Sarah sat up abruptly, coughing and promptly vomited up a stomach full of seawater. She clutched her chest and coughed some more, the pain in her lungs a sharp counterpoint to her exhaustion. Her clothes were sodden and there was sand caked over her skin, gritty and rough, abrading her many cuts and scrapes. Rolling onto her hands and knees she retched again and brought up more seawater before collapsing to the sand with a heavy groan, curled on her side. She lay for a time, cataloguing her pain, the sour rawness of her throat, the stiffness of fingers curled for too long around rough rope, the ache of her dehydrated swollen joints and the sharp sting of her wrenched shoulder. The surf lapped softly at her feet but she couldn't find the energy to move any further up the beach so she curled up more tightly, pulling them away from the water. At first her memories were hazy flickers of recollection. A huge storm, flashes of lightening, the anguished groaning of timbers pushed beyond endurance, and the feel of roughened wood and rope abrading her fingers as she clung desperately to a broken piece of rigging, but gradually she pieced together her memories.
A ship killer the men had called it when the storm was first spotted by the lookouts, swift and merciless and too fast to outrun as it had turned out. The second in as many days, the first having pushed them wildly off course, or so the Captain had told her. She remembered the mate pushing her into her cabin, admonishing her to stay there, the fear in his eyes cowing the urge to demand he find Charlotte and return her to the cabin as well. Sarah had been certain that he would do that anyway and it was only later that she wished she had been more insistent. In the end she had ignored the seaman's advice, the cracking of wood scaring her out of her cabin, terrified she would be trapped in the bowels of the sinking ship. She had tried to find Charlotte but it was a near impossible task in the almost pitch black, lurching, heaving darkness that was below decks. As it was she had only just made it to the deck when the whole ship gave a tremendous lurch and the main mast snapped like a twig, ripping free of its moorings and tearing a huge hole on the side of the ship. She had been thrown over the side, icy raging seas coming up to claim her, the weight of her skirts dragging her under the water. It was only by some great good fortune that she had been able to grab hold of a length of rope attached to a floating piece of wood. At some point she must have lost consciousness and now miraculously she found herself not dead, but on a beach somewhere far from home.
She sat up again and looked around. She was on a deserted beach, white sand stretching away down the coast, with no sign of human habitation in either direction. In one direction she saw caves and a rocky outcrop, and in the other the bay curved around and out of sight. A dense forest edged the beach, alive with cries and squawks of many birds and creatures and populated with a number of species of tree that were completely unknown to her. Debris from the wreck cluttered the shallows, swishing up and down the beach with each pulse of the waves. Her gaze sharpened as she spotted a dark lump some way down the beach and then suddenly she was on her feet, shading her eyes from the relentless sunlight. Running, she pounded down the beach and fell to her knees, rolling the man over on to his back, prayers and entreaties bubbling from her lips. The man's face was vaguely familiar to her but she had no idea of his name, she hadn't really had much conversation with anyone but the captain. The man's face was grey, she couldn't tell if he was breathing and there was blood running down his side from a large piece of splintered wood impaled in his abdomen. Sarah pulled him onto his side.
'Please don't be dead!' she begged giving him a shake, heedless of his injury and desperate for any kind of response. In the end she got one. Much like her the man suddenly coughed and vomited up seawater into her lap and she found herself almost laughing with relief.
'Thank God' she said over and over while the man groaned and coughed, and opened his red rimmed eyes, blinking to shift the sand and salt water. He gazed at her in confusion for some time and then eventually croaked, 'Water?' and at her hesitation said again, 'Have you any water?', his voice low and rasping. Sarah glanced down at the sea, at a loss and then looked around her uncertainly.
'I don't know…there might…I don't…'
The man frowned at her and then struggled to sit up, wincing visibly as the movement tore at his injury. Following his gaze to the blood that continued to flow sluggishly Sarah pressed a hand to her mouth.
'Should we do something about that?' she asked.
'I'll deal with it, find us some water.' He rolled his eyes as she hesitated and then pointed up the beach. 'Follow the beach, there will be a stream somewhere, find it.
Sarah felt stupid and incompetent but she did as she was bid, glancing back at the man frequently, irrationally worried that he might disappear as soon as her back was turned. Her hands shook and she felt breathless but she focused on finding water, her dry, sore mouth the only encouragement she needed. It took quite some time but eventually she found a small trickle of a stream flowing down the beach to join the sea. Nervously she followed it a few yards from the tree line away from the bay where the trickle was slightly deeper and immediately fell to her knees and greedily scooped mouthful after mouthful into her mouth. The affect was almost immediate, sweat broke out on her brow and her headache eased. Drinking as much as she could she looked down at her hands and almost burst into tears. She didn't have anything to take water back to the man, and judging by the wound on his side he wouldn't be able to make his way this far. She cast around looking for something to hold water but in this deserted place no buckets were immediately forthcoming. She didn't want to go back empty handed, she wanted to be useful, not a burden to the injured man. Eyeing the greenery around her she had a sudden flash of inspiration and began pulling down large fronds of the plants. Quickly she wove a makeshift basket and lined it with a broad leaf from another plant she didn't recognise. It wasn't perfect but it leaked at a slow enough rate that she thought she might be able to get a reasonable amount of water back to the sailor. Her skirts, while still damp, had been drying in the heat but by the time she made her way back down the beach with her makeshift water carrier the front of them were wet again and there was barely two cups of water left in the bottom. However, she reasoned it was better than nothing. The sailor didn't appear to mind, he took it gratefully enough and drained it quickly with a sigh of relief. While she had been gone he had ripped off one of his sleeves to make a bandage and tied up his wound. The shard of wood lay beside him, blood stained and ragged edged. Sarah stared at and swallowed hard as her stomach heaved.
'Do you want me to look at it?' she said tentatively, not sure what help she could be. The man shook his head.
'It's fine.' He said hoarsely. 'We need shelter. Water, shelter, then food.'
Sarah nodded trying to look knowledgeable. 'Shelter, yes.'
'The sun, it'll kill you quick. Gather up what wood and anything else you can find from the wreck, anything might be useful. You can use the palm leaves to cover it, the shelter that is. Make it above the tide line, near the trees.'
She stood, with determination which soon abandoned her as she looked around helplessly. Unsure where to start she turned to her companion and curtsied, feeling the fool.
'Sarah Castle at your service.'
He looked up at her, shading his eyes with his hand. 'William,' he responded shortly.
'A pleasure to make your acquaintance William,' she said with a confidence she was far from feeling. 'Now you tell me exactly what you want me to do and I will do my very best to carry out your instructions.'
He gave her an odd look but proceeded to give her very precise instructions. The shelter wasn't very sound, some of the larger planks of wood were beyond the capacity of her strength and she sliced her hands on the palm leaves she had used to roof it until, realising her difficulty, he gave her his knife to cut them from the trees. It looked rather like a stiff breeze might blow it over but despite the grimace he gave as he regarded it William settled himself inside without comment. Sarah felt quite proud as she looked at it, it reminded her of the dens she used to build with her brothers in the woods when they were children, before she was forced into more ladylike pastimes.
Once William had sent her back to the stream for more water and directed her to some low hanging fruit trees that he said were edible she sat down with him to look through their haul of wreck debris. Mainly it was pieces of wood which she had laid out on the sand to dry for the building a fire later. William had a knife and a tinder box for starting fires. Sarah had found her pockets buried under her skirts which contained nothing nearly so useful but she kept everything anyway, loath to part with anything that might come in useful later, so the sodden pack of playing cards, ink run to almost nothing, a small bundle of silk skeins and embroidery needles in a leather pouch and an ivory comb remained. The sea had relinquished a couple of flasks which she wished she had seen before she had gone to get water, however when William realised they contained rum and their seals were still intact he refused to let her empty them to use for carrying water. He became almost complimentary about her basket when she started to argue with him and then opened one of the bottles, taking a generous swig and pouring some onto his wound, wincing as he did so. Realising its potential medicinal value Sarah forbore to question him further. A wooden cask, the lid smashed and the contents gone, several lengths of rope and some netting were the only other things she had found on her hunt. It was a dismal haul but William seemed quite pleased. He was less pleased when she struggled to start a fire but softened when she persisted and eventually managed to get a respectable blaze going.
Much later Sarah lay on the sand trying to sleep, William already snoring close by. She was tired but also bewildered by the turn her journey had taken, her mind running over the things she had done today. William had barked instructions at her all day and she had followed then ignoring the feeling of indignation as he treated her as a servant, a stupid servant at that. Several times she had wanted to object as her pride took another blow but she rationalised that his knowledge provided her with the best chance of survival and rescue. Still it galled her to be spoken to in such a way by one so beneath her socially. Even on the ship she had spoken only to the Captain and the First Mate, the common seamen almost invisible to her.
She choked back a sob as she finally gave herself time to consider all that she had lost. She assumed that most of the seamen were dead, as well as her maid Charlotte who she had been unable to find in the dark, heaving bowels of the ship. She bit the back of her hand to stifle the sound of her weeping, loath to wake her companion. She didn't know what she would do if she were totally alone, if William were not here to guide her.
When she awoke in the morning his face was flushed with fever and his wound had started to smell putrid.
Within two days he was dead.