When she saw that there was nothing she could do, she became very still, like the crew. Travis braced himself between the rail and a cannon carriage, holding Regan tightly, but his eyes never wavered from David’s slight form.
The captain, glad to finally find someone brave enough to climb the rigging, was shouting instructions to David while wrapping rope about his waist. From gestures and the few words that could be heard, it was clear that David was to climb the swinging rope rigging to the first and longest yardarm, crawl along its narrow width about halfway until he was suspended over the turbulent water, and bind the splitting yardarm.
Regan could only gasp in disbelief, too astonished even to make a further protest. She knew for sure that she was watching a man go to his death. With fear, she buried her face against Travis, but he pulled her head around and made her look at David, who was poised at the base of the mast, waiting only for Regan to give him a parting glance.
Lifting her hand toward him before dropping it helplessly at her side, she stood straight, her back against Travis’s chest, and watched as he grimly started the climb.
His inept
itude was immediately apparent as his feet slipped, quite often losing their grip so that he held on by only one hand. The wind tore at him, pulling his hands away, knocking the rope from under his feet.
Regan put her hand to her mouth and sank her teeth into her own flesh as she watched.
Slowly, with great difficulty at every step, David finally reached the yardarm. Hanging on to it with both his arms, seeming to pause for a moment’s rest or perhaps waiting until the next great wave passed, he hesitated. When the water cleared, and the people on deck saw that he was still there. they gave a united gasp of relief.
As the ship righted itself again, David inched forward on the yardarm. A foot before he reached the break, he unwound some of the rope about his waist and put one end into his mouth.
“Look out!” came a shout from near Regan.
But David could not hear the warning as another big wave separated him from the people below.
On deck, the crashing of the wave was mixed with another sound—that of splintering wood. Holding her breath, seeming to wait an eternity before the water cleared, Regan stared fearfully up at the yardarm where David hung so tenaciously. When she could see at last, she smiled because the yardarm was still intact.
But her smile quickly receded when she saw what had broken. Above David’s head was the maintop, a large platform where the men kept vigil. This platform had broken away on one side, part of it just over David’s head, and from the way he lay without moving, it seemed to have hit him.
Regan clutched Travis to her, her hands holding tightly as she watched David’s small, motionless figure high over her head.
She had no idea that Travis was watching her, studying the fear on her face. She was aware of nothing until Travis pushed her away from him, wedged her body onto the deck, and clasped her hands about the heavy, anchored cannon. “Stay!” he commanded, before grabbing rope tied to the fife rail and wrapping it about his waist.
Terror of a new kind surged through Regan, a terror so great that no words would come out of her mouth, and her arms clutching the cold cannon were white with strain.
Scarcely daring to breathe, she watched Travis ascend the rigging, his feet and hands much more sure than David’s, agile in spite of the size of him, or perhaps his strength was needed to hold him against the raging storm.
Each time a wave came over her and cut Travis from her view, Regan felt that she died a little bit. By the time he reached the yardarm, her body was as rigid as the iron of the cannon she gripped.
Cautiously, Travis crawled along the yardarm, straddling David when he reached him, leaning over, obviously shouting to the young man, but the fierce wind took the words away.
When David lifted himself and looked up at Travis, several of the sailors shouted encouragement. But Regan felt no relief whatsoever.
Travis and David seemed to talk for quite some time before Travis began moving forward, giving everyone more to fear as he passed David on the narrow projectile. Deftly and quickly, Travis lashed the splintering yardarm together, wrapping it tightly with the rope he carried. Twice he had to stop and cling to the pole as a wave threatened to pull him into the sea.
When he finished, he backed toward David, David handed him the rope from his waist, and Travis tied one end about his own waist. Now they were joined together for whatever fate awaited them in the long descent to the deck.
More talking was done as Travis seemed to be trying to persuade David to move from the piece of wood he held in a strangling grip.
Regan’s heart almost stopped beating as she saw Travis pull on the rope, encouraging David to back toward the main mast. It was as if Travis had all the time in the world as he patiently waited for David to begin to move.
Slowly, each muscle at a time, David started backing up, and Travis guided the young man’s feet onto the rope rigging. As if he were a child, Travis helped David, placed his hands and feet in the proper places, and once flung his arms across David, holding them both to the unsteady and flimsy rigging. When the wave passed, they started down again.
Regan began to breathe a bit when they were about twenty feet above the deck. She saw Travis shout at David, saw the young man shake his head, and heard Travis shout again until David nodded his head in agreement. David began to descend alone, Travis holding the rope about his waist, tying one end to the rigging.
Rising from her squatting position, Regan saw that Travis was making sure David was safe, that he was securely fastened so that if the next wave carried Travis over, he would go alone.
Guessing that as Travis glanced out to sea he saw something that the people below couldn’t see, she watched, tears coursing down her face. Travis wrapped the rope around his powerful forearm; then, entangling his other arm in the rigging, he kicked out at David, whose head was now even with Travis’s feet. David, unsteady and terrified, immediately lost his grip on the rigging, and his slight body swung away, falling for a few precious seconds before the slack was taken up in the hold Travis had on the rope about David’s waist.
A high scream of terror escaped David before Travis began to lower him, and the sailors caught him, quickly pulling him to the deck.
But Regan’s eyes never left Travis, who, as soon as he saw David was safe, dropped the rope and grabbed the rigging, ducking his head as if in protection. She left the cannon with one swift step, and that was as far as she got before the biggest wave of all hit them. The deck was flooded with cold, salty water, and in protest the ship threatened to turn over.