Lost in the Storm

By dawn the Atlantic no longer roared but breathed in long, heavy swells that lifted Dreamer as if rocking her to sleep. The rain had stopped. Ragged clouds hurried east, exposing strips of pale morning sky, and sunlight glimmered across a thousand broken waves.

Throughout the night I had scarcely moved from the helm. Every order had been shouted into the wind, every decision measured against the lives of forty-three souls. Every thought, the next chance to keep Dreamer stable and moving.

I walked slowly forward, splashing through seawater that still pooled on the deck. Every step revealed another wound. Bulwarks were splintered. A longboat had vanished from its davits. Blocks hung by single lines. Rigging trailed into the sea like the tentacles of some dying creature.

Our foremast was gone. Only a jagged stump remained where the proud spar had stood the day before. I stopped beside it, resting my hand against the rough wood.

"I am sorry," I whispered, speaking not only to Dreamer but to someone else.

The storm had struck us on the beam.

Even after ordering all but one sail reefed, the seas rolled us until the yards seemed determined to dip into the water. Every wave drove us farther onto our side before hurling us upright again. The masts groaned with every roll. Blocks screamed.

Timbers answered with deep, aching cracks that every sailor dreads.

"We're holding, Captain," the first mate, Mateo Santamaria had shouted from beside the wheel.

"For now," I answered.

I made the decision to leave the lower foresail drawing. It was not carelessness. Strike that last driving sail and Dreamer would no longer answer the helm. Without enough sail to keep water flowing past the rudder, she would wallow beam-on to the seas, helpless before every wave. Leave it drawing, and I judged the foremast strong enough to bear the strain a little longer. I believed that little patch of canvas would preserve enough headway to keep Dreamer under command.

It was the right decision.

It was also the one that killed Tom Bristow.

The worst gust arrived without warning.

The wind did not merely blow. It struck. Dreamer heeled until the lee rail buried itself beneath green water. The foremast bent like a living thing. I heard the after stays stretch.

One snapped with a sound like a musket shot.

Then another.

For a heartbeat the mast remained standing. Then the entire spar lunged forward.

Yards, topmast, shrouds, and blocks exploded across the starboard bow. Hundreds of feet of rigging lashed across the deck. Wet sailcloth wrapped itself around everything it touched. The sea seized the wreckage, jerking it against the hull with every wave.

"Clear those lines!" I shouted.

The crew rushed forward. No sooner had they reached the wreck than another sea swept over the bow, throwing half of them to the deck.

"It'll stove us in!" someone cried.

The fallen mast weighed several tons. Every swell transformed it into a gigantic battering ram. If we could not free it, the wreckage would pound a hole through our own bow.

Tom Bristow, our bosun, never hesitated. Snatching an axe from its rack, "I've got it!" he yelled. No man aboard knew spars and rigging as Tom did.

He had taught me the language of rope before I ever commanded a ship. He had shown me how to seize a line until my fingers bled, how to hear when a stay was carrying too much strain, how to climb ratlines without looking down. While others called me Captain, Tom still found ways to remind me I had once been his awkward apprentice.

He plunged into the tangled mass.

Each swing of his axe parted a hawser with a sharp crack.

"Another's free!" someone shouted. The wreckage shifted. One by one the lines that bound the mast to Dreamer gave way.

"Tom!" I yelled. "That's enough! Come back!"

"I'm trying!" He turned toward us. At that instant the sea lifted Dreamer beneath our feet. The ship lurched violently to port.

The freed mast slid into the water with terrifying speed. Timber, iron fittings, yards, ropes of all thicknesses, and rain-soaked canvas swept over the side. Tom vanished with it.

"Tom!" I screamed before I knew I had spoken.

For one impossible second I expected him to climb free.

Instead I heard only one voice. "Man overboard!"

Everything inside me demanded that I order the helm over. Every instinct cried for us to turn back.

But the sea still ruled us.

"Captain!" someone cried. "We can still—"

One order would turn Dreamer around. My heart had already given the command.

The wreckage still dragged beside us. One turn into those seas and the broken mast could foul the rudder or roll us broadside. I would lose Tom, and then I would lose everyone still aboard.

My mouth would not form the words.

Mateo looked at me, waiting. "Captain..."

Tears blurred the sea until I could scarcely see at all.

"Hold..." I whispered.

No one moved.

The storm was no longer our greatest danger. The broken mast beside us had become a battering ram. A change of course would let every wave drive it against our bow.

I swallowed so hard it hurt. "Hold your course."

Several sailors stared astern. Others removed their caps. No one argued.

Long after the winds died, I stood alone on the quarterdeck. Every few moments I found myself looking astern.

It was absurd. The Atlantic had already swallowed him. There was nothing to see but waves. Yet I kept looking. As though Tom might somehow climb out of the sea and grin up at me.

As I walked the damaged deck, every piece of wreckage reminded me of Tom.

I picked up a frayed line. "No, Captain," he had laughed years before, taking it from my hands. "Feel it. Hemp talks to you if you let it."

I touched the broken stump of the mast. "Never trust a mast because it stood yesterday," he’d reminded me whenever I heard a suspicious noise.

I looked up the remaining ratlines. "Three points of contact, Captain,” he admonished as he eyed my stance. “The sea loves impatient climbers. You go where you will, but never without danger."

I glanced upward at the furled sails tight against the yards of the main mast. Tears still streaked my cheeks.

If I had struck that lower foresail an hour earlier... a minute… a second… would Tom still be alive?

I knew, rationally, that leaving the sail set was the prudent seamanship. Every experienced captain would agree. Yet I replayed the decision over and over.

I should have reefed the sail sooner…

I should have struck it entirely…

I should have called Tom back… stopped him from taking action… made sure he was safe…

Anything…

I should have...

No matter where I entered the memory, it ended in the same place. The decision that might have saved Tom could just as easily have lost Dreamer and everyone aboard.

As I wiped my cheeks with my sleeve, I thought of Edward Merrill, Dreamer's owner and my mentor, and whispered to him, “you taught me that command is sometimes choosing which grief you can live with.”

In my mind, I heard him whisper back, "the sea gave Dreamer back to you. You knew there was a price to be paid for every decision."