The Wind and the Spray Read Online Free Page A

thinking of watery graves or of David any longer, in fact as her nausea increased she would have welcomed a watery end, she was just being unromantically and very thoroughly sick.
    She was sick for hours.
    Some time through those hours someone attended her, quietly, efficiently, gently, kindly. It would be the little dried up man Lucas, of course, he had that sympathetic sort of face.
    He wiped her brow. He supplied fresh towels. He held something for her to sip. He said in a faraway but infinitely encouraging voice: “It happens to everyone ... it can happen any time ... lie still.”
    At last, depleted, exhausted, she slept.
    There must have been something in whatever she had sipped, for she knew as soon as she opened her eyes that she had slept a very long time. It was the pearliness of the light that told her, it was not just the clear of after-storm, it was not the first veiling of dusk, it was morning, she thought. That meant it was “tomorrow” morning ... that meant she had been sleeping since yesterday ... sleeping all night.
    The boat was travelling slowly and gently now over quieter waters. She propped herself on one elbow and peered out of the cabin window. Ahead was land. This must be Anna Head where they stopped to take supplies. The storm had slowed them considerably, they must be hours and hours behind.
    Luke pulled the curtain that formed the doorway aside and smiled in at her.
    She smiled warmly back. She would never forget those kindly administrations last night.
    “Want to see landfall?” he invited.
    “I glimpsed it through the window. I couldn’t see any shops, though.”
    “Aren’t any.”
    “But your captain said you stocked up at Anna.”
    Luke laughed at that, his dried-up skin going into a million creases.
    “That stuff Nor gave you sure did the trick.”
    “Nor?” she echoed blankly.
    She knew whom he meant; her echo had not been interrogation, it had been disbelief ... disbelief and incredulity at his words. The Rock, not Luke, administering to her last night!
    “You were leading us a fine dance, miss,” Luke was smiling, “until Cap knocked you out.”
    “Knocked me out!”
    “With a—sleeping draught.” Luke grinned slyly this time. “It was getting dirtier and dirtier, it needed both of us at the wheel, it was the only thing to do. Besides “ — another pleating of his brown nut of a face—“reckon Nor had given you your money’s worth already in attention, reckon it was only fair you flaked out and gave us a chance to get through.”
    So she had heard aright the first time. So it had not been Lucas wiping her brow, bringing fresh towels, murmuring encouraging words ... horror of all horrors, holding a bowl while she was sick. She had disliked him before, but now she despised him. You could not help but hate a man who had held a bowl while you were ill.
    “He gave me a sleeping draught?” she asked.
    Again the grim. “An overproof one, miss.”
    “And I slept right through Anna and the hours from Anna across—across to here?”
    She looked out at “here”—only rocks and some trees and breaking surf so far, but roofs of houses rapidly appearing, and a jetty, and people on the jetty waiting for the Leeward to berth.
    She got up and hurriedly changed into her skirt and over blouse, splashed her face with water, outlined some lipstick, ran a comb through her hair.
    She went on deck. The captain was at the wheel amidships bringing his boat home from the sea. He did not look at her, and sensitively, remembering last night, she looked away from him.
    The people’s faces stopped being blurs and took on shape and colour. One man was away in front of the rest, a little boy on each arm. The three waved excitedly, and spontaneously Laurel waved back.
    “The kids,” said the Captain beside her. Evidently Luke had taken the wheel again to bring the Leeward in.
    She nodded without turning, wondering why she had waved back so spontaneously ... then she saw the reason. It