'Think of Helen,' he told himself. 'She needs me. Think of Helen.' He slogged on, slipping, sliding, swearing but with every step taking him closer to the small harbour town of Balaklava that was the British army's main supply base.
'What a scene!'
Although it was sheltered by Cape Georgia and Cape Balaklava, the harbour was a seething mass of breaking water and white foam, with waves exploding against the surrounding cliffs to send spray hundreds of feet into the air before it descended on the town and harbour like savage hail. The ships in harbour were either bucking against their anchors, their lines straining and chains grinding, or had broken free, their masts and spars swinging at terrible angles, sails ripped and hanging loose and pieces of wreckage bobbing and dancing in the water.
'Jesus!' Jack blasphemed as he saw two ships grinding against each other, one an auxiliary steamer with one of her masts broken and hanging over the port side and the other a brig, with her mizzen carried away and her crew trying frantically to fend off the steamer.
'It's terrible!' Charlotte Riley, wife of Private Riley, huddled in the shelter of a cottage, staring at the scene. A man in the blue jacket and white trousers of a sailor stood beside her, nursing a bandage on his left arm. 'These poor people,' Charlotte shook her head.
'Which one is Redgauntlet?' Momentarily forgetting to be polite, Jack grabbed her by the shoulder 'I said: which one is Redgauntlet?'
'Why?' Charlotte widened her eyes.
'Helen is on her.' Jack shouted.
'Oh God, is your girl out there?' Charlotte stared at him in sudden perception. 'Oh Captain Windrush, I am so sorry. I hope to God…'
'Which ship is Redgauntlet?' Jack had no patience for speech.
'Over there, Captain!' The wounded seaman pointed to a group of three ships that crashed and rattled together mid-way across the harbour. 'The middle one. She's still afloat!'
'Thank God,' Jack said softly'
'She might not be afloat for long,' the sailor took hold of his sleeve. 'There are ships going down all over the place!'
'Oh Jesus!' Jack stared out to Redgauntlet. She was an auxiliary steamer, with only one of her two masts still standing as she thrashed around, grinding against the larger vessels on either side and with her crew running themselves ragged as they tried to keep themselves afloat.
'We've already lost Prince and Resolute,' the sailor shouted, 'and Rip van Winkle won't last much longer!'
The harbour was strewn with wreckage, planks of timber, pieces of cordage, stray lengths of canvas, kegs and unidentified fragments of ship, paper by the ream, articles of clothing and the odd body. Jack swallowed hard; he did not like to think of Helen or her mother out there, enduring the storm when they could be safe in their cottage in Balaklava.
For a moment Jack contemplated finding a small boat and rowing out to Redgauntlet, but one glance at the seething sea persuaded him not to be so foolish. He had not got the skill. A second thought came to him: perhaps Helen and her mother had not gone aboard?
'Excuse me,' he shouted. 'I have to check something…' Buffeted by the wind, he ran to the house that Mrs Colonel Maxwell had leased since they first arrived at Balaklava and hammered at the familiar door.
'Let me in! I'm looking for Mrs Maxwell and Miss Helen Maxwell … Colonel Maxwell sent me!'
Jack did not know the Tartar women who answered the door. 'Is Helen still here?' He peered inside, took a deep breath and tried again. 'Helen Maxwell; is she here?'
The woman shook her head. 'On the ship. Going to England.' She struggled to hold the door against the blast of wind. Leaving her to it, Jack returned to his vigil at the side of the harbour, watching Redgauntlet as she crashed against the vessels on either side.
A naval lieutenant had joined Charlotte and the wounded sailor, his telescope levelled at the harbour as he muttered softly to himself.
'Excuse me,' Jack snatched a telescope from the lieutenant's hands. 'My need is greater than thine.'
'I beg your pardon?' The lieutenant was around thirty, with hard eyes and the middle finger missing from his left hand. Jack wondered briefly if he had been injured during the siege or if he had lost his fingers in some shipboard accident, and then he forgot all about him and concentrated on Redgauntlet and the people on board her.
The steamer's deck was still lined with seamen trying to fend off the larger ships on either side, with an officer, presumably the master, dashing from stern to stem, gesticulating, giving orders, lending a hand where it was most needed.
'Good man,' Jack said quietly, and added. 'Oh my God!'
'What's the matter, Captain?' The lieutenant noticed Jack's sudden agitation. 'Is she going down?'
'No, she's on deck helping save the blasted ship!' Jack said.
'What? Who?'
Ignoring him, Jack stared at the deck of Redgauntlet. It was Helen; it could only be Helen. Only Helen would have left the comparative comfort and security of her cabin to go on deck in the midst of a hurricane to help the sailors try and save the ship. Rather than wear a long skirt, she had sensibly donned the clothes of a seaman but it was unmistakably Helen, with her long hair whipping loose around her neck. Jack watched as she held some sort of pole and shoved as energetically as the men on either side of her to hold a looming three decker at bay.
'You take care, Helen Maxwell,' Jack shook his head in admiration. He started when another woman appeared on deck, holding on to a lifeline for support as the steamer heeled sharply to starboard. 'Like mother, like daughter,' Jack said as Mrs Colonel Maxwell spoke to the captain. 'She's probably telling him what to do.'
'She's going!' the lieutenant grabbed back his telescope. 'Look at Progress!'
Jack ignored the lieutenant's demand and continued to stare at Redgauntlet. The fate of any other vessel was undoubtedly sad, but Jack had seen too much suffering in this campaign to worry too much about a few more deaths. He was not indifferent, merely aware that if he could not help, there was no point in worrying about it. He was much more concerned about Helen than any number of anonymous sailors.
'Oh God she's down!' The lieutenant nearly threw the telescope to Jack. 'I must help them!'
'Wait!' Jack's yell was too late. The lieutenant ran to the water's edge. Briefly altering the direction of his gaze, Jack saw a ship on her beam ends with her masts snapped and her crew either clinging to the capsized hull or flailing in the heaving water.
'Oh dear God!' One by one, the survivors began to fail and disappear beneath the waves. Jack saw the lieutenant jump into the harbour and almost immediately vanish.
'Wait…' Throwing off his greatcoat, Jack prepared to follow until Charlotte took hold of his shoulder and shook his head.
'You'll just throw your life away,' she shouted. 'Like that poor fellow did.'
'See that ship?' Nearly panicking at the thought of Helen in extreme danger, Jack pointed to Redgauntlet. 'Will she…?' He shuddered as Redgauntlet began to settle in the water. 'Oh my God.'
'She's going down,' the wounded sailor said.
Forgetting the advice of only a few seconds ago, Jack struggled to remove his jacket. 'I must go to them!'
'Don't be a fool, man!' Charlotte patted Jack's shoulder. 'You'll drown as surely as that poor fellow did.'
'You don't understand,' Jack said. 'My girl's on that ship!'
'I know,' Charlotte said, 'and I do understand.' Her hand gripped softly.
The wounded sailor narrowed his eyes against flying spray. 'God help her. We'll take that boat: look!' he pointed to the water's edge, where the storm had thrown a small dinghy onto the quay. It lay there, hull down, with the waves exploding against the keel and its oars lying by its side, miraculously intact.
'You've only got one good arm!' Jack said.
'And I'll still be a better oarsman than you with two,' the grin took years off the sailor's age. 'Come on if you want to try and save your girl.' Having observed the naval brigade in the siege lines, Jack was not surprised at his dare-devil attitude.
With the sailor giving directions, they flipped the dinghy the right way up. 'She's intact,' the sailor said. 'I'm Ben by the way.' He was about thirty, with blue eyes that shone brightly from a weather-beaten face.
'Jack.' They shook hands briefly, pushed the dingy into the madly lashing waves and clambered on board.
'Can you row?' The seaman shouted and when Jack nodded, said. 'One oar each then: follow my lead.'
'Take care!' Charlotte clung on to the corner of a house for support as the wind whipped the shawl around her head.
Seen from the shore, the harbour was chaos; even a few yards out it was very much worse. The sea threw the dinghy around like a cork, tossing and spinning it this way and that, so Jack knew that if it had not been for the skill and directions of Ben he would have been capsized in seconds.
'Where is Redgauntlet?' Jack tried to peer over his shoulder. From the quayside the route to the steamer had been obvious, down here with waves rising above the dinghy and with non-stop motion he could see nothing but a dizzying vista of moving ships, lunging seas and the white spume that the wind threw in his face with blinding force.
'I'll get you there!' One handed, the seaman worked his oar to avoid a jagged piece of planking that had been part of some unfortunate vessel. A keg crashed into their hull, jarring the teeth in Jack's head, and then spun away to be lost in the madness of wind and water. Papers and clothes appeared and disappeared on the waves. Jack saw the body of a seaman, arms and legs splayed wide and his eyes open but sightless; then it was gone, sucked down by some unseen current.
'Row!' Ben shouted. He lifted his oar momentarily so the dinghy spun to port, and then dipped it back in the water and pulled; they surged ahead, still lifting and falling, bucking and gyrating so that Jack was completely disorientated. It was all he could do to retain his seat, yet alone make out any direction in this madness.
He looked around, hoping to see Redgauntlet amidst the confusion of waves, flying spume and occasional glimpse of unidentifiable ships.
'Back oars!' Ben yelled, and Jack responded at once, putting all his faith in the wounded sailor. 'She's gone! Look for survivors!'
The sea around Redgauntlet was a shambles of shattered planks, papers, scraps of rope and canvas, a huge spread of coal from the steamer's bunkers and a man's head, with his arm raised in despair. Waves leaped at them, subsided and lunged again.
Ben roared out 'ahoy!' with a volume of sound greater than Jack had thought possible from human lungs, and stretched out his oar. The survivor lunged toward it and grabbed at the blade of the oar just as a wave lifted the dinghy high in the air. The sudden alteration of weight nearly pulled the oar from Ben's single hand, so Jack had to ship his own oar and reach across to help.
'Hang on!' Ben shouted, 'we've got you!'
As the dinghy began to top to starboard, Ben pushed Jack away. 'Get back to your place, Jack; we'll capsize, else!'
Jack moved across the boat as Ben hauled in his oar and the survivor draped across the gunwale, gasping and retching. He was about eighteen and terrified.
'Have you seen the women?' Jack shouted, 'Helen Maxwell and Mrs Colonel Maxwell?'
The man stared at him in confusion.
'He doesn't know anything just now,' Ben said, 'but look over there!' He pointed with his chin. 'There!'
Tossing crazily on the waves, the hatch cover was packed with survivors. There must have been a dozen people on it, most lying prone, one or two crouching and Mrs Colonel Maxwell standing, holding a long pole.
'Is she one of your women?' Ben yelled.
'That's one,' Jack scanned the makeshift raft for Helen but did not see her. 'I can't see Helen.'
As he spoke a full rigged ship passed close to them, momentarily calming the sea and blocking the wind. Jack grabbed the opportunity to look around at the litter of wreckage, cordage and scraps of paper and clothing that polluted the sea. He could not see Helen.
'We can tow them!' Ben said. 'Pull for the raft!'
'I can't see Helen!' Jack stared desperately at the water, hoping for a glimpse of Helen's face, or a sight of her swimming toward him.
'She's gone! We can save the ones on the raft!' Ben said. 'Come on, man!'
Mrs Colonel Maxwell was gesturing to them and one of the younger men on the raft stood up. Jack started and nearly dropped a stroke; that was no man. The relief was overwhelming: he had forgotten that Helen wore the clothes of a sailor.
'Helen! I'm coming!' The wind took hold of his words and whipped them away.
'Look in the stern locker!' Ben shouted. 'Is there a line?'
There was; a length of rope that Ben tied around the stern post with impressive efficiency, despite his wound. 'Follow my lead!' He manoeuvred them close to the raft and tossed the rope across the leaping water. His first attempt fell short. Ben coiled the rope again.
'We need something to weigh it down,' he said.
'Use this!' Jack handed over his revolver. He would miss it later, but Helen's life was more important.
Ben tied the line around the revolver, balanced in the stern of the dinghy and threw it underhand. Helen and two of the survivors reached up, fumbled, dropped it and a seaman grabbed it before it slid over the side of the raft.
'Make secure!' Ben roared and one of the survivors tied the line to one of the planks of the makeshift raft.
For an instant Jack met Helen's gaze. Even sodden and cold, with her hair plastered sleekly to her head and hanging in dripping, snake-like tendrils over her shoulders, even when clad in the shapeless canvas clothes of a seaman, she was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen.
'Row now, Jack,' Ben ordered urgently.
'I'll take your oar,' the man they rescued said. 'You've only got one arm.'
Ben nodded. 'I'll paddle.' He raised his voice. 'You men on the raft! Paddle with whatever you can!'
Mrs Maxwell raised a hand in acknowledgement and within seconds the survivors were ranged along the sides of the hatch-cover, clinging tightly with one hand and paddling with the other, or with whatever pieces of splintered wood they managed to salvage. Helen lay prone with the rest, her face taut with concentration as she tried to push the unwieldy craft across the harbour.
The second they were past the three-master, the full force of the storm hit them again, sending the raft into crazy gyrations that jerked the dinghy backward and nearly capsized them. One second they were in the trough between two waves, the next they had spiralled to the crest, with the hatch-cover at an acute angle behind them and the survivors more concerned with remaining on board than in paddling to safety.
'Maybe a ship will pick us up!' Jack yelled.
'They have a hard enough job trying to stay afloat without helping anybody else,' Ben replied. 'It's every man for himself out here and the devil take the hindmost.'
Rowing outward toward Redgauntlet had been hard; rowing back while towing a raft full of people was nearly impossible. Every pull at the oar took tremendous effort, and with the dinghy erratically rising and falling, sometimes Jack's strokes ended in empty air and at other times he was deep in the sea. The tow line hauled them back as often as they pulled the raft forward, but still they persisted.
'Pull!' Ben gave orders that Jack and the man they had rescued obeyed. 'Pull! Stop!'
They rested on their oars, panting, sweating, glazed of eye, with their muscles aching and very aware of the huge waves that threatened to swamp them. Jack fought his fear; it did not matter. Nothing mattered except Helen, the sea, the boat and the makeshift raft that they were attempting to tow across the harbour. The siege of Sebastopol, his career and all other matters were forgotten.
'Pull!'
They pulled again, feeling the weight of the raft dragging them back. And again they pulled, and again, until life had coalesced into forcing screaming muscles into one more effort, into ignoring the constant fear of capsizing or of being rammed by one of the shattered pieces of wreckage that the sea hurled around. And then suddenly the
y were at the quayside and there was a new and vital danger as pitiless waves threw the debris of shattered ships against the solid stone wall.
'We'll use the dinghy as a buffer,' Ben shouted. 'Keep her between the wall and the hatch-cover!'
Jack glanced over his shoulder; Helen was still clinging to the raft, sodden wet, with her hair a straggled mess across her face and her sailor's canvas shirt and white trousers running with seawater, but alive. Despite all the turbulence of the sea, Mrs Colonel Maxwell had managed to retain her stance at the back of the raft: it would take more than a Black Sea hurricane to upset that redoubtable woman.
'Up oars!' Ben shouted. The man they rescued responded at once; Jack was a fraction slower and shipped a bucketful of water from the blade of his oar into the dinghy.
'Haul the hatch cover in!' Ben yelled and again the rescued man was first to pull at the line. The raft was stubborn, dragging away in the back surge from the harbour wall, so only when Jack and Ben lent their weight did it shift closer to them.
'Use us a stepping stone!' Ben yelled to the castaways. 'Women and children first!'
Jack held out his hand. 'Helen!'
'Hello Jack!' Helen tried to smile as if she was on a Sunday afternoon pleasure jaunt. She wiped her hair away from her face. 'Whatever are you doing here?'
'Trying to get you ashore! Come on!'
'On my word!' Ben shouted, 'wait for my word!' Despite Ben's orders, one of the survivors, either fearful or deafened by the constant roar of the wind, immediately tried to jump. As he leaped, the dinghy fell and the raft rose on a wave so the man hovered between both for a long two seconds before splashing into the sea five yards away. The back surge swept him under and away before anybody could even put out a hand to help.
'He's gone,' Ben shouted. 'You – Helen is it? Wait for my mark!'
Jack cupped both hands to his mouth. 'Trust him Helen,' he bellowed, 'he knows what he's doing!'
Helen's hurried nod was intended to convey nonchalance but for one instant Jack saw through the jaunty disguise to the natural fear beneath. For all her show of confidence and bravado, Helen was only a young girl, scarce out of her teens and in great peril of her life. He had never loved her more than when he saw her vulnerability.
Windrush: Blood Price (Jack Windrush Book 3) Page 2
