Page 38 of Valour

Septimus’s shoulders caved as he sat back on his heels and brushed the strands of wet hair from her face.

The Intrepid’s surgeon took out his pocket watch and announced gravely, “Captain Hester Orn. Time of death fifteen minutes past the eleventh hour, tenth of December, nineteen fourteen.”

Septimus took out his own pocket watch and stopped it, then got to his feet and pushed through the crew, heading for the companionway.

The scene before her began to fade, dark stormy clouds swirling overhead where there had been blue sky moments before. Angel Hester frowned, then turned her head as a bright glow appeared at the edge of her vision. “Oh no, you don’t,” she said, backing away. “Is that the white tunnel? I will not go, I tell you. I will not be taken up there—with those good dullards. Hell is surely the place for me. There is some mistake!”

The white glow crystallised, the sparks forming together. A female angel stood before her, her face so familiar that Hester’s brow furrowed as she tried to place her.

“It is not your time yet,” the angel said, placing a hand on Hester’s cheek. Hester could only stare.

“You…”

The angel smiled sadly and stroked Hester’s hair. “Go back,” she whispered, and gave Hester a little shove backwards, just as Fliss’s heartbroken wail floated over the water.

Hester staggered and fell flat on her back. Her stomach lurched, and she opened her eyes. And they were her own eyes, blinking open, cloudless blue sky overhead. She vomited saltwater, rolling to her side and heaving it onto the deck as the Intrepid’s crew shouted in surprise and rushed to her.

“Get Septimus!” Emlyn shouted, shoving James away, the semaphore flags clutched in his hand as he knelt next to her, thumping her back as she coughed and dragged sweet, sweet air into her lungs. Oh good Lord. She was alive. She had been dead and now was blissfully alive.

Fliss’s mournful cry echoed in her chest. She gripped Emlyn’s arm and looked him in the eye. “Tell Fliss—tell her I would not leave her. And tell her—” Hester giggled raggedly. “I shall be an angel one day.”

Emlyn roared with laughter. “And pigs might fly, Captain Orn. And pigs might fly.”

Peggy sprang up from the companionway. “What is all this noise?! I was trying to plot a course and⁠—”

Charlotte shook her head, her lips pressed together, and Peggy’s eyes swept across the assembled crew. She couldn’t speak the words to tell Peggy. Could hardly believe it herself.

“What is it?” Peggy whispered, her brown curls blowing in the wind.

“Wait,” Rufus said, his voice rising. “Wait! What are they…Winston?”

Winston was watching the semaphore flags flashing in the distance, and he gripped Rufus’s shoulder, his jaw falling slack, then snapping shut.

Charlotte awaited his translation, her heart in tatters.

He turned to the gathered crew.

“She’s ALIVE!” he bellowed, jumping on Rufus, both of them crashing to the floor. Charlotte gaped. Alive? Arnold crushed her to his chest. Hester was alive. Her tears rolled faster than ever, and then more of the crew pressed into her, jumping and cheering and embracing, Mei holding up a wobbly Fliss, who seemed utterly beside herself, laughing and crying.

Alive!

But oh, it had been so close. So very close to utter disaster.

“I’ll get the rum!” Mei disentangled herself from the crush of bodies and raced to the companionway, reappearing moments later with a bottle. She pulled the cork, took a long swig, and then passed it to Arnold, who handed it to Charlotte. Charlotte wrinkled her nose at the smell but drank the burning liquid down anyway. She needed something to steady her nerves. Anything. The bottle was passed around and emptied.

“More!” Betty said, and Mei disappeared again, this time reappearing with four bottles, the most she could carry. The rum inside was soon gone.

Charlotte could hardly contain herself as she drained the final bottle, Betty clapping her on the back. Hester was alive. All would be well. Her friend was alive. She raised her eyes to the sky and spotted an albatross wheeling overhead.

“Thank you,” she whispered. No one heard her in all the noise.

The rich tones of an accordion sounded. Mei sat on a hatch, the instrument expanding and contracting across her chest in a merry tune. Rufus joined Mei with a banjo, the crew singing shanties at the tops of their lungs. Charlotte did not know the words to join in, but as the singing became more slurred anyway, that hardly mattered. She would not ordinarily have danced with such wild abandon, but the rum left her with a newfound confidence. Arnold whirled her round and round until she collapsed in a giggling heap on the deck.

Hester had no memory of being brought back to the Valour, or of being put in dry clothes and in bed.

She snuggled more firmly into her sleeping bag, eyes still closed, then rolled over, burying her face into her pillow. It smelt incredible, all her senses heightened after her brush with death. She took a deep inhale and groaned at the salt and musky tobacco scent. Strange. Why did her pillow smell like that?

She shivered, the cold still biting into her bones, and wriggled her way further into the fur-lined bag, luxuriating in the feeling of being alive, even if her chest ached and her head was sore.