Miss Whittier Makes a List (20 page)

“
But it
’
s dark there,
”
she said, unable to keep the fear from her voice.

“
Do
it
,
Hannah,
”
he ordered, lifting her off her feet with his hands clamped on her arms. He released his grip, but still held her there on the afterhatch.
“
You are going to hear the worst sounds you will ever hear down there,
”
he said, his voice low, for her ears only.
“
When the guns run in and out, it sounds like the ship is tearing apa
rt
. You will also hear the screams of the wounded. I can
’
t help what you will hear, but I can assure you that you will never again hear anything as bad, or be more afraid than you are right now.
”

She nodded, unable to tear her gaze away from his eyes. He touched her cheek with the back of his hand.
“
I was ten
years
old when I went into battle for the first time. Nothing scares me now. Go below, Hannah, and don
’
t disobey me.
”

Still she hesitated. Without another word he grasped her hands and swung her over into the gun deck, calling to Adam Winslow.

“
You there, take her to the cable tier!
”

Adam caught her and grabbed her hand, tugging her down two more decks until she was in the depths of the ship
,
and made her sit on the great cables that lay, wet with bilge, in the hold.
“
Do what the captain said, Hannah.
”

She nodded, afraid to trust her voice. In another moment he was gone, and she was alone. She shivered in the stinking darkness, liste
ni
ng to the rats that squeaked around her. Her mind was blank of all petitions to the Almighty. She locked herself into a tight ball and crouched on the cable, waiting for the battle to begin.

The first broadside sent her reeling off the cable and into the bilge when the ship heeled, righted itself, then swung quickly around for the port guns to
bear
. She screamed and leaped back onto the c
able as the guns were pulled in,
screeching on their tracks, reloaded, and then run out again, directly over her head. Through the heavy planking, she heard Mr. Lansing roaring at the crews to be lively now, but wait for the guns to bear again.

The next broadside was answered by the
Bergeron
,
as the shot hurled into the gun deck above her. She clapped her hands over her ears and moaned aloud at the sound of the wounded and dying, and then the screech of the gun trucks again. Rats leaped about her, their fear as great as her own as they raced up and down the cable, seeking escape where there was none.

The third broadside from the
Bergeron
sent two balls crashing below the waterline. She held her breath in te
rr
or as the water began to rise toward the cable, and then let it out slowly when sailors with a lantern hurried below to patch the leaks with planking hastily retrieved from the carpenter
’
s shop, and the everlasting oakum. She shivered on the cable and watched them. When they finished, they raced away. In another moment, she heard the clanging of the pumps.

And then the guns were firing
at will as the ship swung about,
tacking to keep the weather gauge and continue a relentless pounding of the
Bergeron.
The guns boomed, the men screamed. Mr. Lansing was silent now, but still the guns roared. They stopped momentarily with the cracking and collapse of the mizzenmast over her head. She strained her ears to hear Captain Spark roaring orders. The guns boomed again.

The
shrieking of the wounded grew louder, and she realized with a start that they were being carried below. She thought of the surgeon, and wondered how he could possibly manage such carnage.

The roaring of the guns was a continual thunder that filled her brain to bursting and threatened to send her screaming along the cable with the rats. The water was still rising, but much more slowly, now that the leaks were patched and the pumps working. Soon the air space itself se
e
med filled with the
g
r
oa
ns and scr
e
ams of the wounded until it was too crowded for her.

Hannah got to her feet and began
to
feel her way out of the cable tier. I cannot sit here in the dark while people are dying around me, she thought, and the thought gave her courage. I must help. She thought briefly of her promise to Captain Spark to remain where she was, and quickly discarded it. Thee was an idiot to ask it of me, she thought.

She followed the sounds of the wounded to the orlop deck, where there was light from battle lanterns. She looked down. The deck was clotted with bloody sand and footprints. She took a deep breath and ca
m
e closer.

Fragments of men lay a
l
l around, some living, the lucky ones dead. After her initial shock that sent her reeling back against the bulkhead, she trained her mind onto Andrew Lease, who stood over a table made of midshipmens
’
sea chests. A man lay on the makeshift table, clutching what remained of his
ar
m
. The surgeon looked up from his calm contemplation of the ruin before him and nodded to her.

“
Ah, my dear Miss
Whittier
. I can see I have lost my wager,
”
he murmured,
his voice scarcely audible over the moans of the wounded.

She hurried to his side, slipping once on the bloody deck, but hanging on to his calm words like she had once clung to the grating of the
Molly Claridge.

“
Wager, sir?
”
she asked,
embarrassed
that her voice quavered. She took hold of the writhing man on the table.

“
Yes, hold him.
”
Swiftly Lease bound a leather strap around the sailor
’
s upper arm, then took her hand and clamped it over the screw apparatus attached to the strap.
“
Tighten when I tell you, and keep on until I tell you to stop.
”

She did as he said. T
h
e sailor screamed and tried to rise off the table. He entreated her
to
st.
“
I am making him scream more,
sir!
”
she pleaded.

“
I will scr
eam if you stop,
”
L
ease said, his voice still mild,
his eyes on his patient.
“
Keep tightening. That
’
s right. Yes. I lost the bet,
”
h
e said companionably, as though they chatted between count
r
y dances. Amazed at his demeanor, she slowly screwed down the tourniquet
.

“
I bet Daniel you would remain in the cable tier until the all clear, and then join me here. He said you would disobey his orders and be in here before the battle was over. Obviously, I have lost a perfectly g
ood bottle
of
Jamaica
rum. There. Stop.
”

He re
ached across her to the tub of w
ar
m water that held his saws. He indicated the bottle of rum beside the sailor
’
s head.
“
Pour some of that down the beggar
’
s throat. As much as he
’
ll
take. That
’
s a good girl. Now, look away, please.
”

Hannah stared at the surgeon
’
s saw, and pressed her hands to the sailor
’
s chest as the
man
clawed
at
her shirt, popping the buttons. The saw
s
craped on the bone.

“
Tighten it again!
”
he
ordered, his voice louder now, more urgent
.

She did as he said, and he finished his swift work, dropped the shattered fore
ar
m in a brimming bucket and quickly tied off the artery.

The sailor was silent, his eyes closed. The surgeon looked up at her then, as if remembering some social indiscretion. He smiled apologetically, and extended his bloody hand to her acrosable.

“
Oh, do forgive my manners, Miss Whittier. Welcome to hell.
”

Hannah wasn
’
t aware when the guns stopped, b
ecause there was no silence on t
he orlop deck where the wounded had been taken. She blo
tt
ed all thoughts from her mind except the ordeal before her and did as Andrew Lease said. She only hesitated once, at the very beginning, when the surgeon took her hand and forced it against an artery that was cascading like a fountain to the deck above.

She had looked at him in terror as the droplets rained down, then did as he said.

“
Excellent, Miss
Whittier
. Just jam it tight against the bone for another minute,
”
the surgeon murmured as he continued his work.
“
Tell me, do you have brothers and sisters? I suspect you are the youngest.
”

She looked at him in amazement, then understood.
“
I have four older brothers, and yes, I am the youngest,
”
she replied with scarcely a quaver in her voice. I will match you calm for calm, she thought, as she pressed against the artery.
“
Do you think I am the youngest because the captain contends I am a
rasc
al, sir
?”

Lea
se smiled as he sawed.
“
Yes, actually. You seem a bit used to your own way. Another moment, Miss
Whittier
.
”

“
Perhaps I just resist bullying,
”
she said as Lease to
o
k the artery in his hand and tied it off.
“
It is an American trait, I think.
”
She gul
ped,
t
o
o afraid to look down at what he was doing.

“
He means well. He
re, grab this fellow under the a
r
mpits. I think we
can ease him
to the deck.
”

Whatever his deficienc
ies
in
ordinary conversation, Lea
se knew his business. He worked his way through the wounded and the dying, moving so deliberately at times that she wanted to
scream.
“
Haste
never healed a wound,
”
he commented mildly at one
point.
“
Do quit gritting your teeth,
my dear Miss
Whittier
. You might ruin an otherwise excellent facial structure.
”

The hours wore by, and t
hen she realized that the last t
wo men the Marines had brought below were French. She looked at the doctor.
“
Is it over?”

“
You didn
’
t hear the guns stop?
”
Lease asked as he surveyed the latest ruin on his operating table.
“
Why do they bring these wrecks below?
”
he asked no one in particular.
“
Am I God, to ordain a miracle? Just hold his hand, Miss Whittier. He will soon quit this life, lucky man.
Bon chance
,
”
he told the sailor in French, bending over him and straightening his legs.

She took the French sailor
’
s hand and held it tight until he died. Lease slumped against the bulkhead and
sank
to the deck, his face etched with exhaustion like acid on copper. He patted the deck beside him and she joined him, feeling oddly boneless as soon as she sat down.

“
You are right
,
you know,
”
he said at last when her eyes were closing.

“
Right?
”

“
A husband should put his wife
’
s welfare above his own.
”

If she had not already endured an afternoon and evening of strange commentary on fashion
,
customs
,
weather
,
and scientific discovery, delivered across an operating table, Hannah would have been
amazed.
As it was, she regarded
the surgeon
’
s comment in the same calm in which it was delivered.

“
My dratt
ed l
ist has already been a source of some embarrassment to me,
”
she said.
“
I did not
wish
to cause you pain, sir.
”

Lease smiled, but there was no mi
rt
h.
“
I know you did not, and I was rude to walk out like
that,
particularly before Cookie
’
s plum duff. Look far and wide, my
dear
, for a man who will not desert you when the sky falls in. Let me be your bad example.
”
He closed his eyes and seemed to be reaching for a memory not usually touched.
“
My wife and baby would be alive today if I had possessed less pride in my skills to save them.
”

“
Oh, sir,
”
she said and tried to take his hand. He shifted away from her.

“
I assured her that I could handle any situation, even as she pleaded with me to call in another surgeon,
”
he continued, his voice dull, but with a wistfulness that went straight to her heart.
“
I
was more concerned with my reputation than her welfare.
”

He said no more, but stared at the table with the dead man on it. In another moment, two sailors came onto the deck.
“
Captain Spark sent us, sir,
”
said one, his face covered with black powder from the guns.
“
Can we help?
”

Lease sighed and pulled himself to his feet.
“
Indeed you can. And I release you, Miss Whittier, from the underworld. These fellows and I wi
ll
tidy up this little
corner
of Hades.
”

She left the orlop deck and climbed wearily to the gun deck, where the battle lanterns still glowed weirdly. She gasped the carnage there that had never even reached the surgery. She thought she saw Mr. Lansing, pale beyond belief, pulled into a co
rn
er, but she had not the h
ea
rt to investigate. She conti
nued her climb to the main deck,
amazed at the effort it took to put one foot in front of the other.

There was no other ship on the
ocean
. Night had come and with it a certain tidiness as the darkness cloaked whatever still floated on the water from the
Bergeron.
She slumped onto the afterhatch, noting idly that the bag of oakum she had picked that morning was still there. She looked at the chaos about her, the
bloody sand, the slanting deck,
the ruined sails, the mizzenmast shattered at a h
eight of ten feet from the deck,
with the yards and sails drooping dangerously over the side.

As she watched, sailors and Marines chopped through the mast and ropes and heaved it overboard. The ship righted itself, and the remaining sails filled as the sailors in the yardarms unre
e
fed them. Order was repla
cing catastrophe as she watched,
her eyes weary.

And there on the splintered quarterdeck, stood Captain Daniel Spark, calmly telling his crew what to do. He spoke quietly, and they moved to do his will. Soon the bosun
’
s mate had turned the wash pump on the deck, sluicing it clean, except for the deeper stains. Hannah knew, as surely as she breathed, that the morning sun would bring out the survivors to holystone the deck back to its fo
rm
er whiteness. The mast would be replaced, the sails refined, and life would continue aboard the
Dissuade.
It was just another incident of war to these iron men who had contended against
France
for
twenty years now.

A great wave of loneliness washed over her, bringing with it such pain that she could only get to her feet, climb to the quarterdeck, and huddle there against the comforting planking. If thee shouts me off this deck, I won
’
t go, she thought as she gathered herself into a tight little ball. She listened to the captain
’
s approaching footsteps, her h
ea
rt
aching, her mind blank.

Spark stood beside her. She waited for him to speak, dared him to, but he said nothing. He came closer until his leg touched her, and just stood there, continuing his orders to his crew as his boat cloak swirled around her, shutting out the dreadful view. She closed her eyes, relieved beyond words to be enveloped in darkness. He reached down once to pat her head when she began to shiver, then turned back to the task at hand as she leaned against his leg.

An hour
passed
, and still he stood on the deck, watching the evolution from upheaval to order. He spoke to her finally.

“
Hannah, tell me if I won my wager.
”

“
You did, sir,
”
she said.

He knelt beside her.
“
You deliberately disobeyed me, didn
’
t you?
”

“
Of course,
”
she replied, looking him right in the eye.
“
You didn
’
t really think I would stay there when all those men were screaming?
”