“Damn it!” Isaac spun hard starboard to take pressure off the sails.
The wheel groaned under the force, the ship’s heavy rudder straining against the current. A heartbeat later, the vessel heeled sharply, tilting as the bow swung to the right. An odd silence fell over the deck as the rushing wind slowed. The crew stood in shock as crimson blossomed across the sailor’s chest. Tightness clawed at Isaac’s gut as the man lay motionless.
“Get the surgeon’s kit!” he barked, but before anyone could respond, a small figure darted across the deck—a blur of motion amid the chaos. The cabin boy. Jack dropped to his knees beside the injured man, reaching for the wound. His hands were steady, his focus unshaken, even as blood pooled beneath the sailor.
Isaac gritted his teeth as tension vibrated through the wheel, the ship already fighting his sudden change in course. “Steady,” he muttered, willing her into submission.
The crew scrambled, one pulling a bucket of fresh sea water up, another darting below deck. Jack had torn a strip from the prone sailor’s shirt and pressed hard on his chest. The doctor appeared at last, moving quickly toward the scene, though the cabin boy had already done much to stem the bleeding. The sailor’s arm lifted, grasping atthe wound.
Isaac finally allowed himself a breath, but his mind didn’t settle. Jack still knelt, his hands working with a confidence that struck Isaac as… odd, considering his interactions with the boy thus far. He loosened his grip on the wheel, letting the ship slide back into the wind. Two crew members carried the wounded man down below, while the cabin boy stared after them, wringing his hands. After a few moments, he returned to his spot on the deck, picking up a brush and scrubbing the boards with fresh vengeance.
Isaac couldn’t help but chuckle. Maybe he had been wrong. Awkward or not, Jack at least had a steady head. And that would serve him well on board theTempest.
Chapter Twelve
Being a cabinboy was hard.
Correction: being a cabin boy was one of the worst ideas Josephine had ever come up with. Her back ached from lugging buckets of water and scrubbing the already polished deck on her hands and knees. Her nose burned from cleaning the head, where not one, but three men had taken a piss in front of her. And her eyes still stung from spending an hour chopping onions in the galley—at least she could use that as an excuse if anyone asked why they watered now.
She shielded said eyes from the sun as she stared high up into the rigging, where she was expected to go up and replace a line that had come loose from its pulley. Easy, the sailor next to her had said. Just climb up to the topmast yard and put it back. Never mind the pitch of the ship on the swells along with the whipping wind or that the pulley was at the very end of the yardarm. She scowled. Jack hadn’t mentioned this particular part of the job.
“Any day now, boy.” The sailor untied a clewline and gave it a slap. “Can’t adjust the sail until it’s fixed. Wind’s changing and the lieutenant won’t be happy if we waste time.”
Her eyes darted to the quarterdeck where Lieutenant Caldwell and his first officer stood at the wheel. If she delayed much longer, he might come down to investigate. With a deep breath, she set a hand on the shroud and pulled herself up. Hand over hand, she ascended using the ratlines, trying to ignore the wind pushing against her. After what seemed an eternity, she passed the main yard.
A few more minutes of careful climbing and she reached thetopmast yard. TheTempesttipped down a swell and her heart leaped into her throat. She kept her face averted, but her body still went tense.
The wind hummed through the rigging around her and she tightened her grip. From this angle, she couldn’t even find the pulley amidst the maze of ropes. Which one was the clewline? The sailor below shouted something, but the rushing air blurred his words. He slapped the line again and she followed its length to where it came to the yard. There. It flopped against an empty pulley. Her gut twisted. How in heaven’s name was she supposed to reach it?
Earlier, she’d watched sailors unfurl the sails after they climbed out on narrow footropes swinging below the yards to release the sheets. With a swallow, she reached out to grab a guide rope and slowly extended a foot. She had to swing herself off the ratline and her stomach hit the yardarm with a solidthump. Once both feet balanced on the footrope, she began edging out.
She had made it a few steps out when a strong gust of wind whipped against her and swung her feet out, nearly making her lose her grip on the yardarm.Don’t look down. Don’t Look down.
She looked down.
Her stomach gave a violent lurch and she wrapped her arms around the yardarm. She’d never been this high above anything in her life. Tears sprung to the corners of her eyes, pinpoints of wet heat that dissipated almost instantly in the wind. She couldn’t do this. Damn what anyone below said.
Though steps away, the mainmast seemed impossibly far. Panic clawed at her gut and everything around her began to spin. She took one small unsteady step toward the mast. Another. Her hand slid along the top of the yardarm, reaching for the next handhold of rope just beyond reach. She blinked to try and steady her swirling vision. The ship shuddered as it crashed down a swell, the impact vibrating through the wood beneath her fingers, and she lunged for the rope.
Her fingers closed around thin air. For an agonizing second, hernails dug into the yardarm, trying to stop her wild movement. But the smooth wood didn’t yield and her hand slipped free.
A scream wrenched from her throat as she pitched backward. With arms flailing, she fell, the world around her flipping upside down. A horrible dizziness filled her as she plummeted. She pressed her eyes shut, but her body jerked to a stop when her ankle somehow twisted in the footline, the thick strands of the rope biting into her flesh.
She swayed with the movement of the ship, muffled shouts from the deck barely registering in her mind. Her foot began to slip and she whimpered. She was going to die.
“Hold still!” A commanding voice floated above the roar in her ears.
Lieutenant Caldwell.
As if she could do anything other than hang, helpless. Would he curse her name when he examined her broken body? She bent her neck to find him and her foot slipped even more. With a squeak, she held her breath as pain radiated through her leg. Any second now—there’d be no saving herself.
“Quickly. Grab ahold.”
She blinked as a rope fell in front of her face. How had the lieutenant climbed so fast?
With blood pounding in her head, Josephine wrapped her fingers around the oiled cords, and he began pulling her up. As soon as his grip closed around her wrist, her muscles went slack. He guided her hand to the yardarm and it took her a moment to make her fingers work enough to grasp the rope handhold. She sucked in several deep breaths, willing her racing heart to slow as he bent to untangle her foot.
“You’re lucky, Jack.”
