Devil's Ballast

by Meg Caddy

  Then I was on my back, gasping for air and blinking in surprise at the speed of the blow.

  Read offered me his hand and I slapped it away, irritated. I rolled to my feet and bounced on my heels, trying to regain myself. The next blow came from the left. I didn’t even have time to fall before he hit me from the right. My torso swung and I almost lost my feet again. I pushed off the wall of the cabin.

  ‘Not holding back, are you?’

  Read watched me coolly. He didn’t even look flushed. He wasn’t using a tenth of his strength and he was knocking me senseless. I swore at him and lunged. He thrust the flat of his forearm into my belly and grabbed the back of my shirt, flipping me over his arm and back to the floor. My feet hit the ceiling before I fell. I grabbed for his shins. He stopped shy of stamping on my fingers, but he swept my hands away.

  Read offered his hand again. This time I grabbed it and bit down hard. Read yelped. I clamped my teeth until I tasted blood. The tall man grabbed me by the scruff of my neck and yanked me to my feet, then held me against the wall of the cabin. He wasn’t hurting me but there was no way I could get out of his grip. I spat and wiped my mouth.

  ‘You taste like shit and you fight like a child,’ I said, half-joking and half-trying to provoke him.

  ‘You let your temper control you, little fellow,’ he replied. ‘You talk when you should spare your breath. You don’t watch your opponent. You don’t take your time, and you don’t use your size to your advantage.’

  ‘Piss off,’ I snapped, suddenly at the end of my tolerance. I made for the cabin door, seething. I’d expected a friendly sparring match, not to have my arse handed to me.

  ‘Don’t get angry at me, Bonny. I may not hold back, but I won’t kill you. Barnet will. So will anyone else you go for.’ He wiped his hand on his breeches. ‘Try again.’

  I stopped at the door. He was right. Barnet wouldn’t make the same mistake twice, even if I was a woman. And we were headed for Nassau. What if we came across James Bonny? I needed to be able to defend myself. I’d survived on luck and cunning with Sedlow, and with a marksman’s aim in battle, but if it came to unarmed combat I’d lose. I knew I’d lose. Maybe Read was right. Maybe anger wouldn’t always carry me through. I wiped my mouth and turned back to him.

  ‘Don’t just hit me,’ I said. ‘Teach me.’

  ‘Very well. You have some bad habits to break.’ I opened my mouth to argue and he held up a hand. ‘We’re going to be here for hours if you argue with every single thing I say. That’s the first bad habit.’

  I smirked. ‘Fine.’

  ‘Now. Do as I do.’

  What followed was a series of slow drills, building strength and predicting an opponent’s next moves. Read was steady and patient. At one point I made him explain something to me seven times, just to see how long it would be before he snapped and lost his temper. Even then, all he did was cock an eyebrow at me and ask me to bring my mind back to task. By the time the bell rang for the evening meal I was sore and exhausted.

  Read wasn’t even sweating.

  My body was still recovering from the trauma of the birth and I couldn’t spar with Read for long periods of time. Every so often I left the cabin to get fresh air. One afternoon I even swung myself down into the netting below the bowsprit, sitting there just beneath the prow and enjoying the cold waves as they reached up to greet me. The air was still hot and sticky so it was a relief to be out in the sea-spray, away from the stifle and stench of the lower decks. When I closed my eyes I could almost imagine I was back on the Ranger with Isaac at the helm and Calico waiting for me in his cabin. It was a nice dream, even if it only lasted a few moments.

  The captain’s voice put an end to it.

  ‘What are you doing down there?’ he snarled, poking his head over the bow. ‘Get back up here, you silly little chit.’

  I bit back a reply. It was always prudent to stay in the captain’s good graces. Reluctantly, I hauled myself up to the decks and stood quiet as the captain berated me. I let it roll off my back, making myself think of Calico. It would all be worth it if we could get Calico back alive. When the captain sent me below, I went without protest. My stomach was hot with anger and my fists were clenched but I held my tongue.

  ‘Read,’ I said as I pushed open the cabin door. ‘The captain of this ship is a bastardly…’

  I stopped.

  Read whipped around in the midst of changing, face taut, and grabbed for the shirt lying on the bed.

  ‘Knock!’ he snarled, angrier than I had ever seen him. Panic made his voice thin, raw. He pulled the shirt on but it was too late. I’d already seen the strips of cloth wrapped about his chest. Breast-bindings. Almost identical to my own.

  I pulled the door closed behind me. Read stood with his fists clenched, his eyes burning into me. I recognised his posture from our sparring. I knew how close he was to hitting me.

  ‘Read.’ I lifted my hands and stepped back. ‘Peace.’

  ‘Peace?’ He looked torn between belting me across the face and breaking down in tears.

  ‘I don’t understand. What do you think I’m going to do?’ He didn’t say anything so I went on. ‘Look, you don’t have to tell me anything, God knows I owe you enough, but I’m not laughing and I’m not passing judgment.’

  Slowly, my hands still lifted so he could see them, I sat on the cot. I kept my eyes on Read. The anger seemed to leach from him. His fists unclenched and after a moment he began to lace his shirt. His fingers were shaking.

  ‘You should have knocked,’ he muttered.

  ‘I should have. I’m sorry.’

  More than anything this seemed to bring him ease. His shoulders loosened.

  ‘You weren’t to know,’ he said grudgingly.

  ‘I still don’t,’ I pointed out. He tensed again and I rushed on. ‘And I don’t need to. You don’t have to explain anything to me, Read. You’ve saved my arse more than once. I owe you my life: I can give you privacy when you want it. But…’ I shrugged. ‘You know my secrets. You’ve never treated me different because of them. Don’t see any reason it should change when it’s the other way around.’

  Silence settled between us. Read knotted his hands behind his neck and stood staring at me, his dark eyes intent.

  ‘You don’t take anything seriously,’ he said at last.

  ‘Read. You’ve seen me half-drowned, imprisoned, terrified. Pregnant. It’s not as if I have any ground above you.’

  Miraculously, that was enough to make him smile. ‘True.’

  ‘Is it fair to say my life and trust have been almost completely in your hands since the moment you scooped me out of the ocean?’

  ‘I’d say so.’

  ‘Well, then. Give me the benefit of the doubt. If you want to.’

  He sat down beside me on the cot. His face was still guarded, wary.

  ‘I don’t talk about this,’ he said. ‘I never talk about this. Most of the time, it isn’t safe. It could get me hanged.’ I nodded. He breathed hard a second, as if he was about to fling himself into cold water. When he spoke the words came out quickly, as if he had to rattle them out with momentum or he would never reach the end of the sentence. ‘When I was born the midwife pronounced me a girl. My mother called me Mary.’

  I opened my mouth, then shut it again. I didn’t know what to say.

  ‘I told her my name was Martin when I was about five. It took some…stubbornness, but eventually she accepted it.’ His lips quirked. ‘She was more amenable when she realised there was an elderly relative I could inherit from as a boy, but not as a girl. From then she didn’t mind. She shut her mouth. Let me go to sea. Let me go to war.’

  ‘And…’ I watched Read. His narrow features and searching eyes. ‘And your sweetheart?’

  His smile was bitter. Measles, I remembered him saying. Got into the lungs.

  ‘His name was Henri,’ he said. ‘We were in the same regiment. When the war ended I dressed as a woman so we could run the inn together withou
t…’

  Without suspicion. Without being attacked. Without being arrested. Sodomy was a hanging offence. Two men running an inn together was no strange thing, but I knew from experience how hard it could be to keep intimacy secret. And in a small community, full of God-fearing folk, the smallest glance or brush of fingers could mean ruin. I nodded, my stomach twisting. I had lived a lie for just a few months and it had worn me down. I wondered how long Read and Henri had been forced to keep their secret. How long Read had pretended to be a happy wife.

  Read cleared his throat. ‘When Henri died there was no reason for me to stay, or to keep being Mary. So I came back to sea. Back to who I am.’

  Martin Read. Martin Read, who bound his breasts just as I did, and had to deal with bleeding every month, just as I did. Except for him, living as a man was the truth. I could read it in his face, hear it in his voice. I’d never doubted him.

  ‘In Cuba. Your bruises…’

  ‘The other stevedores.’ He lifted a shoulder. ‘They called me a sodomite. I don’t think they really guessed about me, but it was a matter of time before they did. I had to get out first. It’s always been this way, every crew, every work detail. I never stay more than a few months at a time.’

  ‘That’s hard.’

  ‘It’s life.’

  And that was it, I realised. The reason Read had helped me on Barnet’s ship, the reason he had come after me now. Though our situations were different in many ways, we both had things to hide. And perhaps he had realised somehow, that I could be trusted. He’d seen a kinship in me, the same kinship that had made me trust him.

  He paused and cleared his throat. Squared his shoulders, waiting for some sort of blow. ‘I imagine you have questions.’

  I did. I wanted to know if he hated the discomfort and secrecy of breast-binding as much as I did. I wanted to know how he hid his monthly courses. I wanted to know if he was glad to share his secret—if it was a relief or just another burden. I had a hundred questions and they occurred to me one after another, buzzing around my head. But when I looked at his face, the careful stillness of his features, the noise died and left just one. The rest could come later, if he wanted to tell me.

  ‘One thing.’

  ‘Well?’

  ‘What name do I call you?’

  His face tightened with surprise. ‘What?’

  ‘Do I still call you Read? Or…Mary, or Martin?’

  It was a while before he responded. I couldn’t for the life of me guess what was happening behind those eyes of his. Then he nodded. ‘Read,’ he said. ‘You still call me Read.’

  ‘Good. You still call me Bonny. I’ll still call you Read. You save my arse, I’ll save yours one day. Nothing changes, except that we know each other a little better now.’

  I saw relief flash through his eyes. Relief, and surprise, and something that looked like exhaustion. I touched his shoulder. We sat for a while without talking. There was still a flicker of tension between us, an uncertainty.

  ‘Rum?’ I said at last.

  ‘Yes,’ he said, his reply so quick that we both started laughing. I got up and went off to the lower decks, searching for some rum to steal.

  Several days later I walked through the ship, trying to ease the knots out of my sore muscles. They were the good kind of sore; stiff and hindering, but signifying hard work well-done. Read was a good teacher. He knew there was only so much we could achieve in half a week so, for the most part, we focused on tricks and ploys, ways to get the best out of my size and strength, how to adapt to different environments. We sparred through the rough weather, through the storms and rain that shook the little schooner. It helped to take my mind off the familiar islands I could make out from the upper decks. The reefs and coves I knew so well. The quiet closeness of Nassau.

  I was desperate for some sort of real plan but there was no way to move forward until we reached New Providence Island. We were still a few days out.

  Voices came from around the corner. I drew back into the shadows of the orlop, not in the mood to talk to anyone. I was restless and I just wanted to walk the ship a few lengths, stretching my legs.

  When the captain walked by I was glad of my decision. I didn’t have the energy for his disapproval.

  ‘Send word as soon as we dock,’ he was saying quietly to one of his men. ‘Run ahead. I want soldiers on the jetty before she has a chance to escape. They say she’s a slippery one.’

  ‘Aye, sir. I’ll wake Warnes and Barkley. Those two can handle anyone.’

  I held my breath and let them walk on as the fear hit me, jolts that landed in my chest, in my throat, in my skull. They must have been Barnet’s paid informants. Must have known from the beginning who I was, who Read was. A hundred options flew through my mind. I could get my gun, kill the captain. The crew would kill me on the spot or overwhelm me and lock me in the brig. I’d be no better than when I was Barnet’s captive. Even worse, Read would be lumped in with me. We could repeat our escape in Cuba, slipping away on a jolly-boat—except that they intended to lock us in before we dropped anchor, and that just left us too exposed, especially as the day was still young.

  I turned on my heel and dashed back to our cabin, my heart setting a wild pace against my ribs. I had to warn Read. I hammered on the door and then skidded through it without waiting for a response. Read looked up from where he had been mending his boot, a frown crossing his features.

  ‘We’ve been betrayed.’

  He froze.

  ‘Read, we have to get off this ship. The captain’s planning to sell us out. They’re going to lock us in and soldiers are meeting us at the docks.’

  ‘Are you a strong swimmer?’

  ‘Yes.’ Much to my father’s dismay I’d spent a lot of my childhood ducking and diving into ponds and lakes—and the ocean, when it was handy. ‘But I don’t know if that’ll be enough.’

  ‘There are plenty of islands nearby…’

  ‘There’s a difference between a sailing distance and a swimming distance, Read. I don’t know if either of us will be able to make it that far.’

  ‘We might not have a choice.’

  We both fell into a tense silence. His lips moved without sound and I knew he was going through different options in his mind. I fidgeted and shifted, wanting to pace, to shout, to talk it through. I wanted Calico, the bold captain. I wanted his flare and fire.

  ‘Fire.’

  Read’s head jerked up. ‘What?’

  ‘Fire. We have to set the ship on fire.’

  ‘You’re mad.’ He kept his voice low. ‘We can’t set the ship on fire, Bonny.’

  ‘It’s made of wood.’

  ‘You know what I mean.’

  ‘We wait until we’re about to drop anchor. Then, while they’re fighting the fire, we swim for shore. We’ll be close enough in to make it, and besides anything the water’s shallow in these parts and there are reefs and sandbars we can walk over.’

  ‘But…’ Again he stopped and I watched his mouth move as he weighed it.

  ‘It’s the best chance we have,’ I said.

  He paused, then gave a curt nod. ‘It’ll do. I’ll set the fire. They won’t care much about me: you’re the target. I won’t rouse as much suspicion if anyone sees me out and about with the cargo.’

  ‘I’ll come with you.’

  ‘No,’ he said, and his voice was sharp. ‘No, you need to stay here. Make up a bed to look like I’m sleeping.’

  ‘I’m not staying here so they can lock me in, Read.’

  ‘You have to.’ He was already at the door.

  ‘Read—’

  ‘No. Listen, listen. If they think we’re in the cabin, they’ll let down their guard. If they have to hunt for you, they’ll find me lighting the fire, or they’ll corner you and use violence to apprehend you. But if you stay in the cabin they’ll just lock you in. Once I set the fire, they’ll be so busy dealing with it I’ll be able to free you.’ He caught my hesitation and reached for my hand, grippin
g around my thumb. ‘Bonny, you’re going to have to trust me.’

  If I could trust anyone, it was Read.

  ‘They’ll have a barrel of powder,’ I said. My voice was thick and it hitched. I cleared my throat. It wouldn’t do for him to think I was afraid. ‘They only have one gun so it won’t be large, but it’ll still tear a hole in the deck and maybe even the hull if the fire gets to it. Start the fire at the bow so we have time to get away. Take my gun. Just in case.’

  ‘But—’

  ‘They want me alive and you’re my best chance of that.’ I grinned. ‘Again; you’re getting into a bad habit of saving me. Take the gun. If you die I’m lost anyhow, probably.’ My breath was shallow. I tried to keep my voice strong. ‘I’m not going to Woodes Rogers. I’m not going back to my husband.’

  He took my flintlock and stared at me for a moment, searching my face.

  ‘Don’t get us killed,’ I said.

  ‘I’ll do what I can,’ he said, and was gone.

  26

  BONNY

  I was sitting so quiet and still in the cabin, I heard it when someone slid the bolt across. My stomach knotted. I was trapped inside.

  Moments later there was the unmistakable groan of the anchor lowering into the water, the pull against it as the ship came to a stop. Somewhere aboard, Read was carrying both our fates on his shoulders. I didn’t have much time to digest all he had told me but it was enough simply to know that he trusted me. That I could trust him. And after all, his way of living was not so very strange to me. We both went through the same motions, the same secrets. We just felt differently about it. I shook my head. When I was a child my father had dressed me as a boy as part of an inheritance scheme. Read and I even had that in common.

  I had to trust him.

  Footsteps outside the door, the faint click and whisper of a flintlock being rammed and primed. They were standing guard. I had to remind myself this was part of the plan. Read would set the fire and they would be distracted. Even the most loyal crewmen knew to save their own skin when it came to fire on a wooden ship. Then he would come back and unlock the door, let me out.