by L. A. Meyer
At this, the madams Barnsley, Berry, and MacDonald, dressed in their best, advance grandly to the table, like ships in full sail, to snap down their coin, and the amounts are entered in the ledger. Then they are given keys to their rooms, small cabins, which I know to be on the second level, below the officers’ quarters, and not adjacent to the officers’ mess . . . and not quite what you fine ladies might be wishing for. We shall see . . .
I do not advance to the table, though I have enough money to do so. The Captain notices this and calls out, “And nothing for you, Miss Faber, noble leader of the redoubtable Newgaters? No snug little cabin for you, our female Orpheus?”
“Beggin’ your pardon, Sir, but no,” says I, leaning over the edge. “Although your offer is charming, I prefer to cast my lot with my girls. They are loyal and true to me, and I shall be the same to them.”
That gets a cheer from my Newgaters and some of the men, I notice, and some groans from the other Crews. “Little prig . . .’oo the ’ell she thinks she is, Saint Agnes or somethin’?” is heard from the vicinity of Mrs. Barnsley, and “Bleedin’ little snot. We’ll see about ’er sometime, we will” echoed from near Mrs. Berry. Mrs. MacDonald says something in Scots Gaelic, but I don’t quite get it. I do, however, earn a nod and a smile from the Captain.
Although I could afford the room, I don’t want it just yet, as I don’t want to be anywhere near that Ruger. I know those stateroom doors open outward, and I can’t have that. My trusty wooden wedges would be useless in fending off unwanted intruders, of which Ruger would almost certainly be one. Right now, I feel safer with my Crew about me. Plus, I must care for my girls . . . and now Mairead, too.
“Very well,” says the Captain. “Let us now bid on the lofts: The top level, currently being occupied by those called the Newgaters, is, I believe the prime residence space. Shall we start the bidding at ten pounds?”
“Ten pounds!” I shout, and a cheer is raised.
“Eleven!” cries Mrs. Barnsley.
“Twelve!” from Mrs. Berry, not to be yet undone.
“Thirteen!” says Mrs. MacDonald. Do I hear a slight reluctance in her thrifty Scottish brogue? I think I do.
“Fourteen!” That would be Mrs Barnsley again.
Seeing that the madams are now bidding quite briskly against each other, I drop out of the contest, shaking my head slightly when the Captain looks to me after each bid.
Mrs. Barnsley wins the top level with a bid of sixteen pounds. She looks up at me in triumph.
“Well, we’ll be sure clearin’ your lot out right quick, won’t we now?”
I do not deign to reply. I only put on the Lawson Peabody Look and wait for the next turn of events.
“And now the second level, ladies. No windows, but lots of good clean air, and the finest of hammock hooks. Do I hear five pounds?”
“Five pounds,” says Mrs. Berry.
“Six,” say I.
“Seven.”
I drop out at that. Mrs. Berry outbids Mrs. MacDonald and gets it for nine pounds.
“Looks like we’re goin’ down into the bottom hold.” Molly sighs beside me. “A pity. Our old loft was startin’ to look a lot like home.”
“Don’t worry, Molly, we’re not going down there at all . . . at least not to sleep,” I say. They all look at me. “Shush. I’ll tell you later, after we are dismissed.” I had thought this all out before, since I knew we would not have enough money to outbid the other Crews. No, there’s much better uses for our money.
“It’s your money, Jacky,” says Maggie. “You’re the one what dove down in the water for it.”
“Nay, Mag, it’s share and share alike in this gang. You all are pitchin’ in to the sewing and the laundry, and doin’ a fine job of it—and we all know there was a helluva lot of washing after the lusty frolics of Gibraltar.” There are grunts of disgusted agreement all around. Ann makes a show of holding her nose and crossing her eyes.
“I’ll continue to do my bit, too, in my own way,” says I. “And all the coin will go in to sweeten the common Newgater pot.”
Mrs. MacDonald, being Scottish and cheap, gets the third level for her Tartans. I only bid her up to three pounds.
“Will you bid anything for the bottom level, Miss Faber?” asks the Captain.
“Beggin’ your pardon, Sir, but I believe I have gotten that fine space by default.”
“Ha! Then you have it, Miss, for but a song, and I hope you enjoy. I hope you all enjoy! By and large, ladies, that was a very good auction,” exults the Captain, richer by twenty-eight pounds. “We will do this again in another month, and we shall see who triumphs then. And take heart, ladies, there will be more ports of call and more opportunities to make even more money.”
“Looks like you and yer crew is goin’ down to the bottom of this bark with the rest of the rats,” says Mrs. Barnsley. She grins and looks up at us, triumphant. “Just a pack o’ thieves . . . and now you add traitors, too . . .” She looks pointedly at Mairead. “A damned bogtrotter, as well. You and your Newgaters are well named. Hope you’ll all enjoy the lower deck. It should remind you all of home—both the bowels of Newgate . . . and focking Ireland.”
Mrs. Barnsley has never concealed her dislike of me. I know she was jealous of my bein’ able to wriggle my way into the Captain’s cabin so soon—and maybe into his affections, too. Now, there’s been many an individual Liverpool Judy, London Lizzie, and Scottish Tartan in the cabin, bouncing on various male knees, but the three Mesdames have not, and it rankles them to see me prancing in and out of there, like I half own the place—which I do . . . or did . . .
“Erin go braugh!” Mairead snarls, and goes to fling herself off the foretop. I manage to catch and hold her before she can leap down on Mrs. Barnsley, claws out and ready to do damage.
“Me and mine shall thrive wherever we are quartered, Mrs. Barnsley,” I announce, “as we are secure in both our mutual friendship and our womanly virtue.”
And the price for washing your Crew’s filthy drawers just went up by half, you old bawd!
That gets the old bawd’s goat.
“Listen, you little guttersnipe,” snarls Mrs. Barnsley, pointing a threatening finger up at me, “you go holier-than-thou on me, and I’ll teach you a lesson or two.”
“Hey, hey, we’ll have none of that, else we’ll have to bring out the rod again.” The Captain, being a generally easy-going sort, will not put up with a loss of good order. Only yesterday, two of the ladies—one Judy, a Jane Ellis, and one Tartan, Mary Davidson—had gotten into a fight, over a man, of course, and each had been punished by being stretched across a cannon, skirts hiked up, and given ten lashes of the rod over their very ample buttocks. Their howls were quite expressive.
“The darkness and gloom will be good for my snowy complexion, Captain Laughton,” say I, getting a good laugh from the crowd. A week and a half out from London and I’m already tanned brown as a nut. The laugh eases the tension.
“Well said,” replies the Captain. “Now, as for that song for your rent, perhaps it might be delivered by the newest member of your Crew, the lovely colleen with the flaming red hair?”
I pull out my pennywhistle and look over at Mairead. “It would be a good thing to do,” I say.
She nods. In our hammock last night we had talked for a long while about our situation and had come to a joint conclusion: We can worry about our lads only so much, but we also know that they would want us to be cheerful and make the best of the lot that has befallen us. Then we fell asleep, wrapped about each other for comfort.
Mairead stands up and so do I.
“It will be ‘Home, Boys, Home!’” she announces to the crowd, and to me she counts one . . . two . . . three! And we swing into it, she with voice, me with whistle.
Oh, well, who wouldn’t be a sailor lad, a sailin’ on the main,
To gain the goodwill of his captain’s good name,
He came ashore one evening at my own daddy’s inn,
And
that was the beginning of my own true love and me. For it’s . . .
“All you down there,” I call out to those below. “Come join in the chorus and let’s properly welcome our new lass aboard our Lorelei Lee!”
With great gusto they all—Captain, officers, crew, and Crews—sing it out.
Home, boys, home, home I’d like to be,
Home for a while in the old country
Where the oak and the ash and the bonny rowan tree
Are all growing greener in the north country!
Mairead goes into the next verse, while I toodle along. Although Mairead is not a large girl—not much bigger than I—she has a powerful set of lungs and, when singing, is not at all shy of using them.
Well, he asked me for a candle for to light him up to bed,
And likewise for a handkerchief to tie around his head.
I tended to his needs like a chambermaid ought to do,
So then he says to me, now won’t you leap in with me, too. And it’s . . .
. . . the chorus, again, louder now, and . . .
Well, I jumped into the bed, making no alarm,
Thinking a young sailor lad could never do me harm.
Well, he hugged me and kissed me the whole night long,
Till I wished that little short night had been nine years long. And it’s . . .
. . . the chorus, with all on deck joining in, and then Mairead crosses her hands over her belly and looks off with a rueful expression on her face as she sings . . .
Well, early next morning, the sailor lad arose,
And into my apron threw a handful of gold, saying,
“Take this me dear, for the mischief that I’ve done,
For tonight I fear I’ve left you with a daughter or a son.” And it’s . . .
. . . the chorus, with great laughter at Mairead’s wide-eyed poor-maiden-finding-herself-suddenly-with-child pantomime, and then she sings the last verse . . .
Now come all of you fair maidens, a warning take by me,
And never let a sailor lad an inch above your knee,
For I trusted one and he beguil-ed me,
He left me with a pair of twins to dangle on me knee. And it’s . . .
Home, boys, home, home I’d like to be,
Home for a while in the old country
Where the oak and the ash and the bonny rowan tree
Are all a growing greener in the north country!
I cap it off with a trill of notes on my whistle, and then we both bow. A great cheer for the two of us, and then the Captain rises and lifts his glass in salute to Mairead.
“Capital, just capital, my girls,” he bellows. “Today, let the merriment continue with a double tot for all! Tomorrow, we shall be at Madeira Island, the Pearl of the Atlantic!” crows the Captain, holding up his glass for a refill. “The Floating Garden of the Sea!”
Huzzah!
Chapter 31
J. Fletcher
Cerberus
18 days out
Dear Jacky,
I hope you are as well as can be expected, considering our common circumstances.
Our days on the Cerberus are long—relentlessly, infinitely, tediously long—and the nights are even longer, and I fear you endure something of the same. Each day, at Two Bells in the Morning Watch, the long leg chain is untethered from its moorings at each end of our cell, and we drag it along to the head and thence to the mess deck to be given our slops. We are then taken up onto the deck for air and exercise. Do not believe, dear one, they are doing this out of any kindness in their hearts, for surely there is very little of that virtue contained in those dark places. No, for as they are being paid by the head of any convict who arrives in New South Wales alive and reasonably healthy, whichever wretch passes for the Ship’s Surgeon must feel the exercising of us prisoners necessary to that end.
Out on deck, we are made to shuffle five times around the main hatch top, the one immediately forward of the quarterdeck, then it is back down into our hole. Being outside does lift our spirits a bit, and we are allowed to sing—encouraged even. The quarterdeck watch must get as bored with its lot as we are with ours and is glad to hear it. Plus, each of my pack of rascals seems to have an excellent voice. Something in the soil of Ireland, I suppose . . .
The time topside is beneficial not only to my body, but also to my mind, for it gives me a chance to size some things up. The state of this ship, for instance. It is a big, tubby merchantman that I will not dignify by naming it a proper brig. However, having three masts, with all sails square, I must call it a ship. Ship though it may be, it is certainly a seagoing wreck—sloppy and ill-kempt and an affront to any Royal Navy sailor’s eye.
I note there are belaying pins sitting in holes drilled into the rails, as they should be, while others are just lying about the scuppers. There is the usual bunch of cutlasses chained about the foot of the foremast, as well. I note, too, the discontented, surly crew—I am sure they live only for their nightly pint of grog. I have heard no cheerful singing from them in the below decks, only the clanking of chains and the moans of the damned. It seems that only Napper, Vance, and the Weasel enjoy their work.
I am reminded daily of Dante’s Inferno, and his various levels of hell. After some reflection, I put this particular hell at about level five. That time I spent in Pittsburgh’s foulest prison in the rather dubious company of Mike Fink, which I had thought at the time was the worst of possible fates, pales beside this, and rates only a three, I believe. Actually, when I think of Sergeant Napper and Corporal Vance, I recall with some fondness the very large and very hairy Mr. Fink, King of the River, and our mutual acquaintance. He did, after all, wholeheartedly offer me his friendship—Love her up good, boy, ’fore I come down and mess her up for good and ever, for the stealin of my boat. After she’s down at the bottom of the river with an anchor chain wrapped round her neck, maybe you and me’ll bring my boat back upriver. Haul some cargo, buy us a coupla fancy ladies, have us a time. Whadya say, boy?—and, I must admit, except for the prospect of your sad demise, a life on that river does not seem such a bad idea right now. It’s the only life for a man and you know it to be true. Perhaps Mike was right . . . But I digress . . .
Now, the escort ship, which lies off our port side, that is another story altogether. It is a trim, well-maintained brig, sailed tightly in true Bristol fashion. It is Royal Navy, and looks it.
When on exercise drill, I find that Second Mate Travis Hollister often falls into step next to me for some conversation. At first I was surprised at that, but then I realized the cause—he and I are the only former Royal Navy officers on-board and the poor man must have lacked for nautical conversation, or intelligent conversation of any kind. Not that I have much to offer in that regard, but still.
It was he who told me something of HMS Dart, our well-armed escort.
“As you can see, she is a’s loop-of-war, and is commanded by a Captain Adam Varga,” he says. “They seem well turned out.”
“The other officers?” I ask, thinking I might know some of them.
“I do not know.”
“You do not go over to dine, sometimes? Is there not some common naval courtesy?”
“No, it’s plain they hold us in the greatest contempt.”
“Not you, too, surely?”
“They do not even know I am here.”
I reflect that it must be difficult for him—to have gained his hard-won lieutenancy in the Royal Navy, served honorably, then not being able to secure a berth after Trafalgar, when Boney’s fleet was destroyed with the help of such as he. It is ironic—you risk your life to save your country, and when you are successful, you find yourself out of a job.
I have thought and thought of ways of escape, but have so far come up with nothing. I lie back on my bench and muse on that.
Now, what would you do, Jacky? You who have escaped confinement so many times? Hmmm. Well, I imagine that first you would begin to charm your guards, right? Appeal to their male v
anity, appeal to whatever protective nature might dwell in their bosom for a poor little girl so cruelly treated? Would you softly sing songs that remind them of their homeland and sisters and daughters so far away? Oh, yes, you would. Songs sung so softly and with such feeling that they would be lulled into reverie and sweet remembrance and inattention to their duty.
I fear, however, that Sergeant Napper and Corporal Vance would be somewhat immune to my charms in that way. My charms, yes . . . but maybe not the allure of some others. I have noticed during our exercise outside on deck that the eyes of the two brutes very often fall upon young Daniel Connolly, and then slide knowingly to each other’s. I have seen sly smiles and nods pass between them.
You are shocked by that? Yes, well might you be, being a young girl and not exposed to such odious things, but such deviant lusts do dwell in the breasts of certain men. Connolly is an angelic-looking boy, well- formed, with curly brown hair and downy cheeks, hardly sixteen. He has not yet had his first shave. Although I shrink from such thoughts, I realize I must not, as I must use every device we can conceive of to triumph over our jailers. I would do you no good in the penal colony, Jacky, as a chained and dispirited convict.
However, we must have weapons, and sharp and deadly they must be. But we do not have them now, so we must wait until we can lay our hands upon such things.