Page 68 of The Cornish Bride

Chapter Thirty-One

Ysella watched Sam walk into the water in just his breeches and shirt, the rope, suddenly looking thin and flimsy, secured around his slim waist. The waves crashed around him, taller than he was, and he disappeared under one. Her heart leapt into her mouth and her hand shot up to cover it.

“He’s on a rope, girl, don’t fret,” Jenifry said from her right, a comforting arm around Ysella’s shoulders. “They can pull him back if they think he’s in trouble and they need to.”

Ysella turned and grabbed her free hand. “I’m frightened for him.”

“I know you are, maid. I know you are. He’s a brave lad, doin’ that fer fellers he don’t know. ’Tis hard to be in love with a hero.”

In love? Ysella opened her mouth to tell Jenifry she’d got it wrong and Sam was just her friend, but shut it without speaking. Right now, she had to admit he felt like more than a friend, but not quite her husband. Or did he? She didn’t understand her jumbled feelings at all.

She swiped her wet hair out of her eyes, straining to see Sam’s head, bobbing now beyond the breakers but still being cast up on the sea’s strong swell. The men on the beach were letting out the rope a bit at a time, half a dozen of them helping Jago keep a tight hold on it. If he got into trouble, she had to keep reminding herself, they’d haul him back in. And the rope was strong. It wouldn’t break. Would it?

On the beach, fights were breaking out over the salvaged goods. Someone had broached a barrel of brandy and half the men were heading towards reeling drunk. Some of the women too. Shouting, even laughing, as though the tragedy of the ship and her sailors didn’t matter to them.

It seemed an age before Sam drew anywhere near the ship. Overhead, the sky had already lightened a little as if dawn were approaching, and the thunder sounded further away. The storm must be heading east. Ysella didn’t have to strain her eyes so hard to make out Sam’s head, still above the waves.

Just as he was reaching out to take a hold of the side of the ship, a huge wave swept him away from her and up against the rocks, shaking him like a rag doll. Ysella had to clamp her hand across her mouth to stop herself from screaming. He disappeared into the raging, foamy water for what felt like an age. Then, just as she was giving up all hope and her tears were mingling with the scudding rain that had started up again, there was his head. He was striking out towards the ship, and, on it, hands were reaching down to grab hold of him.

The strong arms of sailors heaved him aboard, and he disappeared from sight.

How many crew might need rescuing and what was he going to do? She put her knuckles to her mouth and gnawed them, biting the loose skin. Jenifry’s arm around her shoulders tightened. “I knowed he could do it.”

Were the waves rolling up the beach less furious now? More flotsam was coming ashore—broken bits of wood, the bright colors of a bale of silk, unraveled by the tide. Was that a body, floating on the swell like a broken doll? People, ignoring the body, gathered up the wood into piles. No doubt it would be used for something.

Not being able to see Sam now was worse even than when all she could see of him was his head among the waves. Those desperate men on board the ship could at this moment be knocking him out and stealing his rope. She might never see him again. That thought was like a mortal stab in the heart. Was this love she was feeling or just friendship? Did your heart feel as though it might break over a mere friend’s danger? She had no idea.

An eternity passed before Sam appeared above the ship’s rail again, more visible now the early morning light was growing. Others were with him. But they had the rope, not him. It no longer encircled Sam’s waist but had been stretched taut, as though they’d secured it to something on board ship. Instead, Sam was tying loops of rope onto sailor after sailor, and as he finished, each man was leaping into the sea, attached to the safety of the rope.

Jago must have seen what Sam was doing and realized something more was needed. Even Ysella could see that to attach thirty or forty men to a rope only anchored by six men on the beach was not going to be safe.

“More men!” shouted Jago, his head twisting to where the beach still thronged with eager magpies intent on bettering their fortunes. “We need more men here to hold the rope! To me!”

Struggling from Jenifry’s embrace, Ysella ran to take a hold of the rope. All around her people ran to help, even the drunks, lining up behind her, gnarled hands gripping the wet hemp. Her own hands were soft and small, but she hung on tight, careless of how much the rough wet rope rubbed them raw.

More men on the ship were leaping into the water, each of them attached by a loop of rope to the lifeline, their heads bobbing in the swell and surf. Ysella strained to spot Sam, still on the deck of the ship, directing the escape. Why wasn’t he coming himself? Why was he putting himself in such terrible danger when she needed him here?

But the men in the water weren’t safe yet. The ship’s goods, some of it in heavy barrels, bobbed around them, the waves threatening to send them crashing into the men. And if one man stopped, the others couldn’t get past him.

In the surf, the villagers dragged the first of the men out of the water, the rescued staggering as though their legs were too weak to hold them up. Men, women too, supported their sagging bodies, sharp knives wielded to slice through the wet loops keeping them attached to the rescue rope. The line of burly men holding the lifeline dug their heels into the wet sand, and Ysella did the same, leaning back as the heavy, soaking rope threatened to pull them into the sea.

The rain, that had almost stopped once before returning as drizzle, fell more heavily, hammering at her in blinding gusts, her wet hair in her eyes. She couldn’t see the man in front of her, never mind the wreck with Sam still on it. “Heave!” Someone shouted close at hand. “Hold her steady.”

“She’s goin’ over!” Someone else shouted.

A crash reverberated around the high cliffs, louder even than the roar of the sea. The ship teetered sideways where she already lay aslant on the rocks, as a huge wave crashed into her underbelly, and she was gone.

“Sam!” Ysella screamed, letting go of the rope and running into the edge of the sea. “Sam! Where is he? Where is he?”

Half-drowned sailors struggled ashore, the rope slack now in the water as though the far end had been severed, or whatever it had been fixed to had broken. Ysella scanned their haggard faces in desperation. They all looked the same—red-eyed from the salt, faces ghostly pale in the dim pre-dawn light, sodden clothes clinging to their battered bodies. In amongst them bobbed the goods their ship had been carrying. A couple of limp bodies, like bundles of rags, bobbed face down between the goods.

No, oh no. Not Sam. Let it not be Sam.

She ran to the first body and heaved it over onto its back in the water. A young face stared back sightlessly at her, dark haired and pallid. Not Sam. She ran to the next. “Sam!” This was not him either.

Jenifry ran to her, splashing through the water. “’Tisn’t him, Miss Ysella. Not him.”

“He was still on the ship!” Ysella almost shrieked, desperation forcing her on. “I have to find him. I have to. He can’t be dead.”