Nightsong

by Valerie Sherwood

  Carolina might have fainted then, but the horrendous noise and the earth’s violent waggle kept her too alive to her own danger.

  Beneath her the sturdy brick building seemed to slant more violently and at the same time to sink, to lurch downward. The front of the house was breaking forward, and trunks and furniture hurtled through the opening.

  Gilly was in one of these trunks, trying to scream through a scarf and a burst of chemise lace that had got sucked into her mouth with her violently indrawn breath as she prepared to scream again. With the forgotten necklace wrapped around her wrist and clutched forgotten in her hand, Gilly, the trunk and the huge cedar wardrobe atop it slid downward across the steeply slanting floor as the building buckled. They crashed into the house wall at a forty-five-degree angle and burst through even as the building disintegrated. The great weight of the wardrobe poked through the collapsing wall, and trunk and wardrobe shot forward through the falling bricks to catapult into the sea.

  Around Carolina, on either end of the captain’s walk, the chimneys broke, their bricks and mortar scattered into rubble in the street below. But still the roof, though inclined at a crazy angle, held. For Kells - more used to ship-building than house construction - had first had built, while his neighbours scoffed, a wooden framework composed of great timbers that were anchored together as solidly as a box. And those beams and timbers held for a time even while the brick walls around them collapsed away and crashed into the street.

  Hers was the last house to fall and so gave Carolina a sight that would be with her always.

  Stunned by her descent into the street by trunk - even though her fall had been somewhat broken by a pile of sand - Gilly still pounded and clawed and shrieked unheard. So sturdy that it had survived even this rough treatment, the trunk ricocheted off the slippery sand into the rising sea and so escaped being buried by the falling bricks of the house. End over end it tumbled, terrifying Gilly, who was bumped bruisingly about. It landed in a few feet of water, but its top had been stove in, wedging the lid on so tightly that Gilly could not push it open even though the monstrous wardrobe had been removed.

  But the worst was yet to come for Gilly.

  A falling pillar shot spearlike through the water striking the trunk’s curved top and shearing it off. And Gilly, breaking free at last, arms flailing as the contents of the trunk rose about her in the water, swirling chemises, scarves and petticoats, seemed about to rise to the surface. But just as her hand - still locked around the necklace like a vice - broke the water and her hair floated free upon the surface, another heavy pillar surged forward to crash against the first - and to imprison Gilly’s ankle as it did so.

  Gilly struggled and tried to wrest herself free. She was screaming silently in her head as she fought the water in frenzy. But the fallen pillars held her fast, and only her streaming hair and her hand, still tangled in the necklace that had lured her to her death, showed above the water.

  That was the sight Carolina saw as the building toppled. And that sight was graven more deeply upon her memory than any other single impression of the earthquake: Gilly’s hair rising and streaming from the water, and Gilly’s hand holding her necklace.

  Time seemed to spin out for Carolina then. The swaying, cracking buildings, the awesome rumbles from out of the earth, the rending sound of breaking timbers, the clouds of plaster dust, the screams of the injured and dying - all seemed separate and aloof.

  What was hideously real was Gilly - drowning.

  It seemed to her in that moment that her terrible dream was coming true - and that the hand in that dream clutching the necklace had been Gilly’s.

  For Carolina on the roof, the trip down seemed endless for the heavy timbers refused to break as the entire structure settled into the shifting sand. She kept her grip on the railing of the captain's walk and the roof settled down slowly and spilled Carolina out gently upon the ruins of her home.

  By the time she reached there, Gilly and the necklace had disappeared, sucked down into the water.

  It was Gilly’s sudden disappearance - as if she had been snatched away - that galvanized Carolina into action. Suddenly she was scrambling over the roof and she began to run - even as the roof disappeared into the sea behind her.

  Trying to escape death in a city that was falling, tier by tier, into the sea, driven on mindlessly by terror like everybody else, she clambered over the fast-sinking rubble and ducked into an alley which would lead her to High Street. Here everything was confusion as people struggled and shouted and whimpered their way from fallen St Paul’s Church and the ruined Market up to Lime Street, which was aswarm with fishmongers from Fisher’s Row and terrified people running away from the waterfront.

  Up Lime Street Carolina stumbled, with houses collapsing all about, then down Cannon, dodging falling masonry, across Yorke - and she would have crossed Tower Street, too, heading for the sea wall fortifications known as Morgan’s Line, for she believed - like Hawks, who had dashed there ahead of her - that she would find there the most open place in this crowded city and therefore less likelihood that she would be crushed by falling masonry.

  Many others had had the same idea and there was already a crowd of people huddled in the shadow of the fortifications when she reached Tower Street. Among them she saw Hawks, and she called to him and waved as she ran - it was her undoing, for a rolling brick from a falling building tripped her up and she sprawled headlong into the dusty street.

  As she lifted her head she saw that Hawks had seen her. He was trying to make his way through the crowd towards her. But before he could do that the earth opened up suddenly beneath him and the whole close-packed crowd disappeared with what seemed one long piercing human shriek into the yawning crevasse.

  A sob rose in Carolina’s throat and she scrambled to her feet and would have run forward in an attempt to somehow drag him out before the earth could close in on him like a vice and snuff out his life. But even as she rose, she was confronted by a new menace.

  The ocean, forced back by the collapsing land and buildings, had piled itself up into a great wave and was even now pouring over the fortifications.

  Carolina looked up dizzily into that wall of water arching towards her. Then she whirled, dazed and terrified, and ran away from that oncoming wave. Choking on clouds of dust from the broken plaster and with no care now for where she was going, she headed blindly into the centre of town.

  But the water caught up with her before she could reach it. She was tumbled end over end by it. She choked - and then she was swimming, or trying to, impeded by her wet skirts. Something brushed her arm and she caught at it - it turned out to be a dangling rope. As she clutched it, it was pulled upward, and through the spray she saw that the rope was attached to a sailor’s hands and that the sailor was on some kind of large ship which was wildly riding the wave, carrying her irresistibly over the collapsing housetops of Port Royal.

  The flying deck beneath the sailor’s feet belonged to the frigate Swan, which had been turned over on its side for careening. The ocean, backed up by earth and buildings falling into the sea, had risen into a wave and overwhelmed the ship, lifting it, righting it, and sending it inland to rest upon the rooftops in the centre of Port Royal.

  Carolina clung to the rope and was pulled aboard by the strange sailor - who saved many lives that day but lost his own when he ventured into an attic where he heard a child crying and was carried downward to a watery death when the house collapsed. Bruised, half drowned, she collapsed upon the deck while the sailor busied himself with pulling others aboard.

  ‘Help me,’ he called curtly, and Carolina scrambled up to pull on a rope that rescued people clinging to chimneys with their children hanging on to them, lifted people out of boats - for everyone rushed to salvation on this ‘Noah’s Ark’ that had suddenly appeared in their midst.

  There seemed to be people everywhere in the water - swimming, screaming, shouting, hanging on to things, losing their grip, disappearing. Most of the in
jured that day drowned so that those pulled aboard were for the most part able-bodied.

  Frenzied rescue efforts went on all afternoon, and of each person hauled aboard Carolina tensely asked the same question: Had they seen Captain Kells? But none of them had and Carolina’s worried gaze, sweeping the sea and the ruined town, found no trace of the Sea Wolf, which when last she sighted it was being rowed so valiantly to shore. She never stopped asking but the answer was always the same. No one had seen the captain.

  As the frenzied rescue efforts continued, Carolina’s mind seemed a dizzy blank. She was called first here, then there, as she went through the motions of helping others.

  When the sun sank over Port Royal, the Palisadoes sandspit was a scene of utter desolation. Many ships had been sunk in the harbour. Sturdy Fort James and Fort Carlisle had disappeared. The tall houses were gone - indeed, less than a tenth of the buildings remained standing at all, and most of those were in such ruinous condition that their owners feared to enter them.

  Carolina was still working when night fell. Then, like others, she sank to the deck exhausted.

  But not to sleep. She stared up at the stars and her tired face mirrored deadly fear. In all the commotion, all the trying to stay alive and save others, she had not been able to find out the one thing most important to her:

  Where was Kells? Oh, God, where was Kells?

  13

  The answer to that question was brought to her by Hawks shortly after sunup.

  Sleeping fitfully, overshadowed by a sense of doom, Carolina had waked with the dawn and struggled up, stiff and sore from her endeavours and her harsh treatment of the day before. She had staggered to the rail and looked out over an empty landscape of a shattered and drowned city - no, it was not empty at all for there were people and boats already plying their way around or clustered about the drowned rooftops: Householders and divers already at work, trying to recover plate and other valuables from the sunken buildings.

  Watching them, it came to her how easily was human endeavour brought to naught. Yesterday at this time there had been a teeming city about her, all life and hubbub. And today . . . today there were groans and yawns about her as others like herself roused to face what the new day might bring.

  Her shoulders drooped. Where was Kells? Where could she find him? Was he alive or dead? No one seemed to have seen him. She did not even know where to begin to look!

  As she stood gloomily by the rail, staring unseeing across the waste of desolation before her, she was hailed by a familiar voice and looked down startled to see Hawks. He sat below her in a rowboat, resting on his oars and looking - save for his torn clothing, a jagged cut down one cheek, and two very black eyes - very much as usual.

  ‘Hawks!’ she called down to him, amazed. ‘It can’t be you! I saw the earth swallow you up at Morgan’s Line!’

  ‘And so it did,' he rejoined cheerfully. ‘But the sea rushed in before the hole could close up and it washed us all out of there. I was one of the few who didn’t drown, which is a wonder because I still have this.’ He patted the cutlass by his side.

  ‘Oh, Hawks!’ Carolina was leaning over the rail, so glad to see him alive that she was laughing and crying at the same time. ‘But what of Kells? Is there any word of him? I saw the Sea Wolf being rowed into the harbour just before the earthquake struck but when I looked around this morning I could find no sign of it.’

  Hawks looked up at her, startled and disturbed. ‘Are you sure it was the Sea Wolf?' he demanded.

  ‘Oh, yes, Hawks, I’m sure. I was studying it through a spyglass when the earthquake knocked the glass from my hand.’

  Hawks dipped an oar into the water, ‘I’ll see what I can find out,’ he promised.

  ‘Oh, Hawks - take me with you,’ she entreated.

  He shook his head. ‘Best I go alone,’ he said and rowed away.

  Waiting for word seemed to Carolina the hardest thing she had ever done in her life. It was two hours before Hawks returned, and she was hanging over the side calling out to him long before he could reach the vessel’s hull.

  But he didn’t answer her anxious questions, which seemed to Carolina ominous. Instead he called up, ‘Ask them to lower you down on a rope ladder. I been talking to the governor and he’s got us a place to stay temporary like.’

  Careless of her billowing skirts, Carolina climbed down the hastily lowered rope ladder and almost tumbled into the boat. Hawks caught her and there was something reassuring in his strong grip.

  ‘What have you learned?’ she asked breathlessly. Hawks, mindful of eyes and ears on the ship above, said loudly, ‘Wasn’t the Sea Wolf you saw - must have been some other ship.’

  But Carolina, protesting, cried, it was, Hawks, it was!’ When they were out of earshot of the ship Carolina had just departed, Hawks said, ‘Not so loud, mistress. If the governor hears you’re alone, everything swept away, he might not be so eager to see you in furnished quarters.’

  Alone! The word sank in on Carolina.

  ‘Hawks,’ she quavered. ‘Don’t beat about the bush - tell me straight out.’

  ‘The cap’n’s dead,’ said Hawks on a long drawn-out sigh. And there was sorrow in his eyes and in his voice.

  Carolina crumpled to the bottom of the boat, her head in her hands. A long shuddering sigh went through her. After a moment she looked up.

  ‘Where is he, Hawks?’ she asked dully. ‘Can I go to him?’

  Hawks, who had loved the captain too, man and boy, was looking out into the far distance, past muddy, scarred, broken Port Royal, across the blue Caribbean, fiercely bright in the morning sun. He was seeing another day, a younger Kells, whose sword had flashed bright in the sun, whose laugh had rung out across the water while the wind sang in the rigging.

  ‘I found one of the Sea Wolf's crew, fellow named Price,’ he said at last, and his gruff voice sounded almost matter-of-fact. ‘He was dying but he told me what had happened. It was an unlucky voyage from the first. Off Trinidad they ran into a pair of galleons. The galleons were of a mind to fight, and the Sea Wolf blew them both out of the water. But they took some blows themselves and they decided to head back here for repairs. That’s when they ran into the Santo Domingo. They fought her for three hours and when the sun went down the Santo Domingo struck her colours. They took her crew on board - but she wasn’t carrying no treasure and she was short-handed because they’d had sickness on board. That’s when the hurricane got them. The Sea Wolf had been shot up, her masts damaged, and now the whole lot of it got stripped away.’

  ‘Yes,’ cried Carolina, hanging on his words. ‘I saw it. They were rowing in without their masts - I didn’t recognize the ship at first.’

  ‘If they’d got here a day later or a day earlier they’d have made it,’ Hawks said glumly. ‘But as it was they came right in with the earthquake. The sea picked them up and hurled them into the town same as that ship back there.’ He jerked his head at the frigate Swan which she had just left.

  ‘But why isn’t the Sea Wolf on top of the houses like the Swan?' demanded Carolina.

  ‘Because she was already too bad hurt and she broke up. Everyone drowned - including the cap’n.’ He cleared his throat, and pointed. ‘They went down right over there.’

  Carolina turned to gaze where he was pointing, it can’t be very deep,’ she said wistfully. ‘We could send down divers to find him, Hawks.’ Or maybe not find him, she was thinking.

  ‘Wouldn’t do no good,’ he mumbled.

  ‘Yes, it would, Hawks. Then we’d know.'

  ‘That’s right,’ he said, suddenly as eager as she. ‘We could send divers down - only what would we pay them with?’

  ‘With promises!’ cried Carolina. ‘Once I get to England, Hawks, I’ll have plenty of gold.’

  ‘Gold in England won’t help,’ Hawks sighed. ‘They’ll want to be paid now - in coin of the realm.’

  Carolina had a sudden inspiration. ‘We’ll tell them there’s a treasure map on his body, Hawks! Tha
t will lure them!’

  Hawks gave the captain’s lady an admiring look. ‘We can try it,’ he agreed. ‘There’s some divers over there.’

  He rowed them to where some divers were diving into a house, bringing up silver plates for a big bearded fellow clad in a nightshirt, who kept muttering, ‘Good. Mary will like that.’

  Hawks leaned over and muttered to Carolina. ‘He was sick in bed when the quake hit. His whole family’s washed away. He’s pretending to himself they’re still alive. Mary was his wife.’

  Carolina gave the large gentleman a pitying look. ‘Could we borrow your divers for a short while?’ she asked. ‘We need them to look for my husband.’

  ‘If you have to dive for him, mistress, you won’t find him alive,’ the large gentleman told her gloomily.

  ‘No - of course, I know that. But there was a treasure map on him.’

  One of the divers looked at her keenly. ‘Who was your husband?’

  His words made Carolina realize how battered and disreputable she looked - no one would recognize the Silver Wench now. Her bright hair was tied back with a piece of rope, her face and arms were bruised. ‘He was Captain Kells,’ she said simply and the diver shot a startled look at her and turned to speak to the other one with him. ‘If the Silver Wench says he’s got a treasure map . . .’ she heard him say, and his next words were lost to her. But he turned quickly. ‘We’ll dive where you say, mistress.’ And to the large householder who was looking indignant as he sat astride his roof holding three silver trenchers, he said, ‘We’ll be back soon.’ Both divers climbed into the rowboat with Hawks and Carolina.

  ‘The wreck’s over there, sunk beside that building,’ said Hawks. ‘Look.’ He pointed. ‘Just to the right of where you see that chimney sticking up.’ He swayed as one of the aftershocks shook the water.

  Carolina also looked at that lone chimney sticking up, and bit her lip. But he wasn’t down there, she told herself firmly, to still that dull ache in her heart. He wasn’t. No, he was one of the lucky ones like herself. He was looking for her now and he had somehow missed her - although it escaped her how anyone could miss the frigate Swan lying spectacularly on the roofs of the submerged houses in what had once been the centre of town. The divers would go down and search the wreck. They would not find him - and that would give her hope.