The captain squinted and bellowed at the crew; they might hardly have heard, scampering like children on the leaping deck, hung in the rigging. The mainmast whistled like a whip across a broad arc of dark and stinging sky.
Bring her around the captain roared. The sea would not take this vessel. Bring her around! To the oarsmen: pull, damn the lot of you! To the lookout: there, what's that? That ahead! To the cabin boy: wait, wait, not now! To sailors overhead: luff it, luff it. To the cook: walk the plank! To the helmsman: bring her around!
Hold your course, now, and ride it! The captain turned at last for a moment to the cabin boy, the dewy-eyed page with a telegram in his hand. What?
"For you, skipper," the boy said, note extended. "Captain, it's all done. You've made it."
The deck pitched. The captain stared.
"You're finished," the boy said again. "You've won. You won the Kingdom of Heaven."
And when she understood she sank to her knees right there and wept like a baby, there on the damp and splintering deck.
Christine, Dreaming