Chapter 10 The Compass Rose #2
“Did I?” Caleb ploughed a hand through his hair as the deck tilted to larboard. “I couldn’t make another mistake. I couldn’t risk that God would not answer me.”
“I marvel at your lack of faith, Caleb. After all the miracles you’ve seen, all the ones God used you to perform. What about that time you commanded the roaring seas of a hurricane to be still and they did? Or when you took that single basket of fish and used it to feed an entire town?
Memories of those events flooded Caleb, bringing a smile to his lips. But then a final memory blew them all away like chaff beneath a violent storm.
“You’re thinking of ?le Du Crane,” Alden said. “’Twas not your fault.”
Caleb gave his friend a venomous look. “They were in my charge. I was tasked with their protection.”
“You were tricked, deceived.”
“I should have known.”
“You are not God, Caleb.”
“Nay. But He should have warned me.” He squeezed the bridge of his nose and turned to stare out the window again. “Or perhaps I wasn’t listening.”
“Faith now, you can hardly allow one disaster to determine the course of your life.”
Caleb gripped the cross, remembering when his father, Alexander Merrick Hyde, had gifted it to him. This was your grandfather’s who gave it to me. It is a symbol of the love our Lord has for us. Keep it with you always and remember you are a child of the Most High God.
A child, aye, but perhaps an unworthy one. “I suppose I’m loathed to trust myself anymore.”
“Then trust God. He has already forgiven you. You need to forgive yourself.”
Caleb wasn’t sure he could do that. Not when the screams of the wounded and dying still rang in his ears during the day and haunted his dreams at night.
“I beg you, Caleb, put the Ring away. And the next time disaster strikes, particularly of the demonic kind, use the Name mightier and greater than any ring or anything on earth, the name of our Lord Jesus.”
Before Caleb could answer, Brandt charged into the cabin, medical satchel in hand. “Here to dress your wounds, Captain. Just tended to the lady per your orders.”
“And how does she fare?”
“Sit,” Brandt ordered Caleb onto a chair. “And off with your shirt.”
Caleb would punish him for ordering him about in such a harsh tone, but the doctor meant well, and he was by far the best ship’s surgeon to ever sail the seas. Hence, pulling his shirt over his head, he drew his sword and laid it on the desk, then promptly obeyed.
“Oh, my. The varmints surely made mincemeat of your back.” Shaking his head, Brandt opened the satchel and pulled out several vials.
“The lady?” Caleb asked, wincing as the man dabbed some infernal liquid on his cuts.
“She had a fair amount of nips on her feet and arms, but she’ll recover nicely. As will all the men. Unless those rodents carried some disease.”
Alden sat back in his chair. “The only disease they carried was of the hellish kind.”
“Aye, I’d agree with you if I believed in hell.” The doctor moved his torturous ministrations to Caleb’s arms.
Alden raised a brow. “Then how do you explain their sudden appearance and in so great a number? From whence did they hail? And more importantly, how did they disappear?”
“Don’t know, but there’s a reasonable explanation for everything. Quit your squirming, Captain!”
“Aye, aye.” Caleb forced a grin, despite the pain.
“I’d give you some rum if you’d take it.”
Caleb was about to answer the man when an angel entered the cabin.
?
The ship jerked to the right as it rolled over what must have been a large wave, and Desi’s supposedly locked door jerked open again.
Instead of staying put as she ought to do, she wandered down the hall to the captain’s cabin.
Honestly, she had no idea why. Maybe she hoped to overhear something that would explain why or how she came to be here, wherever here was, or why rabid rats disappeared into thin air, or better yet, how she could get back to her own time.
Or planet! What she didn’t expect or even hope for was a vision of the captain’s bare chest.
Not that she hadn’t seen men’s chests before.
Tons of them, having grown up in Florida.
But this was a chest to be marveled at. A chest carved in stone, every line, every curve perfectly molded, perfectly tanned, perfectly sculpted, every muscle in its place, exuding a power and strength that clearly the man possessed both inside and out.
For a moment, she stood there mesmerized. Apparently, the feeling was mutual as the man himself gazed at her as if she’d flown in through the windows. “Walking through walls again, I see, Miss Starr?”
Alden leapt from his chair and offered it to her.
She didn’t intend to stay, but her feet pained her something fierce. “Thank you.” She slid onto the velvet padding. “Seems you and the captain were the only ones smart enough to wear shoes,” she said, nodding toward the boots they both wore. Better that than continue staring at the captain’s chest.
Crud. He seemed to have noticed, too, as a grin lifted one side of his lips.
Vain pirate! She looked away. Sunlight glinted off various navigational instruments strewn across the captain’s desk and then shimmered off something pink in a glass container she’d not noticed before.
Odd. A clue? Her gaze scanned the ever-present Bible, a complete contrast to the fully-loaded weapon’s rack to her right.
This place was a mystery. This man was a mystery.
But how she could get home was the only mystery she longed to solve at the moment.
Rising, she moved toward the pink object, curious, while at the same time trying to keep her eyes off the captain. An impossible task. Yet…instead of his godlike physique, this time she saw his back covered with ripped flesh and bloody marks.
Her intake of breath brought his gaze back to her.
The ship bucked over a wave, and she leaned against the desk for support, the timbers creaking and howling as if they were also wounded. Maybe they were. “I’m sorry.” She swallowed a lump in her throat. “The rats really got you.”
“He’ll live,” Brandt declared as he wrapped strips of cloth around Caleb’s chest and over his back.
Caleb shrugged. “The doc’s right. ’Tis nothing.”
“It’s not nothing. That could have been my back.” That fact didn’t alarm her nearly as much as this man’s chivalry.
Alden grinned. “One thing you should know about the captain, Miss Starr, is that he never passes an opportunity to impress the ladies.”
Caleb chuckled. “How’s that, my friend? Do you curse me for a rogue?” As if defying his last statement, Patches leapt onto his lap, nudging her head against his muscled belly.
“Merely warning the lady.” Alden slanted his lips.
Desi sighed. So that was it. He was a lady’s man, a Casanova, a flirt, seducer, a man loyal to no woman and lover of all. She knew the type. And, gorgeous physique or not, she wanted nothing to do with him.
Finally, the surgeon finished his work, packed up his things, and gave her a sideways look before he left. A look of warning? She couldn’t tell.
Setting down Patches, the captain stood, threw a shirt over his head, thank the stars, and moved toward her. “Lift your skirts, Miss. Let’s see the rat’s work.”
“I will do no such thing, Captain.” Not that she was the least bit modest, but if she allowed the man the privilege, who knew what he’d ask for next. Yet, despite her raised chin and defiant tone, he clutched her skirts and peered at her feet.
Alden perched on a closed wooden trunk, amusement sparkling in his eyes.
“What are you doing?” Desi tugged the fabric from Caleb’s hands.
“Checking your wounds.”
“Your surgeon already did.”
“Not too much damage. What’s this?” He touched her ankle. “This mark? A rose compass?”
Snatching her skirts from his grasp, she darted back to the chair and sat back down. “None of your business.”
Caleb narrowed his eyes and planted fists at his waist. “Everyone and everything on my ship is my business, Miss. And I’ve never seen a lady marked as such. What does it mean?”
Desi gripped her stomach, the ache of a sorrowful past welling in her belly. “It’s…it’s to remember my father by. He died at sea.”
Memories of her father brought back thoughts of home. And her sister. How would her sister survive without her? Who would take her to dialysis? What would happen to Ocean’s Echo? She needed to get home. Tears burned behind her eyes, but she forced them back.
“I’m sorry,” Caleb said, the sternness from his face softening. And for some reason, she believed him.
He seemed about to say something when the ship listed to starboard, and he balanced his boots over the deck.
Shorty and Liam entered the cabin.
“She won’t stay afloat much longer, Cap’n,” Liam said, alarm tightening his jaw. “The sailcloth isn’t holding, and despite the crew pumping as fast as they can, the sea keeps pouring in.”
“Where should I point ’er?” Shorty cast a glance at Desi before addressing his captain.
“What is our last recorded speed?” Circling his desk, Caleb examined a chart spread across it.
“Levi just took a reckonin’. He says we’re makin’ three, maybe four, knots if she’s kind.”
“Too slow.” Caleb flattened his lips and pointed at the map. “Here’s our present location.”
Alden joined him as both Liam and Shorty took the opportunity to smile her way.
“Perhaps we could make Tortola,” Caleb said.
Alden leaned forward, studying the map. “That’s ten nautical miles from here.” He spun to face Liam. “With the pumps running, can the Sentinel stay afloat another three hours at three knots?”
Liam shook his head. “Nay. We’d be sunk to the depths for sure before then. I’d give her an hour, maybe two if Neptune favors us.”
Alden exchanged a knowing look with Caleb. “We have to go there. ’Tis the closest land.”
Slamming his eyes shut, Caleb groaned, gripping the edge of his desk. Moments passed as everyone waited for his command, all while the Sentinel wailed with each lurch of the waves, mirroring the eerie whine of a wounded animal.
Desi swallowed a lump of dread. She had no idea the ship had been so badly damaged, nor did she understand why this island had Caleb so upset.
Finally, he opened his eyes, determination riding high on his brow. “Three points north by northeast, Shorty.” Then he glanced over all of them. “We head for ?le Du Crane.”
“Weren’t that the island where ye…” Shorty gulped. “Where all them…”
Caleb raised a hand, and the sailor slammed his mouth shut.
“We have no choice. Hold her at four knots, if you can. Trim what canvas we’ve left. Keep the glass turning and the men at the pumps. Now off to it!” he barked, and the men scrambled away. All except Alden, whose normally confident expression had dipped into uncertainty.
Desi knew most of the islands in the Caribbean, but she hadn’t heard of ?le Du Crane. It was probably called something else in her time.
Regardless, it seemed a place everyone feared to visit. In fact, if she remembered her French from high school, the name meant Island of the skull.