The Historically Unhistorical Work of Historical Fiction

Chapter 7-August 23rd, 1495

August 23rd, 1495

I woke up when lightning struck and Joel was shaking me awake at the same time. The sound of pouring down rain filled my ears and thunder drummed in my ear. Joel was screaming at me above the loud sound of the rain. Something about too much water and people panicking.  Jumping out of bed, Joel pulled me up to the deck where I was embraced by the roar of many noises at once.

Lightning whipped down from the clouds while thunder groaned loudly just before. The waves were in turmoil, tossing the ship around filling the shallow deck with water. Crew members everywhere were trying to keep the water level under control and the captain was screaming orders. Greggs was running around crazily, his maps had been tosses about by the wind. A wave started to rise behind him and before I could tell him to watch out, he was gobbled up by the wave and when it subsided, Greggs was nowhere to be seen. Captain Nyle saw Greggs go overboard and ran to the side of the ship. I ran after him and tried to see if Greggs was still in sight. The captain looked like he was about to jump over to save Greggs but I held him back.

“You can’t! It’s not worth losing our captain over!” I screamed at him over the roar of the waves.

“But that’s my grandfather!” The captain yelled back at me. My mouth dropped open and I let go of the captain’s arm. He got Striker to tie a rope around his waist and then he jumped over. You could barely see him under the large shadow of the clouds, but towering wave after towering wave crashed into him and pushed him back. A large wave loomed over him and he disappeared under water. The large wave moved on to the ship and crashed onto the deck of the ship.

It came down right on top of me and I lost my balance under its powerful force. Striker lost the rope that was connected to the captain and it started to slip back into the water with no one to hold it in place. Wiping the stinging salty water out of my eyes, I scrambled for the rope and caught it just before it vanished over the side of the ship. Using all of my strength, I started pulling the rope back so I could get the captain back on board. Striker recovered from the wave quickly and came over to help. With the both of us tugging on the rope, the captain’s drenched body eventually came back up.

Captain Nyle didn’t look conscious and the lessons my father taught me so long ago came back. He taught me how to perform CPR on a person in emergencies like this. I put pressure on his chest where his lungs were supposed to be in measured intervals and then forced air into him through his mouth. I had repeated those steps at least ten times but the captain still hadn’t gotten back up. Using all the strength I had left in me, I gave a mighty push in his chest and the water inside of him finally came back up. He coughed hard and sat back up while Striker pounded on his back.

When I glanced over to my right, Eliza was just standing there and I wondered why she hadn’t come to help. Well, she probably was attending to other crew members at the same time. The captain gasped for air and shivered. His clothes were soaked and his hair was dripping wet. The storm had passed and the sun shone down on the ship. The crew members that were still able to work started bailing out water that was on the deck with buckets.

“You saved me,” I turned back to the captain who was looking at me with the eyes of an empty soul, “Alex, you saved my life!” He grabbed my hands in both of his and smiled at me. He started crying and I was surprised. I’d never seen a grown man cry and it shocked me to the core.

“Well, sir, I just acted on instinct. We couldn’t have our captain dying.” I laughed nervously, I wasn’t really sure about how to deal with a crying man.

Then Captain Nyle shocked me with a huge hug, “You saved my life! That’s nothing to be modest about!”

“Sir, I think you should get a change of clothes…” I didn’t really like hugs that much and he was getting me even wetter than I already was. Plus, he would catch a cold since he had been out in the ocean.

Captain Nyle laughed and pulled away from me, his face was tear-streaked and he rubbed his eyes with the back of his hand, “There must be some way to repay you for saving me.”

“No, there’s no need for payment. You being alive to manage the crew should be enough.”

“If that’s what you want, I won’t bother you about it. But I’m forever indebted to you Alex.” Captain Nyle stood up and immediately reverted back to his captain-self. He went into his cabin and came back out with a drier change of clothes.

I went below deck and took out my satchel that I had stored under a loose board. Looking around, there was nobody here so I figured that it would be safe to change clothes as long as I was quick with it. Turning my back to the door, I changed pants first because I knew I was quick with that. When I took off my wet button up shirt and the large shirt that hid my growing chest, I heard a gasp behind me. I threw on the new dry large shirt I had in my hands quickly and saw Joel standing in the doorway.

He pointed a finger at me, “Y-y-you’re a girl?!”

“It’s not what you think!” I yelled, my face turning red. Joel’s mouth opened and closed like a fish out of water as he tried to make sense of it all.

“You’re a girl! Oh my God, I can't believe I was friends with a girl this whole time!” Joel shouted and I rushed over to him and pushed him into the room.

“Shush! Do you want the whole crew to overhear?!” I paced around the room, trying to think.

“Alex… if that’s even you’re real name, why didn’t you tell anybody?” Joel said quietly.

“I stopped pacing, “Why? Do you even know…?” I couldn’t even finish my sentence because I became really angry at his words. He didn’t understand all the things I had to do to get to this point of my life. “Just don’t tell anyone okay?! I’ll tell them at the right time.”

“Fine,” Joel complied and I sighed out of relief, “But you better tell everybody, or you’re just another scamming girl who doesn’t know her place in the world.” With that, Joel left me in the room, stunned. Was I really lost? I shook my head; he was just being a jerk.

I put on my other shirt and hid my satchel back under the wood. When I came back up, everyone was gathered under where the mast was. Listening to conversations, it seemed like someone had tangled the shrouds, the ropes that support the mast, on purpose. Everyone was casting each other suspicious glances and I knew that this would probably set us back some weeks.