Until the Sea Shall Give Up Her Dead (11 page)

T
he trade blew across the decks like a warm caress. Hayden emerged from the companionway and stood a moment, feeling the touch of the air upon his skin—he had escaped the English winter and come to a part of the world where perfect summer days followed one after another in endless succession.

Archer spotted his captain and immediately set out to intercept him, his face, Hayden could see, tightened from some concern.

“I think our wind is making a little, Captain,” he said, after quickly exchanging pleasantries. “Our tow is sheering about more than I like.”

“Let us have a look, Mr Archer.” The two men made their way quickly along the gangway and were on the quarterdeck headed for the stern when an angry swarm of Spanish invective spewed out of the skylight. Hayden did not quite catch the meaning, though it was clearly Miguel, and in a rage, too.

“Who are you that I should answer such a question?” came an equally angry reply from the Spaniard's sister. “You are not my father. You do not make choices for me.”

Archer glanced at Hayden, and they both hurried past the skylight. When they reached the transom, the argument, if anything, was louder. Archer cleared his throat and the voices fell to hissed whispers.

The first lieutenant pointed at the ship following in their wake, the long tow rope sawing down into the waves that lay between the two ships. Even at that distance Hayden could see the helmsmen of the slaver fighting the wheel.

“What is your opinion, Captain?”

“I am in complete agreement with you, Mr Archer; we must reduce sail.”

“Aye, sir.” Archer went off at a brisk pace, calling out orders.

A moment more Hayden stood, watching the trailing ship, and then he heard footsteps behind and turned to find Miguel Campillo bearing down on him, all signs of a barely controlled rage in his carriage and manner. He came to Hayden and stood directly in front of him, shoulders squared, and looked Hayden in the eye, even though the naval officer stood a number of inches taller.

“Sir,” he said, his accent thickened by emotion, “you have wronged me and my family. And I had thought you an honourable gentleman.”

“Officers of the British Navy do not take such accusations lightly, sir.”

Miguel leaned close and whispered to Hayden in Spanish, though the words were not less threatening for their reduced volume. “I will not withdraw what I have said, sir. You have discovered my sister's secret and taken advantage of her innocence and trust.”

Hayden drew himself up. “I have done no such thing! My conduct towards your sister has been beyond reproach.”

“Then why does she believe you have intentions to ask for her hand? Why does she hold such hopes if you have not led her to believe so? You, sir, do not know your place. Our family would never consider you a match for her.”

Miguel glanced over his shoulder. All around the quarterdeck men were staring, but they looked quickly away. The Spaniard put Hayden between himself and the rest of the crew and whispered, “If keeping our secret were not of the utmost importance, and you had not saved our lives, I would demand satisfaction. That, sir, is what I think of your actions. If it were within my power, I would remove my sister and myself
from your ship this instant, but that is not possible, so I demand that you break off this affair with . . . that you break off this affair immediately. It cannot continue.”

The two men stood face-to-face, neither giving way. There was the muffled sound of tearing, like tissue, and then a black snake whipped out of the sea towards them.

“Down!”
Hayden hollered, so loud it hurt his throat. He grasped Miguel by his lapels and threw him upon the deck, landing half atop him.

The tow rope whirred over them like a giant scythe, struck something fleshy with a horrifying smack, then slammed into the larboard bulwark like a bar of steel.

For a second neither man moved. Miguel looked around in confusion.

“The tow rope parted,” Hayden heard himself say, and he shifted to rise. As he did so, Miguel's head snapped around.

“Angelita!”
He was on his feet, pushing past Hayden.

There, on the deck, lay his sister, unmoving, curled up as though she slept, her unbound hair in a wave over her face. Miguel was bending down beside her only an instant before Hayden.

“Do not move her!” Hayden warned the Spaniard. “Pass the word for the doctor!” he called out. And then, more urgently:
“The doctor!”

Her coat was ripped open along her right side, and her shirt beneath that. Both were stained with new blood.

Miguel stretched out his hands to his sister, his dispute with Hayden forgotten.

“She is not breathing . . . !” he said.

Hayden put his fingers before her nose and mouth. “She is. I can feel her breath—though too faint.” He glanced around and called out testily,
“Where is the doctor?”

She lay still, the stain on her side growing.

“I have seen this before,” Hayden told Miguel, without taking his eyes from Angelita. “In Corsica . . . much worse than this. The man lived.”

Hayden was vaguely aware that Archer was standing over him.

“Permission to heave-to, sir . . . Captain?”

“Yes, Mr Archer, by all means. Heave-to.”

The doctor came running up the nearby ladder.

“The tow rope,” Hayden replied when the doctor raised a single eyebrow. “It parted and scythed across the deck . . .” He made a helpless gesture towards the girl lying on the hard planks.

“Don Miguel,” Griffiths said gently, “if you will allow me . . . ?”

The Spaniard rose to his feet and made room for the doctor, who Hayden was certain wanted out of the way any individual whose emotions might get the better of his reason. But Hayden himself was fighting an impulse to take Angelita in his arms. His throat had tightened to such a degree that he was afraid to speak, lest he reveal his feelings.

A moment the doctor bent over her, feeling for a pulse at her throat.

“Who saw this?” the doctor asked of the men gathered round.

“I did, Dr Griffiths,” one of the hands answered. “Just out the corner of me eye, sir. Rope came in like a serpent, sir, and the end caught the young gentleman without warning. Like 'e'd been flogged by a Titan, sir. Don't know 'ow it didn't tear 'im in 'alf.”

Two hands appeared with a cot at that moment, and the surgeon and Miguel and Hayden slid the still-limp girl onto the stretched canvas. Four seamen took it up, but Hayden knew she was light as a feather and one of them could easily have borne her.

He followed down the ladder and forward. As they reached the entrance to the sick-berth, the doctor leaned near to Hayden. “Keep his brother out here if you can, Captain.”

Hayden nodded.

“Don Miguel?” he said to the Spaniard. “We must remain out of the doctor's way . . .”

Miguel nodded and, as the door to the sick-berth closed, set immediately to pacing across the deck like an expectant father awaiting the birth of a child. He did not look at Hayden, who was torn between his duty to his ship and his desire to stay near Angelita. Men were killed by ropes whipping back—strong men.

The motion of the ship changed as Archer ordered her hove-to. They would need to run another cable to the slaver, which was now adrift, but that could wait a little while. The two men paced the deck back and forth, the tension between them palpable, as though they awaited the doctor's verdict as to which of them was the newborn's father.

The doctor did not emerge for half of an hour, and when he did, he appeared very grave, if not indignant.

“Angel has regained consciousness,” the doctor told them, speaking quietly. “The ribs are terribly bruised and may be cracked. I cannot say. They are not displaced and I do not think they are broken. On top of this—despite the fact that I was assured otherwise—Angel has been revealed to be a young woman.”

“I was sworn to secrecy, Doctor,” Hayden explained quickly, “and dared not break my trust.”

Griffiths nodded. “No one owes me an explanation, but the men in the sick-berth are now sensible of it and you well know that they will not keep it dark.”

Hayden nodded.

“I do not think the sick-berth the best place for a young woman, Captain,” Griffiths went on.

“Can she be moved to my cabin?”

“With care, yes.”

“May I see her, Doctor?” Miguel asked.

“You
are
her brother . . . ?” Griffiths sounded suddenly uncertain that anything he had been told about these castaways was true.

“Yes. Yes, of course I am.”

The doctor nodded to Hayden. “She has asked to see the Captain first, and then you, sir.”

There was an awkward moment, and then Hayden let himself into the sick-berth. The men lying in their cots regarded him with uncommon interest, he thought. A blanket had been hung to give the sole female patient privacy, and Hayden found Angelita there, behind the screen, lying beneath a coverlet, her bare shoulders and arms exposed.
Her face, blanched and bloodless, was drawn tight with pain, tiny lines appearing at the corners of her eyes and upon her usually smooth brow.

Hayden took the chair beside her cot, which swung gently back and forth.

“The doctor tells me you will make a full recovery . . .” he told her in Spanish, uncertain what to say.

She nodded and reached out. Hayden gently took her hand.

“Do not listen to my brother,” she managed. Hayden could see that each word was like a little knife in her side. “I am not a child, and I will make my own choices now. He is not my father, nor has he reached his majority—we were born the same hour . . . and I was born first. He has no say over my life.”

Hayden was not quite certain how to answer this, and instead observed, “It hurts you to speak?”

She nodded. “But I do not want you to break off with me . . . because of my brother.” A tear squeezed out from the corner of her eye and ran crookedly down her cheek.

“Miguel and I will have to reach an understanding, then.”

She pressed his hand. “Do not give in to him.”

“I am more concerned, at this moment, about you and your recovery. That is the most important thing.”

“I am young. My body will heal . . . but young hearts . . . they are fragile.”

“I know,” Hayden replied, with more feeling than he intended. “We are going to remove you to my cabin. I fear it will cause pain, but this is a sailors' sick-berth and no place for a woman.”

“I do not care about the pain—I want to be in your cabin.”

“Then we will move you as soon as the doctor allows. Your brother awaits outside.”

“Send him in.” She gave Hayden's hand a squeeze and tried to smile.

Hayden went out, ignoring the stares. Beyond the door, Miguel hovered, his anger replaced by anxiety.

“She is asking for you, Don Miguel.”

He went in without a word or even a nod.

The surgeon waited there, looking askance at Hayden.

“I do apologise, Doctor,” Hayden declared. “It was, as I said, a matter of keeping my word.”

“It is your prerogative as captain to reveal or not to reveal whatever you wish to your officers. We are all, however, going to feel a little foolish, having been taken in by Angel's act.”

“You were the only one who suspected—at least the only one who said as much to me.”

“A small compensation. You are quite certain, then, that their story is true and they are to be trusted?”

“Miguel . . . ? I cannot say. Angelita, yes, I trust her.”

The doctor looked at him a little askance. “Then she had a reasonable explanation for disguising herself as a man?”

“I believe so.”

The doctor considered this. “Well,” he said, “I cannot think how we shall keep it secret now.”

Hayden agreed, but only nodded.

“I should see to my patient, Captain . . .” Griffiths cocked his head towards the sick-berth.

“And I to my ship.”

In a moment Hayden was back on deck, where Archer had the hands in a long line, passing a new rope up from the cable tier onto the quarterdeck. The slaver drifted downwind, and this meant moving the
Themis
to a position where a messenger line could be carried over by cutter. Archer appeared to have everything well in hand and Hayden stood by, quietly observing, and largely approving the manner in which this was all managed.

While he watched, Miguel appeared a few yards distant and made his way onto the captain's private few yards of deck.

“Don Miguel,” Hayden greeted him solemnly.

“Captain.” For a moment Miguel stood silently. “I must thank you,
Captain Hayden, for saving me from injury, if not worse. I wish, however, that you had saved my sister in my place.”

“Had I only known she was there . . .”

“Or had I known . . . This is your ship, Captain, and I am in your debt. But I appeal to your sense of honour and to the genuine affection I believe you hold for my sister. She was born and has lived in the highest society in my country. Everyone expects her to make a brilliant marriage, to a man from one of the best families. I understand that you are an exceptional officer with a very promising future, but . . . do you really think it fair to take her from her family and friends, from her country, to dwell where? In England? A sea captain's wife, left always waiting and wondering, and suffering near-constant anxiety? Will this be a happy life for her? She is very young and has not carefully considered what that future would mean. All she sees is a handsome and charming captain—a man who saved her life and to whom she is utterly grateful. And I must remind you, Captain, that my sister and I belong to the Church of Rome, and you do not. Will you change your religion for her?”

“An officer in His Majesty's Navy must belong to the Church of England,” Hayden said quickly.