Book 11 Read online

  “Bill,” she said with a smile, “the walk was invigorating and now I feel the need for a nap and to get ready for dinner.”

  The couple went down the staircase and then the corridor and stopped in front of her door. She offered her hand and they shook as she said, “If you wish, we can meet right here at eight p.m.”

  “I’ll be right here at seven fifty-five.” He entered his cabin and checked his watch to see that he had five hours before dinner.

  Finally, he thought as he popped open his valise, I have time to start Jules Verne’s book, ‘The Purchase of the North Pole’ He kicked off his shoes and lay back on the bed with his book. After two pages he felt himself drifting off to sleep so he took his pocket watch and set the alarm for seven o’clock . . . and promptly fell asleep.

  Back in her room, Elizabeth opened her tight corset and as the fifth and last button was opened she sighed in relief. She washed her face with cold water and brushed her teeth as she tried to get rid of the tinny taste in her mouth. Maybe it’s just something I ate and not the beginning of seasickness, she thought hopefully. She lay back on the bed and felt the room start to spin. No, she thought as she sat up, I must defeat this. I must not let it be known that I am susceptible to motion sickness as my boss will send a man on my trip. I’ll just sit here, she thought as she sat in one of the two wicker chairs. Five hours to relax before dinner, “Ulp!” She almost threw up at the thought of food, took a deep breath, sat back and closed her eyes only to get dizzy. Quickly reopening her eyes, she stared at the wall straight ahead.

  The small watch she had pinned to her blouse told her that it was time to get ready for dinner. She stood, shook her head and suddenly wished that she hadn’t, I’ll just go and claim that I’m not hungry or that I have a headache and can’t eat and must leave early. She thought of Bill, I wonder how Bill is making out? Maybe it’s just something we both ate that’s bothering me. She shrugged her slim shoulders and confessed to herself in the mirror as she pulled back a few strands of out-of-place hair, Elizabeth Jane Cochrane you know that you have seasickness, as this is not your first bout of it. If you remember you got sick in your cousin’s rowboat a few years ago and again on that ferryboat you took from Brooklyn to New York last year. Face it, you are prone to motion sickness or whichever you wish to call it and that is that! Just do not put that stupid corset back on.

  Bill put on a black jacket and brown pants along with his low-cut wing-tip shoes that showed the thin, almost transparent socks with a light blue arrow running up the side. He wore a white shirt and black string tie. At seven fifty-five he stepped out into the corridor to find the usual small crowd of passengers dressed for dinner, all heading towards the stairway at the end of the corridor. I have to admit that I’m used to going down to the dining room rather than walking up to it. He grinned, Memo to Matt: I owe you a drink for the many first-class rooms you have placed me in.

  He watched for the door of the room across the way to open and when his watch showed that it was eight o’clock, he stepped across the way and rapped on the door. It didn’t open until he knocked again.

  Bill was shocked as she was pale as a ghost.

  “Elizabeth! Are you feeling well?”

  She shook her head and said in a low tone of voice, “No, not really. I do believe that I’m suffering from seasickness and am glad to see that you are in good spirits.”

  “Is there anything that I can do?”

  Once again she shook her head, “No. I intend to get some fresh air after awhile.”

  “Not alone, I would hope. Please allow me to walk with you.”

  She seemed to shudder as she said, ”I am afraid I will be a bother to you. No, better I walk alone.”

  “There is no way that I can allow that to happen. It’s dark on deck and there are many places where the waves actually reach the deck.”

  “Well, if you don’t mind being seen with a-a well, a wretch of a woman I’ll attempt a walk at nine o’clock.”

  He grinned and she forced a grin of her own. “I’ll knock on your door at eight-fifty five. Good?”

  She nodded again and he walked down the corridor.

  Back at the table, he was greeted by the rest of the group and Monroe said as he looked around, “It seems that we are missing Miss . . . uhh,” he looked at his card and went on, “Miss Cochrane. Has anyone seen her?”

  “I have,” answered Bill, “she said she would see us at breakfast.”

  Once again the group read through their menus and Bill did the same and used his pencil.

  DINNER

  Barley Broth

  Beef Steak & Oyster Pie

  Spaghetti in Cream

  Roast Pork – Stuffing -- Apple Sauce

  Haricot Ox Tail

  Boiled Cabbage

  Boiled Potatoes

  Apple Tart

  Small Pastry

  Sago Pudding

  Ice Cream

  Roasted Pea Nuts

  Dates

  Cheese

  Crackers

  Coffee

  Tea

  Beer

  Bill had to eat fast as he had to get back to Elizabeth and his mission. He was in the middle of his vanilla ice cream dessert when his silent vibrating alarm went off. It was eight fifty when he made his good nights and bolted out the door and down the stairs to the corridor. Knowing that she could not pass him without him seeing her, he slowed down and walked to her door. He took a deep breath and knocked as he thought, Tonight is the night that she disappeared according to the folks up-time, so I’ll have to keep an eye on her until tomorrow. Wonder how I’m going to pull this off. He knocked again, checked his watch and tapped on the door as he called out loud, but not shouting: “Elizabeth. It’s me, Bill. Are you alright?”

  “She left her cabin, sir.”

  Bill turned to see a crewmember walking towards him with an armful of white towels. “She’s up on deck . . . at least that’s where she seemed to be heading as I passed her room about ten minutes ago.”

  Bill’s eyes squinted tight as he muttered to himself, “Damn, Bill, why weren’t you here?” He turned and ran down the corridor and after taking the stairs two at a time, made a left turn towards the main deck. He shoved open the door and stepped out onto the deck. The ship was sailing through a fog bank and while the deck lights were lit, the electric lights of this time period were nothing more than dim and left pockets of darkness and fog. Frantically he called out as he walked quickly down the length of the deck, “Elizabeth! Elizabeth, where are you?” It took no more than three minutes to cover the port side of the ship and as Bill swung around the front of the deck, he slipped on a wet spot hidden by one of the many shadows. He went from a trot to a fast pace and peered as deeply as he could into the dark spaces as he kept calling out for her. Bill was three quarters down the starboard side of the deck when he spotted the silhouette of a figure leaning over the railing at the end of the deck and he broke into a trot.

  “Elizabeth, get back from the railing,” he shouted.

  She looked up at him as he approached and with a groan suddenly turned sharply, her head once again facing the rear of the ship as her body convulsed and she threw up. In his haste to grab her, Bill didn’t see that at one point she didn’t make it over the side and all at once he grabbed her, slipped in her vomit and as she convulsed over the railing, they both went flying over the railing and into the dark sea.

  She didn’t even scream as they hit the water. Bill had her arm in a vice-like grip as the large propeller sucked them under. He knew they had to get away from the turning prop as it drew them closer and closer. He used his feet and his one free arm to strike away from the ship. He did all of this automatically as his Navy SEAL training kicked in and inside of one minute they were bobbing on the surface as the ship disappeared into the foggy night.

  She blinked and said as she held onto his arm, “Wh-What happened? We’re going to drown. Why did you . . . ?“

  “I thought you were go
ing to go over the railing and tried to help you.”

  Bill tried to keep calm. Well Bill, this is it, he thought as they tread water, the water temperature is about 70 degrees and I figure we can last a couple of hours if we don’t exhaust ourselves before we get rescued.

  “What do we do?” she asked as she pried his fingers off of her arm.

  “First,” he said as he reached for the hem of her dress . . . “

  Her eyes flashed in the dark as she said with fear in her voice, “Wh-What are you doing? I thought you were a gentleman!”

  “Elizabeth, please believe me. All I want to do is try and help us stay afloat.” He lifted her dress and in one motion, flipped it up out of the water and capturing air in it, pulled it back down into the water. She saw that he had created a float of sorts as the wet material of her dress kept the captured air from escaping.

  “Let me tie this tightly around you, and it’ll help you to stay afloat.” Before she nodded her answer Bill had the dress tied around her waist and the floating skirt helped her as she treaded water.

  Bill spoke his thoughts, hoping to keep her calm. “I’m sure that we’ll be missed, but in all honesty that won’t happen until breakfast time and maybe even lunch time. Meanwhile we must stay calm and tread water.”

  “Take this,” she said calmly as she passed him the end of her long, wrap around sash, “Tie it around your waist so we don’t drift away during the night.”

  Suddenly Bill felt more confident as he realized she too was a fighter and filled with determination to survive.

  One hour had passed and both conserved their energy by not speaking and Bill was glad that Elizabeth had not been sick since they went overboard. Good, he thought, she needs to keep her strength up. He cringed as a he fought off a cramp in his leg. If we get out of this I swear I’m going to start exercising just like when I was with the SEALs. Twice he saw Elizabeth slow down her treading as her eyelids dropped in sleep and twice he yanked on the sash to wake her. He lost some of his confidence when an abrupt pull on the sash from her, woke him.

  The fog stopped them from seeing past the end of their outstretched arm and both strained to hear a ship’s engine. Bill was going through the club’s bookcases as he mentally named each book to keep his mind occupied. He was on the ‘Ns’ when he saw Elizabeth’s eyes squint and close as she rubbed them before reopening them. She seemed to be staring at something over his shoulder and as he started to turn, she said in a dry voice, “Ship! A ship and it’s coming this way.”

  Bill turned and saw a large sailing ship and it was coming almost straight at them.

  “Ahoy!” he shouted and was shocked by the weakness of his call. They both shouted at the same time and Bill thought he saw a slight change of course. Before they called out again, the ship seemed to slow and in the thick fog figures could be seen peering at them with long glasses.

  “We’re saved!” she shouted as she started to untie the bottom of her dress and release the trapped air. She immediately started to sink as the heavy material pulled her down. Bill pulled on the sash and she came into his arms and held on tightly.

  “Easy now,” he said, “don’t drop your guard until we are rescued.”

  A rope and wood ladder was lowered along the starboard side and although the ship had slowed considerably, she was still moving when Bill grabbed the rung.

  It felt as though his arm was going to be pulled out of it’s socket as he held tightly and tried to get Elizabeth onto the first wooden rung of the ladder. He finally succeeded and with her standing on the first rung, he stepped up and guided her from behind as they went up one step at a time. Finally, at the top, a sailor took her hand and helped her over the side and onto the deck. She sat down exhausted as another sailor helped Bill up and onto the deck. He sat beside her exhausted as well. A group of sailors stood before them and Bill said, “Thank you all. I’m Bill Scott and this is Elizabeth Cochrane, may we speak with your captain?”

  The sailors looked at them, then at each other and shrugged their shoulders.

  “They don’t understand English,” Bill said.

  “But I do,” said a deep voice behind them.

  Both tried to stand and turn at the same time when the voice continued, “Please stay seated. It is obvious that you both have been in the ocean for a long time.” He stepped in front of them and said as he stood with his hands behind his back and feet spread apart as he looked down at them, “I am Captain Hendrik van der Decken and this is my ship, Vliegende Nederlander.”

  Both Bill and Elizabeth just stared at the man. He was well over six feet tall with a long gray beard and mustache. His hair was the same color and tied back into a ponytail. He wore a black tri-cornered hat with silver piping along the edge and his long black coat was kept tight around his waist by a thick, black leather belt that had a long cutlass stuck in it and a dagger tucked into his high leather boot.

  Suddenly the captain and his men seemed to disappear as the fog covered them. It took a moment for them to be seen and the captain was speaking to the crew in their native language. A short stocky man came over and motioned for them to follow him.

  Bill stood wobbly and helped Elizabeth to half-stand and half-lean on him as they followed the sailor to a door at the end of the deck. He looked up at the fog and through a small opening in the gray mist, saw that the ship’s sails were all up and full with the wind. That’s funny, he thought, I can’t feel even a slight breeze or hear the wind needed to fill those sails.

  He stepped over the raised threshold and entered the interior of the ship. Although there was an oil lamp swinging from a wooden beam, the interior looked the same as being on deck. A gray, moisture-laden fog seemed to lie about one foot high along the narrow corridor reminding him of the fog seen in the graveyards of old scary movies. The decking seemed mushy to their step and here and there he swore he saw moss growing. The sailor stopped and pointed at one door and stepped aside.

  “For both of us?” Bill asked.

  The man simply shrugged and walked away.

  Bill tried the latch, but the door was closed tightly so he pressed his other hand on the door as he pushed. It opened with a creak and he looked at his hand.

  “It’s wet! The door is wet.” He looked down at his feet and moving his foot back and forth, dissipated the fog in one section. He bent down and touched the gray wooden planking.

  “Wet!” He felt the walls and ceiling and exclaimed in a low voice, “They’re all wet. How can that be?” He led the way into the small room, saw an oil lamp on a table and took it to the single lamp outside of the room and, using its flame, lit the one from the room and went back inside.

  Elizabeth looks terrible, thought Bill as he set the lamp down, and so must I. The room was as gray as the outside and the wooden decorations chiseled into the foot of the bunk bed had moss growing out of it.

  He quickly pulled down the colorless blanket from one of the two bunk beds and threw it over her shoulders.

  “Elizabeth, you must get out of those clothes so they can dry. Use the blanket as a towel and wrap it around yourself.”

  “Bill, please ask if they might have clothes as I dare not remove my clothing. It is not the right thing to do.”

  Bill shook his head as he thought, I forgot the age she’s from. Women would never even show a shin never mind strip and use a blanket for clothes. “Listen, I’ll go and see about clothes for you, but for now, please get out of those wet clothes.”

  “And what about you?” she asked as she shivered beneath the blanket.

  “I’ll ask for clothes for me too,” he said as he grasped the wooden door latch. He opened the door and seeing the corridor empty, headed towards the stairs that led to the main deck. He shook his head as he put his hand on the stairway’s banister and thought, Damp too. I wonder how long they’ve been in this fog?

  The door at the top of the stairs was damp too, and he shivered with a chill as he opened it and stepped out onto the deck. Bill looked arou
nd and saw that the deck was empty. He looked up again and seeing the full press of sails he thought, not even a breeze on deck yet the sails are full. Weird. Then out of the corner of his eye, he saw somebody leaning against the ship’s rail. He walked closer and was happy to see a man in his sixties smoking a pipe as he rested his elbows on the rail. He turned towards him and Bill saw a smile on the six-foot plus tall man with a mop of blonde hair and mustache.

  “Hello!” he said as he tapped the embers out of the bowl of the pipe. “Are you the chap who came aboard today?”

  “Yes. Myself and a lady friend.” He offered his hand and went on, “Bill Scott from New York.”

  “Chad Williams. My wife Gloria is still in our cabin.”

  “As is my lady friend, Elizabeth.” He looked around and asked, “How come there are no crewmen on deck?”

  The tall, slim man shrugged his shoulders and said, “Afraid I know nothing of the sailing game, Bill. Sometimes I see one or two and Gloria said that she once saw ten or twelve at one time. However the captain, who is a fine fellow, seems to arrive whenever we want something.” He tapped his pipe once again on the railing and went on, “Sort of odd if you think about it.”

  “Where are we heading and do you know when we are scheduled to dock there?”

  Chad raised his eyebrows and put the stem of the pipe in his mouth, as he seemed to think over the question. Finally he said, “Not sure, old man. The captain always speaks of docking, but never really says where.”

  Bill stared at him for a moment and then asked, “He never really says where we are going to dock? When you purchased your ticket, where were you heading?”

  “Oh, no, I never purchased a ticket. You see we were on a sailboat that a friend of mine owns and went for a quick sail out of Galway Bay in Ireland while on holiday, and a storm came up and the boat capsized. Quite frightening it was too! Anyway, out of nowhere this wonderful vessel appeared and they dropped a ladder over the side for us and, well, here we are.”