But the French sloop did not alter course. She seemed almost to welcome the coming blow, and theWaspfollowed without hesitation.
By late afternoon, the Channel had become a cauldron. Rain fell in sheets, lashing the men’s faces and stinging the deck. The wind howled, a banshee shriek that rose and fell with the heaving of the sea. Visibility dropped; the coast faded into a blur, then vanished altogether. Only the sloop remained, a ghostly shadow, sometimes lost in spray and gloom, sometimes revealed by a flash of lightning as she fought through the mounting waves.
“Top gallants down!” Lanyon shouted above the roar, teeth gritted as the ship bucked under him. “Reef the topsails! Stand by braces!”
The men clambered aloft, slick with rain, hands numb and faces set. Canvas came in, reef lines snapped taut, and the brig settled into the troughs, less canvas aloft but still surging with the storm.
For a brief moment, once again Lanyon caught the sloop’s name—Hirondelle—painted in faded gold on her stern as she was lifted by a monstrous wave. Her deck was nearly awash, her crew black silhouettes against the boiling sky.
Then the world dissolved into chaos.
The squall hit, a wall of wind and water that tore at the rigging and threatened to rip the masts from their steps. TheWaspcareened, her lee rail buried, spray flinging over the deck. Men clung to shrouds, eyes wild, while the sea hissed and seethed around them. Somewhere off the port bow, theHirondellewas little more than a memory—a shadow lost in the fury.
Chapter 10
Bay of Biscay
The vessel rolled and creaked, the sea outside growing more foreboding with every passing hour. She sat on a coil of twisted rope, knees drawn to her chest, watching Georgiana across the dim, swaying room. The girl’s eyes were wide, her fair hair limp and tangled, mouth pressed into a thin line of fear. Between them sat Lydia, restless and muttering.
Elizabeth had lost count of time, which was measured in the creak of timber, the groan of the hull as the storm gathered and pressed upon them. She had tried to keep track—first by the changes in the sailors’ watch, then by the increasingly irregular meals. But in the gloom of their prison, with only a sliver of daylight twisting through a warped plank, night and day were barely distinguishable.
Their torment began with thirst. The French sailors, their accents rough and provincial, brought water only twice a day, and then only a few tin cups between the three of them. The first time, Elizabeth had begged, in her best French, for more—for Lydia, who had wept herself hoarse, and for Georgiana, who shivered under her shawl. The sailor—a broad, sullen man with a scar across his brow—had only laughed. “La tempête vient—the storm is coming,” he said. “Économisez l’eau—save the water.” And then he was gone.
Georgiana understood him, though she could hardly speak, her lips dry and cracked. Lydia watched them both inbewilderment, her face red with frustration. “What are they saying? Why are you talking to them, Lizzy? They’re brutes!”
Elizabeth tried to smile, though her lips were cracked like Georgiana’s, her mouth dry. “They say the storm is coming, and we must save the water.”
“Storm?” Lydia echoed, glancing at the ceiling as if she could see through to the sky.
The storm arrived that afternoon—though afternoon was only conjecture—howling and vicious, the sloop pitching so violently that all three were thrown from their bedding onto the splintered floor. Water leaked through the seams and pooled around their feet, icy and dark. The wind shrieked in the rigging. From above, the sailors shouted orders and curses—some in French, some in English, all indistinguishable in the chaos. Once, Elizabeth thought she heard Wickham’s voice, sharp and high, then a crack as something heavy struck the deck.
Lydia clung to Elizabeth, her bravado gone. She whimpered and pressed her face into Elizabeth’s shoulder. “I want Mama,” she moaned. “I want to go home.”
Georgiana, pale as a ghost, began to pray under her breath, her hands clasped tightly in her lap. Elizabeth did not pray, but she closed her eyes and tried to remember the sound of Hertfordshire birds at dawn.
Hunger followed thirst, cruel and relentless. The next morning—or what passed for morning in that watery gloom—the sailors delivered a crust of bread, so hard it might have been a stone, and a single apple, bruised and shrivelled. Elizabeth broke the bread into three pieces, offering the largest to Lydia, who snatched it and devoured it in two bites.
“Slowly, Lydia,” Elizabeth warned. “You must make it last.”
“But I’m hungry!” Lydia wailed.
Georgiana took her share with trembling hands, nibbling it as if it were a delicacy. Elizabeth forced herself to eat her portionslowly, chewing until her jaw ached. The apple they divided with a broken knife blade, found under a rotting sail.
Outside, the storm raged. Water continued to seep through the timbers, soaking their hems and chilling their bones. The cabin stank of mildew and fear. Lydia’s nerves frayed further; she began to pace the narrow length of the room, muttering to herself and occasionally pounding on the door.
“Let us out! Let us out, you devils! I’ll tell my father, I’ll—”
Her voice faded, lost in the roar of wind and sea. Elizabeth grabbed her wrist, pulling her down beside her.
“Lydia, you must be quiet. They won’t help us if you shout. They might—” She did not finish. She did not know what the sailors might do, only that their eyes lingered too long, and their laughter—when they passed the cabin—was cruel.
Georgiana flinched with every bang and shout. “If only William—perhaps, Richard—knew,” she whispered. “They would come for us. They would—”
Elizabeth squeezed her hand. “Someone will know. We must keep our wits, Georgiana. We must be strong.”
But her own courage was fraying. She feared not so much death, but the slow, grinding misery of deprivation—the way her mind wandered, the way she dreamed, waking or sleeping, of cool water and fresh bread, of sunlight on green fields.
The sailors paid them little heed, save to toss scraps of food and water into the cabin, or to leer through the warped slats in the door. One, a young man with wild hair and a voice like gravel, seemed almost kind—he slipped them an extra crust one night, with a muttered, “Pour les dames—for the ladies.” Elizabeth whispered her thanks, and he nodded, glancing over his shoulder before vanishing.
