Page 113 of Valour

The stormy sea raged around them, stretching for miles in all directions. Hester tried to stand and stretch but found that she couldn’t uncurl herself from the tiller. “Err. I can’t get up.”

“Need a hand?” Frank came over and plucked her up. She promptly fell to the bottom of the boat. Pain shot through her.

“Oof. My whole body has frozen.”

Septimus blinked a weary eye open from where he lay under the deck beside Peggy and Winston. “Could you make any more noise?”

Hester crawled towards him, inching past the harpoon gun, the harpoon she’d taken from Orcus nestled safely in a blanket. “I require your assistance.”

He grunted, reaching for her and dragging her to him, straightening her out like a board.

“Ouch. Watch it. Ooo.” Hester groaned as he pummelled her stiff muscles. “Careful of my thighs. They’re red raw.” The saltwater and sweat produced painful sores, and the small tub of ointment they had in the medical bag didn’t seem to help at all.

“Better?” Septimus asked.

“Will you rub my stomach?”

“It pains you?” He ran his hands over her belly.

“Not as such.” Hester squirmed. “Lower.”

Septimus moved his hands down. “There?”

“Lower still.” Hester sniggered. To while away the hours sat at the tiller, Hester had been imagining what she would do with him once they reached safety.

“You’re right next to us!” Peggy stuck her head out of a sleeping bag and glared.

“Avert your eyes, Peggy.” Hester winked, attempting to force Septimus’s hand further south.

Septimus huffed a laugh. “She’s only joking. Nothing untoward is going on.”

More was the shame. “I am not joking,” Hester muttered.

“Would you look at that? I think the sky is finally clearing,” Frank said from the stern, his gaze set ahead.

Hester got to her feet slowly, peering over the decking that shielded them from the worst of the spray. “Shit. That’s not clear sky, Frank.”

It was the white crest of the most gigantic wave she had ever seen, a mighty upheaval of the ocean. Hester sensed the pearly-white presence of her mother before she appeared. The ghostly apparition screamed, “Hold fast.”

“For God’s sake, hold on!” Hester yelled as the boat tilted upwards, drawn inexorably forwards into the swell of the wave.

Elephant Island

The smell of iodine took Charlotte back to her childhood, to her mother mending scraped knees. She was under the lifeboat Thirteen, which had been turned upside-down as a shelter, holding the hand of one of the Intrepid’s deckhands. It was dark, a lamp casting an orange glow over Valerie, who was preparing her surgical equipment.

“All will be well, Tom. Valerie will have you fixed up in no time,” Charlotte said, stroking Tom’s hand, his knuckles white as he gripped her.

“Will I feel it?” he asked, his voice quavering.

Charlotte’s gaze met Valerie’s.

Valerie tipped an evil smelling substance onto a cloth and handed it to Charlotte. “The chloroform will knock you out. You won’t feel a thing.”

“I should never have stowed away in Argentina. What was I thinking?”

Charlotte grimaced. It was all her fault. She’d lost count of the number of times she’d thought that lately. “Ready?” she asked.

Tom nodded, and she pressed the cloth to his nose and mouth. In a few minutes, his head rolled limply against her thigh, and she released her fingers from the grip of his hand.