Once the sun slipped behind the dark and foreboding storm clouds, the sky darkened into a deep twilight, even though I knew it was still day. I stowed my bucket and scrub brush and wondered what I could do to help. The answer, it turned out, was not a damn thing. Nobody needed an untrained idiot blundering around on deck interfering with the important work the sailors were doing preparing for the storm. I would likely slow things down instead of speeding them up and that is not something anyone wanted when time was of the essence. Instead, I stood unobtrusively at the starboard side of ship beside a storage locker and watched our potential doom approach.

The sea started getting rougher ahead of the storm and soon we were crashing up and down tall waves with wild abandon. Lightning flashes started to light the sky ahead of us and the distant sound of thunder echoed across the water. The sailors had lowered and stowed the ship’s sails and replaced them with a smaller, sturdier looking sail that I heard one of the sailors refer to as a storm jib. They also dumped a sea anchor, a kite-shaped piece of sail canvas trailing from two stout lines, off the rear of the ship. I didn’t know what either of them was for, exactly, but like the captain said when we boarded, all their lives were at risk, too. I trusted that they were doing all of these things out of a well-developed sense of self preservation.

I have felt helpless many times in my life, but I never have felt as weak and powerless as when I watched the storm approach. There was not one thing that I could do to influence the situation. I didn’t have training. I didn’t have experience. I was firmly caught in fate’s grip and had to rely on the strength and skill of others to give me the best chance of survival. I didn’t like that feeling at all. I knew that when the lightning was closer, I would be headed down below again. I really didn’t want to be electrocuted in a world that, as far as I could tell, did not utilize electricity.

Bowen and Aleyda were making their way towards me across the deck, grasping on to the lines that had been strung as handrails as the vessel bucked, plunged and rolled. Aleyda was looking a little nauseous again. I guess there is a big difference between adapting to the normal movements of a ship on placid seas and bobbing and spinning like a carnival ride. When they reached me, the first stronger gust of wind arrived as well, shrieking across the deck.

“This doesn’t look good,” Bowen said loudly in an attempt to be heard over the wind.

“That’s an understatement,” I replied in an equally loud voice. “We are going to want to go down below fairly soon. I don’t want to be swept overboard.”

Aleyda didn’t say anything. Instead, she projectile vomited over the railing. Yeah, good old seasickness was back in force.

“Do you know what that little sail and that thing we are trailing in the water are for?” I asked Bowen, since he said he had done some sailing in the past.

“The sail is to provide us with a small degree of maneuverability,” he replied. “We really don’t want to be hit by the waves broadside. They might roll us. The sea anchor provides some drag and helps us stay pointed in the right direction as well. That’s about all I know. I never sailed in rough weather.”

Nodding to him in response, I turned my attention back to the force of nature that was barreling towards us. In the short time we had talked, the initial gust of wind was followed by an unremitting series of others. The waves, already the biggest we had seen on this trip, continued to grow. Peals of thunder shook the air and the first hints of rain began to spray the deck.

“Well, up here we’re just risking ourselves for no reason,” I screamed at the others, desperately trying to be heard over the forces of nature. “Let’s get below.”

I don’t know if either of them heard me but when I started making my way across the deck to reach a hatch down to the hold, they followed me. Even if they hadn’t heard me they must have reached the same conclusion.

Making my way across the deck was difficult. Without a clear view of the ocean, I had no way to anticipate when the deck would rise and fall. I kept a death grip on the line I was using and headed towards the nearest hatch, which was not the main one. Stumbling and bumbling, the twenty foot distance felt like a vast chasm. A couple of times, after we crested large enough waves, my stomach dropped as we plunged into the subsequent trough. I really needed to get the hell off the deck. I felt like I was one missed grip from being swept overboard and if I was there would be no chance at rescue.

Finally, though, we reached the hatch. We muscled it open, exposing the dark hold below. About that time, I realized we should have headed for the main hatch. That one had a set of stairs leading into the hold. This one, however, was accessed my a ladder. I wondered whether I could make it down without being bucked off.

In fairness, I made it about half way down before the tax for my stupidity came due. I was just stepping down to a lower rung when the ship plowed up the side of a wave at a steep angle. My feet slipped off the rungs of the ladder and I was left dangling by my arms as I heard a few unsecured items bounce around the deck below me. Then, as the ship crested the wave and went slamming down the other side, I swung back and painfully impacted the ladder with my lower body. My feet scrambled for purchase, trying to find one of the rungs below me. Because of the rolling of the ship, my left foot had swung out of line from the ladder but my right one found one of the rungs. This situation was untenable, though. There were two people above me and if one of them lost their grip we were all going to tumble down like dominoes. I skittered down another couple of rungs and then decided that I was close enough, letting go and dropping to the deck below me. I tried for a superhero landing but the pitching of the ship spoiled that. Instead, I went tumbling into a stack of crates, reaching out blindly to find something, anything, to steady myself and keep me from bouncing around the hold.

I was able to grasp a piece of cargo netting just as I heard someone crash to the deck beside me. Blindly groping out, I felt a leg. With one arm hooked through the net, I grabbed the leg tightly. Soon, though, the person who I was holding on to slipped towards me as the deck shifted and the vessel began to climb. I realized that it was Aleyda. She was conscious and didn’t seem like she was seriously hurt. I made certain that she knew where the net was just in time to be crashed into by Bowen who had made it down the ladder safely and was foundering across the deck. He found the net, and we huddled there, being tossed back and forth. One of the sailors must had seen the open hatch because it closed with a thud, plunging us into complete darkness.

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That night lasted forever. The timbers of the ship moaned and groaned as they were pummeled by the unremitting force of the water. During the brief times when the wind would let up and I could hear again, I heard others in the hold crying out or praying. I don’t know who it was, but someone had clearly lost it. His voice filled the air with unceasing gales of maniacal laughter. Others screamed at him to shut the fuck up. I was spattered by Aleyda’s vomit and started to get queasy myself. My arms burned with exertion, trying to keep me from uncontrollably being tossed around the hold. The floor of the hold became wet. Either a hatch had come open or we had sprung a leak somewhere. It was an entirely miserable existence.

My mind started drifting. Amid the shrieking of the storm winds, the wailing of the ship, and the piercing crazed laughter, I began to hear the whisper of a voice at the edge of my consciousness. I turned my attention inward, listening hard. At first, I couldn’t discern any message. I panicked a little. Was this the result of absorbing too many essence crystals finally coming home to roost? Was I losing my mind? As time passed, however, the voice became clearer. It was my mother’s voice and she was singing a lullaby to me like she did when I had nightmares as a young child. My mother had a great singing voice. It was clearly a talent that skipped generations, as neither my brothers nor I could carry a tune in a bucket. And just like it had so long ago, it calmed me. My breathing slowed even as I was tossed back and forth holding on for my life. Tears spilled down my cheeks because I suspected that I would never again hear her sing to me, talk to me. Like many other things that I held dear she was lost to me, another victim of my choices and the passage of time. In moments of great stress, I thinks our minds become a little more malleable, reaching out for whatever little comfort they can find.

I don’t know how long I hung, suspended in that fugue state. Little by little I started returning to the world. Soon, I could hear again, feel again but I still couldn’t see anything in the darkness of our section of the unlit hold. Water had risen to a couple of feet in depth and my lower body was soaked. The water was cold and I began shivering as my body desperately tried to warm itself. My left shoulder burned and ached from the strain of holding me in place. The ship’s ride was gentler, more reminiscent of normal rough seas. Had we made it through the storm?

I reached out with my right hand towards Aleyda landing on her knee. I groped upward until I found her hand and then squeezed it, receiving one in reply.

Then, I attempted to stand, my cold muscles cramping in protest. When I stood, I could hear Bowen and Aleyda trying to stand as well. Staggering towards the ladder, I carefully climbed. Shoving upwards on the hatch, it wouldn’t budge. It had either been locked from above or something had fallen on top of it. I wasn’t strong enough to push it open.

“The hatch is jammed,” I croaked out.

“We’ll have to find another way out,” Bowen said from below me.

And that’s what we did. Wandering blindly through the hold and picking another couple of people up along the way, we finally made it to the stairs leading up to the main hatch. Thankfully, it opened, the faint light of false dawn illuminating the top of the stairs. As we spilled out onto the deck, I realized that Brokil and Dirty Brown were the people that we had blundered into in our meandering.

The topside of the ship was a mess. Several of the lines were snapped, fluttering in the wind. The rearmost mast had broken, collapsing on the deck and blocking the hatch I had tried to open. Exhausted sailors either feebly tried to clean up some of the mess or, too tired to work, sat collapsed on the deck. There were fewer of them visible than when I had retreated to the hold. I hoped that they were somewhere resting but even then I realized that that hope was likely futile. We had probably lost some people who had fought valiantly against the overwhelming forces of mother nature.

As the sky continued to brighten, I could see the ocean around me. One of the larger ships, one that I had been so envious of, had capsized, its keel saluting the sky. There were bodies in the water, some dead, some living. Flotsam was everywhere. Some of the living were clinging to it desperately, fighting for their lives.

Glancing around the deck, I saw Captain Clemenzio a dozen feet away directing the cleanup efforts. I made my way over to him. His haggard face turned to regard me.

“Captain,” I said respectfully. “What can we do to help?”

“We haven’t survived yet,” he replied, his voice choked with emotion. “I lost some good friends last night. Serxio was swept away. One moment he was standing next to be and the next he was gone as if he never existed. He was not the only one. How am I going to tell his wife?”

“There are a couple of feet of water in the hold,” I said.

“If there wasn’t, I’d be surprised.” He gestured out towards the wreckage in the water. “We are better off than many, though.”

Calling a sailor over, he directed the man to show us to the pumps. After deploying them, that’s how I spent my day, pumping water out of the hold. It felt like a futile effort at times, as the water was flowing in almost as fast as we could pump it out. Over the course of the day, though, we made some progress and the water level slowly receded. Other members of our company made their way to the deck and pitched in where they could. Even Yahg lent a hand, taking turns with me on the pump that I was assigned. Repair crews did the best they could, using patches and oakum to try to keep the water from intruding further. People were fished out of the water when it was possible. The deck was cleared and new rigging run.

That night, Caider called another company meeting and gave a short speech.

“We all need to keep working hard if we are going to survive,” he said. “The pumps will need to be operated at all times to keep us afloat. We lost some provisions from the water but we still have enough to eat. The convoy is scattered. We gained some sailors that were fished out of the water, but the ship is still short staffed. To make matters worse, Captain Clemenzio isn’t certain exactly where we are. The island is not small but even a little deviation in course can make it difficult to find and our course has deviated more than a little. You all need to help where you can, as much as you can, if we are going to survive this. Before you start to complain, realize that we are the lucky ones. If we all work hard enough, we have a real chance to live. Not everyone was so fortunate.”

The meeting broke up with little discussion. I looked over at Bowen and Aleyda. Both bore stoic expressions.

“Let’s get back to work,” Bowen said.