Mail Order Sweetheart. Christine Johnson
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Blackthorn appeared at the end of the hall, hands covered in flour. “No need to go to that trouble, Mabel. I’ve got a batch ready to go. We might need bandages.”
The two women proceeded to discuss preparations while the daughter returned to the kitchen and Fiona waited. Her thoughts drifted back to Sawyer and the men. What had they encountered at the lakeshore? The waves must be huge in this wind. Their crashing could be heard inside the keeper’s quarters.
“Do you know what they plan to do?” she blurted out.
The two women stared at her.
“Some of the men went down the dune toward the lake,” she added.
Mrs. Calloway looked to Jane before answering. “I expect they wanted to have a closer look-see at the situation.”
Fiona prodded. “What will they do?”
Mrs. Calloway shook her head. “They’re probably seein’ what they can do to save those people on the ship.”
The lump grew in Fiona’s throat. “Then they are wrecked.”
“Samuel says they’re stuck on a sandbar,” Jane said. “The waves could tear the ship apart.”
Samuel must be her husband, the lighthouse keeper.
Icy fingers of dread wove their way around Fiona’s heart. “Then there’s little hope.”
“There’s always hope,” Mrs. Calloway said. “All things are possible with the Lord.”
The paraphrased scripture would normally settle Fiona’s nerves, but not tonight. “But how will anyone get to them in these waves?”
The two older women looked at each other.
Mrs. Calloway answered. “Apparently your Mr. Sawyer—” she often added Mr. to a man’s first name “—said during the war he saw someone send a line out to sea using a mortar.”
“A cannon?” Fiona gasped. “You have one?”
Jane shook her head.
“If the ship’s close enough,” Mrs. Calloway said, “they’re going to try tying a lead weight on the end and throwing it.”
That sounded far-fetched, but Fiona wasn’t going to say that, not with the ladies’ husbands involved.
“If that doesn’t work,” Mrs. Calloway continued, “they’ll use the mackinaw boat to try to get to the foundered ship.”
Boat meant small. Fiona’s head spun, and she leaned against the wall for support. All she could envision was Mary Clare’s lifeless body dragged from the icy water. Just hours ago, she’d been upset that her designs on Carson Blakeney had come to naught. What were her plans compared to people’s lives? Innocent people faced death on that ship, and brave men would risk their lives to try to save them. Sawyer in the lead.
“Now there,” Mrs. Calloway said, “no one’s gonna do anything foolhardy. They’ve all got a good dose of common sense.”
Jane nodded. “Samuel knows better than to send anyone out in impossible conditions.”
Even worse.
“But if no one tries to reach the ship...” She couldn’t fathom that. “They must try. They must.”
Again, the women stared at her.
“Now, what’s got you all upset, dear?” Mrs. Calloway asked. “The good Lord will take care of everyone.”
Fiona had always thought her faith strong, but she was no longer sure. Not sure at all.
* * *
Sawyer had seen the lake rough, but tonight was about as bad as it could get. When the waves and the cold were put together, the chances of rescuing anyone were slim. But they had to try. A little girl, Fiona had said, her eyes filled with an emotion he had never seen from her—fear.
Sawyer recalled the little girl who had held out her hand to him when he marched south from Atlanta during the war. Rail-thin, her lips had barely moved, but her eyes had told a terrible story. All she’d wanted was food, but he didn’t have any. That failure still haunted him. He could not fail Fiona’s niece.
A line of waves crashed and rolled ashore, pushing inland nearly to the edge of the dune. The men huddled there, just out of reach of the water. For now. With the wind steady, the waves would build. Soon there wouldn’t be any beach.
The ship was lodged on the sandbar. The lights aboard, likely lanterns since the engines had failed, vanished behind towering waves and then reappeared in the trough. Otherwise, they hadn’t budged. Blackthorn figured the sandbar—and now the foundered ship—was roughly a hundred yards offshore. Not impossible if they had a solid steam tug. She would pitch and roll like crazy, but they could get to the ship and get passengers onboard. It would take several trips, and hauling the passengers, especially the women and children, from ship to ship wouldn’t be easy, but it could be done.
The mackinaw? Impossible. The shallow-draft sailboat was designed to carry a lot of cargo, not weather heavy seas. It would flip over and fill with water in minutes.
“Maybe the ship will last till morning,” Garrett Decker yelled into his ear.
That was their best hope. That and the wind dying down. But if the passenger ship started to break up, they’d have to attempt the impossible. Sawyer could swim. But not a couple hundred yards into huge seas in icy waters. The ship might attempt to launch its boat, but that would be just as precarious as the mackinaw.
If only he had a cannon. They could attempt to fire the rope, attached to a shot, toward the ship and then rescue folks using that line. He’d seen it accomplished once, during the war, but the unit had resources that Singapore didn’t.
Sawyer rubbed his arms. “Let’s try heaving the line.”
They’d practiced a few times, failing miserably. This time Sawyer put Edwards on the spot. The man had boasted of his prowess. Let him prove it.
The wiry crew chief warmed up by swinging his arms several times. Then he grabbed the lead weight, reached back as far as he could and threw. The weight arced in the light from the lighthouse and then splashed into the water. Tuggman hauled it in.
“It’s useless,” Blackthorn said. “No one’s gotten near the ship.”
That was a kind way of saying they’d all fallen short by at least half.
“I’m praying she doesn’t break up,” Roland stated.
Sawyer shivered, though it wasn’t terribly cold. The southwest wind was warm, but the cold sweats had started coming on ever since he first saw the situation. Fiona’s desperate plea only made them worse.
“She’s breaking up!” Tuggman shouted.
Sawyer gulped. The worst had just arrived.
* * *
Fiona paced the small hallway in the keeper’s quarters after helping Mrs. Calloway haul bandages and liniments from the boardinghouse to the light station. The boardinghouse proprietress had vanished into the kitchen after asking Fiona to wait out front for word from the men. Nothing more could be done until survivors arrived.
Mrs. Calloway and Mrs. Blackthorn reappeared, busily calculating how many bed linens were available throughout town.
“The empty bunkhouses,” the latter suggested.
Mrs. Calloway shook her head. “It’s all at the boardinghouse. If only the hotel was open. There would be plenty there.”
“The VanderLeuvens would understand if we borrowed some,” Jane Blackthorn replied. “It is an emergency.”
Fiona couldn’t count blankets and bedding when lives were at risk. In addition to Mary Clare and the rest of the passengers, now Sawyer and the men attempting