Storm Warriors (9 page)

I cringed. “Yes, sir.” I tried to say it with strength.

He stood to leave. “And eat your breakfast today.” He waved one of his large hands at my tray of biscuits and fig preserves. “It better be gone when Mr. Wescott comes to get the tray.”

He left me alone to sort out the things he'd said.

I know it takes courage to meet a storm head-on, but that day it felt like it took even more courage to meet my own foolishness head-on. First I apologized to Mr. Etheridge for jumping into the surfboat rather than simply helping to pull it. Then I apologized to Mr. Bowser for not staying out of the way when I should have. He punched my arm gently and said, “That's all right. But if you do it again, we'll throw you overboard.” The sailors and surfmen laughed good-naturedly. I tried to smile and held my head to ease the throbbing the punch in the arm had caused.

When Daddy and Grandpa came to see how I was doing, I told them I was sorry for all the trouble I'd caused.

“You've left me to work on that garden fence all by my lonesome,” Grandpa said. He patted my hands, and I could see worried creases around his eyes.

“I'll be okay, Grandpa,” I assured him. “And I'll come help you with the fence soon. My head hurts a little less every day. Mr. Bowser said I probably have a crack in the skull, but it'll heal up in a couple of weeks.”

Daddy shook his head. “A cracked skull. I should send you to live with Mamma's cousin Mabel before you get yourself killed out here.”

“I've learned my lesson, I promise,” I insisted. Living with Cousin Mabel, with her strict rules about cleanliness and manners, would be a very mean punishment.

Daddy eyed me carefully—my bandaged head, my squinted eyes, my arms skinny from little food and no work. “I suppose maybe you have,” he said.

Within a couple of days, I was feeling good enough to sit up part of the day. Mr. Wescott said he was tired of carrying my food to me and it was time for me to join the men for supper downstairs. I gripped my head with one hand, the banister with the other, and walked slowly down the steps.

At the supper table, I got my first really good look at the sailors from the
Maggie J. Lawrence.
There were seven of them: two Yankees, two Southern men, a Swede, a Norwegian, and Mr. Abilgas from Manila. They had, I learned, sailed from
Philadelphia and were bound for Charleston, South Carolina, with a cargo of coal when they'd wrecked. They were still waiting for a steamer that would take them up to Norfolk but said they were happy to wait because here the company and the food were excellent. They said I'd missed lots of good stories, smoking, and card playing while I'd been lolling around in bed.

After supper, Mr. Abilgas said I hadn't missed everything because he'd saved his best story for me. He was a short man with a broad brown face and hooded eyes. He leaned back in his chair to begin his story.

“It happen at Hendricks Head Light, in Maine,” he said, his dark eyes flashing. “During winter—a snowstorm! The waves— like monsters—ten, fifteen, twenty feet high.” He looked around the group of us slowly. “The sea, cold like ice,” he said in a sinister voice. “A big ship—a whaler—run aground.” He smacked the heel of his hand against the table to show how the bottom of the ship hit the rocks. “The lighthouse keeper, he see the distress flag. But he all alone, only his wife, no rescue station.

“The keeper and his wife, they build a big bonfire.” Mr. Abilgas raised his arms to show the hugeness of the fire. “Let people on ship know that somebody see them.”

“Didn't they try to save them?” I blurted out. What good was a bonfire with no rescue on the way?

He shook his head. “No. Keeper has only a small dory.
Waves crashing too big, and snow filling the sky like a million white birds.

“But!” Mr. Abilgas fixed me with his eyes. “The keeper go to the shore to see what might be floating up.

“He see a big bundle, floating, tossing. He get a boat hook and run out in the waves. He reach to hook the bundle, and
paff
! A big wave throw him and bundle up onto the shore.”

The men laughed, but my memory of being thrown in a similar way while reaching into the ocean was still too fresh for me to laugh.

“He look down at the bundle and say to himself, ‘Dammit, I just rescue a featherbed!’ ” The sailors and surfmen really laughed then, and even I cracked a smile.

Mr. Abilgas held up one finger. “Then he see that the featherbed tied to another featherbed—like there something inside. So he cut ropes and find a box.”

By now I was leaning forward.

“And something inside box making sound like a cat.”

My eyes widened.

“He open box, and do you know what he find inside?”

I shook my head.

“A baby.”

“Naw!” Mr. Bowser slapped his leg in disbelief.

Mr. Abilgas nodded emphatically. “A baby girl—and she
crying, screaming. And the keeper's wife she yelling do this and do that, tell him take her inside she going to freeze, put more wood on fire, go milk cow in middle of night.

“The keeper's wife still have clothes for baby in house because her own baby die few months before. They get her warmed up, give her milk, soon she sleeping.

“The keeper go outside to signal to ship that baby safe now. But he see that ship gone—all broken up. Everybody dead.”

We were silent.

“He look in box and find two blankets, locket, and note that say, ‘Lord God, I commend my child into your hand.’ It written in lady's writing—must be mother.”

“What happened to the baby?” I asked.

“They keep her. She replacement for one they lost.” He folded his hands over his round stomach and smiled.

“That happened up in Maine? For real?” Mr. Wescott asked.

Mr. Abilgas nodded. “Little girl grown up now. She happy, strong.”

One of the other sailors broke in with a new story. “Did you hear about that life-saving crew up in Michigan on Lake Supe-rior—Marquette station, I think it is—got a
bear
for a pet?”

Several of the surfmen snorted like they thought it was a joke.

“It's true,” the sailor insisted. “Raised it from a cub, they did. It eats out of their hands—probably sits down to table with them!”

Everyone laughed, including me.

The
Maggie J. Lawrence
broke up, and when pieces of her hull and cargo started floating in, the sailors and surfmen worked to pull them up onshore to get ready for the auction. My head was still bandaged and still ached like it was being hit with a sledgehammer every time I moved too fast, so all I could do was sit on a sand hill to watch. They hitched the government team to the heavy slabs of wood and tangled masses of sail and rope and had the mules drag it all up onto dry sand, where the men could untangle it and sort it out. Mr. Etheridge got his ankle sprained leading the government team, and Mr. Bowser bandaged it so it wouldn't swell too bad, so after that he had to sit and watch, too.

The steamer finally came to carry the sailors up to Norfolk, where they could board the trains to go back home. Captain Holloway stayed at the Pea Island station to wait for the auction.

The day of the auction—or vendue, as lots of people called it—February 20, was bright and almost springtime-warm. In the morning, Daddy, Grandpa, and I went sound side to greet folks as they arrived. The sound was already dotted with skiffs, the morning sun lighting up white sails against blue sky and water. A steady southwest wind brought the boats skimming in to shore.

We helped drag boats up into the marsh, where they would stay put. There were white folks coming to buy and the surfmen's families coming to picnic, and a lot of people coming because this vendue was the most interesting thing going on today for miles around.

Daddy told me to help Mrs. Collins on account of she had three small children, two baskets full of ham, smoked fish, corn bread, apples, and jam, and about four blankets to lay everything out on. We carried it all over ocean side near the station house, where folks were gathering around the piles of salvage wood, rope, and sailcloth.

Fannie arrived not long after I'd gotten Mrs. Collins settled. She grabbed my hands and swung me around in a circle. “Look at that nasty old head bandage!” she exclaimed, laughing. “Seems to me you've been being the
patient
instead of doing the doctoring.” Then her face fell. “Does it hurt?” she asked.

“Only when someone swings me in a circle,” I answered.

She laughed again, then tipped her head close to mine. “I didn't tell anyone about your studying,” she whispered.

“It's all right—Mr. Bowser knows. He even asked me to help him with wounded sailors,” I said proudly.

She narrowed her eyes at me and smiled. “I
knew
it,” she said.

“Knew what?” I asked.

But Seabright ran up and pulled on Fannie's arm. “Take me to pet the mules, Fannie,” she whined. “You promised and William won't come with me and Mamma says I can't go alone.”

Fannie waved to me as she let Seabright drag her away toward the stables.

Soon the auction began, with the Commissioner of Wrecks shouting out prices and people raising their hands to show what they were willing to pay. He sold everything off for Mr. Holloway, for a grand total of one hundred and sixty dollars and twenty cents.

After that was when folks started pulling food out of the baskets and the children started clamoring for the surfmen to set up the breeches buoy for rides. Mr. Etheridge handed me his pocket watch so I could time the crew's breeches-buoy drill. They dragged the beach cart out onto the white sand and got ready to start. When Mr. Etheridge shouted, “Action!” I started timing. The men raced to bury the sand anchor, aim the Lyle gun, fire the shot line, fasten the hawser line to the wreck pole, which took the place of the ship's mast during drills, raise the tall, X-shaped crotch, and haul the breeches buoy into place. The whole thing took four minutes and forty-five seconds.
Everyone applauded—the adults because the crew had done such an impressive job, and the children because they were excited about riding the breeches buoy.

“I want to ride first!” cried Seabright, and she ran to the wreck pole to climb up. Mr. Meekins steadied her as she climbed and helped her into the breeches buoy, where she sat grinning with her skinny brown legs and bloomers sticking out of the breeches. A group of children pulled on the whip line. Seabright squealed as the rope slid through the pulley and she was sent, dangling high in the air, from the wreck pole to the crotch. It was better than any carnival ride I'd ever seen.

Someone jabbed me in the ribs, and I turned to see Floyd, almost cross-eyed, getting a good look at my head bandage. William and Charles, another boy from school, were there too, and the three of them surrounded me, staring. I let my breath out in a slow stream, trying to stay calm. One light punch to the head would have blinded me with pain. I hoped the crowd, which included their own mothers and fathers, would keep them from starting a fight.

“I guess they won't be letting you help with rescues anymore,” William said bluntly.

It hurt more than a blow to the head. I said nothing.

Floyd sniffed. “That bandage doesn't cover half his head,” he said, obviously annoyed by the inaccuracy of the story he'd been told. “It's just a strip.”

I could have told him that it used to be bigger and was smaller now that my wounds were healing up, but I didn't want to talk about any of it—especially not to these boys.

“Come on,” said William, “let's go ride.”

At that moment, from the direction of the wreck pole, came a loud squeal. When I looked, I saw Fannie trying to climb the pole and her mother pulling her down by her ankles.

“Why can't I ride?” Fannie cried, jumping to the ground.

“You get away from there!” Her mother, a large woman, was huffing from the effort of having pulled her daughter back to earth.

Fannie stood with her hands on her hips. “But Floyd gets to go, and I've always ridden, and—”

“Don't you sass me, and don't put your hands on your hips when you talk to me,” her mother ordered.

Fannie dropped her hands and her eyes.

“You'll be turning thirteen in a few months, and you've got no business sitting in those breeches with your bloomers sticking out for all the world to see.”

Floyd snickered as he pushed past Fannie and hoisted himself up the wreck pole. Fannie slapped at him and scowled.

“May I ride like some of the older girls do, then?” Fannie asked quietly. “I can sit on the buoy with my feet in the breeches.”

Her mother lifted her hands toward the sky. “Lord have mercy! And fall to your death?” She took Fannie by the arm and
pulled her away from the wreck pole. “You go lay out that blanket and set out that food and act like a lady.”

Fannie's shoulders slumped as she walked over to her family's picnic basket. She didn't ask me to, but I followed and helped her lay out the blanket and plates of fried bluefish, corn bread, candied sweet potatoes, and a jar of fig preserves. There was a long wooden spoon for serving the sweet potatoes and a small silver spoon for the preserves.

She handed me a piece of corn bread and we sat together to eat. That's when I had an idea.

“It's your dress that's the problem,” I said.

She gave me a sideways look. “What?”

“It's your dress and the breeches buoy. They don't go together. It's made for rescuing sailors, in
breeches
.”

Fannie was looking at me like I wasn't making sense, and I was thinking of the pair of breeches I'd scrubbed clean the day before and hung in the sun to dry. They were neatly folded at the foot of my bed, in my cabin, just a few hundred yards away.

“So?” Fannie wiped corn bread crumbs from her lips.

“So, you want to borrow some breeches?” I asked.

Fannie caught her breath and covered her mouth with one hand. “Mamma would whip me so I wouldn't sit for a month!” she exclaimed.

I shook my head. “I don't want you to get in trouble. Forget I mentioned it.”

But Fannie's eyes were gleaming. “Yes,” she said, and looked at me expectantly.

“Yes?” Now I was confused.