"Captain, this is fortunate," the doctor exclaimed, his face opening into a relieved smile. "We can signal for help. Surely they have water to spare, and maybe a deckhand or two...."
The water! Nicole in the storage room...Blood pumped to his head, making it pound as he sorted through the roiling thoughts flooding his mind. He hammered his hand on the table, and the physician yelped. "Get the crew on deck," Derek barked. "Now."
Minutes later, what was left of his able crew had been gathered. He looked at his exhausted men and another wave of rage washed over him. He forced himself to speak evenly.
"We have concluded that there is no fever on this ship." Seeing the hopeful look on some of the men's faces, he raised a hand. "I'm afraid what I have to tell you will be equally alarming. This sickness stems from our water supply."
He looked each man in the eye, never wavering. "We don't have any uncontaminated water left on board."
Agony distorted their faces.
"Our immediate need for water will, I hope, be met by the upcoming storm. But to depend on rain for such a long journey is risky." Derek wanted to run a hand over his face, but stopped himself and instead stood up straighter.
"What I am most concerned about is our lack of able hands in these waters. If none of the men on this deck fall ill, we should be able to make it."
"Cap'n, I gotta tell you," a midshipman said in a faltering voice. "I'm already feeling it--I'm afraid I'll not be able to cover my duties for much longer," he finished weakly with a look of shame.
He'd only just spoken when another man, and then another, voiced their fears about the early symptoms that already plagued them.
"Cap'n, what about the li'l clipper astern of us?" his lookout asked. "Even if it's Lassiter, surely he'll help us if we send up a signal."
Derek cut off all the excited exclamations. "We cannot count on them to voluntarily give us aid." He couldn't even begin to predict what they would do.
He surveyed his crew's bewildered looks and listened to them hope against hope that Lassiter's ship would come to their aid. He attempted to forestall that line of thinking; yet they were convinced from experience that sailors helped their own, competitors or not. Derek hadn't planned to air his suspicions, but he wanted them to suffer no illusions. He also had to prepare them for the unorthodox commands he'd be giving them shortly.
"I have every reason to believe that the person who poisoned our water is aboard the Bella Nicola."
Nicole closed her spyglass against her thigh and began her usual impatient pacing across the deck. It would be close, to beat him to the straits. Truthfully, one of the reasons she'd pushed to catch Sutherland was that she hadn't expected him to stick with this course. He'd charted it, but she'd thought he would back out. He took an insane risk, steering a ship of the Southern Cross's size so close to these ridges with their gripping, snatching currents. Her brows drew together. He's either very determined or crazed. She settled on the latter.
Pulling a strand of hair from her eyes and tucking it up into her ever-present cap, she turned to look at the towering clouds of a looming storm. It would be sheer folly for him to be in these straits when the storm moved in.
But he had a good quarter mile on her. From where she stood, it looked as though he might be able to squeeze past the last of the straits before the storm broke. Unlike me, she thought as she surveyed the purplish clouds building.
But she felt confident in her crew and, truth be told, in herself. She'd sailed these waters countless times with her father. And their ship was built to thrive in storms, agile even under pressure and milking every last knot from the buffeting winds. Her fondest memories were of squalls when she and her father had sailed together. They'd set all their canvas out, slicing at full speed past bulkier ships whose cowardly furled sails looked to her like tails tucked between their legs.
When Chancey gave the expected orders to prepare the ship for rough water, she padded to her cabin to fetch her oilskin raincoat. In this small break, she wasn't surprised that her thoughts again turned to Sutherland.
She'd just threaded her second arm into her oilskins when a cold shaft of fear assailed her, so powerful she sank down in her chair.
Sutherland's risk could be deadly.
Why should she care? His devilish prank had left them scrambling to get out of Brazil. She'd been furious with him for weeks now. But with the thought of the storm and the possibility that Sutherland could get hurt or killed, her anger left her as easily as a breeze deserting sail.
She had no overarching reason to hate him and couldn't seem to reignite her anger over his trick. Especially now that they were so close to overtaking him and still had half the distance to Sydney to catch Tallywood. Her anger dissipated, her emotions turned anxious and a light sheen of sweat dampened her forehead. She jumped up to race to the deck.
She stumbled to the rail and was frantically yanking out her spyglass when she caught Chancey's inquiring look. Forcing herself to be calm, she took a deep breath, even managed a small smile for him. Her foolish fears were running away from her. After all, Sutherland was reaching the end of the straits when I last saw him.
With a shaky laugh at her foolish emotions, she brought the spyglass to her eye.
Then promptly dropped it.
The Southern Cross lay dead in the water.
Chapter 14
For God's sake, what is he doing?" She didn't bother to hide her fear for Sutherland from Chancey or any of the men close by. "His sails are down--I don't understand."
Chancey grabbed her spyglass, then muttered, "Bleedin' idiot."
"Why would he--? We've got to help them!"
She had to yell the last of her words because just then, the advance winds from the storm howled over them and rocketed the ship forward, too swiftly even for the Bella Nicola, and all hands were needed to shorten sail.
"Stop frettin'," Chancey ordered with a chuck under her chin. "We'll take down some canvas and make our way over there."
She gave him a quick nod and assumed the helm, the one place she could physically help her crew since everyone was too afraid of her father to allow her in the rigging. Minutes ticked by as she pulled and pushed at the wheel, but she never took her eyes from the direction of Sutherland's ship. She could feel her face was tight with worry. What could he possibly be thinking?
In sudden confusion, she stared down at her hands on the wheel. She perceived an oily sluggishness as the ship became increasingly lifeless and slow to respond. The feeling was similar to having a hull full of badly stored cargo. Her mind unwillingly recognized the heavy churning, the feeling of pressure on the wheel increasing. It was as if part of her midship had just...given way.
Impossible. They couldn't have collided with anything, because they remained well within the channel. There hadn't been any impact, damn it! Her head whipped up and she caught Chancey's stark expression. He felt the same uneven listing.
With one hand gripping the wheel, she lifted the other palm up while frantically shaking her head. "We're not afoul of anything--I don't understand!" she yelled. He gave her a tight nod before abruptly running below decks. Chancey didn't have to go below for her to know that the Bella Nicola was slowly taking on water.
She bit back a frantic laugh. Now that my own ship's in danger, I can finally stop worrying about Sutherland's.
Chancey emerged and called for several men to work the pumps, then gazed off at the storm, at the blistering mesh of lightning hastening toward them. He called Dennis, who'd finished with the sails, to come back and relieve her. She wanted to protest, but grew silent when Chancey gave her a
sad smile.
In his gruff voice, he said, "Lash yerself down, lass. We're in for a hell o' a ride."
Without argument, she did as he told her. When satisfied with her knots, he charged off to go over each detail, securing rigging, making sure the crew understood exactly what they were about to face.
Nicole strained against her ropes to see once again if she could make out the Southern Cross, but just as she thought she could, the clouds reached them and erupted. For what could have been hours, the rain pelted the deck and pounded in the remaining sails. It became impossible to see more than a few feet away. Until the lightning hovered directly over them.
The muscles in her neck bunched as she hunched down, away from the flashes streaming out in the leaded skies, firing closer and closer to them.
Nicole watched in horrified disbelief as a branch of lightning struck their midmast, hitting it halfway up. She wanted to shrink inside herself as the scorching intensity of heat bathed her face. A sound like sizzling grease accompanied the scoring bolt. Pain melted in her eyes from the shock of light. The immediate thunder shook not just herself and the ship but the whole black world around them.
She blinked repeatedly until she could focus on the mast. The lightning had left it smoking and splintered, held only by the rigging attached to it.
She hissed in wet air. If those ropes give way...
Then it happened. The middle of the mast kicked out to smash down near the helm, exploding all the way through the upper deck, the spars acting like claws to drag down every sail and line. She stared, stunned, as the impact shot Dennis against the wheelhouse.
For the space of two hitching breaths, she waited for him to get up. He lay motionless. With shaking hands, she dug into her knots. Just as she freed herself, Chancey reached the man and began securing his limp body to the wheelhouse. She jerked her head from Chancey to the madly spinning wheel and pressed her legs down to cross the deck to it.
With each uplifting and crash of the ship, she skidded back and forth over the timbers lying on the deck, making little progress. Finally...finally she reached the helm and fought to get a grip on the twirling wheel, but the pegs kept cracking against her hands. After all but tackling it, she stopped the spinning by pushing with all her might on one side of the wheel and lunging her whole body into her grip.