The Royal Handmaid (13 page)

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Rena had managed to go to sleep, but she was awakened when Meredith shook her, saying insistently, “Wake up, Rena!”

“What is it?” Rena asked, yawning as she sat up.

“Travis just came by. He says we’re close to an island.”

“Then we’ll be all right.”

“I don’t think so. He said Captain Barkley told him he can’t control the ship, and we’re headed straight for what looks a barrier reef.”

“Y-you mean the ship will sink?”

“I don’t know, but we’ve all got to be ready to abandon ship. Put on the warmest clothes you have.”

Rena dressed hurriedly, and the two women left the cabin. They found the others all up on the deck, clinging together in the howling wind and holding on to the rails. The ship climbed each precipitous swell, then rushed headlong down into each deep trough. Rena caught at Dalton and screamed into the wind, “What’s happening?”

Dalton pointed ahead. “You see those reefs over there? There’s no way we can miss them. Look, the sails are almost all gone, and the captain says he can’t turn the ship around. We’re going to run into the reef, but there’s an island there behind it.”

Rena strained but could see nothing but a gloomy shadow beyond the reef where the water was breaking with enormous force.

Travis shouted above the din of the raging wind and waves, “We need to go below! When we hit, we could be thrown off the ship.”

“What’s going to happen?” Rena called out.

“The ship’ll break up. But we hope we’ll have time to launch the cutter and get to shore. All right, quick. Everybody below.”

Numbly Rena obeyed as Travis herded the missionaries down the hatchway.

“Don’t go in the cabins,” he said. “Just sit on the floor. It’ll be a pretty bad bump, I’m afraid.”

Abby began to weep, and every face was unnaturally stiff. Travis said, “I think it’s going to be all right. We’ve got a good chance. But it might be a good idea if we just remind the Lord that we’re on His business. You want to pray, Rena?”

Rena whispered, “No. You do it, Travis.”

Travis lifted his voice and said in an even tone, “Lord, these are your people. I ask that not a man or a woman be lost. We’re here on your business, Lord, so save us in the name of Jesus. And we trust ourselves to your everlasting and almighty power.”

Travis sat down between Rena and Meredith, bracing his back against the bulkhead. “Shouldn’t be long now,” he said.

He had no sooner spoken than there came a shout from topside. They couldn’t make out what was being said, but a few seconds later there was a crunching, wrenching squeal, and the ship seemed to turn sideways. Although the breaking noise continued, the rocking of the ship suddenly lessened, and Travis jumped up and shouted, “That’s it! She’s stuck on the rocks. Come on, all of you.” He stood at the ladder and urged them all on.

Rena gasped when she stepped outside, for the
Mary Anne
was indeed perched precariously on the rocks that were just breaking the surface of the water. The waves were breaking hard against the boat, and even as Rena watched in horror, Captain Barkley yelled at the crew, “Lower the cutter! We’ve gotta get off now. She’s gonna break up!”

Travis leaped up to help the men struggle to lower the cutter, while the women sat on the deck so as not to lose their
balance. The wind was blowing so fiercely it was impossible to speak or hear.

Finally Travis was back, motioning for them all to get into the smaller boat. Rena was frozen in place, so Travis yanked her to her feet.

Putting his lips close to her ear, he said, “Come on, Rena. This is your chance to show what you’re made of. Think of what your dad would do.”

Rena suddenly pulled herself upright and reached down to take Maggie Smith’s arm. “Come on, Maggie. We’re going to be all right.”

The cutter was pitching, and it was all the crew could do to hold her in place, but finally they were all in. Captain Barkley shouted, “All right, men, into the boat!”

The cutter was packed, and as the sailors scrambled in, taking their place at the oars, the cutter suddenly dipped down and water poured in.

“Shove us off, Travis!” Barkley shouted, and Travis and Novak leaped out of the boat and shoved with all their might to get the boat clear from the side of the
Mary Anne.
The waves caught the cutter, and both men clung to the side.

“Pull them in!” the captain shouted. At once Dalton and Karl were there to haul the two men inside. “We’d better get out of here,” Novak shouted, “or we’ll break up!”

Rena crouched in the seat between Charlie Day and Lars Olsen. The sailors pulled frantically, but it was the waves that rolled them toward the shore.

After a fearsome ride, Rena felt the prow of the cutter crunch on the sand, and Travis yelled, “Everybody out! Pull the boat in. We’ll need it.”

Rena almost fell over the side. At Captain Barkley’s direction, they all tugged until the boat was out of the reach of the surf.

“We’ll have to drag it to those trees or the waves will take her, Captain,” Novak shouted.

It was a titanic struggle, but the sailors attached ropes
and winched the boat along painfully until it was up on the line of vegetation.

Rena fell down, panting for breath. She could see the
Mary Anne
out on the reef, being twisted and warped by the waves that struck her broadside. She looked behind her up on the shore. She could see little, for night was almost upon them, but the earth seemed to rise up dark and foreboding. She did not move until Travis came and pulled at her arm. “Come on. Let’s get back in the shelter of the trees.”

Rena came to her feet and stumbled along with him. She would have fallen more than once if Travis had not helped her, and she noticed that the other men were helping the other women. When they reached the tree line, she took one last look at the wreck of what had once been the pride of her father’s life. The trees seemed to close about them, and the wind sounded less shrill. Finally Captain Barkley said, “We can rest here. It’ll be safe.”

Rena sank to the ground with her back against a palm tree, folded her arms across her knees, and began to tremble. She was cold and weak, and she felt they would never be really safe—not in this awful place!
I wish I’d gone home with Jeanne!
she cried to herself, but then she shoved the thought away and put her head down on her knees and wept silently. She was as miserable as she’d ever been in her life.

CHAPTER EIGHT

The Darkest Hour

Rena Matthews had heard the phrase “howling like a banshee” all of her life but had no idea what a banshee howl sounded like. As she crouched with her back against a tree, clutching herself as the driving wind plastered her dress to her body, she felt that she had a pretty good idea. The wind was screaming, and together with the roaring crash of the surf, it made a deafening sound. Dawn had come, but the heavy clouds hung low over the churning sea. As Rena huddled with the others staring out at the waves, she thought she saw faces in their watery depths—terrible, grotesque faces like gargoyles, leering and rushing forward, stopped only by the beach from devouring the survivors.

“What are we going to do?” she whispered.

She was sitting beside Dalton, who seemed to be equally mesmerized by the waves. He turned to her, and she saw that his face was stiff with tension. “I don’t know,” he muttered. “We’ve got to do
something.
Surely someone must live on this island.”

The words brought little comfort to Rena, and she glanced around in the feeble dawn and noted that everyone was as soaked and miserable as she was. Captain Barkley was standing stiffly, his back as straight as a ramrod, the rain pouring down his hair and face, for he wore no hat. Suddenly he turned and lifted his voice above the din. “Crew members, we’ve got to go back to the ship.”

“Back to the ship?” Jimmy was sitting with his arm around
Abby. Both of them looked totally miserable, and Jimmy’s voice cracked as he said, “That’s impossible, Captain! No one could get back there.”

“Somebody had better. We’ve got to have some supplies.” Barkley surveyed the group. “It’s gonna take all of us crewmen to fight through that surf. Come on. Waiting isn’t going to make it any easier.”

Charlie Day whimpered, “But, Captain, I can’t swim.”

“You might as well drown as starve to death. It’ll be quicker that way. Don’t argue with me.”

“I’ll pull an oar, Captain,” Pete Alford said as he stood. “I think we can make it.”

Travis chimed in, “I’ll go too.”

“Good. Let’s get at it.”

Rena watched as the crewmen, along with Pete and Travis, left the shelter of the trees and leaned into the wind, which plastered their clothes to their bodies. She looked beyond them to the raging sea and shook her head. “Dalton, they’ll never make it.”

“Maybe I ought to go with them.”

“No, you stay here. They’ve got enough men,” Rena said quickly. She was ordinarily a strong woman, but all of the sources of her strength had been torn away from her. As she watched Barkley organize the men in the driving rain and push the cutter out into the waves, she thought how she had always leaned on her father. But her father wasn’t here now. No one was here, and fear ran along her nerves.

Lanie MacKay was standing close beside her along with Maggie. She said, “This is terrible, Maggie. We’ll never get out of here alive.”

Maggie did not answer right away but finally said heavily, “We’ll just have to pray that God will be with us.”

The missionaries all heard this statement, but none of them answered. They were all struck dumb by the violence and suddenness of the catastrophe, and now they could do
nothing but watch as the cutter was tossed high by the on-coming waves.

“It’s such a little boat,” Rena whispered.

“It’s little, but it’s all we’ve got,” Karl said, his tone resigned and his jaw set. He turned his back and refused to watch the scene. It was as if he knew something terrible were about to happen and could not bear to see it.

Dalton whispered, “We’ve got to get busy doing something. We can’t just stand here.”

“What should we do, Dalton?”

“It doesn’t matter. Just something to keep busy.” He surveyed the area. “We’ve got to have a fire. Everybody start looking for wood.”

“A fire? Why, that’s impossible!” Professor Dekker exclaimed. He looked pitifully small as he stood there with water dripping off his hat in a steady stream. “Nobody could start a fire in this downpour.”

But Dalton shook his head and said firmly, “We’ll have to wait until the wood dries out, but at least we’ll have it here ready. Come on, now. Everyone get moving.”

Rena felt as hopeless as the professor about starting a fire, but she knew action was better than doing nothing, so she pulled herself to her feet and began to look for suitable wood. “Come on. Things will look better when this rain stops. We’ll get a fire started somehow.” She headed back into the trees with Dalton and collected branches. Everyone else had also turned to the task as if glad to have something to do. “That was a good idea, Dalton,” she said.

“The professor might be right. I don’t know how we’ll start a fire with this.”

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“The cutter’s coming back!”

Rena was tugging at a branch of a tree that had fallen, trying vainly to break it off, when she heard Maggie’s voice. She turned quickly and ran with the others to the beach. Rena
grabbed for Maggie’s arm as the group watched the small boat head straight for the beach at a terrific speed. The men were rowing for all they were worth, riding the crest of a large wave, and her heart leaped into her throat as she whispered, “Maggie, the boat will be crushed.”

“Maybe not. They’re good seamen.”

They all watched as the cutter was lifted high and then washed up on the beach in a rush. Miraculously it appeared to have been lifted up and placed there safely, as if by a benevolent hand.

“They’re all right!” Dalton cried. “Come on. Let’s go help unload the supplies.”

They all rushed down to the cutter, and as the sailors piled out, Captain Barkley ordered, “Pull it up out of the surf.”

Rena took hold of the side of the craft, ignoring the waves that washed up on her ankles, and added her little strength. As the keel of the boat crunched on the rocks, Captain Barkley directed, “Get these supplies out quickly! We’ve got to go back.”

No one needed any urging, for they all realized that any hope of survival lay in the supplies they had brought. Everything was in a jumble—boxes, loose cans, canvas—but no one stopped to sort it out. Men and women alike, except for Abby, worked to empty the vessel. They struggled against the wind, which had not relented in the least, and Captain Barkley instructed them to put the supplies under the shelter of the trees. When they completed the unloading, he shouted, “We’ve gotta go back. There’s plenty of canvas here and there’s an ax. Cut some saplings. Rig up some tents for shelter. Come on, you men, we can make it back again.”

“It’s gettin’ worse, Captain,” Lars said. “That wind’s gettin’ higher. If we capsize, we’ll all drown. I can’t swim a lick.”