Page 50 of Trouble

‘I don’t need to be carried,’ said Grace, blinking rain out of her lashes. ‘And I sincerely doubt your ability to do so. But if you could just .?.?. give me your arm.’

It was probably very stupid to have agreed to take her, but the idea of the beach swarming with people had set quiet alarm bells ringing in the back of Emily’s mind. The likelihood that they’d come across her little stash of buried goods was not high, but she would feel better seeing with her own eyes that nobody was straying too close to the rock, and that wind or tide had not betrayed her and uncovered her secret.

By the time they reached the shore, the shipwreck was in full swing.

It was actually very horrible. Emily was surprised by the enormity of it all: seeing something as vast and sturdy as a ship come up against the elements and lose violently; the shouts of terror from those in the water; the stony, strained determination on the faces of those bundling into the tiny rowing boats, bullishly intent on hope. Everybody was soaked through and grim, their clothes plastered to their bodies, the urgency palpable as they crossed to and fro. The storm clouds that were pressing down on them would have seemed apt if this were a painting, but in reality they just made everything seem all the more dire and hopeless.

Others must have come from the village or the nearby cottages with their boats, because there were at least ten or fifteen now. Emily could see some of them in the distance, closer to the wreck. The ship itself had come up so high on the rocks that the keel was fully out of the water, the whole thing listing to starboard as the hull threatened to break in half completely with a deep, yawning groan.

There were men still on it, clinging desperately to what they could, holding out hope for a boat. There were men who had already let go and were trying to swim away from the rocks, reaching desperately towards the shore. There were also men who did not seem to be moving, beyond the sway of the waves; Emily tried not to look too closely at them, turning back to the beach instead.

She watched hopelessly as a group of boys no older than Grace and Aster dragged their boat into the surf and then jumped in, two of them picking up the oars and immediately beginning to row out, not a flicker of hesitation on their faces.

‘Where’s Aster?’ Emily asked Meera, when she found her in the fray.

Some very wet people were shivering in the sand, blankets draped over their shoulders, and Meera and Akia were handing out little parcels of bread and cheese.

‘Eat it,’ Meera said to the nearest man, who was whey-faced and shaking. ‘For the shock.’ She turned to Emily, saw Grace at her side and sighed. ‘Aster? I had no idea she was here. Grace, come here and help me, would you?’

She sat Grace down in the shelter of an overhanging rock and set her to organising the food as Emily marched off across the beach, searching every face for a sign of Aster. It would have been a lot easier if every single one of these men and boys hadn’t been wearing old, dull-coloured coats and almost identical hats. As far as she could see, nobody was straying near her particular rock; now that she was here among the chaos, she felt silly for even thinking it. These people were far too busy with matters of life and death to notice if a few stolen goods popped up out of the sand.

When she finally did discover the elder Edwards sibling, it was too late: Aster caught her eye and then looked determinedly away again as the rowing boat she was sitting in with two strange men set out into the cresting waves.

‘Thrice fucked and goddamn it,’ Emily gritted out, grateful that Meera was nowhere nearby to demand a shilling or three. She didn’t realise until she felt the water splashing halfway up her skirts that she had been walking towards the boat, as if she stood a chance of grabbing it and dragging it back. Now she was dampandcoldandliable to be shouted at again for letting one of her charges drift out to sea like a discarded ale bottle.

One of the boats making its way back to shore seemed to be overloaded. It was borne aloft by a particularly violent wave, and as it came crashing down the other side, somebody fell out of it. One moment they were clinging to the edge of the boat, the next they were overboard; Emily couldn’t tell if they had gone silently or if the wind had swallowed their shout.

She turned around, looking for somebody to tell, but there was nobody close enough in any condition to help. By the time she turned back, she saw that a man in the boat had stood up and leaped into the unforgiving water.

Emily watched the grey, choppy surf, waiting for them to resurface; in the distance, lightning forked across the sky, eliciting shouts of dismay from those on the beach behind her. She couldn’t remember where the two men had gone in, so she scanned the waves, until they blurred into a maelstrom of panic and spray and dark water.

It took so long that she had almost lost hope when she saw them break the surface, one after the other in quick succession, struggling to keep their heads above the water, and then grappling jerkily towards the shore. She only realised it was Captain Edwards she was looking at, towing the half-drowned man behind him, when he was close enough to shout for aid.

When they were able to stand, Captain Edwards got to his feet and then pulled the smaller man bodily from the water and walked towards Emily, seemingly powered by sheer force of will.

‘You!’ he shouted to her, either forgetting her name or perhaps that he had ever encountered her before at all. ‘We need help!’

Already wet, Emily met them knee-deep in the water and lent her shoulder for the waterlogged stranger to lean on. Propped up between the two of them, he made it up on to the shore. Captain Edwards eased him down onto the beach and turned him over on to his side just in time as he vomited feebly onto the sand.

The captain was drenched through, seawater still dripping from his chin and the dark, clinging whorls of his hair. He had removed everything but shirt and breeches and must have been freezing, but he didn’t even seem to have noticed.

‘Get him warm!’ he shouted to Emily, over the sound of the ship in the distance beginning to break in half with a great, reverberating creak.

‘Aster is out there,’ Emily said. ‘I saw her leaving. I .?.?. She’s in one of the boats.’

She watched him process this as just one more piece of urgent information among a whole flotilla.

‘Get him warm,’ he said again, and then he was off to meet another boat, to help those inside to shore before climbing into it himself to relieve the man who had been rowing, and cast off back into hell again.

Emily delivered blankets to the vomiting man, and Akia came with food. Soon Emily found herself part of the rescue machine, slotting into place, moving automatically until her mind narrowed to a single purpose and her hands were numb with cold. She met the boats; she brought those who could walk to the relative shelter up the beach and blanketed them and fed them. Then it was back down into the sea to retrieve more sailors, who looked so glad to be on dry land that she wondered if they’d ever make it out on another sea voyage again.

One man, with wide eyes and a salt-and-pepper beard, would not stop clinging to her, even when Meera tried to prise his hands from her arm; it seemed as if he was worried that he might be swept away again without Emily there to anchor him.

Another seemed in surprisingly good spirits, telling jokes and talking in her ear with chattering teeth as they went.

‘I have .?.?. n-never been fished out of the sea by a lady before,’ he said. ‘Are you p-perhaps a m-mermaid?’

‘I am not a mermaid,’ Emily said firmly.