The Royal Handmaid (14 page)

“Neither can I,” Charlie said, his teeth chattering with the cold.

“We’re going back and that’s it! Come along.”

Travis’s hands were blistered as he pulled on the oars, and
as the cutter rose sharply, he braced himself for the boat to capsize, but miraculously it did not. He swung his head to see that they were approaching the
Mary Anne,
then turned and put his back to the oars. Cerny Novak was sitting beside him, pulling the opposite oar. He handled the oar as if it were a toothpick, the muscles in his frame contracting with little effort. “We’ve gotta be careful not to crash this cutter against the ship,” he shouted.

“I know,” Travis shouted back. “We need all the stuff we can get from the
Mary Anne.
”

Captain Barkley shouted commands, and when they were close enough, it was Barkley himself who leaped on board and caught the lines that tied the cutter to the ship. “Get all the canvas you can find and any tools.”

“Better get the guns too, Captain, don’t you think?” Cerny yelled.

“Yes, and all the ammunition you can find. Get with it now!”

For the next thirty minutes the men swarmed over the
Mary Anne,
some dashing below and running into each other in their haste. Travis struggled up the ladder time after time, carrying boxes of canned food, knowing that the food might be the difference between living and dying. He noted each time he emerged from below that the weather was getting worse—if that were possible—and he knew they had to hurry.

Just as he was plunging down for another load, he heard the captain shout, “All right, that’s it! Come on! Let’s get away from here before this cutter breaks up!”

On impulse, Travis rushed downstairs and grabbed a large canvas laundry bag. He entered the first cabin, which had been occupied by Jimmy and Abby, and scanned the room with a flashlight. He found several books and personal items and stuffed them into the bag. He went into each cabin, as quickly as he could, taking something personal, in most cases notebooks and Bibles. Finally he heard his name being called
and rushed back down the passageway, climbed the ladder, and found the others in the cutter waiting for him.

“Where’ve you been? Get in the boat!” Captain Barkley shouted.

Travis jumped in, falling down and losing his footing. He struck his head on the side, and for a moment the world seemed to be turning, with bright, spinning stars. He felt hands on him straightening him up and looked up to see Pete Alford staring at him strangely. “Where were you?”

“Just getting a few extra things.”

“Well, the captain is breathin’ fire. We’ve gotta get out of here.”

Indeed, the cutter was now being driven against the side of the
Mary Anne
with frightening force. They all shoved off with their oars, and the heavily laden cutter wallowed, but the men began rowing as hard as they could.

As Travis pulled on his oar, he glanced up and thought he could see a break in the clouds, but the wind howled as fiercely as ever, and the waves were no more gentle.
We’ve got to get to shore,
he thought.
This cutter won’t take much more pounding.

When they reached the island, the other survivors were waiting to help them, and Travis saw that Dalton and Karl were finishing tying a canvas over a framework to make a shelter. Travis labored with the others to get the supplies under it, and then he realized that he was weak with fatigue. Looking around at the other men trembling, he approached Barkley. “Captain, if we could get a fire started, I think it would help.”

“A fire in this downpour?”

“I think that would be wonderful,” Meredith said as she joined the two, “but who could start a fire?”

Her eyes looked black in the gloom, and her hair was plastered down. “You think you could do it, Travis?”

“I can try,” Travis said. “Of course, it’ll be a lot easier if we have a lighter. Anybody got a lighter?” he asked the group.

“I’ve got one,” Charlie announced, “but it’s awful wet.”

Professor Dekker snorted, “Impossible in this weather! We’ll have to wait until the sun comes out and dries the wood.”

“I don’t want to wait. In Guatemala I made a fire under some pretty bad conditions. Not this bad, but I think I can do it.”

Travis looked around and saw the fear and fatigue that was reflected on every face. He grinned suddenly. “An old Boy Scout like me can always make a fire. Let’s go find some punk.”

“Punk? What’s that?” Shep Riggs demanded. “I’ve known some punks in my day, but that’s not what you mean, is it?”

“No, come on. I’ll show you. Some of you break up the smallest pieces of wood you can find. Just very small twigs.”

Leaving the shelter of the tarpaulin with oilcloth and ax in hand, Travis plunged out into the rain, accompanied by Pete and Shep.

“I don’t know what punk is either,” Pete said. “What is it, Travis?”

“It’s this.” Travis stopped beside a fallen tree and spread the oilcloth on the ground. “See this tree? We’ve got to get into the middle of it. It’s been down a long time and it’s rotten, but inside you’ll find some punk.”

Travis used the ax to break through the bark. Soon he had cleared away enough to get his hand inside. “You see this stuff? It’s dry, and it burns better than anything.”

“I gotcha,” Shep said, and he and Pete began hacking away at the tree. They worked hard, and it did not take long for them to fill up the oilcloth.

Pete wrapped it up and asked, “Will this be enough?”

“I think so. Come on. Let’s get back and try it.”

The three made their way back to the tarpaulin, where they found that Rena had led the search for tiny branches. “Will this be enough, Travis?” she said, waving at a pile.

“It’ll be enough to get us started, but keep breaking off
some more.” Travis knelt down squarely under the center of the tarpaulin and looked up. “We’ll have to be careful not to burn that. Let’s have some of that punk.”

Pete laid the oilcloth down. Travis began to make a small pile of the punk, adding some of the smallest of the twigs. The twigs were wet, but the punk was bone dry. “Alright, Charlie, let’s have that light.”

Charlie plunged his hand into his pocket. “Like I said, it’s gotten pretty wet.”

Travis took the lighter and gave it a try. Nothing happened. He tried three times.

Charlie groaned, “It ain’t gonna work!”

Even as Day spoke, the lighter caught, and quickly Travis touched the tiny flame to the punk. He held it steady, and the punk caught almost at once. “Let’s have a few more pieces of punk.” He began crumbling it up, and soon the twigs, wet as they were, began to catch.

“That’s beautiful, Travis!” Maggie exclaimed. “I never thought a fire could look so good.”

“Little things make a difference,” Travis said. He continued to add small twigs, and soon the fire was dancing wildly in the wind. “Make a circle around it and cut off the wind.”

“Gladly,” Oscar Blevins said. “If we can keep that fire going, we can make something to eat.”

“That’s a great idea, Cook,” Captain Barkley said. He knew the value of food for hungry, tired, wet people. “We’ll fix us a meal and dry our clothes out. This weather has to clear off some time or other.”

“Look, I found this coffee,” Lanie said. “You think we could find something to brew it in?”

The search began, and soon stew pans and a coffeepot appeared. At Travis’s direction, enough stones were brought in to make a makeshift stove on which the coffee could be boiled.

They all watched as Oscar made the coffee and Novak searched through the paraphernalia to find enough cups. Oscar boiled coffee in the stew pans as well as the coffeepot
while Travis tended the fire, making sure it was spread out over a wider area rather than lumped in one large flame. Lanie smiled at him as she helped. “That coffee smells better than anything I’ve ever smelled in my life.”

“Nothing like good coffee, Miss MacKay.”

“Just call me Lanie, Travis. I don’t see much use for formality in this place.” She stretched her fingers out toward the fire. “It’s amazing how much difference a fire and the aroma of coffee make.”

“Hope feeds on very small things.” Travis smiled. He studied her for a moment and then said, “We’re going to have some hard times, Lanie. You’re strong enough to help the others.”

“What makes you say that?”

“Oh, I’m an expert on women.”

Lanie laughed. “Good to have one expert on this island.”

Finally the coffee was ready, and while no one got a large amount, they all had at least one cup. As they enjoyed their coffee, Rena asked, “Captain, how long do you think it’ll be before a ship comes by?”

Everyone turned to face Barkley. He took another sip of the coffee and then shook his head. “We’ve got to be honest about this. We were blown off course hundreds of miles. I don’t think we’re on any of the main shipping lanes now, and I doubt that we’re close to any of the mainlands.”

“But ships do come by, don’t they?” Abby said nervously. Her eyes were wide, and she was obviously much the worse for fear.

“I don’t want to be unrealistic, Miss Townsend, but there’s always hope. Most of these islands are uninhabited. Ships have no reason to go near them. But we’re lucky about one thing.”

“What’s that, Captain?” Dalton asked. “I don’t see we’ve had much luck.”

“Some of these islands are pretty flat and some are hilly or mountainous. The ones with some elevation are the best if you’ve got to be marooned.”

“Why’s that?” Dalton asked.

“Because the flat ones get practically cleared off every time a storm comes along. But if you can get up the mountain away from the surf, you’ll have a better chance. There’s more wildlife. If we have to live on what we can kill, this looks like a fairly good place.”

“But we won’t be here that long, will we?” Maggie said, fear in her voice. She had downed her coffee quickly and now stood with her shoulders drooping, a pathetic figure in the weak light that filtered through the heavy clouds.

“No one knows. But like I say,” Captain Barkley said with a shrug, “we can always hope.”

The captain’s words cast a gloom on the group, and they gazed dejectedly into the fire.

“You know,” Pete said, “I think we should have a thanks-giving service to mark this day.”

“What have we got to be thankful for?” Cerny Novak snapped.

Travis turned and said, “You’re not feeding the sharks, for one.”

“That’s right,” Barkley said. “I think a service would be a good idea. Oscar, do you think you can put a meal together?”

“Yes, sir.”

“You do it, then, and afterward you folks can have your service.” He turned to face the crew. “I guess if you’ve got to be marooned on a desert island, it’s a good thing to have a bunch of missionaries along.” He laughed loudly. “You’ll have a built-in congregation of sinners that can’t run away. Come on, Oscar, fix that meal!”

****

Travis sat down with the tin plate in his hand that contained a slice of ham, some canned green beans, and a biscuit. The sailors and missionaries had all more or less dried out huddling around the fire, and now they enjoyed the meal. As soon as Travis took a bite he found that he was ravenous. He
ate slowly, chewing the food thoroughly, and noted that most of the sailors had bolted their portions.

Meredith was sitting on Travis’s right, with Pete on her other side. Meredith looked at Pete’s plate and said, “Pete, it’s not fair that you get the same size as I do. You’re twice as big. Here, have some of mine.”

“No, Meredith, that wouldn’t be right,” Pete said, then called out, “Hey, Shep, why don’t you sing a hymn for us?”

“You know hymns, Shep?” Karl asked. “I thought you were just a rough, tough sailor.”

“I wasn’t always a sailor. I was raised by a preacher, and I’ve got a good memory for hymns,” Shep said.

“Well, let’s have one, then,” Rena put in.

“Yes, and make it a cheerful one,” Dalton added. He licked his fingers after eating the last of his food and asked, “What kind of hymns do you know?”

“Oh, my uncle wasn’t any regular brand of preacher,” Shep said, grinning. He was sitting beside Maggie and turned to wink at her. “I guess I know two kinds of songs. One’s hymns and the other’s rowdy sailor songs.”

“Do you know ‘It Is Well With My Soul,’ Shep?” Travis asked.

“Sure, I know that one.” Shep, without embarrassment, lifted his head and began to sing. He had a beautifully clear tenor voice, and the melodious sound of it filled the surroundings in a mysterious way.

“That’s kind of a mournful song,” Novak said.

“It’s a good one, though,” Travis said. “I read the story of how that hymn came to be. It was written by a man named Horatio Spafford. He was a Chicago businessman who lost just about everything in the Great Chicago Fire. They had also lost a young son the previous year. He and his wife decided to go to England on vacation as well as to help their friend Dwight L. Moody with his evangelistic tour. Spafford was delayed by business and sent his wife and four daughters ahead on a ship called the
SS Ville de Havre,
and he planned to follow them in a few days.”