MacAllister

Sometimes, too, he would see her flashing eyes in the green light of the luminescent fish that would keep pace with the ship. Such experiences were bittersweet for him. On the one hand, it kept the memory of Skye ever fresh in his mind; on the other, it kept the pain of his loss ever aching in his heart.

Toward the end of the second week at sea, the starboard watch was below when Duff heard the raindrops falling on deck thick and fast. He could also hear the loud and repeated orders of the mate, trampling of feet, creaking of the blocks, and all the accompaniments of a coming storm. In a few minutes, the slide of the hatch was thrown back, which made the noise from above even louder.

“All hands on deck! All hands on deck! Topside, me hearties, we are into heavy seas!” Norton shouted down.

When Duff reached the deck he saw, firsthand, what it was like to be running before a storm at sea. The heavy head sea was beating against the Hiawatha with a noise that sounded as if someone was taking a sledgehammer to the hull. On one particularly large plunge, the bowsprit dipped and poked through a large swell. The wave broke over the bow and threw its spray the entire length of the deck.

The wind was blowing with gale force as the ship crashed through the waves. Suddenly the great mainsail on the main mast ripped open from top to bottom.

“MacCallister, Kelly! Lay up to furl that sheet before it blows to tatters!” Norton called.

“Aye!” Kelly replied. “With me, MacCallister!”

The two men climbed the mast and began working on the torn sail, but no sooner had they finished with it than the topsail tore loose and began flapping in the breeze, threatening to pull away and take with it the topgallant mast, which was now vibrating like a wand.

“We’d best get to the to’sail!” Kelly said, starting to climb even higher.

Duff had not yet climbed to the topsail, even in calm weather, but he started up one side of the mast as Kelly climbed the other side. When they reached the topgallant, the wind was of near hurricane velocity, and the mountainous waves were battering against the side of the ship with the impact of a cannonball. The Hiawatha would be lifted by one swell, hang quivering over the trough between the waves, then slam back down into the sea, only to be caught up by another, even larger wave.

Up here, too, Duff experienced firsthand the geometric principle of fulcrum and arm. The ship was the fulcrum, the topgallant mast was the farthermost part of the arm, thus making the gyrations aloft three or four times more severe than what those on deck were experiencing.

When he reached the top, he realized that he didn’t really know what he was supposed to do. Kelly realized that as well, so he called out to him, his voice thin in the howling gale.

“We have to pull in the sail! Wrap your leg around the t’gallant yard so’s you can hang on!”

Duff did as Kelly instructed, and fighting hard to overcome the flapping pitch and yaw, the two men were able to pull in the loose sail, then furl it at the bottom, securing it with line.

“We can go back down now!” Kelly shouted, but at that very moment a severe roll tossed Kelly free and he started to fall. Without thinking, Duff let go with his hands, and holding himself secure only by his legs, almost as a trapeze artist, he swung his torso down and managed to catch Kelly by one hand, at the last possible moment.

The next roll of the ship pitched Kelly into the mast and he grabbed it with both arms. Duff pulled himself back up, then grabbed the mast and scrambled back down to the deck just behind Kelly.

“Well done, lad, well done,” Norton said to Duff.

Back on deck, and with all the sails furled, there was nothing left to do but ride out the storm. The deck heaved up, then fell to starboard, then dipped sharply to port. The roll to port was much longer and deeper than the roll to starboard had been, and Duff feared for a moment that it might just keep on going until the ship capsized. But his fear was unfounded as the ship slowly returned to the upright position, only to roll back to starboard again.

Finally the storm ended, and while it left the sea a dirty green, jagged looking and frothy, at least it wasn’t boiling as it had been. The sky was gray with low-lying, scudding clouds that were no longer dumping rain. The deck was a shambles and men were lying exhausted on every space available, paying little attention to the wet boards. There were broken fixtures and dangling stays, but the storm sails had been replaced with the regular sails and, once more, the ship was making all good speed.

Some time later, Duff was standing at the rail looking out over the sea when Kelly came up to him, carrying two cups of coffee.

“I thought you might like a cup of coffee,” he said, extending one of the cups to Duff.

“Aye, thank you, a bit of coffee might be bracing now,” Duff said, accepting the cup.

“You saved my life,” Kelly said.

“You would’ve done the same for me.”

“I might have tried, but I ain’t no ways near ’bout as strong as you, so I don’t know if I could have done it,” Kelly said. He took a swallow of his coffee, then stared for a moment at Duff. “Did you really kill someone?” he asked.

“I beg your pardon?”

“You are the one the sheriff was looking for the night just before we left port, aren’t you? I was on watch. The sheriff said you killed someone.”

“How do you know I’m the one he was talking about?”

“You came aboard that night. I don’t know how you did it. I sure didn’t see anyone, but that must have been when you done it.”

“Yes, I came aboard that night,” Duff admitted. “I borrowed a skiff, came up alongside opposite the pier, then climbed up.”

Kelly chuckled. “I thought it might be something like that. Who did you kill?”