Jack Book Two in the Trilogy: Murder on the High Seas

Hurricane Part 12

The winds picked up higher and a real gale was brewing as the men lashed down everything fore and aft, topside and below. That night it was difficult to do anything and the captain ordered that most of the crew stay below deck for fear that they would be washed overboard.

We tried to eat but the food would just slide off the trays and spill onto the floor and many were sick anyway from the constant rolling of the ship even though they were considered, "salty" - which meant to have been well-adjusted to the tossings and turnings of a ship at sea. One man stood watch and he secured himself with a rope. I ignored the order and, just about midnight when the storm was at a high pitch, I struggled out off of a ladder and went topside into a furious onslaught of wind and water. Immediately my hat blew off my head into the sea. I was decked by an unseen wave that took my legs out from under me and crashed my body over to the gunwale. I jumped up and coughed out a mouthful of water. Waves and white foam in the darkness were breaking on the bow and forcing it down under the water for some seconds. Mountains of water like I had never seen rose up above the main mast and then the ship floated up on top of the next wave to go down again and repeat the process.

I thought about Master Whittemore, secure at last in his watery grave, having given his life for a just cause. But he was not alone. He was with the creatures of the deep - the whales, octopus, and great schools of fish. And he had Jack and me and we would certainly tell everyone in Charleston if we ever returned that he stood before the mast a true hero and a master fisher of men.

I planned then to write this tale of the master's life, so far as I knew about him, and of Jack. The two, it seemed, were driven to their fate to do battle with gigantic forces they couldn't control. I found a spot where the water rushing furiously on deck in unpredictable directions would be, to my best guess, least likely to wash me overboard. I was not yet ready to join master. I lashed a hemp line to my belt and to the bulwark and then was able to watch the bizarre typhoon with its mighty fury and its rain and sea blasting in my face so that my eyes hurt from the stinging of the water.

Soaking wet and cold, I was, but I wanted to be close to where I thought master had come to his untimely end. I was sad. I cried. Somehow I knew it was here at the stern. I wondered if Jack was right - that Master was unaware and gazing out to sea, adrift in his own world, maybe thinking about the slaves, or about his sermons, maybe about Jack and me, or his other students, when he was rudely pushed into the deep.