Page 106 of Valour

“He’s just exhausted,” Hester said, taking his place on the bench, picking up the oar. “Put your boots back on, Boss. You can steer a while.”

34

IN WHICH IT HAS BEEN FOUR HUNDRED AND NINETY-SEVEN DAYS, AND DEATH AND MISFORTUNE ARE MISSING

15th April 1915, Elephant Island

She could barely hang on.

Hester fought against the tiller as the seas screamed and thrashed, the gale bearing them towards Elephant Island at long last, land so tantalizingly close. Salt spray hit her hard across the face, slap after slap of it.

Winston sat down next to her, his hands on hers as they tamed the Tempest against the battering wind. The mainsail was stretched taut, flogging viciously every so often as they reared up into the wind. Away to port lay the shore of Elephant Island. Hester could sense Septimus behind them in the Misfortune, but had lost sight of the Thirteen and the Death in the heavy seas. She threw up a prayer to whoever was listening.

A vicious wave broke over the side of the Tempest, freezing saltwater invading every part of her that wasn’t already drenched. Hester gasped a breath, horror coiling in her gut. The boat was filled almost to the gunwales with water. “Bail like Hell!”

The crew jumped into action, using buckets to scoop water. “Faster. We’ll tip over at the next one, and God only knows if we’d survive the rocks.”

She grimaced as Charlotte vomited over the side, then carried on bailing water, bucket after bucket. Snowball and Marjorie whined and shook in the bow. Her heart hurt for them. She and Charlotte had refused to let them be shot in the final cull of dogs, and Marjorie’s pups and Romeo were in with Fliss, Satan with Emlyn, but now she wasn’t sure it was such a kindness for them to be alive. Septimus had been unable to let go of Sooty, either.

Septimus.

She tugged on the tether in her chest, feeling his answer as a soft tug back, relief washing over her just as fiercely as the waves.

They were coasting along a frowning line of rocky cliffs, along sheer glacier faces that glowed blue from within.

“I think we can aim for that beach. Do you see it?” Winston shouted above the roar of the wind and the waves. “But it’s risky. Lord knows what’s under the water on the approach.”

Hester nodded. They’d have to risk it. “Lower the sails. We’ll go steady. Blast this gale.” She had no magic left to quell it, even if she’d wanted to.

Winston and Peggy battled with the canvas, stripping it from the mast, and took to the oars.

“Keep a lookout for rocks under the surface,” Hester called, and Charlotte and Arnold gripped the sides of the boat and strained forwards.

Hester clung to the tiller as though life depended on it.

And it did.

She couldn’t believe they’d made it.

Charlotte staggered through the waves and onto the stony beach, the others behind her, dragging the Tempest out of the water. Tears streamed down her face, and Marjorie and Snowball frolicked around her. “Oh my God. Oh, I just—I can’t believe it.” She sank to her knees on the pebbles and kissed the ground.

Hester smirked, elbowing Arnold in the ribs. “I’ll bet you wished she’d do that to your⁠—”

Arnold cut her off. “Shut it, Captain.”

Charlotte only laughed and picked up handfuls of pebbles, letting them run through her fingers like gold coins. Around her, Winston and Peggy stumbled under armfuls of gear from the boat, setting it down and then wobbling about the shore like drunkards, their eyes wide with disbelief.

The island was grey and dismal, like the ocean surrounding it, with dark cliffs rising up, and no sign of plant life.

“What of the others?” Charlotte asked, rising to her feet and looking out to the tumultuous sea.

“Here comes the Thirteen now,” Hester said, her spyglass drawn and scanning the horizon.

The lifeboat helmed by Fliss appeared, and Hester whooped and hollered, waving her arms like a mad thing.

Before long, the Valour’s crew was reunited, Fliss, Mei, Valerie, Betty and Rufus limping onto the beach, and they set about making a camp up by the grey cliffs, drying clothes on boulders along the shore and setting up a galley.

Charlotte leant into Arnold’s side, sipping her first hot drink of milk in over a week, the heat of it travelling down to her belly. Nothing had ever tasted better.