I SLEEP IN UNSATISFYING fragments, the storm so furious I am uneasy, even within the lighthouse’s reliable embrace. As I lie awake, I remember when the lighthouse was built, how I was mesmerized by the tall tapering tower that was to become my home, three miles offshore from the coastal towns of Bamburgh and North Sunderland. “Five feet thick. Strong enough to withstand anything nature might throw at it.” My father was proud to know his new light station was constructed to a design similar to Robert Stevenson’s Bell Rock light. It has been my fortress for fifteen happy years.
Father wakes me at midnight with a gentle shake of the shoulder.
Dressing quickly, I take up my lamp and together we make our way downstairs where we pull on our cloaks and step out into the maelstrom to secure the coble at the boathouse, aware that the dangerous high tide is due at 4:13 A.M. The sea heaves and boils. I can’t remember when I have ever seen it so wild. Returning to the lighthouse, Father retires to bed, leaving me to take my turn on watch.
I take up my usual position at the narrow bedroom window, telescope in hand. The sky is a furious commotion of angry black clouds that send torrents of rain lashing against the glass. The wind tugs at the frame until I am sure it will be pulled right out. My senses are on full alert. Neither tired nor afraid, I focus only on the sea, watching for any sign of a ship in distress.
The night passes slowly, the pendulum clock on the wall ticking away the hours as the light turns steadily above.
Around 4:45 A.M., as the first hint of dawn lends a meager light to the sky, my eye is drawn to an unusual shape at the base of Harker’s Rock, home to the puffin and gannet colonies I love to observe on calm summer days. Visibility is terrible behind the thick veil of rain and sea spray, but I hold the telescope steady until I can just make out dark shapes dotted around the base of the rock. Seals, no doubt, sheltering their pups from the pounding waves. And yet an uncomfortable feeling stirs in the pit of my stomach.
By seven o’clock, the light has improved a little and the receding tide reveals more of Harker’s Rock. Taking up the telescope again, my heart leaps as I see a ship’s foremast jutting upward, clearly visible against the horizon. My instincts were right. They are not seals I’d seen at the base of the rock, but people. Survivors of a shipwreck.
Snatching up my hand lamp, I rush downstairs, the wind shrieking at the windows, urging me to hurry.
I rouse my father with a brusque shake of the shoulders. “A ship has foundered, Father! We must hurry.”
Tired, confused eyes meet mine. “What time is it, Grace? Whatever is the matter?”
“Survivors, Father. A wreck. There are people on Harker’s Rock. We must hurry.” I can hear the tremor in my voice, feel the tremble in my hands as my lamp shakes.
Mam stirs, asking if Brooks is back and what on earth all the commotion is about.
Father reaches for his spectacles, sleepy fingers fumbling like those of a blind man as he sits up. “What of the storm, Grace? The tide?”
“The tide is going out. The storm still rages.” I linger by the window, as if by standing there I might let those poor souls know that help is coming.
Father sighs, his hands dropping back onto the eiderdown. “Then it’s of no use, Grace. I will be shipwrecked myself if I attempt to set out in those seas. Even if I could get to Harker’s Rock I would never be able to row back against the turn of the tide. I wouldn’t make it across Craford’s Gut with the wind against me.”
Of course he is right. Even as I’d rushed to him, I’d heard him speak those very words.
I grasp his hands in mine and sink to my knees at the side of his bed. “But if we both rowed, Father? If I came with you, we could manage it, couldn’t we? We can take the longer route to avail of the shelter from the islands. Those we rescue can assist in rowing back, if they’re able.” I press all my determination into my voice, into my eyes, into his hands. “Come to the window to assure me I’m not imagining things.” I pull on his hands to help him up, passing him the telescope as another strong gust rattles the shutters, sending the rafters creaking above our heads.
My assumptions are quickly confirmed. A small group of human forms can now clearly be seen at the base of the rock, the battered remains of their vessel balanced precariously between them and the violent sea. “Do you see?” I ask.
“Yes, Grace. I see.”
I place my hand on Father’s arm as he folds the telescope and rests his palms against the windowsill. “The North Sunderland lifeboat won’t be able to put out in those seas,” I say, reading his thoughts. “We are their last hope of being rescued. And the Lord will protect us,” I add, as much to reassure myself as my father.
He understands that I am responding to the instinct to help, an instinct that has been instilled in me since I was a child on his knee, listening to accounts of lost fishing vessels and the brave men who rescued the survivors. I feel the drop of his shoulders and know my exertions have prevailed.
“Very well,” he says. “We will make an attempt. Just one, mind. If we can’t reach them . . .”
“I understand. But we must hurry.”
The decision made, all is action and purpose. We dress quickly and rush to the boathouse. The wind snatches my breath away, almost blowing me sideways as I step outside, my hair whipping wildly about my face. I falter for a moment, wishing my brother were here to help, but he isn’t. We must do this alone, Father and I, or not at all.
Mam helps to launch the boat, each of us taking our role in the procedure as we have done many times before. Words are useless, tossed aside by the wind, so that nobody quite knows what question was asked, or what reply given. I struggle to stand upright against the incessant gusts.
Finally, the boat is in the water. Stepping in, I pick up an oar and sit down.
“Grace! What are you doing?” Mam turns to my father. “William! She can’t go. This is madness.”
“He can’t go alone, Mam,” I shout. “I’m going with him.”
Father steps into the boat beside me. “She is like this storm, Thomasin. She won’t be silenced ’til she’s said her piece. I’ll take care of her.”
I urge Mam not to worry. “Prepare dry clothes and blankets. And have hot drinks ready.”
She nods her understanding and begins to untie the ropes that secure us to the landing wall, her fingers fumbling in the wet and the cold. She says something as we push away, but I can’t hear her above the wind. The storm and the sea are the only ones left to converse with now.
Once beyond the immediate shelter afforded by the base of Longstone Island, it becomes immediately apparent that the sea conditions are far worse than we’d imagined. The swell carries us high one moment before plunging us down into a deep trough the next, a wall of water surrounding us on either side. We are entirely at the mercy of the elements.
Father calls out to me, shouting above the wind, to explain that we will take a route through Craford’s Gut, the channel which separates Longstone Island from Blue Caps. I nod my understanding, locking eyes with him as we both pull hard against the oars. I draw courage from the light cast upon the water by Longstone’s lamps as Father instructs me to pull to the left or the right, keeping us on course around the lee side of the little knot of islands that offer a brief respite from the worst of the wind. As we round the spur of the last island and head out again into the open seas, Father looks at me with real fear in his eyes. Our little coble, just twenty-one feet by six inches, is all we have to protect us. In such wild seas, we know it isn’t nearly protection enough.