Past, Present & Future

‘The Lady Jane is a fine ship,’ thought Nick as he stood in front admiring it.

‘In a month, I will be at Jo’s side, to get her through this illness and finally tell her how I feel,’ Nick thought as he finally boarded the ship.

He went to his quarters and threw his only belongings that were contained in one sack onto the cot. He began to pull out things from the sack. First, his clothes, and then a picture of Plumfield with the entire Plumfield family standing there with smiles on their faces.

‘What a great day that was, how funny it was to get everyone just right to get the picture completed,’ Nick thought to himself as he remembered that event which was held in time within that picture.

Nick rubbed his thumb across Jo’s lovely face in the picture.

‘How beautiful she looks when she smiles like that.’

Nick put the picture down on a table next to his cot, a smile permeating his being from thinking about Jo.

Nick finished taking everything out of his sack and decided to go up on deck before the ship set sail.

Up on deck, the sails were let down and a gentle breeze took hold of those sails and the ship slowly drifted out of the port of Savannah, on it’s way “home” for Nick.

Nick looked out at the open sea and knew that now he was doing the right thing, he was headed “home.”

Two calm days at sea passed, on the third night, as Nick lay on his cot looking at the picture of Plumfield, the ship lurched forward. Nick could feel the sudden force of the sea on the ship. Nick had been on many ships and knew that this meant that the ship was headed into a violent storm. Precautions needed to be followed. Immediately, he gently put the picture back on the table and got up off his cot to get ready for the storm. As he tucked his shirt in, the fiercest attack from the sea came upon the ship and tossed it to one side, the Plumfield family picture fell to the floor, shattering the glass frame.

Nick quickly picked up the broken frame and slid the picture out, folded it and put it in his pocket. ‘You will be with me always, smiling Jo,’ thought Nick and with that he quickly went up on deck.

The rain was coming down at an angle now, the wind blowing so hard that Nick could hardly stand up on deck without falling over. He battled his way to the sails, where other sailors were desperately trying to hold them down. The wind kept taking the sails out of their grasps.

“We need to get these secured,” Nick yelled above the sound of the rain and waves pounding on the hull of the ship.

Next, the largest gale wind caught up under the sails and completely blew them off the pole. Nick glanced around the ship, noticing that the ship was at an angle from the waves. He held on to a railing nearby as the next round of waves came in. This time the waves reached upon the deck, breaking Nick’s grasp from the railing. Nick slid down the deck as the water rushed him to one end of the ship. Nick managed to grasp onto something before going over the edge. He pulled himself up and looked up at the crows nest and noticed that someone was up there, huddling for safety inside. It was the youngest of the sailors on board for this voyage.

‘This ship is going down, been on too many to know that,’ thought Nick.

‘I need to get up there and get him down before the ship goes down.’

Nick fumbled up to the ladder that lead up to the crows nest. He began climbing up. At that moment, after he got about halfway up, the next battering of waves and strong wind hit the ship and it nearly knocked Nick off the ladder. He had only one hand holding on to the ladder, his feet had slipped off the rungs. He held on for dear life.

‘Just think of Jo’s smiling face,’ thought Nick. He pulled himself up from the inspiration and continued up the ladder.

Finally, he made it up to the crows nest and grabbed the young sailor. They began their trek down the ladder, Nick going down the ladder first so that he could help the young sailor if it was needed.

The wind blew the rain into their faces, stinging their eyes. Nick just closed his eyes and thought of Plumfield.

They managed to get down to the bottom of the ladder without any problems. Nick and the young sailor ran up to help four others to loosen up ropes that secured a life boat. Nick pulled his knife out of his pocket.

“I got it,” yelled Nick to his fellow sailors. He quickly cut the ropes, releasing the life boat. The six men quickly lifted the boat and rigged the boat down to the dark, rough water below. The men quickly climbed down the ropes to the boat and cut the ropes to release the boat from the now sinking ship.

“We need to cut these ropes before this ship takes us down with it,” yelled Nick over the roar of the nearby ocean.

With the ropes cut, they quickly pulled out the oars and started to move the boat away from the sinking ship.

“Look, a man is out there in the middle of the water,” yelled the young sailor while pointing to that section of the water.

“I’ll go get him, everyone else stay here,” Nick said to the five other men.

Quickly, Nick jumped into the water and swam against the strong waves to the spot where he last saw the man in the water.

‘Where did he go?’ thought Nick.

All of a sudden, the man emerged from behind a large wave. Nick was stunned at the face he saw, it was Tom.

“Tom, what are ya doing here?” asked Nick through the water.

Nick could not understand anything that Tom said because of the wind and rain.

Tom seemed to be slipping into an unconscious state, so Nick quickly shook him.

“Tom, wake up!!”

After many violent shakes from Nick, Tom came back.

“Huh,…..?,” Tom said.

Nick kept swimming hard while holding Tom with one hand to haul him along. Nick’s arms were burning with pain from this effort to get back to the boat.

They were almost to the boat, but Nick needed to rest. Nearby, was a gun powder barrel floating in the water, it had come from the ship that had sunk now. Actually, there is so much debris floating all around that Nick did not pay attention to the barrel.

All of a sudden a huge explosion occurred. The life boat was blown over by the force of the explosion. Debris of all kinds flew at the men, wood from the ship to glass from lanterns or windows that must have come from the sunken ship. Of the four men remaining on the boat, only one was not mortally injured. He hauled himself out of the water onto the upside down boat. He looked around to only find one other man from the boat still alive. That man was screaming with pain while holding his hands to his eyes. Glass had flown into his eyes and were lodged deep into the tissue. This man would become blinded from this voyage. He would never see the open sea again.

The non-mortally injured man pulled a piece of his shirt off and he swam to the badly injured man. He quickly tied the piece of cloth around the other man’s head and hauled him to the boat to hold himself on to. The non-injured man quickly glanced around for more survivors and saw Tom floating in the water unconscious.

He quickly swam over to where Tom was floating. Next, he hauled Tom over to the boat, Tom awoke and immediately yelled, “Nick!!!”

As both men arrived at the boat, Tom asked, “Where’s Nick? I did not see him in the water after the explosion.”

“When I swam out there for you, I did not see him in the water,” the man told Tom.

“We have to go back and search for him,” screamed Tom insistently.

“I am not going out there again. You can go if you want to,” yelled the man to Tom.

“Fine, I will,” yelled Tom angrily.

Tom quickly swam out into the open sea away from the boat.

He scanned the rolling waves that were beginning to calm down now that the storm had quickly withdrawn.

“Nick, where are you?? Nick???,” called Tom for his dear friend.

‘Where is he? Nick can’t be gone, he has always made it through scrapes like these before. I remember the last shipwreck and he had saved my life that time too. What would I do without him,” thought Tom as he continued to search for his lifelong friend.

Will Tom find Nick alive, or is he gone from this world? Will Jo ever see Nick alive again? Will the future include Nick??

Read Part 7 to find out!!!!

Part 7 Coming soon!!!!!

Please email me at Minuet26@aol.com and tell me what you think of my story thus far!!!