Castaways in Time (The After Cilmeri Series) Read Online Free Page A

took in a deep breath and let it out,
and then stepped out of the doorway to look beyond the rail of the
ship. Looking with him, Callum could make out the lights of only
two of their ships, both at least two hundred yards to the
south.
    “What are the odds their captains learned
that SOS code like I instructed and will respond?” David said.
    “I spoke with them all before we departed.
They know SOS, if no other Morse code, but—” Callum peered into the
distance. “I do believe one them is signaling to us!”
    David turned back to the captain. “Send out
our own signal. We can’t help them and can only hope that they have
contact with another ship further to the south. Perhaps they can
pass on our distress call.”
    “Yes, my lord,” said the captain.
    “Is there anything else we can do?” Callum
said.
    “No, my lord,” the captain said.
    “I suggest pray ,” Cassie said.
    The captain genuinely laughed before
returning to the stern of the ship, passing among the horses which
were tied to the deck, heads down. He began shouting orders at his
men.
    Callum watched for a moment and then
staggered towards David’s cabin. David and Cassie had already gone
inside. They’d pulled the curtain that acted as a door across the
opening, but right in front of Callum, the wind half tore it off
and whipped it up so it lay in a sodden mass on the roof, the ends
flapping every now and then in a stronger gust. Inside the cabin,
Callum found Cassie sitting on the end of David’s bunk and David
gripping the beam that ran a few inches above his head for the
length of the cabin. His jaw was set.
    Callum lunged for an iron ring on the wall
to hold onto as the ship rocked, creaked, and suddenly tipped
sideways such that they all slid along the deck.
    “The captain said she was sturdy!” Cassie
said.
    “Like he would have told us otherwise,”
David said.
    “Man overboard! Man overboard!” Through the
open doorway, Callum could see the first mate slide down the deck
towards the tiller, or what remained of it. “It’s the captain!”
Shouts and calls intermingled with the horses’ whinnies as everyone
on board strived to stay upright and alive. The cog fell down into
a trough that Callum feared they’d never come out of, but then it
struggled upwards once again.
    “I suppose we’re a little early in time for
rubberized lifeboats,” Cassie said.
    Callum thought she was being remarkably
calm. On the next plunge downward, he released the ring he’d been
holding and slid across the floor to her. He caught a post with one
arm and put the other around her.
    David was braced in the doorway, observing
the activity outside the cabin without speaking.
    “My lord!” The first mate wove back and
forth like he was drunk, fighting the wind and trying not to knock
into the horses. At the last second, the deck heaved, and he
stumbled into David, who caught him by the arms.
    “See to your crew, Captain,” David said.
“Their safety is paramount.”
    “That’s what I came to tell you, my lord,”
the first mate-turned-captain said. “The rope that attached the
dinghy to the ship broke in the last wave. It’s already too far
away to haul back.”
    David gave a brief shake of his head. “I’m
sorry.”
    “My lord!” The man was practically in tears,
wringing his hands. “I wish there was more I could do. I trusted
the captain with my life, but I’ve already lost him and two more
over the side!”
    “Tie everyone and everything down,” David
said. “We can ride her out.”
    The first mate gave David a wide-eyed look
and turned away, responding to a shout from a crewman near the
tiller. David continued to gaze stoically, though Callum didn’t see
how he could see much of anything through the driving rain. Then
David released his hold on the frame of the door and strode away,
following the first mate.
    “My lord, don’t!” Callum shouted as loud as
he could, but the storm whipped away the sound of his voice, and
David