33. In which they take to the boats
IN WHICH THEY TAKE TO THE BOATS
Hester had spotted something that made her gasp. She whacked Septimus on the arm, peering through her spyglass. There was the usual jagged white tundra of ice and snow, but also—could it be? “Over there, look. Is that Clarence Island?”
“I think it’s just a berg,” Septimus said, squinting into the distance.
“Look carefully. I swear I can see dark sides.”
Septimus raised his spyglass and was silent for a few moments. “You’re right, just there? And is that Elephant Island too?”
“I believe so. Land ho!” She jumped up and down, punching the air. “Elephant Island. Doesn’t it make you think of a nice, succulent elephant seal. Mmm. You’d get a lot of blubber from one of those beasties.”
“Thoughts on where we should aim?”
She rolled her eyes. He was ever the pragmatist. “Deception Island, surely. There is the stocked supply shed, and the wooden church that was built for the whalers. Winston could turn it into a more seaworthy vessel than the lifeboats at a push. And at a real push we could wait until November for the whaling season to start and be rescued.”
“If we could survive another seven months on barely any food.”
“Well, yes. Where’s that famous optimism, Septimus?”
He huffed a laugh and collapsed the spyglass. “We have to get there first, don’t forget.”
Hester grinned and leapt on him, wrapping her legs around his middle, and he caught her, palms on her ass, tongue in her mouth, just how she liked him.
She tugged on the bright tether in her chest and felt him answer.
The feeling was getting less strange and more second nature.
Whenever she couldn’t see him, she still knew he was there.
A warm, glowing bond stretching between them, steadying her.
“Do you hear that?” She stilled in his arms. The grating of cracking ice had her peering down at the edge of the floe they stood on, which then broke off.
“Shit!” Septimus dropped her to the ice and grabbed the back of her overall. “Jump. Ready?” She launched herself over the gap that was opening, landing back on the floe, then spinning and hopping.
“Jump!”
He leapt, staggering into her, toppling them both over with a thud.
Hester scrambled to her feet. “That was close. The floe is breaking up.”
“We should ready the boats to be launched.” He grasped her by the hand and tugged her along, back to the camp.
“We should eat what we can’t fit into the boats. We need a good meal before we take to the water. Who knows when we might get chance to eat something hot?” A part of her was excited to take to the sea again, albeit in an altogether different manner to sailing on the Valour.
“Yes,” he agreed. “And…your magic?”
“Used up.” Thank God.
He laid a hand over her heart. “And this?”
She grinned up at him. “Much improved.” And it was. She was slowly healing the lifelong emotional wounds with his help.
“So we don’t need to worry about visits from Orcus?”
Hester shuddered, lacing her fingers with his. She certainly hoped not. “I don’t see how he could find us.”
11th April 1916, Weddell Sea
It was only marginally warmer in the tent than outside of it, but Charlotte could think of nowhere better.
Arnold was tucked in close on one side, Marjorie on the other.
The wind howled outside, the canvas flapping loudly.
They had launched the lifeboats the previous day and landed on a floe for the night.
Her hands were aching from working the oars. The rowing was hard. The wind biting.
“The wedding is giving everyone a lot to talk about,” Arnold said, tucking her further into his side. “It’s a shame Hester cannot wed us down here now she has no ship to command.”
“I’d prefer a church wedding, anyway. Hester offered her services as a bridesmaid.”
Arnold laughed, the twin tassels of his woollen hat bobbing. “Of course she did.”
“She said it was—and I quote—her ‘God-given right’ and that she would ‘try not to outshine’ me, but she ‘couldn’t promise anything’.” Charlotte had rolled her eyes at the time, but in actual fact, she could think of no one better to walk down the aisle with.
“That’s our captain, ever the modest soul. Though I should think she’d burn up when she stepped over the church threshold.”
Charlotte stifled a laugh. “I’m not sure I’d fare any better, laying here, a-bed with a man.” She stroked his cheek, and he leaned over to kiss her. Marjorie immediately stuck her snout between the two of them, breaking them apart.
“Marjorie!” Charlotte huffed, pushing the giant dog away. “She acts like she is our chaperone.”
“She’s doing a fine job of making sure nothing untoward occurs.” Arnold narrowed his eyes at the malamute.
“Was that a hint of disappointment in your voice?” Charlotte teased.
“More than a hint,” he said.
She had to laugh. “Will it kill you to wait a few months until we’re wed?” Hester was right. The anticipation was rather exciting.
“No, although if we were to perish out here on the ice…” He said it with jest in his voice, but Charlotte fell quiet. “I didn’t mean it. We will get home. Trust in the captain.”
“Trust in the captain,” Charlotte repeated. It had become her mantra.
13th April 1916, Weddell Sea
The splash of oars.
The grunts of the crew.
Bergs all around.
Salt crusting her eyelashes, her clothing frozen and damp.
Hester’s hands were stuck to the tiller, her joints frozen in place.
Splash. Splash. Splash.
She felt for the tether to Septimus, the link between them that they still couldn’t work out.
She knew where he was at all times, like he was the magnetic north to her iron compass arrow.
She turned her head to pinpoint him at the stern of the lifeboat she had named Misfortune, a distance across the water, hunched over the tiller as she was in the Tempest. Their eyes met, and Hester nodded, checking in.
All was well. She glanced to the left, to the other two lifeboats, Fliss helming Thirteen, and Emlyn on board Death.
She chuckled at her own jokes. She really was very funny.
The noon sun beat down on them as they rowed unceasingly for the land, which did not seem to be getting any closer.
“How do you fare?” Hester asked, her gaze lingering on Winston, Peggy, Charlotte and Arnold in turn.
Winston looked up at her from the bench, his hands gripped around the oar. “We are doing alright, but I would like some dry mitts.”
Hester cracked a smile, then winced, her lips splitting. She ran her tongue over her lower lip, tasting iron, her tongue burning, mouth swollen. “Chip me off a bit of ice, would you, Peggy?” She was so thirsty. Despite being surrounded by miles and miles of water, it was water they could not drink.
Peggy retrieved a chisel and hammer from the planked floor of the boat and chipped a small piece off the only lump of ice they’d managed to get aboard before the last floe had broken up beneath them.
“Pass it to the captain,” she said, handing the ice fragment to Winston with a crooked hand.
Winston prised his fingers from the oar handle and passed the ice to Hester, who popped it into her mouth, groaning and closing her eyes as it melted over her tongue.
She’d do anything for a cup of water, for a tankard of ale, or a bottle of sparkling wine.
“Pass it around, Peggy,” Hester said, and Peggy handed small chips of ice around. It was the last chunk they had, and it had to be shared amongst all four boats, all twenty crew, and the few dogs they had left.
“I’d give anything for a hot mug of tea,” Winston groaned. “How far till we reach the island?”
Hester exchanged a glance with Peggy. When they had taken the sightings yesterday, Peggy had whispered that they had been pushed thirty miles further from land.
Hester had shaken her head and pressed her finger to her lips.
It would have done no good to let the crew know.
They had been forced to set a new course for Elephant Island, the wind, tides and ice making Deception and Clarence Islands impossible to reach.
“Let’s talk of anything other than drinking water. What colour wedding flowers will you have, Charlotte?” Peggy asked.
“She’ll be having pink. It’s her favourite colour,” Hester said, rolling the ever dwindling chunk of ice around her sore mouth. “Isn’t that right, Boss?”
“Aye, Captain,” Charlotte called, turning to smile at Arnold, her white overall cracking with frost. “Pink roses.”
Peggy breathed a sigh. “It’ll be so romantic. And what about you and Septimus? Has he asked you yet?”
Hester shifted, gripping the tiller tighter.
“And take the spotlight from Charlotte and Arnold?” He hadn’t asked her.
She wasn’t sure whether she wanted him to or not.
She imagined his head between her thighs instead and smiled a secret smile.
Hester gave a little tug on the invisible tether between them and felt one in reply.
That settled her stomach. She didn’t need a proposal to know how he felt about her, or indeed, to have her wicked way with him.
The sun had gone down, and Charlotte was huddled on the floor of the Tempest, trying to sleep.
The creak of the oars, the splash of the water and the thunk of the oars in the rowlocks kept her awake, despite the weariness in her bones.
And there was the ever-present ache in her toes and fingers, too.
She was squashed between Marjorie and Peggy, while Hester still sat at the tiller, Winston and Arnold rowing.
The moon was bright in the night sky, its path reflecting on the water. It gave a ghostly glow to the crew of the little lifeboat. She gazed upon Hester, whose skin was pallid, her eyelids drooping, frozen to the tiller. Wings flickered into existence behind the captain as her head nodded forwards.
Arnold cried out in alarm. “Am I seeing things now? Delirium has set in,” he said, staring at Hester’s wings.
Peggy stirred next to her, sitting up in her soaked sleeping bag. She rubbed her eyes. “I’m seeing things too. Looks so real.”
“Hester,” Charlotte whispered, nudging her boot. “Wake up. Let someone else steer.” She wasn’t sure how Hester felt about others seeing her wings.
“I’m fine,” Hester mumbled, the wings disappearing again.
“You’re barely conscious.” She hissed. “They can see the wings.”
“Tell them. Tell them all of it. I’m done hiding,” Hester said.
Charlotte turned to Winston, Peggy and Arnold. “Hester has wings when she sleeps.”
Peggy gave a little yelp. “That’s impossible.”
Winston’s jaw dropped. “What?! Wings?”
Charlotte laughed, the sound a croak in her parched throat. “How did you not notice? You shared a tent with her.”
“You know men, Charlotte. They cannot look to save their lives,” Hester said, a smirk on her face, eyes still closed.
Winston’s mouth flapped open and closed, indignation seeming to override any shock at the revelation.
Charlotte was overcome with giggles. “She can control the weather, too.”
Winston gasped in the most dramatic fashion Charlotte had ever witnessed.
He pointed a finger at Hester. “You—but—how—YES!” His eyes glazed over, like he was rewriting everything he’d ever known about his captain.
“Wow.” And then he shook himself. “I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised. You’ve always been a bit…other.”
Peggy nodded slowly. “You know, this makes a whole lot of sense.”
“You didn’t tell me, Charlotte!” Arnold stared at her in outrage. “Why didn’t you tell me?!”
Hester cracked an eye open. “Because she’s a good friend, Arnold. Do be quiet. I was having a lovely snooze.” She fixed Charlotte with her green eyes. “Are you well, Boss?”
“I suppose. My toes are throbbing.”
“Frostbite.”
The blood drained from Charlotte’s face, not that there was much in it to start with. “Frostbite? Do you think?”
“Here. This is the best thing for it.” Hester lashed the tiller and slid to the bottom of the boat, opposite Charlotte. She prised Charlotte’s boots off and tucked her feet under the layers of clothing to rest on the warmth of her stomach.
Charlotte stifled a groan, the warmth so welcome she could have wept.
“It takes a true friend to do this, doesn’t it, Winston?” Hester asked, looking up at the bosun.
“It does, Captain,” Winston said, hauling stiffly at the oar, eyes still glazed over. “Wow. The weather. Are you doing it now?”
“No. The magic ran out.”
Winston sat bolt upright on the bench, a flash of realisation crossing his face. “Wait—Septimus knew! That night the Intrepid sank—he wasn’t raving. You told him and not me?”
Hester sighed. “He guessed. I’ll explain later. I can barely string a sentence together.”
Charlotte suppressed the giggles rising again in her throat. “We’re all in a bit of a state, aren’t we?”
Peggy murmured her agreement. “Aye, Boss. I hardly know if I’m awake or dreaming this.”
Arnold cracked a small smile, frost lining his beard.
Hester looked out over the stern, checking all was well with the other boats. “A little bit, perhaps.”
Charlotte sucked in a breath. To hear Hester say that meant that things must be desperate. She attempted to wiggle her toes, but only sharp pain stabbed her feet. “The wind is getting up.”
“Good. We can hoist the sails and have a rest when it fills in.”
A heavy thud startled Charlotte. Winston had collapsed off the bench and lay still in the bottom of the boat.
Charlotte scrambled to her knees. “Is he alright? Oh, God.”
Hester was beside her instantly, feeling for a pulse in Winston’s neck. His eyelids fluttered.
“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.”