Miss Whittier Makes a List

by Carla Kelly

  When she reached the surface, she took a huge gulp of air, and looked around. By the light of the full moon, she could clearly see the Molly on her side, her keel oddly out of the water. Sailors were leaping off the wreck and into the water. She started to swim toward them, then stopped.

  Bearing down on the Molly was another ship, much larger, with gunports open on two decks, the cannon pointed down at a steep angle. Her heart almost stopped beating as the ship opened fire again, blowing the swimmers apart. She took a deep breath, ducked below the water’s surface, and swam away.

  When she dared to look back, the the span>Molly was gone. Like a wolf circling a wounded deer, the larger ship wore around the wreckage that popped to the surface. Through ears still ringing with the percussion of cannon, she heard the mate calling orders in French to the seamen in the rigging. Soon the sails were set on a new course, and the ship slowly tacked away, its aft lantern light winking red in a silent sea.

  Her mind a curious blank, for all the crowded sensations that filled it, Hannah started toward the wreckage, then stopped, treading water. She could not bring herself to go closer and risk the further terror of dead men’s bodies. And what of sharks? The water was boiling suspiciously, evidence of some force at work. She closed her eyes and held still, waiting for a tug on her legs that would drag her under. When it did not come, she swam slowly away, in what direction she had no idea. The sky was filled with stars, but their direction was a mystery and revealed nothing to her of the compass points.

  She drifted on her side, fixing her mind resolutely against what swam below the surface, making as little movement as possible. And then she saw it up ahead.

  She stopped, too numb to do anything but watch, as a dark form about ten feet long bore down on her. It was futile to swim below it, for it would only turn and come back at its leisure. Then, silent and swiftly running, it was right upon her; she closed her eyes and put up her hands in pitiful defense.

  She grasped wood, almost fainted with relief, then hung on more tightly than a barnacle, feeling the object like a blind woman. It was a grate from the Molly Claridge, maybe the one she had sat on only yesterday and observed the insolence of the British Navy.

  As she hauled herself onto the grating, she remembered Captain Spark’s words about dousing the running lights. “Well, the French got us,” she said out loud as her teeth chattered in the freshening breeze. “I hope thee is happy, Captain Sir Daniel Spark.”

  Considering that it was summer, she was colder than she had ever been before. She shivered until her stomach ached. Her long hair hung sopping down her back, and she wore no more protection than her chemise. Goosebumps marched up and down her shoulders, back, and legs as she drew herself together as tightly as she could and willed the dawn to come.

  Chapter Three

  If this is death, then I have not been very good, Hannah thought to herself. She lay with her eyes tightly closed against the spectacle of a daunting eternity that must stretch before her. She was hot, so hot, boiling from too close contact with hell’s fires, surely. Nothing else could possibly account for the heat and pain that was rendering her immobile. Her wickedness must have thrust her straight down to Hades.

  Thee has not lived a blameless life, she told herself as she lay there in a crypt that was rocking gently from side to side. But surely the Almighty was more forgiving than this? Was it possible that the sin of wishing a captain of the Royal Navy to the devil had earned her a place in Beelzebub’s kingdom, too? The heat was almost more than she could bear, and rendered more unrelenting by the knowledge that it would be her own burden for eternity. The thought made her groan out loud.

  “There now, didn’t I tell you that she was coming round?”

  The words registered slowly in her brain. Somehow, it came as no surprise to her that the devil, or at least one of his minions, would have such a pronounced British accent. It seemed fitting that she would be tormented through eternity by someone who sounded distressingly like Captain Sir Daniel Spark. She thought it thoroughly unkind of the Lord.

  But there was this matter of the pain that throbbed through her body. Still keeping her eyes resolutely closed against her first view of hell, she tried to move her legs, and groaned again. Her skin felt too tight for her body, as though it had been stretched across a drum, and then heated almost past bearing. All that was missing was for some demon to pound on her.

  Then she felt a hand resting lightly on her wrist. She flinched and drew it away, yelping in pain. She lay there another moment, gathering her courage, then opened her eyes.

  Her first sight of hell was a compass tacked to the deck directly over her head. How odd that Satan should require direction, she thought. She stared as the needle jiggled lazily in the compass box. “East by northeast.” she said out loud.

  Satan chuckled. “Aye, miss. At least your eyes work.”

  There was that disconcerting voice again. Steeling herself, she turned her head slightly to the right, and then opened her eyes wider.

  Captain Sir Daniel Spark sat beside the berth she lay in, watching her with a half smile on his face. The man standing next to him reached for her wrist again, holding his fingers in practiced efficiency against her pulse. As she watched in dumbfounded silence, he raised her wrist, and she saw how sunburned she was. So much for the fires of hell.

  She was dressed in a man’s shirt and nothing more. There was no sheet over her legs, bare from the knees down. She closed her eyes in embarrassment, unable to look at the two men so close beside her in the cabin.

  The man holding her wrist let it down at her side. “You are too sunburned to be wearing anything, but we weighed that against the proprieties, Miss ... Miss ....”

  “Hannah Whittier,” she said, barely moving her lips.

  “Charmed,” said the man. “And I am Andrew Lease, ship’s surgeon.” He cleared his throat. “I believe you have already met the captain.”

  She opened her eyes again and turned her gaze on the man seated beside her. “Oh, yes.”

  Although he was not dressed in the full uniform she remembered, but in white canvas trousers and a well-darned shirt, she could never have mistaken Daniel Spark. He perched on the edge of his chair, back straight, as one unaccustomed to the luxury of sitting down often. Again she was impressed by that tightly contained air he possessed, rather like a watch on the edge of being wound too much. His dark hair, which she had not noticed yesterday because of his hat, was curly like her own, and a needed relief to the seriousness of his face, now that his half smile had retreated to wherever it was those things went.

  But was it only yesterday she had last seen him? She tried to raise herself up on one elbow and gasped with the pain. She sank down as a series of shivers racked her body, and gritted her teeth against this unexpected additional torment.

  “A natural reaction to shock, my dear,” said the surgeon, his voice kind, his eyes full of sympathy.

  “Is it possible to feel so cold and hot at the same time?” she managed, even as her teeth chattered.

  The captain rose and placed a sheet lightly across her. “There, now,” he said. “Is that better?”

  It was. She nodded. In another moment, her convulsions passed, and she was merely hot again.

  “How long ...” Even words seemed to take a vast effort. She felt drained and wrung out like laundry on a line.

  “We don’t know, Miss Whittier,” the captain said. “We fished you off that grating this morning.”

  She lay there in silence, vaguely remembering a day spent on the grating, staring out at the empty sea as saltwater washed over her reddening skin. She remembered a night of terror, with sharks or dolphins rubbing against the grating as she sat in the middle, her fingers digging like claws into the lattice. She tried to push her memory farther, but all she could call to mind was lying down finally in resignation and staring up at the stars.

  “It was at least a day,” she said, “and then another night.” She turned her head on the pill
ow to look at the captain. “I was so afraid.”

  He nodded. “Shipwreck’s not a pleasant event, Miss Whittier.” She heard not an ounce of sympathy in his voice, but there was something of understanding, as though he had been shipwrecked before himself.

  She thought then of the others. “Did thee find anyone else?” she asked.

  Spark shook his head. “We sailed through some debris. That was all.”

  She closed her eyes again, feeling hot tears behind her eyelids, appalled at how quickly living, breathing men with wives and children could be reduced to a few barrels and cracker boxes bobbing on a deserted ocean. “I think it was the French,” she said, when she could speak. She yearned to cry for the Molly Claridge, but her body was too dry for tears.

  “I am sure it was,” Captain Spark said. “And until your President Madison realizes that neutral ships are safe from neither side, others will suffer the same fate.”

  There was nothing to say to his harsh observation, so she was silent, thinking of Hosea, looking for her day after day and pacing up and down on the Charleston docks. She could imagine the letter he would be writing to Papa. She reached out gingerly and touched Captain Spark’s sleeve. “Sir, can we not put in to Charleston? Surely we are not far.”

  He pointed to the compass over her head. “East by northeast, Miss Whittier,” he reminded her. “We are bound for England, as I seem to recall mentioning to you a couple of days ago. And you, apparently, are our guest.”

  She thought of Papa and Mama in mourning for their youngest child. “And thee is a perfect beast,” she said.

  To her surprise, his lips twitched. He nodded to the surgeon. “What do you say, Andrew? Should I pitch this ungrateful shark chum overboard? Here she is, in my berth, and wearing my shirt ...” He shook his head.

  “Thee wouldn’t,” she began.

  “No, I wouldn’t,” he agreed, unruffled by her vehemence, which sounded exhausted and puny to her ears. He rose, stooping to avoid striking his head on the deck above. “A gentleman would at least wait until the lady was healed. Then I’ll set you adrift in a boat with a compass and some ship’s biscuit, you wretched baggage!”

  The surgeon turned his head away, but Hannah could see his shoulders shaking.

  “Dreadful man!” she exclaimed, and hauled herself into a sitting position. She groaned and rubbed her hip, wondering at this new pain. “What is that?”

  The captain paused at the door, his hand on the knob. “You have a bruise of enormous proportions on your bum,” he said, his face breaking into the smile he had obviously been struggling against. “I suggest you lie down, Miss Whittier. I only very seldom prey on the infirm, but I would be happy to make an exception in your case, if you continue biting the hand that fished you from the briny deep. As you were, Andrew. Have a little countenance.”

  He closed the door quietly behind him and she sank back onto the mattress. “I am mortified,” she said out loud, her eyes boring into the compass, which continued its maddening east northeast course. If she could have closed her eyes and willed herself dead, she would have.

  The surgeon, his face perfectly composed now, shook his head. “No need to be embarrassed, my dear, no need at all. The only ones who saw you were the entire crew, assembled for a reading of the Articles of War and one of Captain Spark’s inimitable sermons. It is the Sabbath, after all. That can’t number over one hundred and ninety. We lost some crew to the French recently, so I may be off in my calculations.”

  He looked at the horror that spread across her face, and took her hand again, sitting beside her in the chair the captain had vacated. “What I am trying to say, Miss Whittier, is that it’s better to be alive on a crowded deck, even if a bit sparsely clad, than burned black, swollen beyond recognition, and drifting away.”

  “But ....” she began.

  “I can guarantee that not one man on this ship saw anything he’s never seen before, with the possible exception of that young one ... Adam Winslow? Is that his name? Now sit up again. I want to spread some more of this salve on your back. Captain Spark ordered me to have you shipshape and Bristol fashion as soon as possible, so he can have his cabin back.”

  She considered the matter, decided the surgeon was right, and sat up again, her back to him as she primly raised the shirttails and leaned forward.

  “Excellent, my dear! I knew you were a reasonable female,” the surgeon murmured as he dabbed on the salve, spreading it across her back with gentle fingers. He paused when she flinched, and then continued, his touch light.

  Hannah closed her eyes in relief, as the salve sank into her tormented skin. Suddenly she was more thirsty than she had ever been in her life. As the surgeon gently rubbed the ointment into her raw flesh, she thought of the pond at Isaiah Qualm’s gristmill at home, where the wheel turned and turned, tossing the water into a fine spray when the wind was blowing. She longed to be there, turning around and around herself in that spray, her mouth open.

  “Please, sir, I am so thirsty,” she said finally, when he finished.

  “In a moment, my dear,” he replied. He wiped his hands on his surgeon’s apron, then poured her a cup of water from a battered silver carafe. “Drink it slowly. The water’s only been in the casks for a month, so it’s practically fresh.”

  She did as he said, relishing the coolness down her throat, and overlooking the taste of wood well tempered with mold.

  “I am going to leave this pitcher beside the berth. Drink as much as you can,” he said. He returned to a small table and spooned another dollop of ointment into the jar he held. “When I leave, I want you to smear this on the rest of your body. If you need help, I’ll help, but I think you would rather do this yourself.”

  She took the ointment from him, avoiding his eyes, but managing a little smile. “I suppose you will tell me that you’ve already done that, so I needn’t feel embarrassed.”

  “I wasn’t going to say that, but I could.” He grinned and tugged at her hair, which was neatly braided. “Don’t be a ninnyhammer, Miss Whittier! I am, after all, a surgeon.”

  “Yes, but on board a ship with nothing but men about,” she grumbled as she began gingerly to apply the salve to her poor knees. “I hardly think it is the same.”

  He watched her a moment in silence, until she looked up, a question in her eyes. “I have not always been a surgeon in the company of men,” he said, his voice quiet.

  She thought for a moment that he would say something else, but he did not. “Everywhere, mind you,” he reminded her. “I can always make up more salve.”

  Hannah nodded, her eyes on her legs again. She dribbled a line of salve from her ankle bone to her knee. “Sir, do you think the captain will allow me to speak to Adam Winslow?” she asked. “I should tell him of his fathere.”

  “I am sure he will allow that, but it can wait, Hannah Whittier.” He opened the door. “Bad news can always wait.”

  He closed the door behind him. When she heard his footsteps receding down the companionway, she raised Captain Spark’s shirt for a good look at her hip. The captain was right, she admitted. It was a bruise of enormous proportions, probably a result of her tumble onto the deck of the Molly Claridge at the first broadside from the French.

  Hannah unbuttoned the shirt, choosing not to think who had buttoned her into it, and stared down at her body. She had been wearing only a chemise when Captain Winslow threw her into the ocean, and she could see the contrast of white on her breasts and stomach, where she had not been burned by the sun. She touched her stomach, thankful that there was one part of her anatomy that did not hurt. “I will be a wretched specimen when I start to peel,” she said out loud as she gritted her teeth and slathered on the ointment.

  When she was finished, Hannah could not bring herself to put on the shirt again. She tugged the sheet up to her chin and lay down again, pulling her long braid away from the ointment and draping it across the pillow. She regarded it for a moment, wondering who had braided her hair so neatly. She
remembered the tangle it had been in after her days of seasickness, and her own perfunctory attempt at reducing chaos to order. Someone more patient than I, she thought, remembering the gentleness of the surgeon’s fingers. He had told her his name, but she could not remember it.

  She lay as still as she could, shivering now and then as her body protested its cavalier treatment She took another drink, spilling most of it on the pillow, but not minding the cool wetness on her shoulders. She thought of Adam, and dreaded telling him of his father. “And now we are both impressed,” she murmured and looked up at the compass again.

  When she woke, it was morning again. The sun streamed through the porthole as she lay quietly, wondering how painful it would be to move. “Thee is not dying, Hannah Whittier,” she said out loud finally, and sat up.

  While the pain still made the hairs rise on her back, she knew she could endure it. She draped the captain’s shirt around her bare shoulders and tugged the sheet to her waist. Feeling old and rheumatoid, she managed to pour herself another drink of water from the carafe that must have been refilled during the night. The jar of ointment had been replenished as well. Thoughtfully, she began to apply it to her arms as she looked around the room.

  It was a sleeping cabin, spare and lacking in any creature comforts beyond the berth and a truly comfortable pillow. There was a chair of uncompromising proportions, and a small writing desk with a pull-down lid. A battered sea chest with SPARK painted in black letters adorned the opposite bulkhead from where she sat. Above it was the only incongruous item in the room, a cross-stitched sampler which read, “England expects every man to do his duty” in flowing script. The threads looked as battered as the trunk below and reminded her of similar efforts at home in the parlor on Orange Street. She wondered who thought enough of Captain Sir Daniel Spark to create such a sampler. Surely no woman would ever get close enough to the captain to produce female offspring. It must be a sister. Her own experience with samplers reminded her that samplers were always a good present for brothers, who generally deserved nothing better.