Love’s Anchor: Secrets Unveiled on the High Seas

Jamie dropped the rope he had been checking for knots, quickly kicking it into the corner with the heel of his boot, then shrank into the same corner himself, where he was shaded from the evening sun and left alone, in shadow. At eighteen, Jamie was regularly the youngest sailor of the crew. But if there was one thing he had learned in his four years of sailing, it was how to keep quiet – how not to make waves.

Captain Muldoon was raving. The lady, Jamie saw, was not a lady at all. She was just a girl, not much older than Jamie himself. The captain had her by the wrist, three fierce red scratches lining his face, and as he tried to drag her out toward the main mast, she took hold of anything she could – rigging lines, casks of hard tack, even the wheel, fixed fast on a northeasterly course – and tried to resist the captain.

“LET ME GO,” she said, and swung her arm, catching the captain with a hard slap across the jawline.

With a deep, guttural moan, the captain threw the girl down on the deck, in front of the main mast. Casting about with his eyes, he took hold of a large wooden mallet, among the cooper’s tools. Seizing the mallet and raising it high above his head, his eyes crazed, the captain made to bring the hammer crashing down on the head of the girl, who scooted away furiously, sliding her bum across the deck.

“Woah there, captain.” Mr. Spitz, the ship’s first mate, grabbed the captain’s arm. His other arm he wrapped around the captain’s waist, holding him fast as the larger man squirmed underneath him. “Not sure we’ll be wanting to treat our charge that way, sir.”

By this time a crowd had assembled around the girl, blocking her escape. Hearing the commotion, the whole crew – three dozen strong – formed a circle around the main mast, leaving an open space for the three combatants. The girl looked around furtively, like a scared dog. Captain Muldoon struggled this way and that in his first mate’s grasp, ordering to be released, slurring his words slightly in his usual drunken stupor. Mr. Spitz skillfully disarmed the captain and handed the mallet back to the cooper.

Nothing makes the men assemble faster, Jamie thought, than the presence of a lady. From his position in the corner, the circle of tall seamen made it impossible for him to see the girl. Hoisting himself up on the side rail, Jamie scampered up to the edge of the upper deck, leaning against a taut line of rigging. It was not in his nature to be so visible, but much like the rest of the crew, Jamie had to get a look at the lady.

She wore a dress the color of Captain Muldoon’s rum, its sleeves plumped around the shoulders, lines of gold sequin slashing across the chest. Bunched around her dainty, strikingly bare feet were the tattered remnants of a woolen undergarment, which was also visible underneath the torn bust of the dress. On other voyages Jamie had taken with Captain Muldoon, the besotted old goat had taken a lady passenger on as his concubine. It appeared this girl would be the next. Only – this wasn’t a passenger voyage, but rather a merchant vessel delivering a load of furs back from the colonies. What was she doing aboard?

“All right and on ye way, Mr. Spitz!” cried the Scottish captain. “Ye’ve made ye point passing well.”

Mr. Spitz, an old man, and kind, his eyebrows bushy, sun-blackened skin impossibly wrinkled, with eyes that seemed closed even when they were open, stepped back deferentially from the captain and raised his hands, the captain like a steer in heat and Mr. Spitz no longer willing to risk being bucked or bitten.

“Gentlemen of the crew.” Captain Muldoon raised his voice to address everyone present. “It comes to pass that we have in our midst a stowaway of sorts – a young lady who’s had to beg passage aboard our motherly Francine. Ye men know full well what happens to a lone lady aboard a vessel such as ours; the rights of a ship captain are well established.” Here the men began to snicker and elbow each other.

“But ye captain is a generous man.” The men, starting to feel entertained, nodded, grunting approval.

“Ye captain is a patient man.” More grunts, and slight whoops from the men.

“Ye captain is a loving man” – Captain Muldoon thrust his hips forward, his hands resting on an imaginary woman in front of him, while the men hooted in laughter – “and he loves his crew above all.”

Captain Muldoon went on: “So I ask ye, men of the Francine, to speak now or forever hold your peace: Who, among ye would be willing to bind yourself to this lady – to be her sworn protector and guardian here, across the Atlantic, where danger abounds, and lives be lost in such time as it takes to blink one’s eye?” The captain, clearly now working to entertain the men, flipped up his eyepatch and opened both eyes wide, blinking and strolling around the circle as the men of the crew laughed and clapped.

“Some of ye would say,” the captain continued, “that it is a captain’s right to choose his plunder. That if ye captain should choose to take this wee lass” (Captain Muldoon grabbed the girl by the wrist and shook her) “and bed her in his chambers – the most plush and comfortable of any on the ship, I might add – such a choice would be more than justified, given the well-established rights of a sea captain.”

Jamie, watching the speech unfold from his position above the deck, felt a growing sense of unease.

“But I tell ye, I am not such a captain. In fact, nothing would make me happier than to discharge my sworn duty to protect this ruddy, riotous lass, and to spread this great wealth” (here the captain grabbed the skirt of the lady’s dress and tried to yank it up above her waist) “to one of ye in the crew.”

The crew, by this time, were all roused. Every sailor on board laughed and jeered and elbowed each other – excepting Mr. Spitz, who stood slightly inside the circle with his arms folded, eyes seeming shut.

“So what say ye? Will one of ye take the lass into your charge? Or will she be returned to my chamber, unwanted, unbid, and – I trust – a little wiser for it.” The captain, finishing his speech, took a quick step toward the lady, who gasped in fear. He then stepped back, laughing. The men slowly began to quiet.

From his position high on the upper deck, leaning against the rigging, Jamie felt a strange tug in his heart, like a longboat being pulled by a barque. Why did none of the men speak up? The men must have known that the lady, left alone to be Captain Muldoon’s “plunder,” would surely be deflowered, would have her innocence destroyed, would be broken into pieces and would never be the same. The captain, Jamie knew, had a wicked temper, and vile intent. Jamie, who had been sailing with the captain for almost a year, had seen his great talent at reading the waves, seen how coolheaded he could be when storms invariably hit. But so too had Jamie seen his heart, as black as the water on a moonless night.

The silence dragged on. Would no one take responsibility for the lady? Captain Muldoon, savoring the silence, strode round the circle, knowing that once the lady went unclaimed, he would have full authority to take possession of her for the remainder of the voyage, and to treat her however he saw fit.

“Please,” the lady said, in a broken voice. “My father will surely pay-”

“SILENCE, WENCH,” said the captain. “The only man your father will be paying is the ship’s captain, for deciding – out of the goodness of his heart – to even allow you passage on this late, late voyage, during the season when storms be more prevalent, the weather hounds ye, and it be bad luck to board a lady.”

Jamie tightened his fingers around the rope. It was clear to him, now, that none of his fellow crewmates would take responsibility for the lady. Could he be the one? He himself? Jamie?

Even having been with Captain Muldoon aboard the Racine for a half dozen transatlantic voyages, he was still the shortest-tenured member of the crew by years. What did the rest of them know that he didn’t? Jamie had gotten this far in his sailing career by keeping his head, by staying calm in the face of danger, and by keeping himself to himself. What sort of risk would he take, robbing the captain of his prize? But then again, what sort of man would he be, to leave the young lady in the clutches of such an evil, evil man when it was in his power to save her?

“Last call, gentlemen! The wee lass, in ye keep, else she stays my chambermaid, without argument.”

Jamie felt his teeth clench.

“Going once!”

Words bubbled up in his throat.

“Going twice!”

Against his will, Jamie felt his mouth open. “I WILL TAKE HER.”

The captain, along with the rest of the crewmen, wheeled around to locate the owner of the voice. Three dozen hands lifted at once, to block the setting sun. Mr. Spitz, his arms still folded, smiled.

Jamie, expecting the captain’s anger, was shocked to hear him burst out into an evil-sounding laughter. Even more mortifying was the fact that all the rest of the sailors joined in, some with tears in their eyes.

“What be ye name, sailor?” said the captain.

“Jamie.”

The captain strode over to the side of the deck opposite Jamie. Casually, he pulled out a knife. “I think ye better come join ye lady, lad.” With one quick motion, the captain severed a taut rope knotted to the side deck. This rope happened to be the precise piece of rigging that Jamie himself was leaning on. As a sail floated out of alignment above him, Jamie fell heavily from the upper deck down next to the lady.

Before he could rise, the captain was on him, placing a heavy boot on his shoulder. “So generous of ye, my boy, to volunteer to protect this lady, in sickness and in health, ’til death – or berth – do you part. Ain’t it downright gallant of our comrade, lads?” The men of the crew laughingly shouted their assent.

“But there’s one thing still needed to consummate your vow,” the captain went on. The men snickered. “Mr. Spitz? Bring forth, from its box of sacred rites, the tie that binds us all ­- HOLY MATRIMONY!”

As the crew began stamping their feet and applauding, the first mate – his expression inscrutable – rustled inside a small chest, withdrawing iron tools one by one.

Jamie rubbed the wrist that he had fallen on. His face blushed bright red, and he dared not look at the lady crouched on the deck nearby. The lady, for her part, seemed to be in a state of shock, and babbled to herself about marriage, hugging and rocking herself. What had possessed Jamie to open his mouth?

Finally from the box Mr. Spitz withdrew a pair of heavy iron shackles. “Here you are, Captain Muldoon.”

“Thank you, Mr. Spitz. Gentlemen of the crew! Let this be a lesson to you all. Though the great goddess of the sea may be a cruel mistress at times, there is nothing that shackles a man more than a woman.”

To the continued laughter of the men, Captain Muldoon slapped one side of the iron shackle around Jamie’s left wrist – the one he had been rubbing – and quickly, before either knew what was happening, slapped the other side of the shackles around the right wrist of the lady. He leaned close to the two of them. “There ye be, missy. Instead of the warm comfort of a captain’s bed, ye may spend the remainder of ye bonny journey shackled to a lackey.”

With an evil cackle, the captain withdrew the small keys from the lock on Jamie’s wrist. Plunging the key quickly into the other lock, and making sure both were stuck tight, he strung the key around his neck.

“Now all of ye – back to work!”

2.

For the first two weeks of the month they spent shackled together, Jamie lived a waking nightmare. The lady, whose name he quickly learned to be Catherine Davenport, could have at least shown a little gratitude, Jamie thought. From the way she treated Jamie, it almost seemed that she would have preferred to be left in the hands of Captain Muldoon.

In the hours after shackling them together, Captain Muldoon took special care to further humiliate them both. Jamie was ordered to return to the task he had been performing, checking a rope for knots. As other sailors looked on and laughed, Captain Muldoon ordered Jamie to go faster and faster, to draw more rope through his hands, which only raised the shackles (shackles that the crew insisted on referring to as “Holy Matrimony”) into the air, dragging embarrassed Catherine’s hand along with it.

Jamie and Catherine said little to each other that first day, more in shock than anything. When the time came to go to sleep, at once they realized that it would be impossible to remove their clothes, excepting Jamie’s breeches and Catherine’s red dress, which had already been torn to tatters by the captain. Captain Muldoon made sure to call the crew to attention the first time Catherine had to sit down at the chamber pot, Jamie standing awkwardly in front of her, shielding her, his left hand pulled behind him by the shackle.

That night, to sleep, Catherine started out in Jamie’s hammock, strung up at head height. The sailor who slept directly below Jamie – a kindly fellow – allowed Jamie the use of his own hammock. As Catherine gamely attempted to hoist herself up into the hammock, trying to preserve the little dignity she had left, she was pulled back down by the weight of Holy Matrimony. Within a few attempts, with all the nearby crewmembers laughing, she began to cry, anguished tears of pure frustration. The two eventually got situated. After only a few minutes, though, Catherine yanked on the chain that bound them together and told Jamie that he would have to take the top hammock – the weight being too much.

It wasn’t until their midday meal, the following day, that Jamie and Catherine would finally have occasion to speak to one another as people. In the mess hall that morning, for breakfast, too many crew members were present, laughing, mocking, grabbing Holy Matrimony to lift their hands into the air.

“See here, boy,” Catherine had said to Jamie, whirling around and speaking to him in a quiet, menacing voice. “I know not who you are and haven’t any desire to learn. But as you have saddled yourself to me, you should know that I am a lady, of reputable family, and neither you nor any foul-mouthed captain will besmirch my honor.” Seating herself quickly on the low bench, her arm jolted up, from the shackle.

Though Jamie had heard her voice before, he had never heard her speak this much. And though he had seen her face before, in profile, he had never looked so deeply into her eyes. Though exhausted, confident that he would never work aboard another sailing vessel, and desperately frustrated at his luck, something inside Jamie was still stirred by being in the presence of a beautiful lady, and he was silent.

Within a handful of days, Jamie’s left wrist and Catherine’s right developed harsh red marks. Washing themselves, such as was possible, became extremely painful, and they had still found no solution to the problem of being unable to remove Catherine’s woolen undergarment (not that she would have wanted it removed, in his presence) nor Jamie’s shirt (not that he had another one to replace it with). The days, those first two weeks, were a hellish slide from painful sleep through the long, hot hours of daytime chores and ridicule from captain and crew, and finally the slight respite provided by seasick dreams.

The only relief they managed to find came from Mr. Spitz, the kindly first mate. “Here,” he said once, out of earshot of the crew. “Take this.” It was a salve, of his own making. It stung a little, but helped.

Though it was rare indeed to find any peace or reprieve from the watchful eyes of the crew, one night Catherine became so seasick, during the night, she yanked hard on Holy Matrimony to wake up Jamie.

“Take me on deck,” she said.

Clinging to the side of the deck, the vast, dark expanse of the open sea in front of them, Catherine hung over the side and wretched. Jamie turned his head, saddened by the memory of his own first voyage, which he had spent much in the same posture as this. Looking at her thin body, draped over the side – no longer pale, after two weeks under the blazing sun – Jamie had a strange urge to reach out and touch her, to persuade her that all would be well, that her sickness would pass, that it would all be over soon.

He was surprised, instead, to find the lady, when her sickness passed, starting to heave, now, with sobs.

“Don’t cry,” he said, shocked at his boldness. Jamie’s father was a cartwright in the colonies, a man who had only recently bought his way out of indentured servitude. And here was Jamie, speaking to a lady.

“I was supposed to be wed by now,” the lady sobbed. “I was to be the young Mrs. John Gregory.”

Jamie, not knowing the words to say, didn’t say anything. Against his will, he found himself yawning.

Catherine, hearing his yawn, turned to Jamie and looked at him with hurt in her eyes. “Do I bore you?”

Jamie was surprised. What did she care whether he was bored with her? Did she even realize the hour? Taking offense, all of a sudden, Jamie furrowed his brow. “I brought you out here, didn’t I?”

Catherine, forgetting herself, made to dash away from Jamie, bringing her hands up to her face. Only, before she could make either motion, Holy Matrimony pulled at her arms and whipped her backward, pulling Jamie forward in the process. The force of the blow was such that they crashed into each other.

“Easy now,” said a voice from the upper deck.

It was Mr. Spitz, manning the wheel.

“It’s a long voyage, me lad and lass.”

Jamie and Catherine relaxed their expressions and began rubbing the sore spots on their wrists, where Holy Matrimony had once again pulled on them. The first mate struck a heroic figure, standing at the wheel, lit only by the strong light of a waxing gibbous moon, his squinted eyes trained on the horizon.

“Lad: I know it mayn’t be what you intended, when you signed up for this voyage. But know that every one of us crewmembers made our bones the same way, long ago.” A thoughtful look passed over Jamie.

“And lass?” the first mate went on: “Your father bought your passage in a state of desperation, this being the very last transatlantic passage of the season. When you find yourself cursing your luck, think about what it would have been like to be stranded in the colonies until springtime, or worse – to be the captain’s wench.” Catherine, too, furrowed her brow angrily and looked away, then quickly softened.

“Like it or not, the twos of you is bound together, now. I suggest you find a way to enjoy it.”

3.

The day after Mr. Spitz’s suggestion, things changed for Catherine and Jamie. As odd as it was to be physically chained to another human being, the second fortnight passed much easier than the first.

Together, they developed a system – small things they could do to keep down the pain in their wrists. Walking, Catherine would put her arm through Jamie’s, in almost the way two lovers would walk. During Jamie’s chores – which the captain assiduously checked up on, making sure he never shirked a single one of his duties – Catherine would take gentle hold of his forearm, ensuring the shackles did not pull.

The awkwardness of sleeping nearby each other, washing and using the chamber pot in such close proximity – after weeks of following the same routine, the embarrassment gave way to a begrudging familiarity. Even the crew grew used to the presence of the two of them, and hardly took an interest.

The captain himself, seeing now that the two of them would last the whole voyage shackled together, gave up the chance of bedding Catherine and changed his entire approach to their predicament.

“Captain?” Catherine said once, holding lightly onto Jamie’s forearm as he mopped the deck. “How much of the voyage remains ere we make port in Liverpool?”

The captain had a map laid out, held down and kept from curling in the corners with tools, and held a sextant up to his eye, from time-to-time jotting notes with a quill on the parchment.

“Three weeks,” he said. Jamie paused in his mopping to look up at the captain. He and Catherine made eye contact, silently commenting to each other on how simple and unadorned his comment had been.

“Is that all?” Catherine went on. “So we are more than halfway through, then?”

“Aye, aye. Making good time, pagan gods be praised.”

The captain rolled up the chart he had been using to navigate and strolled off to his cabin without so much as a look at Jamie and Catherine. The two of them looked at each other again and started to smile.

That night, and for each of the next few nights thereafter, Jamie and Catherine found their way up on deck. It being painful to sleep, for both of them, with Holy Matrimony pulling at their wrists, they had found it a good solution to stay awake as long as possible. And on days when the work was light, it behooved them to rest on the deck, away from the listening ears of the night watch rudder man, and rest, looking up at the stars, until they were both finally tired enough to fall asleep in their hammocks.

It was Catherine who began to speak, that first night; it had been her suggestion to wait up for sleep.

“I was supposed to be a bride by now,” she began. She said it softly, sadly, with none of the bitterness of their first two weeks. Jamie, who’d had his eyes closed but not from sleep, opened up and looked at her.

“But it’s all the same, anyway.” Catherine, who had been looking out over the sea, looked down, lost.

“Why do you say?” Jamie still felt shocked, every time he spoke to her, she so far above him in class.

Catherine told her story without looking at Jamie, as if there were a difference between talking at him and talking to him. “His name was John Gregory – officer in the British army, a captain in the colonies.”

The Davenports and the Gregories, Catherine explained, were two of the oldest families in County Nottingham. Catherine and John had been betrothed almost from birth, an arranged marriage that would have profited both of their families financially. John’s tour of service in the colonies was executed as a simple extension of his education; he wasn’t intended to see any real fighting, or come to any harm.

Catherine had met John on several formal social occasions, when she was a girl, and had thought him coarse and uncaring. When a political scandal had brought her family to social ruin, disgracing her father, the Gregories decided cruelly that the only way they would allow Catherine to still marry John would be to send her to the colonies, abandoning both children there to start their lives a world away. Catherine had set sail never expecting to see her family again, miserable and broken, but taken care of.

Only, upon arriving in the colonies and reconnecting with John, Catherine found him even more coarse and corrupt than he had been as a boy. He was a bloodthirsty coward, who treated the men in his charge poorly and incited fear and hatred in the colonists under his protection. At night, John would get drunk and cry out in fear, paranoid at being usurped by his men or murdered by the red-skinned natives.

Catherine, who at first wanted to help John, wanted to fix him, couldn’t help but feel a little relieved when, last winter, an outbreak of typhoid fever left John weakened, and pneumonia finished him off.

“I remember standing at his grave, dressed all in black,” Catherine said to Jamie, “and feeling nothing.” This admission, something she’d never shared with another living soul, made her feel closer to Jamie.

As winter turned to spring and letters were slowly exchanged with her parents back in England, Catherine found herself lost and alone in a strange country. The officer’s quarters she had inhabited with John were turned over to the next man in line, and Catherine had needed to board at a local schoolhouse, chopping her own wood to keep the classroom warm for her students, poor colonist children.

“And now I return home to face the scandal and opprobrium that result from my father’s choices – not a bride, not a mother, and not even wanted by my own family.” Catherine cried softly, finishing her story.

Jamie, who had listened attentively to everything Catherine had said – understanding most of the large words that she had used – felt a strange series of feelings swirling around in his mind. It was sad, the story she had told. Catherine had gone through struggles in her life, just the same as Jamie had. He wanted to tell her his story – how his mother’s death had nearly broken his father; how being at sea was the only thing that made him feel peace. He wanted to help her, to tell her how beautiful she was, and how strong.

Even more than wanting to say something to her, though, Jamie found that he had the strange desire to put his arm around her, to hold and comfort her. Looking down around him, as if to find the answer for what he should do, how he should respond, he suddenly felt her eyes on him. The tears flowed silently down her cheeks, but she seemed to be smiling at him, as if she were happy that he had listened to her.

Unable to say anything but wanting to show her that everything was okay, Jamie reached up, without thinking, with his left hand, to wipe the tears off her face. Holy Matrimony lifted her right hand, along with his left, and the loud clanking of the chain that bound them to each other surprised them both.

Smiling and letting out a bit of a chuckle, the two made their way back down below deck finally to sleep.

4.

Another two weeks passed, leaving only a single week remaining until the Racine should make port in Liverpool. Though the winds were harsh, the sun merciless, and the sores on their wrists stubborn and refusing to heal, the time passed in relative peace and tranquility under the bonds of Holy Matrimony.

Every night, by unspoken ritual, Catherine and Jamie snuck up onto the deck and sat under the stars. Jamie, who at first had been too afraid to say anything at all to Catherine, gradually saw his tongue loosen. They never talked about Jamie’s past, or his family. Instead, Jamie would share about life at sea, pointing up at the stars, showing Catherine the constellations that could be used, in a pinch, to navigate.

Going back down below deck, after their nightly reverie, to nestle into their hammocks and sleep, Catherine was surprised to find that she was coming to enjoy having the presence of Jamie constantly with her. There was a sense of safety in his presence she had never known before. Though she knew little about him, she was struck by the way that in their six weeks of being shackled together, she had never seen him raise his voice, never tell coarse jokes like the other sailors. He had never touched her, always given her privacy when she washed or used the chamber pot. Catherine had begun to trust him.

And when the time came, at night, for Jamie to put his strong hands around her waist and hoist her up into the hammock, Catherine was surprised to find that a part of her, deep inside, wished to keep his hands there, on her hips, and feel their rough warmth. But wouldn’t it all disappear, at journey’s end?

Jamie, for his part, was quietly content. Far from the despair that had accompanied the first few days of their bondage, when Jamie had feared he would never be able to sail again, the indifference of the captain and crew and the encouraging words of Mr. Spitz had mollified him, and Jamie had even secretly – in the privacy of his heart – started to enjoy the presence of the beautiful lady chained to his wrist.

It was her eyes, more than anything. They were big, and searching, and took in everything around her with a quiet intelligence that was unlike any other lady Jamie had known. When they had their late-night collogues, up on the quiet deck, with only the moon and stars for company, Jamie felt those beautiful eyes trained on him, as if he were worthy of being seen, as if what he had to say had value. It felt warm.

With only one week left in their voyage, though, the clear skies they had been enjoying – giving the ship good northeasterly headwinds, during the day, and giving Catherine and Jamie clear, starry skies, at night – gave way to huge grey clouds. “It would appear, Mr. Spitz, that our luck has run out,” said Captain Muldoon. The winds grew colder, and it became impossible to go up onto the deck at night.

“Jamie,” Catherine whispered one night, “what will become of this storm?”

It touched Jamie to hear the lady use his Christian name, and stirred something deep within him to have her trust – to be the person that she confided her fears to.

To make her more comfortable, Jamie had put Catherine in his hammock, which was a foot lower than her own. He himself tried to sleep standing up, leaning groggily against the wall, his hand placed gently on her stomach. It thrilled him, to feel the softness of her skin, the warmth of her body, and kept their hands close enough together that the cold iron of Holy Matrimony didn’t touch the sores on their wrists.

“Hard to say,” Jamie said. “It looks to be a bad one, shaping up.”

If Jamie had been more honest, he would have told her that in all four of his years of sailing, he had never seen the sky so dark for so many consecutive hours. The relatively calm roil of the sea only further disquieted him. It felt as though the sky were simply waiting, saving up the real storm to be released.

The next day, with what should have been five days remaining until their berth in Liverpool, Captain Muldoon delivered bad news to the crew, calling them all on the deck and sharing that with the angry, fluctuating winds, not only was their progress slowing, but they had in fact blown off course, likely by a matter of days. Without clear skies to navigate under, the captain couldn’t even tell where they were.

For two more days the sky held its impassive head of clouds without a single drop of rain falling. The crew, becoming more and more nervous, began to conjecture. Some called it a hurricane; others said it was surely the wrath of the sea goddess, angered by the presence of a woman on board the ship.

In the daytime, to speak was rare, words only being used when they needed to be, the fierce winds ripping them out of their speakers’ mouths in an instant. A fear hung over everyone on board like an evil incantation, and no one wanted so much as to look at each other, fearing the storm that was coming.

Though there were still chores to be done, the crew went about their business without thought or attention. At times, Catherine became cold, on deck, and shivered mightily. Jamie, bold enough to put his arms around her and warm her with the heat of his body, looked around to see who might see him. But even Captain Muldoon walked past the two young people huddled together, as if he didn’t even see.

When the rain finally came, a complicated set of emotions took over the crew. On the one hand, it was a relief to finally be through with the endurance of waiting. It’d been four days since they’d seen the sun.

On the other hand, the rain brought with it the absolute misery of wet cold. It was a hard and driving rain. Moments of relief were few, taking the form of a slightly lighter rain. But at no point did it let up.

Members of the crew sat huddled together, water sloshing around their feet, sneezing and sniffling. Everywhere you could hear grumbling, as the torture of the rain was only exacerbated by the certain knowledge that the five, now six days of cloudy skies had likely driven them hopelessly off course. At this point, any port, on any side of the British Isles, would have been a welcome relief. But the ship’s watch, up in the crow’s nest, hopelessly buffeted by the winds, could hardly see beyond the ship itself.

On the seventh day without sun, the storm – which had held them in its sway, already, for days and days – finally made its full force known. Around midday (it was impossible, truly, to know the time, in the long, undifferentiated dark of the storm), Captain Muldoon ducked his head below. “ALL HANDS, ON DECK,” he cried. Catherine and Jamie looked at each other, and a wordless fear passed between them.

Up on deck, the view was spectacular, strangely beautiful. The sea – dark and angry – was roiling and foaming like nothing Jamie had ever seen before. The storm that they faced made all other storms Jamie had sailed in seem like tiny squalls; the wind that sent large raindrops striking their face like nettles made all other winds seem like the slight breeze that rattles a teacup in its saucer. It was a real tempest.

The most concerning thing of all was the large, tall, stout beams of the mast – four beams, one for the main mast and three others, spaced at regular intervals along the course of the ship. The masts, which during regular sailing felt as strong as trees rooted in the earth, now rocked and shuddered. The masts creaked loudly, a moaning whine that made it seem as though the very ship itself was crying out in pain.

“WE’VE GOT TO DROP SAILS,” screamed the captain over the sounds of the storm, “OR WE LOSE ALL!”

Only then did Jamie realize the truth – that the captain truly was afraid; that the storm, if it snapped off the masts, would leave them stranded out on the open sea, powerless against the storm, left to die.

Scrambling to action, the crew quickly began scaling ladders, lashing ropes around themselves to protect against the threat of being lost overboard. The ship itself rocked perilously, tilting at a wild angle.

Jamie surveyed the scene, Catherine’s hand grabbing his forearm as they’d grown accustomed to. What could he do? How could he help save the ship, and in so doing, ensure he and the lady would be safe?

High above the upper deck, Jamie saw the one small mast, still unmoored from all those weeks ago, when the captain had cut the line of rigging that Jamie had leaned against to get a better view of Catherine. The small boom mast, unimportant during regular sailing, was now whipping around wildly. Jamie was shocked to see one of his fellow crewmen – the kindly fellow who had given up his hammock to Catherine – get snapped in the chest by this small boom mast and plunge off the ship into the sea.

But how to fix the mast while still shackled to Catherine? Meanwhile, the ship continued to rock, the waves surrounding it easily as high as the deck. As Jamie strode toward the upper deck, staying low so as to keep his balance, an enormous wave crashed over the side, striking him and Catherine with such force that they were thrown down and flushed all the way to the other side of the deck.

At that moment, all thoughts flushed from his mind except the mute throb for survival, the main mast began to groan, much louder than any other sound around them. Jamie looked up, clinging to the side rail, and saw the long pole of wood bent almost double. A surge of terror went through Jamie’s mind.

With an earth-shattering crack, with a sudden burst like lightning and a sound like thunder, the mast broke in two. It started to fall immediately, in the direction of Catherine and Jamie, clinging to the rail.

Though they both tried to move, between the water sloshing around their feet, the objects whipping around, unlashed, and the furious rock of the ship – which had jolted in the other direction, once the main mast broke – neither one was able to do anything except stand up, watching in terror as the enormous wooden pole hurtled toward them, groaning. Jamie and Catherine stood directly in its path.

At the last instant, seeing that the pole was due to fall between the two of them, Jamie pushed Catherine away from him. At the force of the push, Catherine’s hand, with which she had been gripping Jamie’s forearm, disengaged, and she stumbled away. But the iron chain of Holy Matrimony held fast between them. The mast itself fell on top of the chain. And the weight of the enormous mast drove the chain into the deck, flattening the entire deck rail and sending both Jamie and Catherine to the ground.

When the shock of the blow wore off, Jamie and Catherine looked up, dazed. Though Jamie’s left hand and Catherine’s right were pinned to the ground by Holy Matrimony, underneath the mast, they were able to lift themselves up to a sitting position and see each other’s face – unharmed. The storm raged.

Immediately, Jamie could tell that it would be impossible to move the mast. No matter how hard he pulled up on his shackle, the mast did not budge. A helpless feeling of panic started to overwhelm him.

At that moment, another fierce rock of the boat sent another enormous wave over the deck. Casks and oars and barrels and seamen floated around on the new flood of water, rocketing over the deck. A body hurtled toward them, skimming along the surface of the downed mast. On instinct, Jamie reached out to grab the man before he passed right over his head off the ship and into the sea. It was Captain Muldoon.

The force of the man’s weight headed overboard caused Jamie to stand, such as he could, trapped painfully between the mast, fixing him to the deck, and the captain’s weight, which he had firmly grasped with a grip on the collar of the captain’s shirt. Looking down into the captain’s terrified face, Jamie realized that along with the collar, he had a grip of the key to Holy Matrimony, around his neck.

“PULL ME UP,” the captain roared.

For an instant, Jamie faced a moment of choice. All it would take was to let go of the collar: one slight move of his hand, and the evil captain would fall to his death, leaving in Jamie’s hand the key to his freedom. How would they get free of their shackles without the key? How else would they ever get it?

The captain, seeing Jamie’s eyes flash to the key, yelled again: “PULL ME UP AND I SWEAR I’LL RELEASE YE!”

In his panic, without having the time or the ability to truly consider the captain’s words, Jamie, acting on instinct, with the strength only a life-or-death moment can give, heaved with all his might. Bracing himself on his lower wrist, stuck to the ground by the mast, Jamie pulled the captain back onto the deck.

With a cackling howl, the captain threw back his head, intoxicated to have bested death again. He swayed slightly, trying to keep his balance as the ship rocked, and Jamie shouted at him from the deck:

“GIVE US THE KEY! RELEASE US!”

Looking down on them with a crazed look in his eye, the captain grabbed the key and yanked, snapping the thin rope that held it to his neck. Holding it out in front of him, barely able to keep upright, the captain moved the key toward Jamie’s outstretched hand until it was only an inch away, then flung they key forward, into the sea.

“WHY DID YOU DO THAT?” Jamie cried. Catherine, who seemed to be in an intense state of shock, nearly catatonic, craned her neck to watch the key fly overboard into the roiling waters below.

“IF WE ARE ALL GOING TO DIE HERE TODAY, BOY,” the captain screamed with an evil malice in his face, “SHE DIES FIRST.”

From his boot, the captain withdrew a knife. He raised it high over his head with a look of obscene bliss on his face. Catherine, who, with eyes open, was nearly unconscious, had her neck fully bared to the knife. “THIS BE THE LAST TIME A WOMAN DISRESPECTS THE CAPTAIN FABIAN MULDOON!”

“NO!” Jamie cried, and pulled uselessly against the mast that weighed him down.

At that instant, the captain’s raised arm was chopped down from behind, and a large arm enveloped him around the waist. It was Mr. Spitz.

Turning around in his grasp, the captain turned his bloodshot rage at the first mate, bringing the knife slowly down toward his neck as the first mate pushed the arm away. They stayed locked in a death dance until a violent rock of the ship sent the captain reeling back against the broken side rail.

“HELP ME!” he cried, the look on his face changed in an instant from rage to panic.

Mr. Spitz, lifting a leg, kicked the captain in the chest, sending him down to a watery grave.

Next, he quickly turned to Jamie and Catherine, crouching down to them. With one end of the rope that was tied around his waist, he lashed himself around and around the iron chain of Holy Matrimony.

“WHAT ARE YOU DOING?” cried Catherine, revived by the sight of the kindly man.

“SAFER TO BE STUCK ABOARD THAN WASHED OVER!” said Mr. Spitz.

For moments that felt like an eternity, the three huddled together against the mast. The sea tossed the Racine this way and that, and the waves and the rocking of the ship sent most everything that wasn’t tied down – including the crew – into the sea. The fierce panic of being pushed around the ship quickly morphed into a quiet fear, knowing that they were completely unable to move, lashed as they were to each other, stuck as they were between the mast and the deck, and thus, to a certain extent, safe.

Jamie and Catherine looked into each other’s eyes. At the same instant, they reached out their free hands and clasped them together, hugging the mast between them. Seeing deeply into each other, they both realized, at once, the reason why they didn’t want to die: they didn’t want to lose each other.

“MR. SPITZ,” cried Catherine. “WITH CAPTAIN MULDOON DEAD AND GONE, WOULDN’T THAT MAKE YOU THE ACTING CAPTAIN?”

“AYE LASSY, I SUPPOSE IT WOULD.”

“AND IS IT TRUE, CAPTAIN SPITZ, THAT A SEAFARING CAPTAIN MAY PERFORM MARRIAGE RITES?”

“HARDLY THE TIME FOR THAT, IS IT? WITH THE OLD RACINE WANTING TO CAPSIZE.”

“MARRY US, CAPTAIN.”

Jamie was as astonished to hear the words come out of her mouth as he was to hear the next words that came from the new captain:

“DO YOU, CATHERINE DAVENPORT, TAKE THIS MAN TO BE YOUR HUSBAND, TO LIVE TOGETHER IN HOLY MATRIMONY-”

But at that moment, the HMS Francine flipped, in a great rush of wind and water, its hull now exposed to the sky, its three remaining masts pointing down, down into the depths below. And as the main mast disengaged from its berth in the deck, the two lovers sunk to the depths – shackled together, now, forever more.