The next morning, I wake from a dream of damp fields and reaching skies to the sound of a man's yelling in my ear.

"UP ALL HAMMOCKS AHOY!"

Even over the storm, it pierces into the fug of sleep, and I roll out of the hammock, shivering as the blankets drop to the floor. I don't know how I fell asleep last night. Not when the rain was so fierce and the wind howling like a ghost trapped here on earth.

"Jesse!" Nino grabbed my arm. "Come on, hurry up!"

"What's happening?" My head is fuggy with sleep.

"The ship's going down." His face is pale under the tan. "We're going down."

"What?" Our ship, our brave little ship, which had come through Magellen's pass, which had taken cannon shot and bared searing heat, was sinking?

"Come on!"

We run. We run fast and strong, and the soles of my feet sting as they slap against the damp planks, itch as splinters pierce the thick skin. There is no time to think, only act.

Above decks, the weather is as wild as before, maybe worse, rain sheeting down and the wind tearing away the shouts across the sea. I can hardly see any further than a few feet in front, to where Nino is running over to the rail, calling something to me. The other boys... I cannot see the other boys, I cannot see Francesco, I cannot see any of them, I can only see the black of the midnight sky and a scared face, the mouth open and the eyes wild with fear.

"JESSE!"

It is Nino shouting again, but suddenly his words, the Portuguese words which I have spent these past two years learning, make no sense to me, and I can hear only English in my head, my own thoughts spiralling and twisting.

I'm not going to reach Japan.

I'm not going to see Father again.

I'm never going to see Jack either.

The ship jolts and I fall, my hip juddering against the deck and my legs sprawling. The breath is sucked away from my lungs.

"Jesse, move!" Hands hauling me upwards, hands I don't know. "Come on." Something – wood – shoved into my arms. "We have to jump."

Suddenly, I can speak again. "I can't swim."

"We're not far from the shore. The ship went too far into the shallows. We'll be fine."

And then the hand pulls me, and I'm running again, and we jump, away from the drowning ship, our drowning home, and into the boiling sea. Water closes over my head, and I open my mouth to scream, the salt making me gag.

And then back into the rain again, and Nino is beside me, beside me in the water. "Jesse? We have to swim. Come on!"

Other men are jumping now, all around us. I hear one splash which is very small, and Little Paulo's head appears, gasping for air like a fish taken from the sea. The other boys are here.

We are all here.

The water has seeped into my bones, frozen the life from them, but I find that I can still kick. As my eyes stream and my arms shake, I kick, as hard as I can. Away from the wreck and the storm. Away to safety.