I meant to have this posted on Saturday, but the chapter pretty much flew off the keyboard and I thought there was no reason to hold it. Especially when there had been a cliff hanger: Dawn

Stone

Chapter 59 – The Tree House

When the flash of lightning showed the cliff in their path Jason reacted before the captain. “Hard starboard”, he shouted, and then jumped back to unfasten the rope holding the wheel steady. He then helped the big sailor on the wheel to pull the ship towards the right, which would hopefully avoid the rocks. Jason as still too small to steer on his own, but the muscle he bad put on over the last year meant he was able to help the helmsman.

It was dark, and impossible to see the cliff any longer. Suddenly a great wave lifted the boat up even as it was trying to turn. Jason had visions of the ship smashing into the cliff, with the entire vessel breaking apart and all hands being lost in the hurricane. But instead there was a strange sensation of the ship landing. Suddenly there was no forward motion. The wind was still raging, and the rain coming down like buckets. The captain and Jason both heard the creaks of strain on the two masts bearing top sails.

“Where is the crew?” Jason asked.

“In quarters,” the captain said. “They had to be off the deck during the storm.”

“We need to get those sails down,” Jason said. “They will snap the masts in these winds.”

“It is too dangerous,” the captain said.

“As dangerous as losing two masts two months out to sea? I’ll get some men.”

Jason left the cabin and headed below decks, carefully going hand over hand with the ropes set up as the wind tried to blow him overboard. He finally got below decks and looked around. Most men were in hammocks, sometimes two or three huddled together in fear, since there were not enough hammocks for all three shifts at once. There was only one whale oil lamp giving limited visibility to the men.

“What the hell,” Jason shouted at the cowering men. “Are you Kithrens? Or perhaps you are like Captain Snow, ready to abandon a perfectly good ship in a hurricane. I need three men to go aloft and bring down the topsails. I’ll not assign men to such a dangerous task. But there are other things to do instead of cowering in your beds like frightened little girls.”

The sounding off from Jason gave the men courage. Here was Jason, barely out of boyhood, telling them off. One man shouted out “I’ll go up.” Two more also got out of their hammocks, then four more. Jason pointed out three who were strongest, and most adept aloft. “You two go to the main mast, and we will go up the foremast. Take down the topsails if you can, loosen then if you can’t.”

The men soon realized that Jason intended to go up with them. He was probably the most agile man aloft, although his mate’s duties kept him on deck most of the time now. But he didn’t have the strength of the others. For him climbing the masts in a storm was an act of bravery.

By now almost every sailor was on foot, holding on to whatever was near as the ship rocked. But the rocking was far less than it had been. Jason pointed to three. “You men go to the captain. You are mates or masters … act the part.” Seven common seamen were sent into the lower hold to tend to the animals, which had been ignored for more than 24 hours. Two men were sent to the bilge hold, to make sure the ship was not taking water. The cook was told to take men to the galley and start making food. No one had eaten all day. The others were told to stand by.

The entire crew was revitalized as they went about their tasks. Jason had inspired them and made them feel less doomed. He was in charge, and when Jason was in charge good things happened, not bad.

Jason led his crew out to the masts. Two went off to the mainmast and Jason and a great bear of a man headed up the foresail on slippery lines. Halfway up there was a creaking noise and Jason realized that if the mast snapped while they were on it, it would all be over. Seconds later Jason’s foot slipped as he was climbing, and a gust of wind blew his legs away from the rope. At the time he had one hand free to reach higher, meaning that he was hanging on by one hand.

Then he felt a beefy hand grab his arm and pull him back to the line. It was his partner and the quick help allowed Jason to get his feet around the rope again and continue up. Soon they were at the point where they could see the line holding the bottom of the sail in place. Realizing that they would never be able to bring the sail in, Jason grabbed his knife and cut the line, allowing one corner of the sail to go loose. He then reached over his partner and cut another line.

The sail blew loose. It snapped in the wind, and they could feel the pressure on the mast slacken immediately. With their mission accomplished the pair descended much faster than they had climbed. The other pair were still climbing, and when they heard the fore-top snapping, realized that they should also just cut the ropes on the main-top. Seconds later the second sail was snapping like the first.

Soon Jason felt his feet on the deck and sagged. His partner grabbed him, wrapping him in a muscular embrace that kept him on his feet.

“Thanks,” Jason said a minute later when he could finally speak. “My arms are like jelly, and my legs are not much better.”

The other pair came over. “We saw you had cut your sail free,” one of them noted. “So we decided to do the same. It was scary up there.”

“We have replacement sails,” Jason said. “We don’t have replacement masts. Hopefully removing the pressure will keep them up. Let’s go below decks. I’m wetter than I want to be after all that.”

But Jason didn’t stay in the berths for long. He headed lower down and found his men cleaning the stable area. They reported that they had watered all the animals and fed most of them. They were cleaning the goat stalls but were afraid of Doug. They had watered him but were afraid to feed him and clear the filth in his box. Jason went to the box and opened the door, which was left unlocked on Stone’s order. The horse had a wild look in his eyes but eased at seeing Jason and calmed even more when the young man put his hand on the Doug’s shoulder.

“I’ll send Dad down in a few minutes,” he murmured, pulling out a sack of oats and putting it in the feedbag. Doug ate hungrily as Jason cleaned up the box, pushing the filth out into an area where the other sailors felt safe in gathering it with the debris from the goat stalls.

“Where do we put all this?” one of the sailors asked, referring to the pile of manure.

“Just pile it over there,” Jason said. “We can wheel it out later, once the wind and waves go down.”

Jason headed back to the deck and headed to the owner’s cabin. Just before he got there, he heard the sound of something smashing to the deck. He looked, making sure that it was not a human head. It was about the right size, as it rolled towards his feet. Picking it up he saw that it was the size of an over-sized cannon ball, but much lighter. And there were no cannons on the Sun Goddess. It had a hairy texture, so he carried it into the cabin.

Jason was attacked into a hug by four: his mother, both sisters, and even little Kookla. Only Stone held back. “You have to go see Doug,” Jason said. “And do you know what this is?”

“I do,” Stone said taking the sphere from his son. “It is a coconut. I don’t know how it got onto the ship though. I have heard of them floating from an island. This one might be ripe. They have both food and a milk within.” He handed the nut back to Jason and headed out, with his son shouting a parting warning to use the guide ropes.

“I’m hungry,” Sissy said. “Them buns was too dry.”

Jason sat at the table and took his knife, which seemed to know what to do. It made a small hole in the top of the hard shell. Jason could smell something inside and tipped the nut to get a small sip of the coconut milk. Once he was satisfied it was safe, he handed the gourd to Sissy and she took a long sip.

“That’s good,” she announced, handing the cut to Emily, who took a long sip and passed it on to her mother. Kookla finally had a drink and passed the nut back to Jason who thought it was now empty. But his knife hummed a message and he attacked the shell again, cutting it into halves.

That was when they realized there was a white food inside. The knife cut out chunks of the white stuff and soon everyone was enjoying eating it. It was chewy and moist, so no water was needed to eat it.

“There will be some more real food soon,” Jason said. “Probably just oatmeal. I was down checking the chickens, and they didn’t lay during the storm. Maybe eggs for tomorrow.” He turned to Kookla: “Report: have you been keeping the family safe?”

The little boy saluted. “Kinda. I was scared though. All of us were scared.”

“I was scared too,” Jason said. “We nearly hit a cliff and I really don’t know where we are now.” Kookla stared at the young mate, as if he couldn’t believe his hero could ever be scared.

Jason left. The deck was no longer being tossed about in the waves, but he couldn’t believe that it had smashed on a beach without them feeling the collision. Outside he felt that the wind was abating, but only a bit. Looking east he could see a dull sunrise feeding just enough light under the hurricane clouds to be able to see dimly in the early morning. He turned to the sea and saw an odd shape. It was a tree, with more of the coconuts at the base, and huge, broad leaves spouting out from them.

He looked down over the rail and saw that it was nearly 100 feet to the ground. He worked his way to the front port corner of the ship and found another tree. Then he crossed at the forecastle and found a third tree, larger than the others. Finally, he worked his way along the ropes back to the aft-castle and discovered a fourth tree the size of the first one. He picked up another coconut that was rolling on the deck and then went into the captain’s cabin, where he found Keenstone with the three men Jason had sent up from the berths. During the walk Jason had worked out what happened.

“One of the men reported that you cut loose the sails,” the captain said. You could still hear the loose sails snapping in the wind. “What other news?”

“I think I know what happened,” Jason said. “We are on a beach. But we are wedged between four coconut trees. That’s why this ship is not being tossed, and few waves are coming over the deck. We will have to wait till the hurricane abates to see exactly what happened, and what to do. Look at this!” He held out the coconut and brought out his knife. The captain drank deeply of the milk: he hadn’t had food or water during the time he was on duty. Then Jason cut the nut in halves, and fed the captain, who hungrily ate the meat.

“That is good stuff,” Keenstone said. “What is it called?”

“Father says it is coconut. There are some more on all the four trees, not to mention a lot of them rolling about on the deck.”

“Look,” the first mate shouted. It had become light enough that the men in the cabin could make out the cliff which ended about 30 feet to the port side of the ship. “Thank God we didn’t hit that.”

“No,” the captain announced. “Thank Jason we didn’t hit it. We were headed straight for it and he got the steersman to angle away from it. I don’t think he was aiming for these trees though. Hitting the beach would have been nearly as bad as hitting the cliff.”