Page 81 of Valour

26

IN WHICH AN ORDER IS GIVEN AND THERE IS A GAMBLE

25th October 1915, Weddell Sea

“It’s impossible,” Winston said, face grim. “The planks have opened five inches. I can’t⁠—”

“Winston, you must. You can do anything. Please,” Hester said, but as she looked down upon Winston in the gloom, his head bowed and his shoulders slumped, she realised. Realised that he was right. She helped him out of the bilge with shaking hands and wrapped a blanket around his shoulders.

There was so much water flooding in.

Gallons upon gallons of it. She wasn’t sure if it was the biting cold or the pain in her heart that made her shake so.

“It’s too much now. She can’t take it. She’s done admirably,” he said, his voice cracking as he ran a hand down the wood panelling of the wall. He bundled her into his arms, squeezing tightly, and she let him. Leant against him and let him hold her up as her legs threatened to buckle beneath her.

A great grinding and banging had her covering her ears, and the floorboards ratcheted, twisting and splintering.

“No,” Hester whispered. Winston’s arms wrapped her tighter, his heart beating beneath her hands. She wanted time to slow, to reverse, even. To go back to the days of sailing on the open sea, the salt breeze in her hair and the sun on her face, the wheel under her palms.

She bit back a sob.

Winston brushed her hair back from her face. “I know. I know what she meant to you.”

“Everything. She means everything.” She hardly knew which way was up, a yawning trench of grief opening inside of her.

“There will be another ship, somewhere out there. Somehow.”

She shook her head. Wanted him to stop talking. “How could there be? I could never afford⁠—”

“Don’t think about it now. There are things to do. To prepare.”

He pulled her along beside him, holding her up. They passed through the corridors that she could navigate blindfolded, up the companionway steps, dodging the ones she knew would squeak, and out to the deck, grey clouds blanketing the sky. She paused for a moment, laying her hands on the wheel, running her fingers along every knot in the wood, like old friends she had memorised the feel of.

The two crews were hurrying about the deck, though the Valour’s crew were slower, more wary. Fliss approached, her mouth set in a grim line, arms folded.

“What’s happening?” Hester asked.

Fliss gestured to the port deck. “Septimus gave the order to lower the lifeboats and to get the dogs and stores onto the ice.”

“He what?”

The starboard boats had both been lowered.

Red hot rage filled her veins. She whirled to the port deck, where Septimus was overseeing the lowering of the two boats there. What the fuck was he doing with her boats?

She ducked out of Winston’s arm and marched over. “What in Holy Hell are you doing?”

He did not look at her. “Lowering the boats, what does it look like I’m doing?”

“I don’t remember dying and you becoming captain.”

He turned to face her and said smoothly, “That’s right, you didn’t die. Because I saved you. It was time to lower the boats, and you were nowhere to be found.”

He had not just thrown that in her face, had he? “I was helping fix the leaks! You are not in charge here. You do not give the orders on my ship.”

“What does it matter, who gives the order?” He scoffed. “And who names their lifeboats such: Death, Tempest, Misfortune and Thirteen. What a stupid joke.”

“I wouldn’t expect you to understand my sparkling wit and wry humour. And don’t change the subject. You know as well as I do that it matters.”