Sophie - Chapter 74
Previously…
As the worsening storm battered the Union, frightened passengers struggled to stay on their feet in the flooded steerage. Johann, Thomas, Michael, Marie, and Clara became separated as seawater poured down the companionway and panic spread below deck. Questions about the lifeboats went unanswered while the ship continued to pitch violently. Then the lanterns went out.
*
A sharp crack sounded overhead in the darkness, like timber splitting. A woman cried out near Johann’s ear, clutching suddenly at his arm. He flinched.
“Did something break?” she whispered, her voice shaking.
“Easy now,” Johann said. “I don’t know. Ships are built quite strong.” He scarcely believed his own words.
Lightning flashed outside the hatch, briefly revealing the shifting shapes around them. The woman pressed closer to Johann as the water continued to surge against their legs. “I’m so cold,” she whispered.
A heavy crash reverberated through the ship as it rolled. Loose trunks banged against the berth posts, while floating debris knocked against Johann’s legs.
“Johann!” Michael’s voice broke through the clamor.
“Here!” Johann shouted back.
The woman’s grip tightened on his arm. Johann leaned closer to her. “Have you anyone with you?”
“I’m cold.”
“Stay hold of my arm,” he said.
Johann listened for Michael’s voice again. One wrong step in the rushing water with no lantern light could mean being knocked down and trampled. He had seen frightened animals trample a fallen animal before. But staying here was not safe either.
“Keep to the sides!” a crewman shouted. “Mind what’s floating in the water!”
Johann kept one shoulder near the berth posts as he moved forward. “What’s your name?”
A heavy sea crashed over the ship with enough force to shudder through the hull. The woman ducked instinctively against him.
“Sophie,” she whispered finally.
Johann stopped and listened again through the frightened murmur of voices filling steerage.
“Michael!” he shouted. “Marie!”
The crewman shoved past them, one hand reaching for the low overhead beam to steady himself. “Keep clear!” he ordered. “Make room there!”
“The latrines are overflowing—” a man called out.
“There’s nowhere to go!” another cried.
“Stay back from there!” the crewman barked. “The water’s backing through the drains!”
“Come on,” Johann said, moving cautiously through the seawater. “We need to get to the side.”
A wooden box slid from an upper berth and struck the water hard enough to splash across them.
Sophie startled and shrank closer to Johann.
“Will more things come loose?” she whispered.
He glanced upward, though he could not see what else might come loose.
“Stay close,” Johann said, starting forward again. The freezing water had numbed his feet so badly that he could barely feel his boots. He drew a deep breath and caught the sharp, briny smell of the ocean mixed with wet wood and the sour smell of sickness.
“Scheiße,” he muttered under his breath.
“Michael! Marie!” Johann shouted.
“I can’t find my boy!” A man lurched forward, his face appearing inches from Johann’s. Drops of seawater clung to his beard as his eyes searched Johann’s face desperately.
“Please… have you seen Emil?”
Johann’s stomach tightened. “No. I’m sorry. I have not seen him.”
“Emil!” he shouted hoarsely. “Emil!” The man was gone again, almost as quickly as he had appeared.
Sophie tugged at Johann’s sleeve. “Dear God… a little boy.”
Johann swallowed, his hand tightening against the berth post. “We need to get to the side.”
They started wading through the freezing water again. For the first time in hours, the ship seemed strangely quiet.
A crewman muttered as he passed, “Maybe we’re past the worst of it.”
“Aye… wind’s easing,” came an answer.
“Johann!” Michael’s voice carried through the uneasy quiet.
“By the berths!” Johann called back.
“I hear you!”
The strange lull filled with voices again as passengers stirred. For the first time in hours, the water around their legs had subsided, now lapping at their ankles.
Aware of the steady patter of water dripping around him and how heavy his wet clothes had become, Johann turned toward the sound of Sophie breathing beside him.
“Sophie?” he asked.
“Still here,” she murmured. “Though I think I shall never be warm again.”
Johann brushed wet hair off his forehead and frowned. “It is a poor business without the lanterns.”
“Oh!” Sophie gasped.
“What is it?”
“A drop,” Sophie whispered, brushing at her nose. “Only water.”
Johann let out a faint breath that might almost have been a laugh. “There seems to be no shortage of water.”
“Do you think it is over?” Sophie asked, her grip easing against his arm.
Johann listened to the ship’s sounds around them. “I pray it is. It sounds calmer now.”
His fingers found the end of his mustache. “Sophie… is there someone you should return to when the lanterns are lit again?”
“No,” Sophie said softly. “I am alone here.”
“Then it is well we found one another.”
“Johann?” Michael’s voice called through the darkness. “Is that you?”
Johann turned toward him. “Ja. I’m here.” He could just make out two dim figures approaching in the darkness.
“We could see nothing,” Marie said with relief in her voice. “It was impossible with no light.”
“There’s someone here with me,” Johann said. “Sophie. She was alone.”
“I’m glad Johann found you,” Marie said.
“Then that makes four of us,” Michael said with a weary breath.
“We should keep moving,” Johann said. “It’ll be safer off to the side.”
“Aye,” Michael said. “Thomas was sheltering against the wall off to the side when I found him after we lost you. I think I can lead us back there.”
A seaman farther down the passage cursed softly as flint struck again. A moment later, a lantern sputtered weakly to life. Another light flared closer to the stairs, throwing long shadows across the wavering, ankle-deep water.
A few murmurs of relief broke out around them as the light spread. Faces slowly emerged from the gloom.
For the first time, Johann saw Sophie clearly, wet hair clinging to her face, her fingers still wrapped lightly around his arm. Michael stood breathing hard, seawater dripping from his coat. Marie looked especially miserable, wet strands of hair plastered to her cheeks after her fall in the water, her soaked skirts dragging heavily around her ankles.
Michael started forward again, guiding them toward where he thought Thomas and Clara waited.
As Sophie moved alongside Johann beneath the weak lantern glow, the soaked wrap hanging from Sophie’s shoulders shifted enough for Marie to notice the unmistakable swell of late pregnancy beneath it.
They eased carefully through the crowd, stepping around scattered belongings and exhausted passengers still struggling to right themselves. A woman knelt in the water, trying to console a sobbing child.
A waterlogged trunk had jammed sideways across the way. Two men strained to force it back against the wall.
“Here,” Johann said, stepping forward. He and Michael leaned in beside them, bracing against the trunk.
Marie’s gaze lingered briefly on the curve beneath Sophie’s wet shawl. “You have made this journey alone?” Marie asked gently.
Sophie looked down. “I had little choice.”
With one last heave, the trunk lurched aside. As the men straightened breathlessly, one man gave a weary nod while the other muttered, “Much obliged.”
Another swell rolled through the ship, pushing the women briefly together as Johann and Michael searched the restless crowd.
“Thomas?” Johann asked.
“There,” Michael said suddenly. “I see him.”
Johann followed close behind Michael, stepping carefully around overturned trunks and bundles half-submerged in the water as they worked their way through the crowded steerage. Thomas’s tall frame made him easy to recognize above the crowd near the far wall.
“Over here!”
Michale pushed forward, forcing his way through the last few people. Thomas caught hold of his shoulder as they reached one another.
“Thought I’d lost you,” Thomas said over the surrounding noise.
“Not yet,” Michael answered breathlessly.
Thomas’s gaze moved quickly over the others as they came up behind him… Marie soaked through and pale beside an unfamiliar young woman shivering in a wet shawl, Johann standing close beside her.
“You all right?” Thomas asked.
“We are now,” Marie rested a hand lightly against Sophie’s arm. “This is Sophie,” she said. “Johann found her alone during the storm.”
Thomas gave a tired nod toward Sophie. “You were fortunate he came across you.”
Another roll passed beneath the ship. The remaining water lapped against their boots as passengers nearby continued to gather scattered bundles and bedding from the flooded floor, while others were too exhausted to move.
“She should stay with us,” Johann said before anyone else spoke.
Clara looked toward Sophie beneath the flickering lantern light. “Of course she should,” she said. “In her condition, she ought not be left alone again.”
Sophie lowered her gaze, drawing the wet shawl more tightly around herself.
Johann glanced toward Sophie, only now realizing what Marie and Clara had seen.
“She’ll stay with us,” Johann said quietly, as though there could be no question of it.
Thomas nodded. “We’ll make room somewhere.”
Clara lifted the soaked hem of her skirt with visible annoyance. “Though where exactly we are meant to put another soul in this flooded coffin, I should dearly like to know.”
Thomas cleared his throat. “We’ll find—”
“Find what?” Clara cut in sharply. “Dry boards? Blankets? Another inch of space no one has already claimed?”
Sophie lowered her gaze. “I should leave…” she murmured.
Johann caught her by the elbow. “We’ll manage.”
Before anyone else could answer, a blinding flash of lightning burst through the hatch above them. The ship lurched violently to port. Lanterns swung overhead as cries broke out in steerage.
