Fires of Change (The Fire Blossom Saga) Read online

  Carol laughed. “A little wind isn’t going to keep us from dancing. I’m just sad it’s too wet for fireworks.”

  Wearing heavy slickers against the weather, the sailors who would have been responsible for the spectacle were busy taking down sails and stowing anything that the wind could blow overboard.

  In the ballroom, few passengers remained—mostly young people who thought the rough seas were exciting, and enjoyed staggering into each other’s arms while dancing. But the barman and the wine steward remained on duty, and the band, which consisted of three young men, continued to play. But they could barely be heard above the sounds of the raging wind and pouring rain that was whipping against the windows of the raised hall. After a time, dancing became impossible, so the young people amused themselves by trying to carry full champagne glasses across the room without spilling them.

  Then suddenly the music stopped. A sailor staggered in, soaked and out of breath.

  “No one is allowed back on deck. Captain’s orders. I’m sorry, but you’ll have to spend the night here. The danger of being washed overboard is too great. We’re also battening all the hatches so no water gets into the cabins.”

  “Washed overboard?” Linda was immediately sober. “We were told it wasn’t so bad.”

  “No one has fallen overboard yet,” the man explained, in a voice that was supposed to sound comforting. “But you’re staying.” His gaze swept enviously over the bar. “At least you won’t go thirsty.”

  Carol laughed uneasily. But several of the others were taking the situation with less humor.

  “What impertinence!” said a young man, the son of a sheep baron from Queenstown. “Not only are we forced to spend the night in this hall, but the captain doesn’t even have enough decency to send an officer to inform us.”

  “The officers are surely busy,” Bill Paxton said. His worried look reflected Carol’s own fears. So far, the captain had shown the greatest gentility. If he was now dispensing with etiquette, the situation must be serious.

  The cries and fearful remarks began to grow louder. Married women took shelter in their husbands’ arms. Bill reached for his jacket and went to the door.

  “Stay here,” he told Carol and Linda. “I’m going out to see if I can find George. I want to know what’s really going on.”

  “What if it’s too dangerous?” Carol asked.

  Bill smiled at her. “I’ll be careful.”

  The wind slammed the door shut behind him as he left the hall. Inside, the waiters and barkeeper attempted to tie down tables and chairs, which were sliding across the room as the boat pitched. Several guests, including Carol and Linda, tried to help. But they struggled even to stay on their feet. Soon, Bill returned. He was soaking wet, but seemed less worried.

  “George is in the wheelhouse, watching the gauges. He says it’s a stronger storm than the captain was expecting. Otherwise, he would have canceled the ball.”

  The girls’ eyes went wide.

  “No, don’t be scared. The General Lee is a good ship. Just because the wind is tossing it around a little doesn’t mean it’s going to sink. That’s what George said. However, we are being blown off course. That means the trip will take longer. We’re going to need at least one more day.”

  Linda managed a smile. “Well, if it’s nothing worse than that, maybe we can see the fireworks tomorrow.”

  Paxton picked up a wayward tablecloth and used it to dry himself off. “As I said, you two are a couple of tough young ladies. Would you like another glass of champagne? I could do with a whiskey about now.”

  On the way back from the bar, he staggered, and the tray of drinks flew across the room. The expensive crystal glasses shattered on the floor. The young people laughed, but it sounded forced. The band was playing again, but no one could dance. Over the next few hours, some of them began to feel seasick. A few moaned and threw up into ice buckets. Someone started to scream when not only rain whipped against the windows, but waves as well. The deck was pounded by the roiling sea. More and more, the cheerful party transformed into a nightmare. Several guests had spread coats and cloaks on the floor in a corner and were lying down, but sleep was impossible.

  “Well, tough or not, I would really rather be somewhere else right now,” Linda murmured when the musicians finally gave up and put their instruments away. “I hope Chris and Cat won’t go into our cabin to check on us. They’ll worry if they see we’re gone.”

  Carol shook her head. “They’ll find out tomorrow either way. But I’ll bet that the Hestons and Wesserlys stay in bed until noon. At least if they’re seasick.” She glanced at a young man who was emptying his stomach for the third time.

  “How long do storms like this usually last?” Linda asked Bill.

  He shrugged. “I have no idea. A night? Several days? How long was it in the Bible before they threw Jonah into the sea?” His joke sounded tired.

  “I wish it were at least bright again. The helmsman surely can’t see anything in this weather. Who knows where we’ll end—”

  Carol hadn’t even finished speaking when the ship was suddenly shaken by a powerful blow. For a moment, everything was motionless, until they were swept forward and tossed by waves again.

  “Did we just hit rocks?” Linda asked.

  There were loud cries from the deck. They could see the outlines of sailors through the window as they fought against the storm to open the hatches to the cabins below deck.

  Alarmed, Bill Paxton ran to the door and snatched Linda and Carol’s cloaks from the coatrack. “Put these on in case we have to leave quickly. That didn’t sound good. Do you feel like the ship is listing to one side?”

  The girls threw on their cloaks, watching through the window as the sailors let the lifeboats down from their mounts.

  “They’re lowering the boats!”

  “We’re sinking!” someone cried.

  The other guests, too, had noticed the frantic activity outside and were rushing to the exit.

  Bill waved them back. “Stay calm!” he ordered. “We’d just be in the way out there. Let the sailors do their work.”

  Then the captain appeared on deck, shouting orders. The first passengers appeared from the cabins below and were led to a lifeboat, which elicited another outbreak of terrified cries from the ballroom. The captain looked over, then pointed them out to some of his crew. To Linda and Carol’s relief, it was George Wallis who came to the door, wearing an oilskin coat and carrying a wooden box under his arm.

  “Listen up!” he shouted. “You are all to come with me. We can get you all into boat number two. We’re going out now together, so please hold on to each other. Men, please support the women and make sure no one falls. There is no reason for haste or panic. We went aground against some rocks, but the ship is sinking very slowly, and there are enough lifeboats for everyone. So, please, stay calm!”

  George Wallis held the door open, and Bill Paxton and the girls were among the first out.

  “What—what about Chris and Mamaca?” Linda cried as they staggered into the storm. “Will they—”

  The wind blew the words from her lips.

  Chris and Cat had enjoyed the evening and fallen asleep full of champagne. But soon the bucking and rolling of the ship shook them from their slumber.

  “Is this normal?” Cat asked worriedly as she lit a gas lamp in their cabin.

  Chris, who’d experienced many stormy passages to the North Island, comforted her.

  “This is definitely a strong storm, but ships don’t sink that easily. Think of Ida and Karl, and what they told us about their voyage on the Sankt Pauli. And they were in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, not a few hundred yards from land.”

  “I’m going to check on the girls,” Cat said.

  She threw on a dressing gown and stepped into the corridor. When she returned, she had other things on her mind than the weather.

  “The little beasts!” she cried. “The cabin is empty. They snuck back to the ball!”
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br />   Chris laughed. “In their position, I would have done the same thing,” he admitted. “The only question is why they aren’t back yet.”

  He reached for the pocket watch he’d left on the nightstand, but it wasn’t there. Cat found it on the floor.

  “Three o’clock,” she said. “You’re right, they should have been back a long time ago. Come, get up. We have to find them.”

  Cat quickly threw on a comfortable dress, and Chris dressed with a sigh.

  “You’ll have to come up with some terrible punishment when we catch them,” he said. “The last thing I want now is a stroll around the deck.”

  The two of them hurried along the corridor, where they had to edge around puddles of vomit. A few passengers were sitting against the walls, groaning.

  Cat wasn’t surprised that the companionway was closed, but began to panic when she realized it wasn’t possible to open it from the inside.

  “Chris, what’s going on? We’re locked in, we—” She hammered against the wood.

  Chris reached for her hand. “Stop that, no one will hear you,” he said. “They’ll only hear us in here, and then everyone will start to panic. In a storm, the sailors seal them to stop water from getting in. Besides, they have to keep passengers from walking around on deck and being washed overboard. If it really gets bad, they’ll open them again.”

  He’d barely finished speaking when a shock went through the hull of the ship, as though someone were pounding on it with a gigantic hammer. They heard the sound of wood cracking, and then of rushing water.

  “The ship is leaking!” Cat cried.

  There were shouts from behind them and also on deck. Cat took a breath of relief as she heard someone opening the companionway from outside.

  “Keep calm. Please stay here until the lifeboats are ready.”

  Cat and Chris were looking into the serious but controlled face of the first officer. Other passengers were coming up behind them.

  “You’ll be out of here quickly. There is space for all of you.”

  “Come now!” Bill Paxton reached out a hand to Carol.

  A sailor was guiding the passengers over the side of the ship on a rope ladder that stretched down to lifeboat number two. Some boats were loaded before being lowered, but others already bobbed in the water, and reaching those was quite a bit more difficult. George had chosen the young revelers for the latter.

  “But what about Mamaca and Chris? Mamaca won’t go without us!”

  “The girls!” Cat balked in front of the boat the first officer was trying to help her into. “My daughters! I don’t know where they are!”

  “They’ll be along,” the young man said calmly. “There are boats for everyone; no one will be forgotten. Now you must get in, quickly!”

  “Can’t we wait? I want to be in a boat with my children!” Cat looked around frantically.

  Chris scanned the deck. Everywhere, members of the crew were guiding passengers into boats. Of course they kept hearing shouts, and some women were crying, but everything was progressing in a fairly orderly manner. Finally, he spotted Linda and Carol on the other side of the ship.

  “There they are, Cat,” he said. “Look, over there!”

  “Can’t we please wait for our parents?” Carol asked. “It doesn’t matter which boat we’re in—”

  “Of course it matters. If everyone starts walking back and forth to choose a boat, there will be pure chaos,” George Wallis said sternly. “Get in now, Miss Carol. That’s an order!”

  “But Mamaca—”

  “There’s Chris!” Linda spotted her adoptive father and waved to him excitedly. “And Mamaca! We’re here!” She shouted into the storm, though there wasn’t a ghost of a chance her parents would hear.

  “Get in!” Wallis shouted. “Bill, do something! Throw them over your shoulder if you have to.”

  “You will get in this boat right now,” the first officer said, and took Cat’s arm.

  Though relieved at having seen the girls getting into a boat, Cat didn’t like the thought of letting them out of her sight again.

  “Will the boats stay together?” she asked worriedly as she finally climbed in and sat down on one of the benches.

  “We’ll do everything we can, madam,” the first officer replied.

  “No matter what, we’ll see the girls when we’re back on land,” Chris said and took Cat’s hand. “Don’t worry.”

  As the boat was lowered over the rail of the ship by the winches, Cat saw her daughters climbing down the rope ladder and breathed a sigh of relief. At least the two of them had gotten safely off the sinking vessel. So close to the coast, the lifeboats shouldn’t run into problems. They probably wouldn’t even have to row for more than a few minutes.

  Cat clung tightly to the bench as the boat hit the water. It landed safely in the sea, though it was immediately tossed by the waves, and the people shrieked as ice-cold water sloshed in. Cat steeled herself against the cold. It would only be a short ride.

  Chapter 19

  “Bail!” George Wallis shouted. “There are buckets under the seats!”

  Now that they were drifting away from the General Lee, the small lifeboat was quickly filling with water. The rain was contributing just as much as the waves.

  “Will we reach land soon?” Linda asked breathlessly as she scooped water as fast as she could. “We were so close to the coast.”

  Wallis shook his head, as did the five other sailors who had been assigned to lifeboat two. They rowed with all their strength to get away from the whirlpool created by the sinking ship.

  “I don’t know where we are, miss,” he shouted against the noise of the wind. “The General Lee drifted, and we couldn’t figure out our location. That’s also why we ran aground. On the normal route, there are no shallows, no rocks for the ship to hit.”

  “Where are we rowing to, then?” Carol asked, her teeth chattering. She couldn’t remember having been so cold in her entire life. The freezing water had long since soaked through her cloak and ball gown, and waves kept swamping the boat. So far, she had been able to comfort herself with the thought that it would soon be over.

  “For now, we just have to get away from the ship. Otherwise, we’ll get sucked down with it,” Wallis said. “Then we’ll pull in the oars and wait until dawn, until the storm dies down.”

  “Are there any signs of that yet?” asked Edward Dunbar, the arrogant young man from Queenstown.

  “Of course, sir,” Wallis replied. “It’s already let up significantly. At the peak of it, we would have never been able to get the lifeboats into the water.”

  “And dawn always comes,” Bill added encouragingly. He, too, rowed powerfully. “It can’t be much longer. Shall we pull in the oars now, George?”

  The men stowed the oars and then helped the women to bail. As they did so, they watched the ghostly silhouette of the General Lee as it sank. They could hear cries of dismay from the other lifeboats.

  “I hope everyone got off safely,” Linda said. In their boat, too, some people were crying. A few women prayed aloud.

  Wallis attempted a comforting smile. “I don’t think anyone was lost yet.”

  “Yet?” Carol demanded shrilly.

  The young officer rubbed his forehead. “We haven’t reached land.”

  As morning broke, the sky finally grew brighter, but the gray storm continued to rage. The lifeboat was tossed mercilessly by the waves, and there was no sign of the coast. The occupants took turns bailing. Linda and Carol nestled close together, and fell into a short, exhausted, restless sleep. The waves and cold soon woke them.

  “We shouldn’t sleep,” Linda insisted through her chattering teeth. “If you fall asleep, you can die of hypothermia.”

  It only stopped raining toward noon, and the wildly breaking waves finally gave way to less extreme swells. The boat still rocked, but no more water came over the sides. It was finally possible to row again. The question was in which direction.

  The pa
ssengers gazed despondently at the gray, seemingly endless water around them. There was no land to be seen, and no sign of the other lifeboats either.

  “They—they couldn’t have all sunk, could they?” Linda asked fearfully.

  Wallis shook his head. “No, that’s very unlikely. We’ve just all drifted in different directions. Don’t worry. We—”

  “Don’t worry?” Edward’s young wife shrieked. “You must be joking! We’re drifting without food or water, half-dead with cold on the open sea. No one knows where we are. But we shouldn’t worry?”

  Wallis pressed his lips together. They were cracked from the saltwater and cold. “That’s not what I meant, Mrs. Dunbar. Our situation is doubtlessly serious. But I can’t tell you how serious until I have determined our position.” He reached for the wooden box he’d stowed under the seat. “As soon as the sea is calm enough to use the sextant, we can find out how far off course we are, if land is anywhere near, or if we can hope for aid from passing ships. Until then, you’ll have to be patient.”

  At the last light of day, George Wallis was finally able to take the readings. He focused on the cusp of the setting sun and murmured numbers to himself. For the anxious passengers, it seemed to take hours.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, unfortunately I must tell you that we are very far from our original course. To the best of my knowledge, we are approximately one hundred and fifty miles to the southeast of Campbelltown. We are on the open sea, and quite far from most of the usual shipping routes.”

  “What does that mean?” Dunbar asked apprehensively.

  “We’re going to die!” a woman cried.

  Linda and Carol felt paralyzed with fear. A hundred and fifty miles of sea between them and the South Island. The cold alone . . .

  Wallis shook his head determinedly. “We’re going to row,” he said, “and pray that the currents and wind are on our side. If we can manage five miles per hour, we can reach land in two days.”

  “We could make a sail too,” Bill said. “We have enough fabric on board.” He pointed at the women’s ball gowns. “Anyone have a needle and thread?”