Imagine

by Jill Barnett

  With his next breath came a deafening blast. The whole ship shook. Hank swore. He’d heard a steam engine blow before. He knew that sound.

  The ship’s bow shot upward. It seemed to freeze for an agonizing instant, then its steel hull slapped back into the water. Momentum slammed him against the bottom of the lifeboat.

  There was a loud rumble, as if the deckload in the bowels of the hold had shifted. The ship lurched.

  He could hear the shouts of the crew. He swore when their words sunk in. The hold cargo had shifted and thrown the ship off balance. Then he heard the distinctive, echoing sound of water rushing inside the hold.

  He pulled at the tarp snaps.

  The ship listed again suddenly. Too suddenly. The lifeboat snapped from its winch and fell through the air.

  Down . . . Down.

  Christ! he thought, and instinct kicked in. He quickly curled into a ball.

  The lifeboat hit the water. Right side up. He slammed upward into the canvas tarp. Some of the snaps popped free, but the tarp kept him from flying out.

  The lifeboat shifted on a swell. He gripped the rim, jerked loose the tarp snaps, then sat up, shoving the tarp out of his way. He looked at the steamer.

  Flames shot like rockets into the night sky. There was a burning hole where the engine room had been. The seams of the ship cracked open a few feet, and water rushed inside.

  His lifeboat rocked against barrels that had fallen from the deck. Hank struggled into one of the life vests and clipped it together.

  There were screams and shouts and a horrific howling noise from the fire.

  He looked up.

  A hollow steel echo belched from within the bowels of the ship, and it rolled heavily toward its port side. Smoke coughed from the stacks. Men shouted and scurried like rats while debris fell into the sea.

  Then he saw her: the blonde. Stranded on a small part of the port deck that hadn’t blown apart. She hugged what was left of the rail. To her right was a gaping hole filled with flames; to her left, a few feet of deck and nothing.

  He grabbed another life vest and dove into the sea. A second later he was swimming toward her. The water all around him rippled an orange color, an eerie reflection of the ship’s flames. He could smell the fire and the oil and the black taste of coal.

  The steamer groaned and slipped lower.

  He was only a hundred feet away. The ship had listed to almost a forty-five-degree angle over the water.

  The woman wore a dark coat and had one leg hitched over the lower bar of the ship’s rail. Her arm was wrapped under and over the upper rail so that she was half sitting on the lower rail, clinging to it and using it to keep her from falling into the sea.

  By the time he was in shouting range, the ship had shifted again lower, and the main deck and its railing were barely fifteen feet above sea level.

  “Jump!” he bellowed, treading water and gripping the other life jacket.

  She whipped her head around.

  “Jump!”

  “I can’t!” she screamed.

  “Jump, woman!”

  She shook her head and huddled into more of a ball.

  A burst of flames exploded behind her. She turned her head. It was then he saw the children. Two small, terrified faces peered down at him as they clung to either side of her.

  She looked back at him and shouted, “Baby!” She had a dark bundle cradled in her lap, and he realized that in all the racket there was the sound of a kid wailing.

  He swore and scanned the sea while he slung the other life vest up his arm.

  A garbage can floated nearby. He swam to it, dumped it out, and kicked back to a position just beneath her, the can floating next to him. Only twelve feet of air separated them.

  “Drop it!” he yelled, reaching up.

  She stared at him. Frozen.

  “Drop the kid! I’ll catch it!”

  She unwrapped the baby. It was a toddler. She leaned out, her arms over the rail, struggling to lower the screaming little kid by its hands.

  He reached up and out. She let go.

  Screaming, the toddler fell into his hands. He stuffed the kid in the can and clamped one arm around it to keep it from tipping and filling with water. The can amplified the kid’s crying. It was noisier, tinnier, and so loud he felt the sound in back of his teeth.

  “Toss me the life ring!” he bellowed, his free hand cupped around his mouth.

  She leaned across the rail and fumbled with the life ring hooks. A second later the ring fell into the sea. “Now jump!” he shouted.

  She moved quickly and pulled both children by the hand to an open section in the railing. For an instant she stood there. The fire roared behind them and framed their silhouettes, making them look like black figures against a wall of blue orange flames about to swallow them.

  “Jump!” Hank shouted.

  A second later she did, pulling the kids with her. They splashed into the black water a few feet away.

  He held his breath. Surface, sweetheart. Come on, baby. Come on . . .

  Her head burst out of the water. So did the heads of both of the kids. The older one—a girl—screamed that she couldn’t swim, then she panicked, struggling and crying.

  With his free hand, Hank grabbed the closest kid—a small boy who had begun to sob. “Hang onto my neck!” The kid stopped sobbing and did what he was told.

  The little girl was still screaming and struggling, half pulling the blonde under. The coat she wore wasn’t helping. He shoved the vest at the woman.

  “Get out of that coat and put this on.”

  She tried to put the vest on the hysterical girl. “Put it on yourself!” he yelled.

  “But I can swim! She can’t!” she screamed back, trying to stay above water.

  “Put the vest on and you hold her!” He shouted, adjusting the boy’s hands around his neck. “Are you strong enough to keep her head up?”

  The blonde nodded, finally shrugging out of the coat and doing exactly as he had said. He spotted the life ring behind her. He couldn’t let go of the can.

  “Grab that life ring!”

  She clipped the vest, then looked around in front of her.

  “Behind you!”

  She reached out and snagged it, then she placed the girl’s hands on it and used her own body to trap the girl to the ring. The youngster had stopped struggling and just laid her head on the life ring and cried hysterically. The woman spoke to her quietly.

  “You okay?” Hank yelled.

  The blonde looked up and nodded.

  “I’ll be back!” He gripped the base of the floating can and shoved it out in front of him, then kicked as hard as he could, pushing it along. The little boy on his back had a death grip around his neck. But the life vest and the buoyant can kept them above water. The baby was howling, which was okay with him. As long as it howled, it was alive.

  But the boy was too quiet.

  Hank kept kicking. “Say, you hanging on, kid?” “Yes, sir,” he said, his words little more than a half sob next to Hank’s ear.

  “Good.”

  A few more strokes and Hank asked, “What’s your name?”

  “Theodore.”

  Before he could respond, the can clanked against the lifeboat and the baby screamed again. He put the can inside, then tossed in the little kid. “Hang onto the can!” he ordered, then grabbed another inflated vest and swam back.

  The woman and the young girl were clinging to the life ring. The girl was still crying.

  “Oh, shut up or I’ll drown you myself!” He jerked the girl’s hands from the life ring and shoved her arms into the vest. She blubbered the whole time. As he struggled with the vest clips, he glanced up at the blonde. “You still okay?”

  “Yes.”

  He could see that the woman was good and scared, but she had control. He wrapped his arm around the girl, who, with the life vest on and three more threats, had finally stopped struggling. He glanced back at the blonde again. “See the l
ifeboat?”

  She shook her head and searched the water. “Swim that way.” He nodded toward the lifeboat. “I see it!”

  “Let’s go!” He flipped the sobbing girl onto her back and pulled her with him as he swam back.

  With almost every stroke, he checked on the woman. She was swimming right with him. She had strength, probably generated from pure fear. He knew all too well that I’ll-be-damned-if-I’ll-die kind of will. He’d lived with it for too many years. And both he and the blonde were living it now, he thought, then his hand struck the side of the lifeboat. The baby and the kid were still in it.

  He got the sobbing girl inside, then the woman. He took a breath and turned back around. He scanned the water, but he couldn’t see anyone else. There were barrels and scattered pieces of the ship. But no crew. No people.

  He treaded water for a moment, trying to get his wind. Debris and cargo floated all around them, but no other survivors.

  Hank looked at the ship. He could see the other lifeboat and human figures struggling to get inside while the steamer burned. Every so often, he could make out a member of the crew working to try to save the ship.

  Fools to the end, he thought. Gripping the rim of the lifeboat, he watched them a second longer, then turned to the blonde. “I’m going back!”

  The ship moaned a steely, grating sound.

  “Wait!” she screamed and grabbed his hand.

  He looked at her, then followed her horrified stare. The funnel stacks buckled, then crashed through the flaming deck. They took the other lifeboat with them. Men screamed. There was a loud moan of iron breaking apart. The ship split open like a cracked egg, spilling every burning thing into the sea.

  It took barely a moment, an empty moment, to realize they were the only survivors. They sat there, unable to do anything but watch as blue orange flames shot into the night sky and the ship gave one last aching creak.

  A few seconds later the bow pitched upward, then slowly slid down. There was a sizzle as the flames hit water. The hull of the steamer sank slowly as if being swallowed by the sea.

  And the last thing to disappear was the ship’s name written plainly across the bow, only two words: The Deuce.

  The lifeboat floated on the dark and quiet sea. Hank worked the small fuel pump on the lantern. It was one of those pressure lamps that, when they were in good working order, could stay lit in a full gale. He’d seen men gut fish in a storm by the dependable light of a tilley lantern. He lit it with a safety match.

  “I’m Margaret Huntington Smith.”

  He glanced up at the blonde.

  Three names . . . now there was trouble.

  He didn’t respond, just lifted the lantern up and stared at her. She was a looker, even soaking wet. Especially soaking wet. He could see right through her thin clothing.

  However, any bright ideas he had for taking Madame Smitty there on a few hot voyages had gone straight to hell when those kids had peered down at him from the ship.

  He looked from her to her children, who were wrapped in the tarps and blankets. The baby cuddled inside a dry blanket in her lap. The lantern cast a shallow amber glow on their upturned faces, all looking at him expectantly.

  He looked away, watching the dark sea and night sky that surrounded them. He saw nothing but black, as if fate had pitched them into a deep hole to see if they could survive.

  He knew how to survive. Hell, he had been doing it long enough. Yes, he could take care of himself just fine. But a woman and her three kids? They were not part of the plan.

  “Father?” She was waiting for an introduction and giving him one of those direct looks again.

  He silently swore. He’d forgotten about the priest’s clothes. He fiddled with the lantern and pretended he hadn’t heard her.

  She waited, then glanced around at the sea. “This was supposed to be a holiday,” she said, almost as if she were speaking to herself alone.

  He gave a bark of sharp laughter. “I suppose you might say I was on a holiday myself.”

  She looked back at him, then glanced at her children. There was a lost look about her, a sense of helplessness when she looked at her children.

  A vulnerability he noted and stored away. He unclamped the small mast from its fittings and mounted it into the mast hole. He spent a few minutes with the sail lines, then nodded at the kids. “Where’s their father?”

  “Dead,” the little girl answered in a bitter tone he knew only too well.

  Hank gave her a sharp look.

  She stared right back at him.

  “How old are you, little girl?”

  “I’m Lydia, not little girl,” she said, her chin in an angle of so-what’s-it-to-you. “I’m eleven.” She pulled her blanket tighter around her angry, childish face, then averted her eyes from his and stared at the bottom of the boat. “Our mother’s dead, too. Everyone’s dead.”

  So their mother was dead, he thought. He glanced at Miss Smitty, who had just become fair game again. “Their parents were killed in an accident,” she said, placing her arms more tightly around the children. “A matron was taking them to an orphanage on Cook Island. We became friendly on the voyage between island stops.”

  She paused, then glanced out at the sea for a moment. “She was trapped inside the stateroom next to mine. I managed to get to the children, but . . .” Her voice drifted off, and the young girl began to sob again. The woman turned back to the girl. “I’m sorry, Lydia.” She put her arm around her. “It’s okay. Get it all out. Go ahead and cry.”

  Hank looked away and rolled his eyes. He didn’t think Lydia needed any encouragement. All she had done was cry.

  The little boy, however, was sitting very quietly. He stared at Hank with wide and curious eyes. There was something grounding in those eyes. An odd mixture of innocence and caution, like someone who been hit for no reason.

  The kid had gotten his first bad taste of the life Hank knew. He’d been younger than this kid when life had dealt him a bad hand. He hadn’t been innocent for very long. But he did remember the feeling of confusion. He looked at the boy again. “You wanna help me, kid?”

  The kid bobbed his head. “I’m Theodore.”

  “I remember.” Hank pointed to the bench in front of him. “Come here.”

  The kid shrugged out of the blanket and sat on the seat, his look serious.

  Hank looked down at him. “How old are you?”

  “I’m five,” he said, then added quickly, “but I’m not the baby. Annabelle’s the baby ’cause she’s not even two yet.” He pointed to the bundled baby in Smitty’s lap.

  Hank handed him the ends of the lines. “Here. Unwrap these from the sail.”

  “Father?”

  Hank looked at the blonde. She was still holding the baby and trying to soothe Lydia.

  “Perhaps you can say a prayer for them,” she suggested.

  He froze.

  “A prayer for the matron and the rest of those people onboard.”

  He paused for the second it took him to think, then pulled the rosary from his pocket and knelt over the edge of the boat. He dipped the beads in the ocean a couple of times as if he were baptizing them. “The Lord give them peace,” he said, making his best imitation of the sign of the cross, then he stuck the beads back in his pocket, staring at the water. “Amen.”

  “Amen,” she repeated, then whispered, “Thank you.”

  He felt a brief stab—very brief—of something deep in his gut. He’d eaten those bananas too fast. It couldn’t have been guilt. Hank didn’t feel guilty about anything. Never had. Never would.

  His words didn’t do those victims much good now. And he doubted a priest’s would either. No one could bring them back.

  He turned back and opened the small sail, then showed the kid how to work the lines.

  Smitty spoke quietly to Lydia and played with the baby’s hands, then her blond head shot up. “What was that?”

  “What?” He threaded one of the lines.

  �
��That sound,” she said. “There it is again! Listen.” There was a loud, grating noise, and Hank whipped his head around.

  “Look!” She pointed northeast. “In the water! Over there!”

  The children’s heads perked up and turned.

  “It’s a goat!” Theodore shouted, his voice excited. There, in the water, was one of the goats Hank had seen being loaded on the ship. The animal was swimming, its head disappearing, then reappearing with a bleat.

  “There it is!” Smitty had turned from the goat toward him. “Sail over to it.”

  He frowned at her. “What for?”

  “Why . . . to save it, of course. The poor thing.” “Look! Look!” Theodore was leaning half out of the boat.

  Hank grabbed the seat of his pants to keep him from falling in.

  “It’s drowning!” He looked to Hank. “Save it! Hurry!”

  He stared back at the three faces watching him and waiting expectantly. The baby suddenly poked its little head out of the blanket, looked around, then grinned right at him.

  “Save it?”

  They nodded in unison.

  Calling himself every kind of fool, he wrapped the lines back around the sail and unhooked the oars. A minute later he was rowing toward the animal and muttering about the likelihood of surviving with a goat in the lifeboat.

  It took him five minutes and two hooves slamming into his gut to get the frightened goat inside. He locked the oars back in their safety clamps on the inside of the boat, sat down on a bench, and untied the sail again.

  “Look! What luck!” Smitty said in a bright tone. He just looked at her.

  “It’s a nanny goat.” She waited, and when he didn’t respond, she added, “We’ll have milk for the children.”

  Hank grunted some response and busied himself by adjusting the lines, then he glanced up. All of them were fussing over the stupid goat. “Hand me the compass. It’s behind you in that tin supply box with the matches and food.”

  Smitty turned slightly and rummaged through the box.

  Fate had doomed him. Again. After being locked in a French hellhole of a prison for four years, he was now suddenly in a lifeboat with a prime dish who had a sweetheart of a body. And she thought he was a priest. Hell, he’d better act like a priest. Along for the ride were three orphan children and a noisy goat, all of them floating somewhere in the South Pacific.