The small sailing ship had left England for Virginia 44 days ago. It had been a rough journey through the North Atlantic, with heavy storms and high seas, and the ship, crew, and passengers were battered. Food and water rations were low, and the crew and passengers had become rather tense and uptight. Daily skirmishes were common-place, and there was growing concern that they had lost their way and would never get to the "New World."

Tom, an orphan from Devonshire, had signed on as a "younker." Tom shared the concerns of everyone else, but he felt a great sense of duty, so he continued to complete his tasks with the utmost professionalism. Tom was working high up on the mast adjusting the rigging on the sails, when suddenly, he began to shout "Captain, Captain . . ."

The captain ignored Tom as he slid down the mainmast. Tom looked out again as his feet met the deck with a thump. Yep, those were Spanish flags, barely discernable through the trees of the coast. At least, he thought they were trees; they were only six inches tall from his vantage point.

"Captain," he said again, tugging on the older gentleman's sleeve. Once again, the captain ignored Tom, instead continuing to flirt with some female passengers. Tom saw the tankard on the deck by the captain's feet and saw that it was only a few drops of rum beyond empty. It had been full an hour ago, and the seas today had for once been calm, so it couldn't possibly have spilled -- unless it was down the captain's throat. Tom looked around for the first mate. Usually he wasn't but five paces from the captain, ready to serve the man like a dog. One would never know that quiet, humble man for the first mate. He had suffered through the captain's frequent tantrums and almost always had a bruise, a scar, or a new scrape on him somewhere.

Tom soon gave up looking for him and turned back to the captain. Why didn't the idiot see the Spaniards? wondered Tom. He looked again and saw that the flags had disappeared. The shore had become closer to life size now, and the ship showed no sign of slowing down. When the ship had left, even, they had slowed down for a puny little rowboat to clear their path. And this was an entire shore. Why wasn't the captain doing anything? Tom watched as faces -- Spanish soldiers' faces, he realized as he began to panic -- became more clear. These weren't Roanoke's inhabitants.

The younker pulled on the captain's sleeve again, harder.

"What do you want?" The captain asked in a voice that was almost an infuriated growl.

Tom swallowed hard and opened his mouth to speak, but another crew member's voice -- possibly the first mate's -- cut through the air before Tom could begin.

"Captain! The ship . . . she's headed for those rocks!" The first mate paused a second. "And Spaniards!"

"What?! The Armada and our little war were over a year ago," said the captain, amazingly coherent despite his drunken state.

"They obviously don't know --" he was cut off.

"All hands on deck!" shouted the captain. He turned to the first mate and snarled, "Turn this thing around and have the lazy bum who's steering this thing flogged."

"Aye, Cap'n." The first mate darted for the opposite end of the tiny ship. Tom did as he was told, running for the rigging to cut it so the ship could stop.

The captain continued barking out orders, though his speech was quickly becoming almost impossible to understand.

The passengers ran below-deck and Tom looked down quickly. Spaniards were heading out for this ship, haggard and with muskets in hand. They were probably there to rob the ship, as was their custom during the war. But the war was over -- perhaps they did not know that?

Tom became so engrossed in watching the men that he decided to get a better view by climbing higher. He needed to know what these jerks were doing, to tell the captain. In doing so, Tom felt a foot catch in a loop of rope. He edged out onto a piece of wood above a sail. The wind had picked up, which might have explained what happened next.

As Tom leaned down to untie the knot around his foot, he leaned a little too far and saw the deck rush up to meet his head and he knew it would deliver a crushing blow. But this only lasted for an instant; Tom was immediately pulled back and then began swinging.

He opened eyes he had never realized were closed and saw the deck, some fifteen to twenty feet below him. How he had escaped death was beyond him in that moment. All he knew was that his head was toward the deck, and his feet were . . . above him?

This couldn't be right, Tom reasoned, trying to glance to his feet. Somehow, the tangled foot had saved him, but the other was caught in the monstrous knot as well. Temporarily, Tom forgot about the Spaniards and started himself swinging, trying to grab part of the sail, the mainmast, anything, before the blood went to his head and he blacked out.

Tom continued swinging and finally grabbed the mainmast, trying to turn himself upright. The footholds and ratlines on this boat served him well as he pulled himself so that his head was slightly above his feet. This only made things worse. Before, only his legs had felt like they would pop out of their sockets; now, his arms felt the same way.

He grabbed the wood he'd been standing on when he'd fallen. Tom pulled himself onto it, leaning against the mainmast and then trying to free himself from this mess he'd gotten himself into. Abruptly, Tom felt himself falling; no, on second thought, it was the ship. What the--? thought Tom. He saw what the fuss was as the falling ship picked up speed. It looked like every single Spaniard had waded out to here -- Tom hadn't realized that they were this close to shore -- and pushed on the boat. He reasoned there were at least 250 or 300 of them; it wouldn't be that hard. Suddenly, the top of the mast smacked the water, and the water smacked Tom hard and right in the stomach. He clawed at the sail, trying to find a way out from the filthy thing.

He was still doing so when his lungs began to protest, wanting oxygen. Tom really began to panic now. He clawed and clawed like a savage, rabid wolf, tearing through the cloth until he found the surface. Tom's lungs were screaming as he broke the surface of the water. He looked ahead of him and the water . . . was on fire. No, not the water; the kerosene on top of the water. Kerosene?!

Tom looked around and began to pull himself toward shore, refusing to let his limbs go numb. He felt sand under his hands as he dog-paddled and glanced back. Flames engulfed the ship and Tom heard the fighting on board. A wall of flame then got between him and the burning ship, so Tom turned back toward shore and crawled up onto the beach. He collapsed with his face toward the horizontal inferno and knew the second the flames got to the gunpowder below. A huge explosion followed and everything faded to black as pieces of the ship flew in every direction.

* * * * * *

When Tom re-awoke, it was only a few hours later, for the blackened pieces of wood and of bodies littered the beach and the sea alike. But Tom had made it to land.

He sat up and rubbed his head where something had hit it. At least now Tom felt like he could move. He arose and looked through the trees, to what looked like a two-mile stretch of water, and then another island with a stockade in sight -- Roanoke.

Tom felt a renewed hope when he saw it and began walking to it. He was still too sore to run, no matter how much he wanted to.

He continued until he got to the strait of water which stood between him and Roanoke. There he looked for a piece of driftwood. Tom wouldn't try to make a raft, his clothes were already wet, but he wanted to stop himself from drowning if he gave out in the middle.

The little strait looked like two hundred miles, not just two, to Tom. He was so close, with only that water between him and hopefully some food. He'd had enough water, he didn't want that. Some rum would be nice. And some nice corn, and meat, and . . . well, it wouldn't do him any good making himself hungrier. It was time to ford the river.

Tom found his log and pushed it into the water. It floated. Very carefully, Tom took hold of the log and jumped into the waist-deep water. Tom began to dog-paddle again when he couldn't walk on the bottom, always keeping one hand on his log. The water got deeper for about a mile, then shallower until Tom could walk on it again. It had taken him nearly an hour to swim this far. Tom let the log go when he got within an arm's-length of the shoreline. The log floated away behind him as he climbed the steep slope.

A few minutes later, Tom came upon a throng of people -- the colonists at Roanoke. Their leader, a rather tall man, was saying something about leaving, something with the word "Croatan" repeated several times. Tom decided he should follow these people since they probably were going for some food. He opted to follow them at a distance, just in case these people wouldn't appreciate the intruder from a ship that had docked earlier. They would have to know about it -- the ship's explosion had created a huge billowing tower of smoke and flame.

Tom began to think as the people began to move away, taking everything with them. What would any future expeditions know about the people's leaving? Tom remembered what his mother had said before she died. "Leave a note whenever you're going anyplace, even if it's just down the street to retrieve your father." Somehow, he thought that somebody should leave a note. The word Tom had heard a number of times was "Croatan," so maybe this was the place they were headed to. Tom looked around and found someone's discarded knife. Then he found a tree and scratched in it the single word, "Croatan," in big letters. As he carved, he prayed that the word would mean something, and that the Roanoke colony would not simply "disappear" from everybody's memory.

Tom surveyed his work quickly and then ran off to follow the English colonists -- wherever they were headed.

THE END