The Royal Handmaid

by Gilbert, Morris

  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.”

  ****

  “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.”

  “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.

  “When peace, like a river, attendeth my way,

  When sorrows like sea billows roll;

  Whatever my lot, Thou hast taught me say,

  ‘It is well, it is well with my soul.’

  “It is well, with my soul,

  It is well, with my soul,

  It is well, it is well with my soul.

  “Though Satan should buffet, though trials should come,

  Let this blest assurance control,

  That Christ has regarded my helpless estate,

  And hath shed His own blood for my soul.

  “My sin, oh, the bliss of this glorious thought!

  My sin, not in part but the whole,

  Is nailed to the cross, and I bear it no more
,

  Praise the Lord, praise the Lord, O my soul!

  “And, Lord, haste the day when my faith shall be sight,

  The clouds be rolled back as a scroll;

  The trump shall resound, and the Lord shall descend,

  Even so, it is well with my soul.”

  “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.”

  Travis reached out and picked up a twig. He held it in the fire until it caught and then stared at it as if it had great meaning. Silence had fallen around the small shelter. The wind had died down some, though it still moaned far out over the sea, and the crash of the waves was audible. Travis continued, “The ship hit another ship and it went down within twelve minutes. Two hundred twenty-six lives were lost—including the Spaffords’ four daughters.”

  “How terrible!” Rena whispered, her eyes fixed on Travis.

  “Mrs. Spafford was saved, and when she got ashore in England, she sent a two-word telegram to her husband: ‘Saved alone.’ Mr. Spafford took the next ship across the Atlantic to join his wife and asked the captain to awaken him at the place where the Ville de Havre had gone down. As he looked out over the waters, God spoke to him, and he went to his cabin and wrote that song.”

  Travis seemed lost in thought, and then he said, “I’ve always loved those words. ‘Whatever my lot, Thou has taught me to say, It is well, it is well with my soul.’ ”

  “That’s a beautiful story,” Lanie said softly.

  “Yes, it is,” Maggie said. “It’s hard to realize that it is well when you’re in trouble like this.”