Dark Eyed Sailor

Untitled Story Part

"They told me you were dead," a voice close to his ear. Willam thought he was dead. He had fallen from the topsails of the Antelope, trying to bring them down when a sudden wind had hit them. The sky had been blue one moment and then black as pitch.

After the fall there was nothing until he awoke on a beach. His leg shattered, his arms barely strong enough to drag him up the beach, away from the waves trying to reclaim him.

Then there was heat and sun. Then blackness again.

Now there was...a bed. The rolling of a ship below him. The soft voice he had not heard since he had been press-ganged in the streets.

"Mary?"

"William," she sighed. Fingertips gently touching his face, brushing salt and sand from his skin. Stroking his hair away from eyes that refused to open completely.

"How..."

Her fingers found his. There was a sudden electric pain in his arm, but it passed, leaving blue lights exploding at the edge of his vision. Vision so limited, Mary could have been a statue over a church door.

"We were on our way to the colony and we anchored on the leeward side of the island to ride out the storm. They found you on the beach."
It didn't make any sense to William. Why would Mary come to the colonies? Who was we? It had been years since Willam's Naval ship had been taken by pirates. He had sent word to her, ture, but his wife had never responded.

Was she truly his wife? He had been pressed as soon as he had stepped out of the church. He had never consummated. He wanted Mary to be his, but had assumed, by now, that she had chosen another.

"Where is the Antelope?" he asked. He wasn't sure why, that was not the question burning in his mind.

"We saw a ship running before the storm," a male voice, not one he recognized, "Mr. Copper, we will be setting that leg and it will be immensely unpleasant. There is a bucket, we may need it. Mrs. Cooper, would you rather my assistant help with this?"

William had seen bones set, he had seen many bones set, and he knew that even with Laudanum the pain was often more than a stomach could handle.

"I will assist you," Mary said firmly.

"He is weak," the surgeon said, "hold his hands and make sure he vomits in the bucket, not on the floor."

William was rolled to his side and Mary took both of his hands in hers. The surgeon took William's foot and pulled and twisted. William cried out with the pain, he pulled away from both the surgeon and Mary curling in on himself, breathing hard through his mouth. Panting and gagging on the pain.

Then the pain lessened.

Quickly. Suddenly.

Mary bent down so he could see her face. William thought that he was hallucinating. He had to be, with the pain and the drugs that surgeons used. But even if she was a dream, and he was dying on a nameless beach, she was the dream he needed and he let his eyes close and let himself drift away in the arms of Morpheus.

**

"Will he heal?" Mary asked the surgeon while the man strapped a wooden and leather splint to William's leg.

"He will heal, but it remains to be seen if he heals well," the surgeon told her, "some men never completely recover from an injury like this. Will your family have work for him if he can not return to sea?"

"There is work for him if he can not, or if he chooses not, to go back."

"Good," the surgeon said with a nod, "I've seen to many sailors left with nothing after an injury."

"William will not be left with nothing," Mary said.

"Wash the salt and sand from him. See if you can change his shirt."

And then she was left alone with her husband. The bowl of precious fresh water that she had been left with would have to do. It was cold and the cloth was rough, but he had been at sea for years. The scars on his torso showed exactly how hard the years of their separation had been on him. The years hadn't been easy on her either, but she didn't carry the same evidence.

She took care with cleaning the open wounds from whatever had left Willam half dead on the shore of an island. She saved for last the face she had feared she would never see again. With the first touch of the cloth to his face, his eyes fluttered open.

"I'm not dreaming?" he asked, his voice gravelly and broken.

"No," she said. Mary leaned over him and kissed his forehead.

"I sent you letters," he mumbled, "I begged you to come to Kingstown."

"I never got letters," she said, cleaning away the grime, "I thought you were dead."

"Not without seeing you again," he said, reaching for her hand.

She couldn't stop the tears from slipping from her eyes, from sliding down her cheeks.

"No," he whispered, "No. No. Don't weep."

He reached out, taking her and and pulling her down. Pulling her onto the narrow bed with him.

"No," she protested, "I don't want to hurt you."

"I hurt until you are in my arms," he said, "I need you where I can feel you next to me. Then we can rest."

He shifted. His face twisted in pain for a moment before he managed to move his splinted leg closer to the wall of the small cabin that had been assigned to them.

She resisted for a few more moments, looking over his injured body. She turned her eyes away from his body, only covered by breaches that had come from one of the sailors on this ship. They fit around his waist, but did not quite reach his knees, they made him look very young.

"Please?" he asked quietly, "You're my wife..."

"I wasn't here for these," she ran her fingers along the old scars on his ribs.

"The Navy," he said, "this is normal in the Navy."

"It shouldn't be," Mary said.

"It shouldn't," Willam agreed holding an arm out for her, "I am not with them anymore."

"You aren't," she agreed.

"Please?" he asked again and tugged at her hand.

This time she gave in. She grabbed a woolen blanket and pulled it over them and curled against his chest.

"I've missed you," she said quietly.

"I've missed you," he replied.

The couple lay curled around each other as the ship rocked on the sea. Mary was comforted by the scent of her husband under her cheek.

Neither of them thought to wonder at how Willam had been found with the whole Atlantic Ocean to search. Neither wondered why Willam would wash up on a shore where Mary's ship would choose to ride out a storm.

It was a time for celebration, not a time for curiosity. Not yet.