Page 20 of Hooked by a Hero (Tales from the Brotherhood #4)
It was one thing to be brave while sheltered from the intensity of the storm, though, and another to keep their wits about them as they climbed up onto the chaotic main deck.
“This is madness!” one of the gentlemen, Mr. Archer, shouted once he’d barely poked his head up into the storm. “You intend to kill us, sir!”
“You’ll drown if you stay here,” Caspian shouted back to him in turn.
That was enough to rouse the man to reluctant action. Caspian stepped back to give Mr. Archer a hand, pulling him up onto the deck. Elias, whose courage had returned tenfold since their kiss, took up a position on the other side of the hatch, pulling others up as well.
The scene was one of confusion and terror as the passengers came up from below and huddled against the edge of the stern deck.
They watched with nothing but fear in their eyes as the sober crew worked to take the half dozen, large lifeboats down from their housings.
The effect of their tasks was to make the ship appear even more fractured than the broken mast made it look.
“Lifeboat at the ready!” the seaman, who had taken charge of the effort, called out to Caspian.
Caspian nodded and waved back, then turned to the huddled passengers. “The ladies and the elderly should go first.”
It was madness, but somehow the passengers found the courage to move.
It could have been the desperation of the broken ship and all they had endured at the hands of Tumbrill and Dick so far, or it could have been the slight abatement in the storm as they passed through it, but once the first, brave souls clamored towards the first lifeboat, led by Mr. Cartwright and Lady Adelaide, the others were quick to follow.
Caspian made certain that each of the lifeboats had at least a few able-bodied crewmen aboard before sending them off, pointing to the northeast. A thin strip of land was visible in the distance in that direction, and as soon as the men manning the lifeboat’s oars saw it, they put their backs into cutting through the water to reach it.
“Did you know that land was there?” Elias asked as they helped lower more passengers into the second lifeboat.
Caspian met his eyes and nodded yes with a gravity that he was certain Elias would interpret to mean much more. Indeed, Elias looked back at him as if he were an even deeper mystery than before.
“I will explain once we are all safe,” he called out over the wind and the rain.
Elias nodded, and the two of them went back to work loading the second lifeboat.
There was more space in the boats than there were people who needed rescuing.
The first storm and Tumbrill and Dick’s bloodlust had diminished the number of people sailing on the Fortune by a third at least. It took less than an hour for them to pile everyone into four of the boats, leaving two of the half dozen behind, and to push away from the floundering Fortune .
A few valiant members of the crew insisted on staying behind to go down with the ship, which Caspian admired them for.
“We will never make it to whatever land that is,” Hunt called out grimly once the final lifeboat pushed away from the ship. Hunt and Ruby had stayed behind as long as they could to help the others, despite Caspian’s insistence that the women be rescued first.
“We are closer to safety than you think,” Caspian repeated his earlier words.
They would reach the land if Caspian had anything to say about it. As Elias, Hunt, and a few other men took the oars to pull them across the water, toward where the other boats had clustered together in their efforts to reach the land, Caspian closed his eyes and concentrated on their safety.
He could not control the water or the sky, but he could see a safe path through it for them all. As long as he concentrated, kept his breathing even, and let the salt water splash over the sides of the boat and wet him, he could guide the boats in ways that their occupants would never know.
“Has he fallen asleep?” Ruby asked at one point.
“He’s sitting upright,” one of the other passengers said.
“Caspian, are you well?” Elias called out to him.
Caspian opened his eyes, momentarily breaking his concentration, and grinned at Elias. “One day, my sweet, you will stop asking me that question.”
Elias laughed wildly and pulled hard on the oar again.
Caspian closed his eyes and returned his concentration to where it was needed.
He could feel the course of the water, sense its currents and the direction of the tide.
They rowed close to the other three lifeboats, and as soon as they were clustered together, rising and falling over the waves, Caspian gave everything he had to pointing them in the right direction.
“It’s an island!” someone from one of the other boats called out. “We’re heading straight for an island.”
“Did anyone see it before now?” a female voice asked.
“I saw it,” someone answered. A few others had, too.
“It’s closer than I could have imagined,” someone else said.
The island was close enough that within an hour of sustained effort, the hull of each lifeboat scraped across sand under the watery surface. Only then did Caspian feel it was safe enough to open his eyes and let go of what little control he was able to manage.
His efforts left him exhausted, and when some of the men began leaping out of the boats and into the shallow waves so that they could pull the boats closer to the shore, he sagged and leaned heavily against the side of the boat.
“I’m not going to ask it,” Elias said, an ironic touch of humor in his voice as he stood and prepared to jump into the water to help with the efforts.
Caspian opened his eyes, met Elias’s, and laughed tiredly. “I am well,” he answered, pushing himself to sit straight. “Better than I have been in quite some time. Anyone would be exhausted after what we’ve just been through.”
“True,” Elias said, smiling.
It was a relief to see him smile. It meant his efforts had not been for nothing. They were safe for the time being, or at least as safe as they could be.
Caspian gave himself a few more seconds to rest before joining the others to drag the boat up onto the beach they’d rowed to.
Even Ruby insisted on getting out and grabbing hold of the rope that had been coiled in the bow of the boat to pull it up to safety.
Caspian saw that men from the other three boats had done the same, and in a short time, as the rain began to let up entirely, they had all four boats beached and the passengers evacuated.
“Look!” Ruby called out as the survivors huddled together on a wide stretch of sand. She pointed back toward the Fortune , which was visible half a mile or so out in the water.
Caspian could tell at once what Ruby was pointing out.
The storm had mostly blown itself out where they were, but the sea continued to undulate angrily.
Waves rose up, crested, and crashed in the space between the island and the Fortune , but the ship seemed oddly stationary in their midst. It listed sharply to one side, but seemed to hold its position firmly.
“It’s gone aground,” the seaman said, shoving a hand through his hair in disbelief. “It’s hit a shoal or something of the like and is stuck hard.”
“So it has,” another of the crewmen said. “It’ll sink before long, though.”
“Will it?” Elias asked, turning first to the sailors, then to Caspian. “It’s not an old-fashioned ship. Its hull is clad in metal. Could that mean it might survive intact like that?”
“Perhaps,” the seaman answered. Caspian was glad he did, since he himself knew very little about the ships of Englishmen. “It won’t hold out forever, though.”
“How long do we have?” Ruby asked, coming up to join their group along with Hunt. “How much of a chance to we have to save the ship so that we can continue our journey instead of being stuck here?”
Caspian couldn’t answer. Instead, he glanced to Elias, taking his hand and holding it firmly, in case Elias felt the same sort of worry Ruby did.
Because to a degree, Ruby was right to worry.
The Fortune was no longer seaworthy. They had only four lifeboats with them and no room on those boats for the amount of supplies they would need to take them to any great landmasses.
For all intents and purposes, they were stranded on the island where they now found themselves unless someone sailed past to rescue them.