A Winters Tale by Cassie Brown

Author:Cassie Brown [Brown, Cassie]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Flanker Press
Published: 2012-07-14T16:00:00+00:00

The bridge was awash. In the chartroom, Captain Martin opened the wooden box where signal fights were kept, and was examining them with the aid of Sullivan’s flashlight.

“Can we raise a signal?” Sullivan asked hopefully.

Martin replied, “We can try, but they’re wet.”

Ledingham had joined them and the three men tried unsuccessfully to light the rockets. “They won’t work,” Martin said at last.

It was gradually brightening and Martin cast about to see what, if anything, could be done. Great running combers were twisting the superstructure; spume and water flew across the deck in drenching sheets. The ship was completely flooded below deck; the hatch of number-two hold had floated free and casks of fish were tumbling over the starboard side. Survivors still remained on the smoker roof aft; about twenty were clinging to anything they could find in the wheelhouse.

Martin saw all too clearly that there was nothing he, or anyone, could do.

Hearing cries on the deck beneath the bridge, Martin descended by the still intact starboard ladder. Ledingham followed. One of the passengers said with great feeling, “Captain, you have my sympathy. “It was James Miller, whose father was the chief steward of the S. S. Prospero, (another of Bowring’s Red Cross Line). As a member of a seafaring family, he knew of the trials ahead for Captain Martin if he survived.

Martin saw Joe Kean for the first time; Joe was crumpled on the deck, bleeding profusely from a wound on the head. Martin shouted, to no one in particular, “Give me a hand with Captain Kean.”

Kean said, “My leg is broken.”

Ledingham and Mate James each took an arm, Martin lifted him by his good leg, and they eased the fainting man up the steep ladder to the wheelhouse and placed him on a locker. Somebody produced a handkerchief and they staunched the wound, tying the cloth around his head. Martin went to the chartroom, brought out an old cap, and placed it on Joe’s head. “It’s the best I can do,” he said.

“Thank you,” Kean murmured.

As they looked toward the shore, they were now able to see the men of Cappahayden staring helplessly at the Florizel.

“If you have oil on board it would quieten the sea and give the men ashore a chance to get to us,” Sullivan suggested.

Martin said flatly, “We do have oil, Major, but it’s in the hold and my men can’t possibly get at it.”

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