by Peter Roop
He picked up an oar, gave James the other one, and they both began paddling. They were an awkward team at first. Once they settled into a rhythm, though, the Fish Hawk fought the current and won. A light flickered in the window of the Byrd house. They slipped silently past it and were soon several bends down College Creek.
The sun, a red, hazy ball, rose as they reached the broad James River. Patches of mist hung over the creek. Herons probed the mud for breakfast. Along the shore, a startled doe and her fawn bounded away into the forest’s protection. Overhead, a searching fish hawk soared.
The boys paddled. Samantha steered and checked the water for wind ripples. She was puzzled. By now, with the sun peeking through the trees, and the mist disappearing, a breeze should be picking up. She could tell by the boat’s motion that James and Matthew were tiring. The tide should turn soon.
When the tide turned, the boys dropped their oars and dozed with their heads on the thwarts. The September sun burned down. Samantha was glad that she had her hat. Matthew had his, but James was bareheaded. He had lost his hat while they fled from Wormley.
Beads of sweat dripped from James’s forehead. Samantha took off her hat and gently placed it on his head. Her tanned skin could take more weather beating.
Samantha glanced at the sun. An unnatural haze shrouded it. The river lay as flat as a sizzling griddle, heat waves dancing. Not a hint of breeze rippled the water. The sail hung as limp as wet washing. Something was not right, but Samantha could not put her finger on it.
James awoke first, hungry and thirsty. Samantha gave him water from the flask that she kept onboard. He looked around. He squinted at the water. He glanced at the sun. Not a fish jumped. Not a bird flew.
Suddenly he sat up and focused his gaze to the west, where black clouds towered.
“Hurricane,” he whispered.
Samantha followed his gaze, her ears not believing. She had seen the clouds. Now she saw distant waves being pushed by the wind.
“It can’t be!” she exclaimed. Even as she spoke, the first wave rocked the Fish Hawk. Within seconds, the wind slammed into them.
“What in tarnation?” Matthew said, shaken from his sleep.
“Hurricane,” James repeated.
Samantha gripped the tiller and pulled the sail sheet tight. The Fish Hawk, her sails filled to bursting, leaped like a frightened deer.
“We will run with the wind as long as we can,” she said, raising her voice above the rising wind. “Lash down anything loose. Hang on!”
The wind increased its push until the Fish Hawk flew like her namesake, her bow slicing the water. The waves surged behind them. They had to keep ahead of the waves or they would swamp.
Samantha could turn the boat into the waves, and they could fight their way into the gale. But when they tacked, the wind would flip them like a toy. Their only chance was to run with the wind at their backs and hope that the sail would not rip to shreds. She could lower the sail to save it, but the monstrous waves would flood them from the stern.
Running with the wind was their only chance.
Ahead, a peninsula jutted out into the river. Trees, flailing helplessly, were plucked from the earth as the wind increased. With both hands on the tiller, Samantha aimed the Fish Hawk toward the thumb of land.
Craaack!
Sounding like a musket shot, the sail split from bottom to top.
“Drop the sail!” Samantha screamed, the wind ripping her words away. Matthew uncleeted the sheet. The sail, flapping like a wounded goose, dropped. Matthew and James desperately furled the sail. Matthew, who was 20 pounds heavier than James, wrapped his arms around the sail and hugged it to the boom while James lashed it. Then he and James frantically stuffed loose gear into Samantha’s crab pots and tied down anything else.
Without the sail, the Fish Hawk was at the mercy of the wind and waves. Samantha looked forward toward shore and then back at the waves rising behind them. The Fish Hawk was light, riding the waves like a cork in a washtub. Up, down, up, down.
Thunder split the air. Jagged spears of lightning forked overhead. Pellets of rain stung them like wasps. A waterfall burst upon them. No stinging, just a solid wall of water. Samantha shouted for them to bail, but the wind snatched away her words. She grabbed James and yanked him. “Bail!” she shouted in his ear, thrusting a pail into his hand.
James scooped and dumped water overboard. Matthew splashed water out with his hands. The Fish Hawk no longer floated lightly. The skiff was heavy with water, and each wave threatened to fill it.
Samantha searched through the downpour for the shore. Angry water raged below them, around them, and above them.
She fought with the tiller to keep the stern facing the oncoming waves. They had to hit shore soon. She hoped they would strike it before they sank.
A fistful of wind smashed the Fish Hawk and yanked the tiller from Samantha’s hands. The Fish Hawk skittered sideways, broadside to the waves.
“Hang on!” Samantha screamed.
The Fish Hawk flipped.
Chapter 13
The Fish Hawk turned turtle. Her mast pointed to the river bottom, her keel to the black sky.
Samantha went under. She held her breath and struggled to rise to the surface. Kicking with all her strength, she finally broke free.
The Fish Hawk had drifted away from Samantha. Blinking water from her eyes, she saw James clutching the keel. Matthew, holding onto a side plank, stretched a hand to her. She grabbed it, and he pulled her in. He pushed her up onto the bottom of the boat until she gripped the keel. Then he climbed up after her.
Breathless, Samantha surveyed their situation. The Fish Hawk floated well upside down. Where is land? she worried. They couldn’t hang on and ride the waves for long.
She peered through the storm. A bolt of lightning lit the sky. Less than 100 yards ahead, waves crashed onto a beach. Samantha punched Matthew and pointed to the beach. He shook his head as if he didn’t understand. The next flash of lightning showed him what she meant. He yelled her message into James’s ear.
In a few moments, Samantha felt the mast snap as it struck the bottom. The Fish Hawk grated against the sand and ground to a stop.
“Get James on shore,” she yelled above the howl of the wind. “Then come back to help me.”
Matthew grabbed James, plunged into the surf, and struggled out of reach of the water. He pushed James toward an uprooted tree. “Stay here!” he hollered before trudging against the wind back to Samantha.
Samantha reached under the Fish Hawk’s bow and gripped the painter. She handed it to Matthew and leaned towards him. “Wait for the next big wave,” she called. “I’ll get behind and push. You pull. We have to get her on the beach before she breaks apart.”
The waves smacked Samantha as she struggled against them. Each wave shoved her against the stern, pinning her momentarily. She glanced behind her, watching for the big wave she prayed was coming. Seeing it, she screamed to Matthew.
The wave grew taller and taller until it broke with a rush of foam and roared up the shore. It lifted the Fish Hawk and carried her up the beach as Samantha and Matthew guided the boat. The next wave washed the stern as the skiff settled on the sand.
Samantha hugged Matthew in her relief. “Where is James?” she asked when she caught her breath.
Matthew pointed to a fallen pine, its roots ripped from the earth. The wind pushed them toward him. James had crawled under the massive trunk. They joined him. It wasn’t much shelter, but it was all they had. The three huddled there as the hurricane raged around them.
What are we going to do now? Samantha worried. We’re stranded somewhere along the James River. We have no food. No water unless the flask is still lashed to the Fish Hawk. The mast is broken off, so we can’t sail the Fish Hawk. We’ve lost the oars, so we can’t paddle. Mama and Papa have no idea where we are. Samantha shivered as tears crept into her eyes. If only I had not wanted to see Wormley get tarred and feathered, she thought, we would not be
in this mess.
She had never felt so sorry for herself as she did at that moment. The storm and the long night without much sleep defeated her efforts to remain awake. Even with the storm roaring, she fell into a fitful sleep. Matthew and James slept too.
When Samantha awoke, the wind had died. The sheets of rain were now only a mist. Samantha crawled out from under the tree trunk and looked around. Waves ran up the shore, but none reached the Fish Hawk. Tattered clouds raced across the sky. She woke Matthew and James.
Despite their desperate situation, Samantha smiled at them. “You look like Robinson Crusoe,” she laughed.
Matthew replied, “You are certainly not the height of London fashion yourself, Miss Samantha Byrd.”
She looked at her soaked clothes. Mud and sand covered her shirt and breeches. “Now that the storm has passed, I’ll dry out,” she said.
James stared silently at the sky. “The storm is not over,” he told them.
“Not over!” Samantha cried. “Look at the sky. Blue is breaking through. The wind has dropped.”
James looked at his sister. “Sam,” he explained patiently. “This is a hurricane. We are in the eye right now. The center of the storm is always calm. I read that in the almanac.”
“What are you talking about?” she grumbled, trying to make sense of what he was saying.
James picked up a stick. He drew a circle in the sand. He made an X.
“This is us,” he said pointing to the X. “A hurricane spins around and around, but in the very center it is calm. The front of the storm hit us. It won’t be long before the back hits us too.”
Samantha didn’t want to believe him. Then she remembered the tales that Papa had told of hurricanes striking Virginia: “A hurricane is like a fighter who hits first with one fist and then with the other, while his opponent is still recovering from the first blow.”
Samantha took command. “We must get the Fish Hawk higher up the beach,” she said. “You two push and I’ll pull.”
The sand held the skiff tightly in its grip. The stranded boat wouldn’t budge. Samantha sat down on the bow. She hit her hand against the boat. “Now what?” she asked.
James walked away and came back with a long broken branch.
“This is no time to play,” Samantha snarled at him, her patience as exhausted as her muscles.
He ignored her and laid the branch at her feet. He fetched another branch. He set this one three feet ahead of the first. Then he got another and another. By the time he had the fifth branch in place, Samantha realized that he was making rollers.
Together they lifted the bow of the Fish Hawk onto the first roller. The sand held the boat tightly, but finally they broke its gritty grip. With a sucking sound the skiff came loose. They slid her along from branch to branch, out of the reach of even the highest wave.
Samantha was curious to see what had been saved inside her boat. But the Fish Hawk was too heavy to lift up and flip over.
“James, fetch one more stick, this time a long stout one. Matthew bring a big rock over here.” She found two logs of driftwood and rolled them to the side of the boat. With the stick and rock, the boys levered up the skiff. Samantha rolled the logs under the edge. The boys lowered the Fish Hawk onto the logs.
Samantha crawled beneath her boat. In the gloom, she saw many things dangling: her water flask, a crab pot, her oyster tongs.
“At least we have shelter for the rest of the storm,” she said. “If nothing else, we can catch crabs for food until we’re rescued.”
“Rescued?” whined James. “Nobody knows where we are, Sam.”
“They will come looking for us,” she tried to comfort her brother. “Papa and Henry will look for us.”
But when? she wondered, as distant thunder cracked to the west.
They huddled under the Fish Hawk while the hurricane crashed around them. The pelting of the rain on the boat’s bottom was louder than all the militia firing at once. The wind plucked at the boat, trying to flip it over again. It failed. Brief flashes of lightning lit their cave-like world beneath the boat.
Finally, as if defeated in its efforts, the great storm passed. The setting sun broke through the last clouds, its orange glow giving little warmth.
Samantha shook her flask. She shared the water, warning the boys to go sparingly. It was all they had until they could find fresh water somewhere. But where? she wondered as she settled down to sleep, her stomach growling. If only I had stored a round of cheese in the boat. If only …
An osprey’s high cry woke Samantha in the morning. She crawled out from beneath the boat. The sun brightened the forest behind them. The James River was almost calm, a slight breeze danced across its surface. It’s just the right breeze to carry us home, Samantha thought. If only we had a mast. If only we had a sail.
Samantha walked to the water’s edge. Storm-tossed branches lay in the shallows. Dead crabs and fish lay stranded. She noticed the tide was coming in. She dipped a finger into the water and gave it a taste. Too salty to drink. She licked her lips and kept walking.
The osprey shrieked again and dove into the water. It snatched a fish in its talons and soared back into the sky. If only we could fish like the osprey, Samantha thought.
“We can fish!” she said aloud. If her hooks and lines were still in the boat. She turned and ran back to wake James and Matthew. They would go fishing and catch breakfast. After that, she would worry about what to do next.
“Pull, you good for nothing, lazy landlubbers!” ordered a strange voice.
Samantha froze.
Chapter 14
The voice came from beyond a curve in the beach. Samantha dashed to the forest’s edge. Stealthily, as if she were stalking a turkey, she slipped along until she could see who had shouted.
Fifty yards offshore was a boat, its bow wedged in the sand.
“Pull!” ordered a tall man standing in the boat. Ten sailors stood in the shallow water, pulling a rope tied in the boat’s stern. Samantha was ready to run out when she realized that the man in the boat was British.
Of all the bad luck.
As quietly as she had approached, she retreated. Matthew and James were awake when she returned.
“We’re saved,” she announced.
The boys look at her as if she’d lost her wits. “Saved?” Matthew asked.
“Sam, who could save us out here?” James said.
“There is another boat just around the point,” Samantha explained. “They are stranded in the shallows but soon will have their boat afloat. I’m sure we can ask for their help.”
Eagerly, Matthew and James followed Samantha. Hidden in the branches, they watched as the sailors struggled to free their boat.
“They’re British boiled crabs!” Matthew exclaimed.
“So,” said Samantha. “They might have an extra spar that we can use for a mast. If nothing else, they can give us an ax so we can make a mast.”
Matthew stared at his cousin. “Sam,” he said. “They are enemy. We are at war with them.”
“Matthew, there is no war. Just a bunch of Virginians and Englishmen posturing like fighting roosters. A lot of bluster, but no blood.”
“Sam, I’m in the militia. Remember Dunmore’s proclamation: All militia are enemies of the King. I could be hanged.”
Samantha looked at Matthew. “How will they know you are in the militia if you don’t tell them?”
“But, Sam,” he protested.
Samantha stomped out of the protection of the forest and onto the beach. “Hullo there, “she yelled.
“Keep pulling, you lily-livered sons of donkeys,” yelled the man in the uniform. He stood in the stern urging his men on.
“Hullo there!” Samantha shouted again.
Just then, the sailors pulled especially hard. The boat broke free. Half of the sailors fell backwards into the water. The British officer tumbled tail over teakettle into the boat’s bottom. He scrambled to his feet, swearing at his men.
&nb
sp; Samantha couldn’t help laughing. Seeing the officer fall, on top of all that had happened to her the last few days, released her tension.
The officer scowled at her. He didn’t know whether to continue berating his men or to chastise her.
Samantha called, “The storm stranded us. Can you help us?”
“Can’t you see I need help myself?” he bellowed at her.
Samantha’s temper rose. “Losing your balance is no reason to be rude,” she yelled.
The officer brushed himself off. He glared at his men, who quickly wiped the smirks off their faces.
“Watson,” he called to one man. “Go find out what she wants.” The oldest sailor splashed to shore.
James joined Samantha on the beach.
“Look what the storm’s washed up,” Watson said. “You are fine, I assume,” he said politely, making up for his commanding officer’s rudeness.
“Yes,” Samantha replied. “But our skiff’s mast broke. We saved the sail. Do you have a spar to spare so we could rig a new mast?”
“And some food and water?” begged James.
Watson looked at the bedraggled youngsters. “Storm caught you, eh?”
“Yes,” Samantha replied. “Please hurry. Our folks do not know where we are.”
“Well, if it was up to me, I’d give you whole blasted tender,” Watson told them. “But Lieutenant Jones would most likely object.”
He paused before adding, “I’ll see what I can do. Whereabouts is your boat?”
“Around that point,” Samantha said.
“Wait here,” Watson told them, and he dashed back into the water.
“Where’s Matthew?” Samantha asked James when Mr. Watson was out of earshot.
“He went back to the Fish Hawk. Says he won’t have anything to do with the British.”
“He is a bigger fool than I thought,” Samantha said. “They’ll help, enemies or not.”
Samantha still couldn’t believe that the British were really their enemies. We are all English, aren’t we? she thought.
Watson returned with water, bread, a round of cheese, and an ax. Samantha took the ax. James grabbed the water, bread, and cheese.
