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Authors: Anna Belfrage
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might be. The sight frightened him so that he stood and undressed, examining himself to ensure that he was still there, that it was still him. Muscled and strong, but very thin, the knobs on both ankles and wrists far too protruding under his skin. He ran a hand down his ribs – he could count them all – and studied his member, sluggish in the dark hair of his groin. He prodded it with a finger and his cock rose half-heartedly before it shrank back into inertia. All there, more or less, but for how much longer?
Chapter 8
It all started to go wrong in the first week of June. Alex woke to creaking boards, to straining ropes and to the disorienting sensation of being on a roller coaster, with waves of nausea washing through her.
“Oh my God,” she groaned after having thrown up for the third time. “What’s the matter with the stupid boat?” Mrs Gordon shrugged and told her they were in the midst of a storm.
“Unseasonal, the captain says, very unusual.”
“You have the most fantastic ability of saying the wrong things at the wrong time.” Alex fumbled again for the basin.
*
The captain ordered all passengers indoors, tied down his ship as well as he could, and grimly sat it out, refusing to consider sleep for the four days the storm raged. Everything heaved, a goat was lifted straight out of its pen and disappeared bleating into the sea, and in the galley the cook struggled to secure his foodstuffs, narrowly avoiding being crushed by a rolling keg of beer. Worst of all was the woman. For some reason, yon Nell had not been in the hold when the storm broke, but appeared halfway through the second day from the direction of the cramped forward space just beyond the forecastle.
“Nell?” The captain wiped at his face. “Is that Nell?” Smith shouted back that aye it was, and what was the daft lass thinking off, she should have stayed where she was.
“Why was she—” The captain broke off. He was no fool, and from the look on Smith’s face, he reckoned wee Nell was now the owner of two pink stockings. Besides, at present Nell’s morals were not his prime concern, her safety was.
Inch by inch, Nell progressed towards the hold, moving crabwise over the heaving deck. The captain hollered at her to go back, to not brave the open deck, but the wind snatched the words out of his mouth, and to his dismay she pressed on, so drenched her garments glued themselves like a second skin to her body. Captain Miles prayed; loudly he begged the good Lord to see her safe, no matter that she was an unrepentant whore. The lass was halfway to the hold when the wave came crashing down, sweeping her into the raging sea.
There was another storm; and another. The goats were all swept away, two of the crew were washed overboard, and in the hold a couple of women sickened and died without there being any possibility of sinking them with ceremony into the sea.
“I’ve never seen anything like this,” Captain Miles said to a very green Alex. “Three storms in a row.” He shook his head and glared in the general direction of the stubbornly overcast sky. He needed to take a mark to establish their position, because at present he had no idea where they were. Never during his thirty years at sea had he felt so totally lost.
On St. John’s Eve the weather changed, and for some weeks they made good progress, even if the captain concluded that they’d been blown severely off course.
“Backwards,” he sighed. At the captain’s insistence the crew fished, and for several days all they ate was fish, Captain Miles keeping a concerned eye on his food supplies. The cook agreed, and together the two men began rationing, both of them worried that this was not yet the end.
“I feel it,” Davies the cook told the captain. “I can smell it. There be other storms coming.”
Captain Miles agreed; he felt it too, in every bone of his body he felt it.
*
It began as a squall, developed with horrifying speed into a thunderstorm that
Chapter 8
It all started to go wrong in the first week of June. Alex woke to creaking boards, to straining ropes and to the disorienting sensation of being on a roller coaster, with waves of nausea washing through her.
“Oh my God,” she groaned after having thrown up for the third time. “What’s the matter with the stupid boat?” Mrs Gordon shrugged and told her they were in the midst of a storm.
“Unseasonal, the captain says, very unusual.”
“You have the most fantastic ability of saying the wrong things at the wrong time.” Alex fumbled again for the basin.
*
The captain ordered all passengers indoors, tied down his ship as well as he could, and grimly sat it out, refusing to consider sleep for the four days the storm raged. Everything heaved, a goat was lifted straight out of its pen and disappeared bleating into the sea, and in the galley the cook struggled to secure his foodstuffs, narrowly avoiding being crushed by a rolling keg of beer. Worst of all was the woman. For some reason, yon Nell had not been in the hold when the storm broke, but appeared halfway through the second day from the direction of the cramped forward space just beyond the forecastle.
“Nell?” The captain wiped at his face. “Is that Nell?” Smith shouted back that aye it was, and what was the daft lass thinking off, she should have stayed where she was.
“Why was she—” The captain broke off. He was no fool, and from the look on Smith’s face, he reckoned wee Nell was now the owner of two pink stockings. Besides, at present Nell’s morals were not his prime concern, her safety was.
Inch by inch, Nell progressed towards the hold, moving crabwise over the heaving deck. The captain hollered at her to go back, to not brave the open deck, but the wind snatched the words out of his mouth, and to his dismay she pressed on, so drenched her garments glued themselves like a second skin to her body. Captain Miles prayed; loudly he begged the good Lord to see her safe, no matter that she was an unrepentant whore. The lass was halfway to the hold when the wave came crashing down, sweeping her into the raging sea.
There was another storm; and another. The goats were all swept away, two of the crew were washed overboard, and in the hold a couple of women sickened and died without there being any possibility of sinking them with ceremony into the sea.
“I’ve never seen anything like this,” Captain Miles said to a very green Alex. “Three storms in a row.” He shook his head and glared in the general direction of the stubbornly overcast sky. He needed to take a mark to establish their position, because at present he had no idea where they were. Never during his thirty years at sea had he felt so totally lost.
On St. John’s Eve the weather changed, and for some weeks they made good progress, even if the captain concluded that they’d been blown severely off course.
“Backwards,” he sighed. At the captain’s insistence the crew fished, and for several days all they ate was fish, Captain Miles keeping a concerned eye on his food supplies. The cook agreed, and together the two men began rationing, both of them worried that this was not yet the end.
“I feel it,” Davies the cook told the captain. “I can smell it. There be other storms coming.”
Captain Miles agreed; he felt it too, in every bone of his body he felt it.
*
It began as a squall, developed with horrifying speed into a thunderstorm that
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