The moment the wet dripping rope slipped through Matthew's fingers, he wished, despite all the punishments he knew awaited him back on HMS Rose, he could have it back. But already the gap was growing between their dangerously tipping longboat and the ship's heaving flanks. As he stared, faint starlight and brighter white phosphorescence reflected on her sloping wooden flanks, the lower timbers embossed with a thin covering of slimy green moss and freckled with tiny barnacles. Longingly he watched the butter-yellow glow of the open gunport, through which they had made their escape, slip past. He kept expecting to see a face poke out, spot them, raise the alarm—and he found himself almost wishing it would happen, that they would be recaptured, and taken back on board, rather than drift away into the night.
The longboat teetered on the top of a huge unseen ocean swell. The Rose loomed above, her tall masts and snowy white sails stretching to the stars. Then he felt the boat slip backward, skidding down a wave in an uncontrollable broach, throwing him to one side, into the wet bottom. Down in the black trough of the swell, he couldn't see Abby, though he could hear her gasps for breath.
The undulating motion of the ocean lifted them swiftly up, up, up—toward the starry sky. Atop the swell he craned his neck, expecting to see the Rose still looming, but the frigate was gone. No—there were two lanterns glowing red, swaying from side to side, casting just enough light to pick out the ship's gold-trimmed stern castle and mullioned windows, but she was so far away he wanted to stand up and shout.
But he didn't. They had escaped, and now they must deal with it. "Think they've missed us yet?" he whispered. For a reply, a heavy barrel was thrust into his arms by a dark shape.
"Don't let that get away," said her voice. "It's all the water we've got. Secure it with the rope under the seat and then let's put this boat to rights. Get cracking."
"You can't boss me around," he snapped. But it made Matthew uncomfortable realizing he was secretly happy to let her take charge.
Even with Abby giving orders, however, putting a strange boat to rights at night on a heaving swell was not easy. They had no sail, only oars. The dark rolling seas came out of nowhere, threatening to capsize them or to pitch him overboard. Abby ordered him to take the oars while she took the tiller. "Stand by to come about to port. When I give the word, pull with your starboard oar. . . ."
A swell raised them up. "Go!" she cried. He gave the right oar a mighty pull, but so overdid it that the blade popped out of the water and he fell backward off his bench, bare toes wiggling in the air, saltwater pouring down his shirt and pants.
The longboat plunged out of control. Twice a slow-building wave pitched them down into its trough, on the very verge of capsizing, before Abigail got their nose pointed into the swell.
After that Abigail and Matthew switched places, without saying a word. He didn't complain. He didn't even feel embarrassed, just scared. If she was better than him at rowing, if she could get them out of this, that was all he cared about.
He steered, keeping their bow at a slight angle to the swells while Abby corrected their position with quick digs of the oars. Hours passed. At some point, the night's colors shifted into a purple register, then vanished into a pale and eerily calm morning, hot and still, windless. Once in awhile a flying fish broke the glassy surface and skimmed through the air before splashing down. The first time, Matthew wanted to cry out and point. But what once would have seemed a wonder was now a matter of fact.
Another fact, which he also didn't point out to Abigail, was that roller-coaster waves, his father had once said, always mean one thing: hurricane.
Under Abby's direction they improvised a sail. Much to his surprise, she stood and simply stepped out of her skirt, without complaint or modesty. He understood her lack of embarrassment when he saw her petticoat, which was thicker and longer than any skirt he'd ever seen a modern girl wear. They raised two oars overhead, lashed their blades together to form a triangle, and strung the skirt and his shirt between it.
"Three days west to the Virginia Capes, according to Captain Jones," Abby said. "Allowing for a certain reduction of sail area, I believe we can do it in seven. Six, if we catch a current." She sat at the tiller. "Now all we need is a wind. I know 'tis bad luck, but should I whistle?"
"We'll have all the wind we need soon enough. But we must head north, if we want to outrun the hurricane."
"Outrun what? An orangutan?"
"Hurricane."
She shaded her eyes and examined their wake. "I don't see any orangutans, Matty. Perhaps you are seeing visions, which Father said sailors at sea sometimes do."
"Stop making fun of me."
She eyed him without a trace of a smile. "I wasn't. What is this . . . hurdy-cane?"
So she'd never heard of a hurricane, even though their Father's ship was a meteorological vessel. Well, why should she, without The Weather Channel and satellites and radar and helpful computer graphics? "It's a tropical storm," he replied. "Very big. Huge."
"But not bigger than one of our nor'easters."
"Bigger." He saw the wary look in her eye. "Father explained it to me," he fibbed. She seemed satisfied by this, if a little jealous.
"We'll head for Boston," he said.
"Boston! It's an extra five days. We haven't the water for it. We'll die." She spoke simply, without argument. He seated himself at the oars and began to row. When Abby took up the tiller, she steered west; after awhile, she began to whistle.
The hours passed brutally. The tropical heat roasted Matthew's back and shoulders, his hands blistered as he strained against the heavy oars, the sweeping rolling swell mocked their puny efforts, and even the seagulls that suddenly appeared, squawking, seemed to be making fun of him. Abby took over rowing; he tried not to think about the cask of water beneath his seat. A sharp jolt nearly threw him out of the boat, and he looked at Abby, who was bent over the oars with her hair covering her face, like an old crone. "Wa . . . tha?" he mumbled, his tongue swollen. She raised her eyes, bloodshot red. "Gull's dream." He looked up at the flock of seabirds, grown large. As he watched, one plummeted into the turquoise blue water, followed by another, and another. Their boat was rocking crazily. A slow thought surfaced: "Gulf Stream?" he asked. She nodded.
He put the helm over, pointing their bow north. "Run . . . with . . . current," he said. She said nothing, which he took for agreement.
They collapsed and let the Gulf Stream, that blue river within the sea, tug them along, bouncing in its mix of crazed chop and hurricane swell. Once, Matthew had to throw up. Afterward, he hung his head over the side, staring down, through the shadow of the boat, in which twisted and turned a flashing silver and blue tornado of marine life: schools of sardines, ghostly shrimp, darting mackerel, hovering barracuda and, deeper down, larger finny creatures, some as big as their longboat.
They slept. As evening approached, Abby doled out a swallow of water from the cask and unwrapped the package she'd handed Matthew just before they jumped ship. He eyed it eagerly, suddenly famished. The cloth fell off, revealing the potted hare, a skinned pink rabbit swimming in aspic that looked like Jell-O inside a glass jar. "Gross!" But Abby opened the jar and, licking her fingers, sighed in pleasure. "Such a delicacy—imagine, we're dining like Lords." He refused her offer of a leg. Later, though, after darkness fell, he nibbled on a piece.
All night the swells kept rolling. He woke once to see lightning on the horizon, far to the south. At dawn he opened his eyes to see Abby staring at the murky horizon to their stern: pale green, glimmering strangely, erupting with spider-webs of lightning. A heavy dew had fallen, so they stood under the sail and sucked moisture from its cloth—an action that left them both hiccuping in laughter. But the heat of the day soon dried it, and the waves became violent, corkscrewing the boat this way and that.
They slept through much of the day. Dreams and daydreams grew confused in Matthew's head: once he saw an orangutan running toward them on the surface of the sea, leaping from wave-crest to wave-crest. A dream, he told himself. Another time he woke from a heavy slumber to see a three-foot tall black fin cruising inches past their gunwales. He closed his eyes, only to enter a nightmare in which giant sharks chased him in a motel swimming pool.
A scream—Abby, pointing south—where, out of the murk and blue-green mist of dawn, Matthew saw a Medusa's head of serpents, pythons, anacondas. He blinked, and the snakes turned into a swirling dozen funnels dancing over the still surface of the sea: "Waterspouts?" Abby nodded, open-mouthed. Helpless, they watched them approach, the funnels lifting off the surface, then dropping down with a strange sucking sound and a corolla of white spray at their bases. Lightning streaked inside, illuminating them like paper lanterns.
"Look!" gasped Abby. Out of the moisture-laden air a silhouette of a ship came ghosting toward them. Ahead of it were three ship's boats filled with sailors and Royal Marines, brass buttons glinting on their red jackets, pulling steadily at the oars. "They're towing her," Matthew cried, "trying to make the Gulf Stream."
But it was a slow-motion race, and the frigate was losing. Slowly the waterspouts overtook the ship, and then, in the heat of midday, they began their serpents' dance around her, random death playing with chance. A funnel darted forward, lifted off high into the clouds; another reeled downward to take its place, twisting sideways, almost like a vacuum cleaner hose in pursuit of a dust kitty. Matthew could see a knot of men standing on the frigate's quarterdeck, motionless, staring—heard the snatch of a hymn, bellowed almost defiantly—and then the entire scene, ship, longboats, and men, simply vanished into a cloud of water and wood.
"Dear God," said Abby.
And then the wind began: a cat's-paw on Matthew's cheek. As a huge black and green wall of cloud blocked the southern sky, a stiff breeze struck, died, redoubled. All on its own the longboat picked up speed, jury-rigged sails stretched taut. As they pulled away from the writhing waterspouts, Matthew could once more hardly credit his eyes: a dark fin, then two, three, and a dozen more besides, passed them streaking in the other direction, toward the patch of dirty water where once the ship had existed.
Surfing the longboat up and down the backs of swells, they made terrific time. But by that evening they were in a gale, and their little mast tore apart. Fighting in the darkness just to keep the boat upright, Matthew clutched an oar and struggled to make contact with solid water. Hours passed. Abby's face grew slightly more visible, hunched over the tiller, squinting through swollen eyelids. It must be day, Matthew realized. Still the wind pushed them, even without a sail, hurling them along, threatening to capsize them if it ever caught them full in the side. They used their oars to keep their stern to the wind and the hump-backed seas that now were beginning to froth and break.
A gray eternity ended with darkness. Abby crawled on her hands and knees to him, reaching for the tattered sail, two spare oars, some rope. "Make sea anchor," she muttered through chattering teeth, for the tropical warmth had vanished. Lashing the two oars in the shape of a cross, tying the sail between one quadrant, they lowered the contraption over the side at the end of all the rope they had. Instantly their pitching, bucking, headlong flight slowed and steadied. Like an underwater parachute, the sea anchor was holding them back.
Night gave way to a chill morning with drenching rain. Matthew managed a wry thought: Now we have too much fresh water. He and Abby huddled together for warmth, wrapping their arms around each other and burying their faces in each other's shoulders. The violent seas roared past them like freight-trains. At some point Matthew had a realization: We're going to die soon. He cast about for a plan, a miraculous rescue—could the Log be stashed somewhere handy on board? But there was nothing, except for the small water cask and half a potted hare under glass. Relieving his sister of the secret letters, he thrust them inside the jar with the preserved rabbit, then tied it around his neck.
More hours passed; at some point they must have either fainted or fallen asleep, because when Matthew opened one eye he found a dry afternoon under gray clouds and only a steady breeze. They unwrapped themselves stiffly. "Well, Matty," said Abby, smiling through cracked lips, "I believe we've outrun your hurdy-cane."
Breakfast was rainwater and two rabbits' feet, dripping with aspic. Matthew ate his eagerly, licked his fingers, and wondered how he'd ever gotten so far along in life without tasting such a delicacy. The rest of the day was spent sleeping, while the boat bobbed along, riding the backs of swells that bunched up and then broke with slow violence, pushing them inexorably west. They had passed the Gulf Stream—now there was nothing between them and the capes of Virginia. By the following morning a gray line signifying land was visible. "We're going to make it," whispered Abby. Then, without another word, they both knocked wood on the sides of the longboat.
Retrieving the sea anchor, they restrung their pitiful mast and sail. "Really, it's like catching wind in a handkerchief," Abby said. But they made progress until evening when, just as the last faint rays of diffused sunlight glowed on the horizon, they briefly glimpsed another boat in the distance. Abby insisted they stay offshore until first light, and put the bow toward the north while Matthew reset the sea anchor.
Dawn broke cold and gray with land in sight: long sand barrier islands, peeling past at unbelievable speed. They were in the grips of a current Matthew had never seen the likes of before. Although cautiously optimistic with land so close and a few other boats in sight, the swift and relentless current, coupled with the rapidly overtaking ocean swells, worried him. The line of breakers a couple of miles away was, from the back, an unbroken wall of white.
They swept north for the rest of that day, the night following, and the day after. Now they feared the land, and rowed frantically whenever the current threatened to drag them inshore; the waves were too big, too relentless, too far from the beach. There was nothing to do but gnaw on the remains of the potted hare, squeeze drops of water from their clothing, and wait.
The ship seemed to appear out of nowhere, a mile off to starboard, sailing easily. As they watched, she altered course to intercept them. All they had to do was sit, Matthew with a rabbit's foot, the last one, in hand. Suddenly it didn't seem like a delicacy anymore. He threw it over the side just before a sailor in crisp canvas trousers flung them a line.
As if in a dream they were helped aboard, passed from hand to hand through a long line of kindly sailors to an even more kindly captain, his face pink as a baby's under a beautiful white flowing wig, his eyes anxious with worry as he ordered them swaddled in warm clothes, given hot grog, fresh biscuits and eggs poached in sherry, followed by a suety pudding and brandy heated over a candle by a steward in fine breeches and a snow-white linen shirt.
Matthew could hardly keep his eyes open under the generous and delirious onslaught of hospitality. "Are we in heaven?" he whispered to Abby, as they lay, side by side in separate bunks under clean cotton covers, in a side cabin crowded with wooden chests.
"The next best thing," she replied. "We're on an East Indiaman." She yawned. "As you can see by her cargo." Matthew followed her gaze, even as her eyelids closed. The wooden chests, stacked four and five atop each other, each bore but a single word stenciled on its sides: TEA.