Daring Lords and Ladies

by Emily Murdoch

  In England, she’d never considered the issue of slavery. She’d been a girl when the crown first outlawed the acquisition of new slaves and then seven years later abolished slavery all together. She’d perhaps seen one newspaper headline about it, but in her limited social world, it was a topic that had never entered everyday conversation. Slavery had never been legal in England itself and it wasn’t until she’d moved to London that she’d even seen a black-skinned person. Even once she reached St. Kitts and the safety of her brother’s house, she hadn’t given the matter much thought. Theo had referred to Molly and the other few servants in the house as employees and he seemed to treat them no differently than Lady Howard had treated her servants.

  But now Jo had all sorts of questions, especially since learning that former slaves often couldn’t earn enough to provide for themselves and their families. It clearly wasn’t for lack of trying, if they were willing to travel to a different island simply to earn a better wage. If she was ever able to return to St. Kitts (and not be arrested, she thought with dark humor), she intended to call upon Lord Robinson and inform him that he was not serving his citizens well.

  A gust of wind caught at her skirts and she scrambled to make sure they did not fly up. She moved to stand at the gunwale near the front of the ship, trying to stay out of the way and not lose her footing. A storm was brewing on the southeastern horizon and though blue skies were ahead of them, behind them was a dark roiling mass of clouds and whitecap. The winds were snapping the sails and tugging at her bright skirts and though the smell of rain was fresh and cool, there was an ominous feeling in the air.

  Men scurried about on decks and in the rigging, making the ship ready for the storm. Bodega darted past and she called his name.

  “Aye, milady?”

  “Is it—is the storm going to be bad?”

  She could see him debating what to tell her. “Most likely just a squall. Blow over quick-like, it will.”

  She frowned and cast another glance at the bustling crew. “It seems a lot of preparation for a squall,” she said.

  “Well, the cap’n alway like to be prepared for a hurricane this time o’ year, don’t ‘e?”

  Jo actually felt the blood drain from her face, leaving it numb.

  “A hurricane? Might that,” she said, nodding her head to the striated wall of grey behind them. “Be a hurricane?”

  “Oh!” he said, looking uncomfortable. “Most likely not.”

  She noticed he didn’t meet her gaze. “And even if it is, it most likely will miss us.”

  Jo gripped the rail at her side tightly. “Is there anything I can do to help?”

  Bodega gave her a gold and gap-toothed grin. “Why are ye not the sweetest thing? We’ve got it well in hand, milady.” He turned to go but paused and faced her again. “Ye may wish to go below. The cap’n will be most concerned for your safety, ye see.”

  “And I should hate to be a distraction, of course,” she said, only slightly peeved.

  “Shall I help ye to yer cabin?” he asked solicitously, though he kept glancing at the rigging.

  “No, no. I’ve detained you long enough,” she said. It wasn’t Bodega’s fault she was a useless sailor.. “Thank you, Bodega”

  He tugged at a nonexistent forelock and ran to help a crewman who was struggling to lash a sail to the yardarm.

  In the few minutes they’d talked, the waves had grown in size, the Nightingale climbing one large crest, only to slide with a stomach-dropping lurch down the other side.

  It seemed to take an inordinately long time to reach the hatch and climb down the steep ladder. An abrupt lurch when she was near the bottom caused her to miss the last step and she barked her shin painfully. With a hand braced on either wall, she made her way drunkenly down the close passage.

  Once inside the cabin, she studiously ignored the stale stuffiness that made breathing a laborious process. She also tried to disregard the constant lurch and drop of the ship, but as it required every ounce of strength and balance to remain upright, this was harder to do. She wondered if lying flat on the bunk would keep the nausea at bay.

  No, she decided quickly, pushing herself up with a struggle.

  She fell out of bed, landing painfully on her hands and knees and crawled across the floor to the table and chairs. Pulling herself up into the seat, she clutched the table, which mercifully was secured to the deck.

  It was only through sheer strength of will that she kept the contents of her stomach down.

  The wind screamed for two hours, at least according to Josephine’s best guess. Time seemed to have lost meaning in the ricocheting room. Outside the thick-paned window the sky was pitch black, though it had only been midmorning when the storm came upon them.

  To distract herself from her own discomfort, she focused on what Ford must be doing on deck. She prayed he and his crew were safe, hoped the passengers in the open hold midship were not violently ill, though how they could not be in their swinging hammocks, she couldn’t imagine.

  She lifted her head from her arms where she’d been not so much resting as trying to block the sound of the storm. Had the wind lessened? It seemed more of a dull roar now rather than a howling scream. Though still rolling up and down the waves, the ship did feel less like a bit of driftwood being tossed about and more like an ocean craft with some control over its movements.

  Or perhaps not.

  A shudder went through the ship. Josephine could feel it in her clammy palms pressed to the table. A tremendous crack somewhere above her sounded like the shattering of a bone and made her as nauseous as the heaving ship did.

  She heard yelling above deck and realized the storm must have abated quite a bit. Suddenly unable to remain in the stuffy, bobbing cabin a moment more, Jo pulled herself to her feet, pausing a moment to will her stomach back to its rightful place. She made her way just as drunkenly up the passage as she had coming down, and managed to bang the same shin on the ladder. The pain of that double bruise made her pause, clinging to the ladder, her forehead pressed to a rung.

  At last she emerged from the hold and was drenched within seconds. The wind nearly took her off her feet, but she clung determinedly to the gunwale for the cold and wet had instantly banished her nausea.

  She glanced around, seeing that while the storm was a seething wall of black clouds behind them, ahead the sky was lighter and there was even a sliver of blue visible just over the horizon.

  Pushing her hair out of her face, Jo searched the deck for a sight of Ford. Men were scrambling all over the ship, securing lines, adjusting the sails. They all hurried about their business as if it were a calm sunny day, with no heaving, lurching deck beneath their feet. Jo thought she could spend the rest of her life on board a ship and still not be as sure-footed.

  Finally she spotted Ford. He stood at the wheel, his legs braced wide, his soaked linen shirt molded to the broad muscles of his shoulders and chest. As he fought to keep the wheel on course, he bellowed orders to his men in the rigging above.

  Jo glanced up and saw what must have been the source of the large crack she’d heard below deck. One of the long yardarms on the mizzenmast had split in half. It dangled and swung dangerously. The sail hung in ungainly wet folds, lines snapping in the wind, both canvas and rope trailing over the gunwale.

  Three men battled to pull the heavy sail in, and with the fastidiousness of sailors, managed to roll it compactly and tidily as they gathered it in. Two more men were in the rigging, cutting ropes and freeing the broken yardarm. Another two men stood below, waiting to catch the piece of wood that, when in its proper place, had looked to be no bigger than her arm. Yet now that the men were wrestling it down, Jo could see that it was thicker than her leg and the broken end alone was easily longer than she was tall.

  The pounding wind suddenly shifted. Jo was thrown off balance and fell to her hands and knees, her sodden hair streaming over her face, obscuring her vision. She clung to a storage box mounted on the deck and pulled hersel
f to a crouch, shoving her hair off her face. She looked back to the men working in the rigging and saw in horror that the abrupt shift in wind had thrown them off as well. One regained his grip on the mizzenmast but the other was dangling from the broken yardarm. He managed to hook one leg over the beam and pull himself to rights.

  Like her, the men below him on the deck were watching the struggling sailor. One of them must have lost his grip on the line he was holding for it went slack and the broken yardarm swung in a wide arc.

  Jo screamed, “Look out!” but the wind tore the sound from her mouth, casting the words away so that even she couldn’t hear them.

  As if time had slowed, she watched the large beam swing in a wide arc, crashing into the crewman, knocking him to the deck.

  Jo glanced at Ford and saw him gesturing to Odysseus.

  The first mate rushed to take the wheel from Ford who then flung himself down the ladder to the lower deck where the fallen man lay.

  She pushed herself up, struggling against both the wind and the swell of the deck. Ford gathered the man against him and the two made their way toward her.

  She saw Ford frown when he noticed her but before he could say anything, she yelled, “I will help him!”

  He didn’t hesitate a moment, draping the man’s left arm over her shoulder. His right arm hung at an unnatural angle. She staggered under the man’s weight as she helped him the few steps to the open hold.

  Getting him down the steep ladder one-handed, with water pouring in from above was a challenge that seemed to go on for hours instead of a minute. Every jostle of his right arm caused the man to moan in pain and yet Jo could not seem to help him without constantly knocking the injured limb.

  At long last they made it to the lower deck.

  “Where is the surgery?” Jo yelled, for even down here the wind was incredibly loud.

  The man gestured with a jut of his chin to a door behind the ladder. She helped him down the narrow passageway, throwing open the door and easing him inside the dimly lit room. By the faint light from the small porthole, she found a lantern and flint. Once lit, she could see that the surgery was tiny but efficiently designed with dozens of inset drawers labeled with supplies and medicines and a low, sturdy table. A faint medicinal smell permeated the room, part herbal, part caustic.

  She eased the man down on the table and took a deep breath. She recognized him, of course, but she hadn’t actually met him.

  “What is your name?” she asked.

  “Jorge,” he gasped, clutching the injured arm above the elbow.

  “Mr. Jorge, I’m afraid we must remove your shirt so that I may inspect your arm.” She was proud that her voice didn’t waver. She’d never seen a man without a shirt. Even Thomas Kent had always worn a nightshirt.

  Jorge gritted his teeth and gave a short nod.

  Her cold fingers fumbled at the buttons at his neck. The shirt had to come over his head, so she first eased his uninjured arm out of the soaked linen before pulling it off his right arm. As soon as she dropped the sodden fabric to the floor, she saw that his right shoulder had been dislocated.

  “Oh, thank heavens,” she breathed.

  “What is it, mi senorita?” Jorge asked.

  Jo almost smiled at how ridiculous it must sound for her to be grateful, but a dislocated shoulder was the one injury she could actually tend. Perhaps the only one. As a boy, Theo had forever been dislocating his left shoulder, falling out of trees, tumbling off of boulders, and dangling from rooftops. He’d popped his shoulder so many times, requiring a visit from the local doctor that their mother had threatened to keep him inside.

  Theo’s solution, of course, had been to make his sister learn how to reset the joint.

  The first several times, Jo had fumbled to turn his arm at the angle the surgeon had shown her. Theo had tried to muffle his groans of pain, but one time he’d passed out. Still, he forced her to keep trying. Eventually she learned the right angle to hold his arm and just the right amount of pressure to exert.

  She laid her hand on Jorge’s left shoulder. “I didn’t mean to startle you. I’m just relieved that your injury is one I can fix.”

  He nodded, his eyes glazed with pain. Jo positioned herself in front of Jorge and tried to think of the steps she needed to take. Theo had only ever dislocated his left shoulder and she had to consciously reverse the position of her hands.

  Her first attempt did not go well. Her patient muffled his exclamation, but his face went pale beneath the bronze of his sailor’s tan.

  She almost wished he would pass out for at least then he would not feel the pain as intensely, but the stalwart sailor grabbed a leather strap hanging on the wall. The numerous half-rings of teeth marks gave testament to its purpose. He chomped down on the strap and gave her a short nod.

  “I think it will be easier if you’re prone,” she said. It had been years since she’d last set Theo’s shoulder and her brother had been much smaller than Jorge.

  The man removed the leather strap from between his teeth. “What is ‘prone’?”

  She smiled. “It means laying down.”

  He gave her a meaningful wink and she returned it with her best impression of Molly when she was displeased with the quality of someone’s work.

  Either her attempt was weak or Jorge was immune, for he chuckled and eased himself back onto the narrow wooden table.

  “Very well,” she said, trying to remember how much pressure it took to fix Theo’s arm and how much more she would need to exert on Jorge’s much larger one

  “No time like the present,” she reminded herself, and grasping Jorge’s calloused hand, she stretched his arm out. Ignoring his loud snorts of breath, she braced her feet and began to pull. A muffled groan escaped her patient but she kept pulling.

  She might have been trying to pull the Nightingale out of the way of the storm, however, for as much as she was able to move it. She tightened her grip, braced a foot against the edge of the table, and pulled as smoothly but as strongly as possible. Despite the chill of being soaking wet, she was panting and sweat gathered on her brow.

  Jorge’s eyes rolled up in his head hand as he mercifully passed out. As soon as he did, his entire body went limp and she was able to pull his arm just enough more that she felt the bone slip into place.

  With a supreme feeling of accomplishment, she rummaged through the inset drawers until she found a jumble of linen bandages. She untangled the wad of fabric until she found a piece large enough to fashion a sling. Turning back, she saw Jorge’s eyes fluttering open. He rolled onto his injured arm and pushed himself up.

  “Oh! Your shoulder!” she exclaimed, reaching too late to help him.

  He rotated his arm, a wide smile breaking out on his sun-lined face.

  “It doesn’t hurt, mi señorita!”

  “Don’t move it like that,” she ordered. “The muscles will be very sore for several days. You must keep it still. Here,” she said, indicating the bandage. “I’ve fashioned a sling for you.”

  As she knotted the linen behind his head and eased his arm into the sling, she said, “Your shirt is still sopping wet. Have you another?”

  Jorge chuckled. “Señorita, it is still raining outside. Anything dry I put on will be wet as soon as I go back on deck.”

  “Oh, of course,” she said, feeling foolish for not thinking of that.

  “El Capitán said we could not be sin camisa while you are on board, but I think since you already se el pecho desnudo, you not mind if I leave it off, sí?”

  “Sí,” she answered, not understanding what else he had said. “Of course. I’ll, ah just hang this to dry,” she said, wringing the water from his shirt.

  “Oh but wait!” she exclaimed, his earlier words finally reaching her brain. “You can’t go back on deck. You must rest your arm.”

  “Descansamos cuando morimos,” Jorge said philosophically, and ducked out of the small room.

  “Yes, well if you are swept off the deck because you
only have the use of one arm, you will be muerto and have only your own foolishness to blame!” she called out after him.

  Only the sound of the rain answered her, but it was no longer the insistent pounding of earlier. She realized the deck beneath her feet still rose and dropped alarmingly as well, but it felt like the ship was no longer struggling to stay afloat in the churning seas, but rather was riding the waves purposefully.

  She was about to return to her cabin when another man stumbled against the door frame.

  “Beggin’ er pardon, milady,” he said, his accent a broad cockney. “Jorge said ye were a healer.” He pointed unnecessarily to the large gash that was bleeding profusely. “Oi’d leave it be but it won’t quit bleedin’. Keeps getting all over the ropes so the Cap’n tole me to see to it.”

  Though Josephine hadn’t eaten in hours, she felt her stomach roil at the sight of the bloody wound.

  “I—I’m not a healer. Not really,” she stammered.

  “Course ye are. Jorge said so,” he stated, and Jo wondered if Jorge told him the sky was red if he would believe it as readily. “Besides a foin lady sech as yerself must have a delicate hand wiv a needle. If ye won’t stitch me, Odysseus said he’ll see to it. Mighty particular about blood on the ropes, is our Odysseus.”

  Josephine thought of Odysseus’s meaty hands trying to hold a needle and shuddered.

  “Very well,” she said, her mouth suddenly dry. “I shall try.”

  She handed him a wad of linen to staunch the blood while she went through the drawers once again looking for a needle and thread.

  “Isn’t it customary to have a ship’s doctor? Surely this room is not kept provisioned for its own sake.”

  “Aye, but we left port early, didn’t we? The doctor were still drunk, weren’t he? Didn’t even wake himself to puke as I heard it. Lucky for him his whor—” the man glanced wide-eyed at Jo and she pretended not to notice what he’d been about to say. “Luck for him someone was there to roll him to his side so he didn’t choke on it.”

  Josephine closed her eyes, pressing a fist to her midriff. “You’re not helping my nerves,” she gasped.