by DM Bryan
He named the men to me, and told me something of the Primrose: how her captain had a very warm temper, and how she was a bad boat, and how only desperate men would sail in her. He warned me whenever the captain ordered a flogging, so that I might be safely below, away from what he termed the stings of the cat. Several days out, I asked him his name, which he told me was Jo More. His age he figured to be nineteen, although he was not certain. I thought him considerably younger, but upon closer scrutiny I could see how poverty had cursed him with the prominent forehead of a baby. Like the other sailors, he consumed liberal amounts of rum every day, and whenever he was aloft, I went below. I feared to hear a thud or splash, followed by the cries of the men, but Jo never fell, no matter how often the boatswain’s pipe ordered him up the rigging and into the marbled sky.
The rest of the crew was as taciturn as their captain and as frequently drunk. They ran like lurching, purple-nosed automatons, muscled forearms grasping and grabbing sheets and tankards alike. Jo gave me to understand that they sometimes grabbed each other in dark corners, but for my part, I ran no risks. The knowledge that I was the only woman on board disturbed my sleep at night and kept me to my cabin, until lively noises overhead signalled the arrival of morning. In fine weather, I walked the twenty-odd boards that comprised that part of the deck on which I was allowed, and whenever the elements or the language grew rough, I went below. Whether it was these defenses that protected me, or whether I was simply beneath the crew’s notice, I cannot say, but when no man offered me any indignity, I began to hope that I might reach Virginia with only the threat of rough seas to make me uneasy.
Regardless, my life aboard the Primrose was miserable. Despite the narrow stretch of decking between us, the mate Jessup never so much as bade me good morning, and the rest of his men followed his lead. Only Jo kept me company, but his duties were constant and he had little leisure to entertain my questions. As for the captain, he produced only monologues at dinner, holding forth on topics that made me blush. At the beginning of meals, he was like to talk of Vaux-hall and the new theatre at Covent Garden, but no sooner had he drunk enough than he turned to White’s gambling house or Mother Douglas’ loathsome establishment. Across the table, I ate boiled beef and counted the days until we arrived in Virginia. More than anything, I wished myself home again, with Mary and my child.
[
I discovered the mutiny quite by accident. That was the day some of the men choose the far side of my insubstantial walls for their plotting, and it was the end of any hope I had of reaching Virginia in safety. Although it was only the middle part of the afternoon, I was already gone below to pass the time in unhappy sleep, when the sound of a conversation next to my ear woke me.
“Is that pale shrew inside?” said a voice I did not at first recognize. A series of knocks on the panels of my cell shocked me into silence.
“You there, missus?” said the same voice, and now I knew the growl belonged to the carpenter, a man named Greensail.
“Not there,” said another.
“Knock again,” said Greensail. “The way that one sleeps,
lazy bitch.”
Hearing myself so described wounded my pride, and so I held my tongue, preferring silence to letting on I knew what they thought.
“She’ll be up on deck, mooning after England—what’s on your mind, Greensail?”
“Well,” said Greensail’s voice, “like as not it’s the same thing you’re thinking.”
“Might be or might not—who’s to say.”
“Someone needs to say it.”
“You first.”
“Let me come at it sideways,” said Greensail, “like a parson preaching of Pharaoh. Now Moses had a dream—hell, we’ve all had ’em. Like Johnson here. Tell them—you dreamed of a knife on a black flag, you said.”
I knew the man addressed. Robert Johnson was the boatswain, a man Jo feared more than even Jessup.
“So sharp that knife,” said Johnson, “it sliced the canvas I sewed it on.”
“That’s wicked sharp, Johnson, that is. Just the kind of clean cut we need if we are to make ourselves captains.”
“Making captains—is that what this is about?”
A long silence ensued.
“Well, I had a dream too,” said another voice, a croak belonging to the cook, who had a scar the size of a shilling on one side of his throat.
“Nay, what’s a cook’s dream worth?” said Greensail. “You might join us, Abraham, but won’t you miss the captain’s beefsteak? Cooks grow fat on scraps while the rest of us starve.”
Greensail’s voice mocked the old man, but Abraham Goss continued as if he hadn’t heard. “Three drops of blood on my flag. That’s what I dreamed.”
“Drops of blood?” said Johnson. “Just three? That’s not enough for a proper flag.”
“Like he’s not enough for a proper man.” Johnson and Greensail enjoyed their joke for some time. I lay, not daring to move for fear of discovering myself.
“Wasn’t all,” said Goss, as soon as he could make himself heard. “In the lower corner I saw a tipped goblet.”
“Spilled your wine—you had a nightmare then,” said Johnson, to Greensail’s evident amusement.
“Wake up sweating, did you, Goss? You was all pothered to soak up that claret with your neckerchief.”
“Remember, ’twas only three drops,” said Johnson.
“Kissed the deck direct. Licked it up, I’ll warrant.”
A series of wet salutes made with the mouth completed this repartee, followed by guffaws.
As the conversation degenerated into more insults and rough laughter, I thought to make myself known, as if also awoken from a dream and ignorant of any mention of a knife. Then, a pair of thuds announcing the arrival between decks of more men silenced me.
“Foote, you bastard,” cried Greensail, greeting the new arrivals, “we’ve all had dreams of foretelling. Flags of our own, black and red. Johnson’s has a knife on it.”
“Flags, is it? And what’s yours Greensail? Your sister’s underskirts flapping in the breeze?”
“Fuck you, Foote,” said Greensail. And then they were all silent so long I could hear the sea beating against the wooden shell in which we floated.
I shut my eyes—a trick I had when the world pressed too hard. I was rewarded with a vision of the depths and one of its monsters, a coil of scaled muscle and rows of teeth. I felt I would rather face that creature than remain another moment on the Primrose, but I continued to cower under my cloak.
At last Foote spoke. He was the gunner and enjoyed no little respect amongst the men. “Happens is,” he said, “I dreamed too. A black flag, with a death’s head and an hourglass. Silken sheets for hoisting and fair winds always.”
A mumbling of satisfied voices greeted his announcement. My limbs trembled as if I were cold. Perhaps I was. But what happened next made me colder.
“What about you?” said Greensail. “Did you dream, young Jo?”
Could I really have imagined a runtish boy my friend?
“I dreamed,” said Jo. He did not say what he saw, but he’d said enough.
Long after the conspirators had gone their separate ways, I hid in my cabin. I was too frightened to think, but my greatest fear lay in the possibility the men would discover they had been overheard. What they would do, I did not know, but I sought to disguise my guilty knowledge, acting as though nothing had altered. When evening came, I rose and dressed myself for dinner with the captain, just as I did every night, my fingers doing by rote what they would not do at my command.
Stumbling down the reeking passage to the stern, where the great cabin filled the width of the ship, I found the captain even further advanced in his cups than was his custom. He had one bottle empty on the panelled bulkhead that served him as a sideboard, and another rolled empty at his feet. The bottle in fr
ont of him was half full, and he rose unsteadily as I entered and poured me a bumper. I did not refuse his kindness and drained the glass at almost a single swallow. He looked at me approvingly, and poured me another.
This too I lifted to my lips, but as I did so, Abraham Goss entered with a platter and a steaming pie. My hand trembled, and I spilled wine on the stomacher of my gown.
“For shame, my dear,” said the captain, but I was thinking of Goss’ three drops of blood and set down my glass in haste.
While Goss returned to the galley, the captain divided up the pie and sat down to eat his portion. He swallowed half almost at a bite, and then he looked at my plate, the meat congealing as it grew cold. “You find the seas rough this evening?” he said, and in truth the Primrose listed and rolled somewhat more than I had yet experienced. I shook my head, but the captain only grunted. Then, he emptied one glass, poured himself another, and set to work on the rest of the pie.
When he was done, the captain lit his pipe—for it was his unmannerly habit to smoke while others were still eating, and my dinner sat before me, untouched—and began to tease me for what he termed my distemper. Was it the back and forth motion of the ship that bothered me so, or was it the side-to-side pitching that unsettled my stomach? He had a score of jesting questions, but each time I opened my mouth to confess our shared danger, the confounded cook, Goss, entered the great cabin, with another dish or bottle. Not once did he cast his gaze my way, but his lumpish presence silenced me and set my limbs shivering. I could not help but wonder what he had done to merit that badly sewn patch in his throat.
“That man,” I began, when I judged Goss far enough removed from the wooden partition of the great cabin, “has suffered from some past accident.” If I could not broach my subject directly, I might instead draw him out on the histories of his men. Perhaps I might inspire him to kinder usage, and we might reach Virginia in safety.
Alas, the captain would not be drawn out. “That fellow,” he said, “is a dog and deserves another such cut.”
“Was it a cut, then? A knife, perhaps?”
“Knife or no, he’s a rogue and understands naught but the roughest of tutors.”
“Surely the Bible teaches compassion.”
The captain swallowed his wine. “A dog—I told you.”
“He has done you some wrong?”
“Other than his cooking, you mean? No, he’s nothing to me.”
Goss reentered with a dish of pears, purpled and fragrant. “See here,” the captain said, sitting up and prodding at the dish with his own knife, “he’s opened a bottle of my best Bordeaux on the pretext of stewing some mouldy fruit.” Then, the captain kicked out at Goss, aiming for the old man’s backside. Goss took the blow on his thigh and, caught off guard, lost his balance on the sloping deck of the Primrose. He fell heavily and did not for some moments seem able to rise.
The captain watched Goss with satisfaction as the old fellow struggled upright and limped wordlessly from the cabin. I did not know how to reply to this dumb show, but the captain appeared to require no response—perhaps it had not been staged for me. Instead, Goss’ tumble put the captain in mind of a new topic, which he broached now.
“Saw a woman founder just like that once, he said to his wine glass, “went down hard on her cunt—”
“Captain.”
“—and didn’t get up again until the other whores gave her some gin. Then she got up again all right.”
I also had risen to my feet.
“She was one of them dancers that contort themselves on the big brass plate. You know the kind.”
“I do not, captain.”
“Nothing under her shift. Saw her oyster, I did.”
His voice followed me into the passage, but mercifully what sense he could still command soon disappeared in the creaking and gurgling that was the Primrose at night.
I found Jo waiting at my cabin door. His eyes were knots in the darkness between the decks. “What do you want of me?” I said.
He did not answer.
I said, “The others might dream, Jo, but never you. You alone on this ship deserve an unbroken sleep.”
“But I did dream,” he said then, his voice small. “I’m no liar. I dreamed a hempen rope.”
“So be it. And on your flag,” I asked him, “What did you see? What fearsome weapon? Crossed swords? A red tipped spear?”
“No flag,” said Jo. “Just rope.”
I pushed past him and went to bed, lugging my wooden cot in front of my door so that none might open it while I slept.
That night, I heard the Primrose’s sides groaning from the burden of water that sought to crush her blackened timbers. Yet, the seas pressed us forward too. I whispered to myself, calling myself a fool and wishing I was safe at home. And for wishing that, I called myself a fool again. I slept and woke, then slept and woke again. I had no dreams, and the only flag I envisioned was as white as surrender.
Morning came at last. The below-decks of the Primrose never showed much change in light, but by then I had learned to distinguish between the slow tread of exhausted men changing the watch by night, and the brisker steps of the forenoon crew. When eight bells marked the beginning of the second watch, I dressed myself and lugged my cot away from my door. The stench of the passage seemed worse than ever, and I went quickly up the ladder, toward the square of daylight. I arrived on deck to find Jessup scowling and Jo making signs to me behind the mate’s back.
I ignored Jo and pulled the hood of my cloak up over my head. The Primrose was a brig and galley-built, with few hiding places, so I went forward to stand beneath the foresail. The wind blew fresh and clean, and overhead, the canvas belled, taut as a pregnancy. It blew the men’s voices over the side of the ship. The boatswain piped and the captain roared, but the words themselves lost shape and substance, thinning and stretching into air. The same wind pushed me sideways into the wooden railing, nestling me in the waisted curve of the balustrade. When I looked down at the sea, I saw foamy waves, a cascade of shells and leaves, French curves and rocaille decoration. I thought of sideboards and chair legs, gilt frames and candlesticks. Out of the wet Atlantic, I built a drawing room.
Jo joined me, peering at the water. “Looks like piss,” said he.
I turned from the rail. I had intended to never speak to him again, but now I asked, “How many days now have we been at sea?”
“Since Gravesend? Eight days, now,” said Jo. “God be praised, we seemed to have missed stranding ourselves on Ireland.”
“And how many more weeks?”
Jo shrugged.
“Please, Jo, you must know.”
“I do not,” he said, twisting his already twisted face. He seemed to consider. “No longer than it took Noah, if our luck holds, although I’ve done us no good by saying so.”
“Do we put in somewhere on our way? We must touch for water.” I dreamed of a new ship pointed west, pointed home—I said as much. “I have money, Jo.”
“Gravesend, it was. Depends on the wind now.”
“I will speak to the captain.”
“You haven’t yet.”
At this pass, the captain’s voice swelled, shouting down the wind. While Jo and I were talking, he’d come up on deck and was striding toward Jessup with an ugly urgency. In the rigging of the Primrose, those who could stopped whatever they were doing and turned to see. Those on deck scrambled to get out of the way of that bulging, purple face.
“God damn you bugger,” he shouted at Jessup. “That topgallant is too fucking slant—I told you before.”
He was pointing skyward, and I turned to look. I saw the same cradle of rope and flapping canvas that always seemed to divide the sky.
“Dog. I should cut off your ear.”
Jessup spoke something the wind tore from his lips. His face had drained of colour—the expression plac
ating.
The captain made no reply but stepped forward to take up a thick end of line that lay coiled under a gun. I saw Jo turn to me, his own mouth open. Then, the captain lashed out at Jessup, drawing a line of red from cheek to jaw, and the mate staggered back and fell. As Jessup went down, the captain flung himself on the fallen man, a rat on cheese, his tail of rope rising again and again.
Silent Jessup began to shriek.
At my arm, Jo fumbled, pulling me toward the hatch and ladder, but I could not go. Without so much as meaning to open my mouth, I heard myself shouting for the captain to stop. All around me, pale faces like thumbprints turned my way. I bade the crew in God’s name to stop the man before he murdered Jessup. I’ve watched enough, I cried. I can see no more. Cowards I called them, and worse, before Jo caught hold of me and made me descend.
Why he bothered, I don’t know. The mate’s cries oozed through the boards, collecting under the deck, and I prayed for Jessup to stop his noise. And then he stopped, and I realized what my prayers had done.
“He’s dead,” I said to Jo, who for the first time was in my cabin with me. He sat on my trunk and didn’t answer. He was listening as boots beat overhead. Shouts dropped through the timbers. Then, something large was pushed down the hatch and into the passageway. Boots dragged it closer, its heels dragging along the boards. Whimpering
came in a thin red trickle along the passage.
Jo’s eyes knotted again. “Remember, you begun it,” he said. “You bid us stop him. You called us cowards.”
“I said no more than a Christian should.”
“The captain is God on board—now what do you make of a Christian’s duty?”
“God is in heaven.”
“Yes,” said Jo. “In God’s name we end the captain’s cruelty, but what is virtue in you is mutiny in us.”
“The Primrose has no surgeon for Jessup. Who will save him, if he’s not dead yet?”
“Goss can bleed a man, if it comes to that.”