But Jack did not notice, and neither did Kate, because for a few seconds, they took each other to another place, away from the cold and smells, the salt food and sad prayers, the fading hopes and winter-killed spirits.

Then the cry that Kate stifled became a cough. She sucked it in and tried to hold it, but it shook her body and reddened her face and finally burst out of her. Jack felt it rack in his own chest. He rolled off of her and held her until the spasm ended.

She wiped her watering eyes with the back of her hand. “ ’Tis no worse than what anyone else has. But what we just done… there’s none who has better.”

He tenderly pulled her shift over her breasts and stroked her stringy hair. “I’m goin’ to build thee and the lad a proper house, darlin’.”

“A shelter’ll do, Jack. Then build thyself a whaleboat and build us a future on the backs of them big black monsters out in the bay.”

“These Saints ain’t whalemen. If they decides to settle where there be no whales, I’ll break away and expect thee to stand by me.”

“I’ll brook nuffin’ foolhardy, Jack. I told thee that the day of the signin’. But a man of courage, who does what he has to, I’ll take him to me bed whenever he asks.”

“Thou gives me a strong spine, me darlin’. And a strong son.” Jack looked at the boy, who was sitting up, staring straight at them, eyes wide and curious. When Jack found his voice, he said, “Run along, lad. See what the weather bring for the exploration.”

The boy looked once more at his mother’s dishevelment, pulled on his breeches, and went out.

“How much did he see?” asked Kate.

“Don’t matter. Learnin’ ‘bout the world, he is. And he knows why we come here. There’ll be no fo’c’sles or fishmongerin’ for him. Not here. Not in America.”

“Excuse me.” Simeon Bigelow poked his head over the canvas, and with a small smile he said, “Wouldst thou have a cushion we could borrow?”

Kate laughed and began to cough. “More cushions and less cold would do us all some good.”

iv.

But for the explorers, the day brought only more cold. The shallop, under sail, pounded south through the icy spray. Jack Hilyard’s cloak froze like a board on his back. Myles Standish’s helmet and chest plate had an ice glaze that made him look like a sugar man in the window of a London bakeshop. Bradford, John Carver, Stephen Hopkins, Simeon Bigelow, and the others hunkered down while the waves broke over the bow of the shallop and sent up a mist that rimed their hats, hair, and sword hilts.

Mates John Clarke and Robert Coppin were in command, as Jones had chosen to remain on the ship and care for his cough. Ezra Bigelow had stayed behind as well, having dug into enough graves that he claimed to need a respite from the face of death.

Jack was glad to leave Bigelow at the rail beside Dorothy Bradford. Jack and Bigelow had become natural adversaries, like the sperm whale and the giant squid, and he could not understand the trust that others put in Bigelow. Even William Bradford treated him like a brother.

Jack thought that, in most things, Bradford molded brains to his courage and good sense to his faith. But Jack would never have sailed off and left his wife at Ezra Bigelow’s side. Had Kate been as frail as Dorothy Bradford, Jack would never have left England at all. That was the difference ‘twixt a man of the world and a man of faith.