“Then I thank ye even more, Doctor.” Mr. Donovan stared down at his wife and babe, his eyes glassy with tears. “I wish there were a way I could repay you.”

“There is one thing you can do,” Joseph said.

Mercy clung tightly as the ship tossed again, this time so high that many of the passengers cried out in fright. Surely this storm didn’t have the power to turn the ship upside down, did it?

“Anything, sir, anything ’tall,” Mr. Donovan called above the noise. “You just say it.”

“A bed for my assistant, Miss Wilkins, where she can ride out the storm.”

While Joseph still wouldn’t look at her, Mr. Donovan did and nodded eagerly. He shouted instructions to a group of children crowded onto a nearby bottom bunk. At his command they scattered, some climbing into different beds, others crawling underneath the bunk.

Mr. Donovan waved his hand at the now-vacant bed. “It’ll be as safe and dry as you can get here in steerage.”

Joseph nodded his thanks before reaching out and grabbing on to Mercy’s elbow. Although he was having trouble staying afoot too, he was managing better than she was, so she allowed him to guide her to the bunk. He didn’t release her until she was seated comfortably. Then he backed away, not lingering a moment longer than he had to.

“You best take cover too, Doctor,” Mr. Donovan shouted over the ship’s creaking and groaning as he hunkered down next to his wife and new babe.

Joseph said something in reply, yet the words were lost by another swell and crash of a wave against the hull. Among the screams and cries of the passengers, Joseph made his way through steerage, offering aid and encouragement where he could.

Seeing his concern for their comfort and safety, Mercy couldn’t keep at bay her admiration, though her heart warned her that she needed to try harder to stave off such feelings.

Claps of thunder and the hammering of the sea became fiercer. When the ship’s stern rose and seemed to point toward heaven, Mercy could hardly hold on to the bed. An agonizing moment later, the ship plunged, charging down the trough, throwing everyone the opposite direction.

Mercy wondered if the ship would keep diving downward through the ocean, all the way to the very bottom. But then with a horrible creaking that sounded as if the ship were breaking apart, they rose again and beat back the onslaught of another great wave.

More screams and cries rang out in the cramped quarters. The banging and pounding coming from the decks beneath them sounded as though a sea monster had attacked the ship and was attempting to tear it to shreds.