Bridgid knew what she had to do but for the first time in her life, she faltered during crisis. Crying out, she dropped down to the deck and cradled Jack on her lap.

The sound of the groan that came from Jack was more of a cold slap in the face than the spray that threatened to drown her. What should she do? Get him below to the driest part of the cabin or lash him someplace on deck, to the capstan perhaps.

Neither was a safe bet. If the ketch went down in the storm then she’d have little chance of getting him off, but on deck he’d suffer the effects of the drowning spray and waves that washed over the deck. She prayed through her decision and took the lesser of two evils. Her faith told her this ketch wouldn’t sink and she believed he would be safer below.

It seemed to take hours though it was probably less that one. Bridgid managed to get the big sailor below, unscathed. The ship felt as if it were being thrown from side to side. It shuddered and she could only imagine the keel being torn from the hull and surly send the ketch to the bottom of the bay, if that’s where they still were.

To compound everything, once the ship broke lose and went with the surf, she had no control nor did she know where they were at right now. Were they headed out to sea or where they about to be dashed on the rocks like the Hesperus?

She was crying out loud as she lowered Jack into the crewman’s bunk, for many obvious reasons. Pausing only to kiss him she knew she had to get to work or they’d both die at the hands of this storm.

Hearing the bilge pump furiously, she quickly donned her hurricane gear. The sound of the stringing pumps vanished as she crawled back to the deck. Winds were now at a steady sixty knots and they were surely gusting to eighty or better. The sounds of the banshee scream though the lines were ones that sailors often feared, often referred to as the sirens song that took them to their deaths.

As she secured lines she ignored the fact that her hands began to bleed. Visibility was near nothing but at one point she could swear she saw the flash of a lighthouse. The decks instruments said she was now moving away from the coast but could they be wrong?

The ketch was knocked down time and time again but Bridgid managed through sheer strength to pull the wheel toward her which pushed the rudder in the opposite direction. She steered away from the occasional flash of light to take her chances out to sea rather than close to the rocks. She lost count of how many times the mast had touched the water as the winds and sea broadsided her. All she could do was hope that the keel stayed in place and held firm.

Hours passed as she struggled with the ketch. During the times she went below to check on Jack, she had to fight to leave him again. She wanted to just crawl into the secure bunk with him and stay there, waiting to accept their fate but that fate didn’t suit her and the very thoughts of dying gave her the strength to return to the deck to fight again.

Her legs no longer burned, they were numb from trying to keep her balance. She was miffed to the fact that Jack had remained in the rack through all of this rocking and rolling but he was a born sailor and even unconscious his body adjusted to the result of the storm, or so she thought. Seven hours in to the ordeal she’d taken hold of a line with her bloody hands and to her surprise there were a second set of hands to assist. Fear shot through Bridgid when she felt the presence behind her but when she saw who it was she felt a wave of relief.

"Aubrey, are you all right?" she shouted.

She could barely see that he nodded in response because of the driving rain and wind. He had not donned his storm gear and he was drenched. His hair unbound no longer showed traces of blood from the injury to his head. It had washed away in the few seconds he was on deck.

Waves still crested the deck with blowing spray and foam. Visibility was near zero as night was beginning to fall as Mother Nature shook with rage. The battle Bridgid had fought on the deck of the ketch was evident to Jack and he wished he could end it all right now but it appeared to him that they’d have more of a fight on their hands if they were going to make it through this night.

He took the helm and motioned for her to go below.

"No!" she screamed into the gale.

"Reef the main, then!" he ordered, almost knowing what her answer would be. He had no idea of knowing how long she’d been fighting on the deck and reefing the main in a gale like that would take some effort but knowing what he knew made him the best choice for the helm. He wondered how she’d managed to keep the ketch into the wind the way she had but this like many others would be questions he could ask later.

Any luff would have torn the sails away but due to the sailors skills, they were flat. With both of them working the ketch was in the groove, the best place to be in heavy weather. With the storm jib up and the forsail at a third it kept the boat from rolling, thank God.

"Prepare to heave to!" Jack called

Heaving to in heavy winds will spill all wind from the sail and put the boat in the safest position to ride out the storm and for the most part, all they could hope to do was finish riding it out.

Bridgid secured the jib line to the cleat and grabbed on, hoping for the best as Jack turned the boat to broadside the surf. It wouldn’t make the ride easier, just safer, or at least as safe as it could be in hurricane force winds and rain.

Four more hours passed before they felt any relief from the storm. It subsided as quickly as it started, leaving them on deck in the early hours of the morning injured and exhausted but alive.

Jack was still at the helm when the first shards of daylight appeared. At least now they could assess the damage to the ketch and to themselves. His mouth was dry and his arms felt as though he’d been on a rack for hours. He could only imagine how she felt. When he got his first glimpse of her, he thought she looked haggard, worn as much as any sailor he’d weathered a storm with but the fight was still in her eyes and she was as beautiful as she’d ever been.

As she strode the damaged deck toward him he let go of the wheel to take her into his arms.

"We’re going to be okay, Jack."

"Aye, my love. We are going to be …okay." he replied, using her word. "The storm is gone and we have survived. Rest, then we will have work to do. I fear we have suffered substantial damage."

"Yeah." she replied, feeling very weak in his arms. "The storm is gone and so is the terror."

TBC