بیرون از پنجره

CHAPTER SIX

Out of the Window

At twenty to five that morning, Grace felt a hand on her face. I was her mother. Grace was nearly asleep, the wind was screaming and shaking the big windows, and ‘Thomasin Darling had to shout.

‘Go to bed, Grace! It’s nearly morning. I’ll look after the lantern now.’

‘All right, mother.’ Grace got up slowly and went downstairs to her bedroom. It was much quieter in her room because of the strong stone walls. She looked at the birds eggs on her table, the books on the desk near the bed. The bed looked warm and comfortable. She smiled, and began to get undressed.

A little grey light was coming in through the window. ‘It’s nearly morning,’ she thought, ‘I’ll look at the sea, before I go to sleep.’

She walked to the window and looked out. But she could see nothing, because of the salt and rain on the glass. ‘It doesn’t matter’ she thought, ‘I’m too tired. I’ll go to bed.’

But before she went to bed, she prayed. And when she prayed, she heard a voice in her head. ‘Go to the window, Grace,’ it said, ‘Go and look out.’

So she got up, went to the window, and opened it. The wind blew strongly into the room. It blew her hair across her face, and some books fell on the floor. In the grey morning light, Grace looked out across the sea.

Most of the rocks and small islands were under water. Big white waves were breaking over them. The sea was wild, frightening, terrible. Grace looked, and felt cold. She could not remember a storm as bad as this. She thought of her warm bed, and began to close the window.

Then she saw the ship. It was a big ship, on Harker’s Rock, about three hundred metres away to the south west. A very big ship, but it was broken in two, with white water breaking all over it. Grace could not see it very well, because of the rain and the sea.

‘Father! Father! Come quick!’ She ran out of the room, down the stairs to her patents’ bedroom. ‘Come quick! There’s a ship on Harker’s Rock! A big one - a passenger ship? It’s broken in two!’

William Darling was out of bed in a second. He put on his boots and coat and followed Grace up the stairs. ‘Did you see any people?’

‘No, father. But it’s difficult to see anything in this wild sea.’

Her father took a telescope from his pocket and stared out of Grace’s window at the wreck of the Forfarshire. He looked for a long time, then said: ‘I can see no one, but my eyes are old. You look, lass.’

Grace stared carefully through the telescope. White water crashed over the wreck. Sometimes the ship moved on the rock, and sometimes pieces of wood fell off into the sea. But she saw no people.

‘No, father. I think they have all drowned.’

‘Poor, poor people.

Yes, but it’s a good thing too, William.’ Grace’s mother was in the room now, and she was looking run of the window with her husband and daughter.

‘Why is that, Thomasin?’ William asked her.

‘Why? Because the boys aren’t here, William. You couldn’t take a boat out in that wild sea alone. No one could. If there are people alive on that ship now, you cannot save them, William.’

‘I could go with him, mother,’ said Grace quietly.

‘Not in a sea like that, Grace,’ her mother said.

Her father said nothing.

‘We mustn’t stop looking,’ said Grace. ‘If there is someone alive, we can’t just leave them to die.’

And so, for the next two hours. Grace and her parents watched the wreck of the Forfarshire through the telescope. Slowly, daylight came. But they saw no people. only rain, and waves, and a broken ship in the wild angry sea.