Jack Beale 00 - Killer Run

cover. “ The Captain’s Quilt by Polly Christian.” She began to slowly turn it over and over in her hands, studying it from all angles.
    Malcom took another copy from the box and did the same. Then he reached out and pulled her to him and wrapped her in a hug. “You did it,” he whispered in her ear. Suddenly, she pulled away and let out a scream of joy and began jumping up and down like a five-year-old opening her first Christmas present. All he could do was stand there, grinning like an idiot as he shared her joy.

CHAPTER 13
    MAX PICKED UP THE BOOK again. She’d call Patti shortly, but first, the ship was being battered by a storm and until all was safe, she couldn’t put the book down.
    * * *
The cook returned with some biscuits and cheese. “Beggin’ your pardon, Ma’am. The Captain had the cook fires put out so’s this is all I could bring you. The glass is still falling.”
“What does that mean?”
“… means that it looks to be a bad storm,” he grunted as he put the tray of food on the table and turned to leave. She thought she detected something else in his voice and looked at him expecting more, but he offered nothing. Her anxiety must have been obvious because when he was in the doorway, he turned and looked at her with something between pity and caring. Then he added, “She’s a stout ship. All will be fine.”
She hadn’t realized that she had been holding her breath until she tried to speak and all that came out was a feeble “Oh.”
Then he was gone before she could thank him for his kindness. Christine was not reassured. The motion of the boat continued to increase and she began to feel the effects. She opened the chest that contained all the possessions for her new life and took out the quilt that her mother had given her. It wasn’t finished, and working on it made her feel connected to her home and family. She closed her eyes, pulled the quilt to her face, and inhaled deeply. If she concentrated she could still smell home: the sweet fragrance of the frangipani filling the air after an afternoon shower and the fresh smell of the sea transported by the soft tropical breezes while coffee brewed in the early morning. There would be no needlework on a night such as this, but just holding it still gave her comfort. For a moment she wished that she were still there, safe in the bosom of her family. Christine wedged herself into her berth and pulled the quilt tight around her.
The boat shuddered as a wall of water slammed against its side, and her dreams of home were gone in that instant, replaced by fear. A drop of water anointed her head. The shock of that small, cold drop ignited her imagination and she looked up, expecting to see a torrent of water about to flood her cabin. Instead of the expected torrent, another small drop landed on her face.
As the ship rose, fell, and twisted, each moment brought its own terror, but as those moments became minutes, and those minutes became hours, she began to notice subtle differences in how the ship reacted to Neptune’s onslaught. At times the ship would attack. She would throw her bow and all her weight and strength into the oncoming waves as a woodcutter would drive his ax deep into a tree, the shock of the blow cleaving the wood and water. Other times, she was defensive as a wave hit from an unseen direction, and she would take the blow as would a fighter, outmatched by a superior foe, ducking and cowering, but still rising to continue the fight.
The small lantern in Christine’s cabin swung violently back and forth. The shadows that it made danced on the walls like phantasms of another world, adding to her dread. But, as anxious and uncomfortable as the ever-increasing drips of water made her, as terrifying the motion as the ship slammed into the sea, and as disorienting the battle for light over darkness that was being waged by the swinging lantern, what scared her the most was the sound, or more precisely those random moments of silence that gave hope to a desperate situation.
The high-pitched whine of the wind in the rigging, the moans and groans of the ship as it reeled from each blow that the sea hurled against it, and even the occasional faint and the desperate cries of men were nothing compared to the silence. Silence in the middle of the maelstrom. She didn’t think it possible, but every now and then, she swore it was so. Sometimes it was only a pause and other times it lasted a moment, but it was enough to give her heart