The twins positioned themselves close together just aft of amidships so the bow could lift and they headed out to sea on a dead run, sailing with the wind directly behind. The sun blazed down, the breeze played havoc with their tied-back hair, and the seaspray wet their faces with delicious, cool saltwater.
They came about, braced their feet, and leaned their bodies slightly windward for counterbalance, then opened up the picnic basket. Mr. Burke was a treasure. Everything he had packed was finger food. Cold chicken and partridge, thick wedges of cheddar, raw mushrooms and carrots and artichokes sat beside crusty rolls spread with chive butter. Tucked into the corners were russet apples and a slab of butterscotch toffee. Two covered, wide-mouthed jars of cider rounded off the meal.
Between them they did a creditable job of emptying the basket. Antonia turned her face up to bask in the sun. There was nothing on earth like being on the sea to make her feel free. Floating between sky and water freed her imagination, her mind, her very soul. Sailing was surely the most exciting, invigorating sport in the whole world. This was perhaps as close to Paradise as she would ever get.
She gazed at the horizon through slitted eyes and watched the shoreline disappear. They were riding at a terrific clip, but she felt no fear. A sailboat was safest at its optimum speed. She wanted to prolong the exhilarating afternoon and knew Anthony felt exactly the same.
They were on a reach, sailing across the wind, when suddenly Anthony turned a weather eye to the west and saw the sky was turning dark. “Get your oilskin on, we’re in for a squall.”
Before the words were out of his mouth there was a sudden drop in temperature, and as they both reached for the yellow raincapes they heard the roll of the thunder. They shifted to windward to counterbalance the force of the wind.
TheSeagullwas heeling over now, so they leaned out as far as possible. Each felt a small curl of fear as they knew they would have to reduce the wind force to keep from capsizing.
Anthony worked the tiller until they were head-to-wind. He shouted his orders. “Ease the mainsheet, spill some of the wind. Don’t cleat it, hold it in your hands so you can ease it quickly.”
They both knew they should furl the sails and get them off the deck into sailbags in such a squall. “The sheet’s fouled, I can’t budge it,” she shouted back. Then she saw the spot that was so badly frayed, it would snap any minute. She kept the terrifying information to herself. Perhaps it would hold. She bravely resolved not to panic Tony any more than necessary.
Anthony did the only thing he could, feathering the boat just close enough to the wind to spill some of its driving force. The wind whipped the sea into a foaming froth. The roar became deafening. Antonia heard her own heartbeat inside her eardrums as fear rose up in her. She swallowed hard to keep herself from screaming.
“Find the bailing bucket, we’re taking on water!” he shouted.
Antonia’s eyes swept about the small sloop. “It isn’t here. I’ll use a cider jar.” But a wave had taken both jars minutes after they’d set them down.
“Christ, it’s only a squall, it’s not a gale,” he denied, trying to reassure both of them and give them heart. Then, as if he were lying in his teeth, Anthony let go of the tiller to tie a long line about Antonia under her armpits, then lashed it to the mast. When he grabbed for the tiller it separated from the rudder where it had been sawn through, and the boat went sideways into the wind.
In the next split second the mainsheet snapped and whipped through the air like a frenzied snake ready to strike anything in its path. With deadly accuracy it found its mark on Antonia’s cheek, opening a gash. Her face was numb from the cold and she felt only a sharp sting.
TheSeagullwas totally out of control, but the thing that was really terrifying was the loose mainsail, which swept back and forth with a crashingwhomp, whomp,forcing them to duck and dodge so they would not be battered or knocked overboard.
Antonia bit her lips so she would not scream, but when the lightning hit the mast and they heard an ominous crack her mouth opened to let out the scream that built in her throat. The sailboat, completely unstable, heeled before the wind and the parallel waves until its rail was awash, then what each of them feared happened. TheSeagullcapsized.
In actuality everything must have happened in split seconds, but somehow Antonia’s perception was distorted. To her, everything seemed to be happening in slow motion. She was almost sitting on the rail as it went down into the trough. Her eyes, now wide with panic, saw the mountainous wave rise above them, then come crashing down in a wall of icy water that forced her beneath the surface. She was being sucked down, down, and when she opened her eyes for a moment she learned the meaning of sea-green. Millions of tiny sea-green bubbles surrounded her and she was afraid they would get into her mouth and go up her nose. Then she realized they were coming out of her mouth and her nose and she realized it was her life’s breath leaving her body. When the bubbles stopped and her air was gone, her lungs felt as if they were about to burst.
Suddenly, like a cork, she was shooting up through the water. Everything stopped going slowly and accelerated to a dizzying speed. She whipped the wet hair from her eyes with numbed fingers, frantically searching for her brother and the hull of theSeagull.She was attached by a safety line, but he was not. She saw him at the exact same moment that he spotted her and they stroked in unison to reach each other.
The twins stoically tried not to communicate their panic They had turned turtle once in calm seas just to prove they could right theSeagulland climb back aboard. Now, like two puppets, they desperately went through the motions necessary to get the sloop upright.
They both clung to the keel that stuck up from the water and tried to get a footing on the rail. Mercifully it rolled with their weight, and as the keel went under the water, they held it under with their feet and grasped the rail. Suddenly the keel broke away.
Antonia scrambled aboard to bail while Anthony stayed outside as counterbalance. When the boat began to right itself Anthony climbed aboard to help her bail. What was left of theSeagullwas totally unstable. There was no time to talk, to pray, to think even, but when they found themselves back aboard they were both laughing and crying at the same time. They were soaked to the skin and cold to the bone. They were also hysterical and nearly mad with fear.
Another wave crashed across the deck. Antonia screamed, “Tony, hang on, where are you?”
Cold terror gripped her heart. “Tony! Tony! Tony!” she screamed over and over. She could see nothing but boiling seas. The visibility was almost nonexistent as gray rain slashed down in torrents. Antonia thought she would be able to spot her brother easily in his yellow oilskin, but she could not. A fear like she had never known in her life engulfed her. She did not fear for her own precarious safety, because her mind was totally focused on Anthony.
Lightning split the heavens with a blinding flash. Antonia smelled sulphur and knew that hell was close at hand. She saw the mast split and come down like a felled tree in the forest. She had forgotten she was tied to it. The next thing she knew she was in the sea, gagging and retching on the saltwater she had swallowed.
She bobbed about like a cork. The water kept closing over her head. She felt the constriction of the line tied beneath her armpits and pulled on it. She realized she was attached to a section of the mast like a floating spar. When it thudded into her side, she wrapped both arms about it and was finally able to keep her head from going under.
Where in the name of God was Tony? She told herself he had likely climbed back aboard and was searching desperately for her. The water was freezing and gradually her entire body numbed. Her mind followed suit. The downpour stopped, the gale-force wind blew the thunder farther out to sea, and Antonia, clinging to the floating wood, went monotonously up and down, up and down, hour after hour, after hour.
Miles away Anthony experienced exactly the same numbing monotony as his sister. He lay across the buoyant picnic basket that acted as a raft, carrying him farther and farther out to sea. His mind drifted in and out of consciousness. In his lucid moments he was thankful that Antonia at least was aboard theSeagulland headed in the right direction. Eventually the tide would wash her up along the shore. Anthony knew he was so far out at sea that his only chance lay in rescue. The odds of that were infinitesimal As dark began to descend, his hopes vanished with the fading light and he slipped into unconsciousness.
A merchant ship had all hands on deck watching a pod of whales that had been driven off course by the storm. In the last rays of light someone spotted the yellow oilskin and a great shout went up. It took a coordinated exercise in courage and ingenuity, rather like a dramatic water ballet, but a gutsy crewman finally hooked the half-drowned, unconscious youth with a gaff and a dozen hands pulled him aboard. Anthony had been rescued by an East India-man, called theEarl of Abergavenny,outward bound for Bombay.
An air of tension hovered over Lamb Hall from the moment the sky turned dark. The bruise-colored clouds swept in from the west and headed out to sea. When the thunder rolled overhead, Roz apologized to the major. She could not continue the cozy tête-à-tête, sipping her tea and flirting outrageously, when she knew the twins were out sailing.
“I must go upstairs and see how bad this storm is. There’s an unimpeded view of the sea from Anthony’s balcony.”