs have grown fins, as if her throat has gills and she breathes water like air. The river here isn’t very deep; the draft of the ship is only some thirteen feet and the bottom is not far below it. She reaches it in less than a minute, but the lowering of the anchor has stirred up the riverbed and there’s a cloud of sand in the water.
She can no longer see him in the murk. Has he gone under the ship? A flare of panic threatens to numb her, but she kicks harder, shoving it away. Gills and fins, deep, slow water-breathing. She gropes blindly under the hull, feeling her way along the riverbed. Rocks, seaweed, plants, a creature, large and slithery. Her fingers brush something soft. Cloth, she thinks, and the water is clearing now, the sand settling onthe bottom. Jack’s eyes are closed, his face relaxed as if in sleep. His hair forms a halo around his head.
She moves behind him, wrapping her arms around his chest. He’s heavy, even underwater. Tugging at him, pushing with her knees on the gravelly bed of the sea-river, she manages to haul him into a sitting position. He’s so heavy. How is she ever going to carry him back to the surface? Panic creeps up on her again, but the river wafts around her like a cloud, like air, and then she’s off, feet kicking hard against the bottom. Or maybe they’re not feet, maybe her tail swishes againstthe riverbed and it’s a different kind of kicking—a pushing of fins. Thevoice of the sea calls in the swirl of the current:Come home. Swim.
She swims, holding Jack. He’s dead weight in her arms. The water helps hold him up, like a thousand icy hands. Breaking the surface, she rolls him onto his back. She’s gasping, believing, for the most fleeting of seconds, she needs water, not air, to breathe. Then air fills her lungs and she looks at Jack as she swims.
She cannot be sure he’s still alive. He must be alive. She cannot contemplate the other. The ship is just above her. Faces look down from the side. She can’t see them clearly; she only sees Jack, the blood running from the side of his head where he hit the wood of the gunwale, into his hair and down the side of his face. It’s running awfully fast—because of the water, she tells herself. She thinks he’s still breathing, but she cannot be sure.
Her vision clears a little. One of the men on the ship is aiming a pistol at them, but he doesn’t shoot. It’d be difficult to aim well from up there, with her in the water. It’s quite a distance. She remembers George telling her how difficult it is to aim correctly unless you’re right up close to the target. It’s why the midshipmen still carry dirks, he said.
It’d be easier to aim with a musket, she thinks. The marines use muskets in battle, but they wouldn’t be carrying them while the ship is anchored. The French use muskets, too—George was killed by one.Maybe she’s French. Maybe she was on that ship, the one that was wrecked. It doesn’t matter now. All that matters is that she gets Jack to safety.
On the frigate, they’re lowering one of the boats. Looking over her shoulder, she sees the shore is coming closer. A man stands on the strip of beach in the cove waving his arms. It’s Dick Pascoe. He’s getting back into the water, wading toward her. She swims faster. With about a third of the distance left, Jack suddenly coughs and, spluttering, opens his eyes.
“Isabel.” His voice is hoarse. How she loves hearing it—the wonder in it, the strength. She wants to weep, but she can’t. She needs to keep swimming.
He turns in her arms, and for maybe ten seconds they float together, treading water. Then there’s a splash and Jack says, “They’re coming.” Looking past him, she sees the boat in the water and the men pulling the oars.
