The Lifeboat by Charlotte Rogan

Author:Charlotte Rogan [Rogan, Charlotte]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Suspense, Adult, Mystery, Historical, Thriller, Adventure, cookie429, Kat, Extratorrents
ISBN: 9781410450197
Publisher: Thorndike Press
Published: 2012-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Day Ten, Afternoon

NOW I KNEW why Mr. Hardie had said that the wind up until that point had been nothing but a breeze, but I think even he was unprepared for its force. The little boat was thrown like a nutshell by waves the size of ocean liners. I thought of the deacon and Mr. Sinclair, and how Hardie could have avoided becoming a murderer—yes, that is the word I used—for it seemed to me that the exact number of people in the boat mattered little if at all. We would all die in seconds anyway, and what I regretted most was that I was not to die with my view of human nature intact. I had been allowed to believe in man’s innate goodness for the twenty-two years of my life, and I had hoped to carry the belief with me to my grave. I wanted to think that all people could have what they wanted, that there was no inherent conflict between competing interests, and that, if tragedies had to happen, they were not something mere human beings could control.

I thought these things, but not, that afternoon, in any coherent way. The boat pitched and rolled as it alternately climbed the foamy heights of the waves and then descended into hellish troughs so that we were surrounded on four sides by walls of black water. It was terrifying to see. Mr. Hardie and Mr. Nilsson took up one oar each while the Colonel and Mr. Hoffman struggled with a third. Together they made a valiant effort to keep our nose to the wind, for we could only hope to ride it out, and we grasped at one another the way I grasped at the shreds of my beliefs. Mrs. Grant and Mr. Preston did what they could with the last of the oars, but they were no match for the fury of the storm. Still, I was grateful for their efforts and admired the way they wrestled with the long blades. Despite their lack of effectiveness, neither one of them gave up. With one hand I gripped the seat so as not to be thrown from it like the rider of a wild horse, and with the other I held on to Mary Ann, who was sitting next to me and clutching at me with both hands as though I were the buoyant plank that would save her.

Adding to our distress were the torrential rain that battered us from above and the jagged lightning that split the sky. We could hardly see the length of the boat, so if I were to say that the waves rose to twenty feet or thirty, it would be mere speculation on my part. Hardie later told us that they had reached at least forty feet, but how he knew this I cannot say. Sometimes the boat would crest a wave and hang for an instant before pitching downward from that height like a sled down an icy slope. Our stomachs lurched

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