Little Jane Silver

by Adira Rotstein

  “Oi, there, pint of ale over here!” Ned Ronk motioned to the barkeep, interrupting Doc Lewiston’s thoughts.

  Better get down to business and back to the captain’s bedside, thought the doctor.

  “The captain wanted very much to be here in person, of course,” Doc Lewiston said carefully, “but his health is delicate at the moment.”

  Ned Ronk nodded impatiently, accepting this. “When will the Panacea attack?”

  “The Panacea will catch up to you a day’s sail north of Jamaica, northeast of Smuggler’s Bay. That ought to give you two weeks to foul up the works on the ship as best you can. Now, the captain just wants to make sure the itinerary hasn’t changed since the arrival of your first letter. Bright and Silver’ll be trading the Colombian coffee beans here in Habana, then travelling to a few more ports along the coast of Hispaniola for other goods. That should take no more than a week, am I right?”

  “Aye.”

  “Then it’s out to sea, looking for small ships to plunder en route to Jamaica, where they’re to go to Port Royal to take on a shipment of untaxed rum for a friend in Savannah. Am I correct?”

  “Right, right. It’s all as I said. Now, where’s me wages?

  “Steady on. The captain just wanted me to remind you how important it is that all acts of sabotage remain untraceable. If anyone catches on that you’re our man, the danger—”

  “I knows the danger!” Ned snapped. “Just give over me wages!”

  Doc Lewiston removed a small leather satchel from his pocket. “It’s only half,” he warned the boatswain as Ned grabbed it from his hand.

  “Half!”

  “The other to be given, as per the captain’s instructions, when your task is complete and you have delivered the Pieces of Eight and her crew to the Panacea.”

  “Blast your hide and your ship to boot! Why wait until the boat’s left harbour? Simple tar I may be, but not stupid! You says they’re pirates — why not nab them here where you’ve got a jail to hold ’em, and save yourselves a world of trouble? Here, on Hispaniola Isle you have the army on your side. Out there, all’s we got is the fish to help us.”

  “The Spanish Army is on the island of Hispaniola, my friend, not the English,” Doc Lewiston reminded him.

  “Then let ’em get pinched in Jamaica instead.”

  Doc Lewiston fidgeted a little again, realizing the boatswain had a good point. He was ashamed that Ned Ronk had cottoned on to a hole in the Captain’s stratagem that had not been apparent to him, despite his own superior education.

  The boatswain favoured the doctor with a sly look. “Unless there be something he’d rather keep from the law on the islands and the bosses back in England?”

  “I honestly have no idea, one way or the other,” Doc Lewiston answered truthfully. “I’m no tactician. The captain only tells me as much as he reasons I must know.”

  It occurred to Doc Lewiston then that if this Ned Ronk could so easily betray Bright and Silver, it took no great stretch of imagination to suppose the boatswain might turn against Lewiston’s own captain should the fancy strike him. A man of such changeable loyalties required a deft hand to manipulate. He wondered if the captain, in his current weakened condition, would be up to the task. “If you have any reservations about your mission,” Lewiston added uneasily, “I’ll have to conduct them to him myself.”

  “No, that ain’t needed,” said the boatswain, and the surgeon relaxed. “No skin off my rosy nose if what your boss’s up to ain’t above-board. All I wants to make sure of is me own protection. Bright and Silver’ll be none too pleased when they catch on they been tricked. I’ll do what you ask, but you tell that captain of yours from me, those two oughta be dispatched right quick if he knows what’s good for him.”

  “Uh, yes, of course,” muttered Doc Lewiston and raised his mug of ale to his mouth to hide his frown of dismay.

  By God, just what was he getting himself into?

  Chapter 8

  The Knot That Was Not

  “PLEBLLLLEFFFFFF!” Bonnie Mary spluttered, pulling her head out of the basin of cold water. Instantly, she knew it would be a Three Cups of Coffee Morning. What had she been thinking by making an early appointment for the morning after their party?

  Long John helped his wife into her dress, lacing her up in seconds with his nimble sailor’s fingers. Bonnie Mary pulled a pair of clean white gloves over her calloused hands and tugged a few curls out of her mobcap, carefully positioning them over her bad eye. Last, she powdered her face to soften the effect of her sea-weathered features.

  Long John straightened his white horse-hair wig and tied his finest silk cravat before the mirror. Bonnie Mary fluffed up the new orange feather in his hat, while he gave the gold-topped cane he carried for special occasions a final polish. At last they were ready to go.

  Bonnie Mary glanced over at Little Jane, still huddled in her little hammock bed. She had hoped to bring her along, seeing as how it would be a lesson in the business side of smuggling and pirating, but the previous night’s revelry seemed to have exhausted the child.

  “Let her rest,” said Long John, extending his hand to his wife. “It won’t do to keep the coffee trader waiting.”

  Bonnie Mary took the proffered arm and the two sauntered down the gangplank to the pier, looking for all the world like any well-dressed, middle-aged couple out for a morning stroll.

  A few hours later, Little Jane woke. She stretched out luxuriantly against the pillow of her bed, watching the sun stream in through the cabin window, sending dust specks glowing in the air. A magical morning. She stumbled into her clothes, taking note of her parents’ empty bed.

  Where were they?

  Patrolling the deck of the Pieces once more, even Ned Ronk felt in good spirits as schemes of sabotage wove their twisty way through his devious brain. He watched a few stray sailors mop the deck.

  Someday he’d have a ship of his own, he mused. Perhaps this ship, even. All it would take was a little finesse. The important thing, Ned realized suddenly, was not, as Doc Lewiston had said, for the act of sabotage to be completely untraceable. No, what really mattered was only that it be completely untraceable to him.

  All he’d have to do was find the appropriate dupe to pin the thing on, someone no one would ever suspect of having any connection to him …

  As if on cue, Ned Ronk noticed Little Jane’s small, braided head poke up from the entrance to the midships. He clenched his fists with the desire the squeeze someone’s throat, but then a flash of inspiration struck him. With a grin of supreme friendliness and goodwill, he waved at Little Jane.

  Little Jane ducked back down to the comforting darkness of the hold, barely able to breathe. Her heart banged in her chest as memories from the night before all came flooding back.

  Ned! That sardonic wave of the hand … He knew! He knew she had followed him to Sharky’s! Of course he knew! He had to know! And that meant she was done for!

  Whatever Ned had been planning with the man he’d met in the tavern, she knew it wouldn’t bode well for her. Something had to be done. It was time to tell someone. But then she remembered the empty bed in the captains’ cabin and knew by the angle of the sunlight shining down on her that it was afternoon already. Her parents would be at the coffee merchant’s by now.

  She realized that Ned Ronk wouldn’t dare try anything in Habana, not with all the soldiers and townspeople about. Her parents could find a new boatswain to replace him — they were probably a dime a dozen around here — this was Habana, after all! She had to tell them and tell them NOW — now, before they went out to sea with Ned. Out at sea where there would be nowhere to run …

  Suddenly, as if he’d read her very thoughts, there was Ned, standing right above her! From up on the deck, he peered down at Little Jane in the hold. She trembled under his squinty gaze, fixed like a butterfly on a collector’s table by the pin of her fear.

  “Little Jane …” his voice rumbled.

  She chewed on one of
her braids, sniffing the vaguely salty scent of her hair for comfort, as the clasp-knife gleamed in her imagination. But the clasp-knife never made an appearance. Instead, Ned Ronk smiled, actually smiled at her. He even reached down and patted her on the head!

  “Why don’t you get a mop and give Rufus a hand cleaning,” was all he said, his tone unusually mild. “There’s shrimp stew all over the bowsprit.”

  “Aye-aye, sir!” cried Little Jane in surprise and she ran off looking for a bucket.

  Little Jane never did get a good moment alone with her parents to tell them about Ned Ronk’s secret with the stranger in Habana. For the next two days, the boatswain watched her like a hawk and stuck to her like tar to a feather. Worse luck was the hard work of getting the ship ready for departure that kept her parents up on deck at all hours instructing the crew on how to load and unload the goods they were trading. Little Jane tried to stay awake, but much to her chagrin, she always managed to fall asleep long before her parents came down to go to bed at night.

  The time came for them to sail far too quickly. Little Jane gazed miserably at the buildings of Habana harbour as they receded from view along the blue horizon. The snapping sails carried the Pieces of Eight out to sea, seemingly in no time at all.

  However, Little Jane had no intention of taking these difficult circumstances lying down. “If I can’t tell anyone,” she reasoned to herself, “least ways I can keep an eye on things and make sure Ned don’t get up to more mischief.” In that spirit, Little Jane spent a few monotonous days spying on the boatswain. Strangely enough, Ned did nothing more suspicious than urinate off the quarter deck when he was supposed to be on watch. As the days went by, her spying activities dwindled to the occasional sneaky hour or two caught in between her own ship’s duties.

  Little Jane wondered if perhaps she had confused the meaning of what she’d seen that night in Habana. Maybe the man she’d seen climb down the rope hadn’t really been Ned at all. Even if it was Ned, it didn’t mean he’d necessarily been up to no good. And even if he had been up to no good, he was only one man. As long as she stayed near her parents, she was protected, for he was certainly no match for the two greatest pirate captains to ever sail the seven seas. There was nothing to worry about, nothing at all.

  A good captain always retains a level head in the face of danger and makes decisions based on proper evidence, not fear. Wasn’t that what she’d been told to write down in her book by her mother?

  She could manage to convince herself of it during the day, but in bed at night, with “How to Be a Good Pirate” unreadable in the dark, she found a level head was not the easiest of things to maintain.

  As always, the first day of the month was Cannon Defouling Day on the Pieces of Eight. It turned out that the auspicious date had not come soon enough, for seagulls had made homes for themselves in several of the aft cannons, thoroughly clogging them with their nests and droppings. The four-pounders, although much better off, were choked with spider webs, not to mention rust, dust, salt, and seaweed.

  Despite being too little to help carry the smaller cannon barrels up to the main deck for cleaning, Little Jane’s job was still crucial to the success of the enterprise. It was she who was responsible for tying the knots that held the cannons in place and with her small, speedy fingers she was exceptionally good at it.

  She had just tied down the second aft cannon, called “Mr. J. Thunders” (all cannons on the Pieces had names), when Ned Ronk sent her down to storage to get more grease.

  Little Jane returned to find the rest of the crew hard at work on the other cannons — “General Wolfe” and “Typhoon.” She noticed Mr. J. Thunders moving in an odd sort of way as she approached.

  The Pieces of Eight listed to port as the ship hit a big wave. All at once, J. Thunders rolled free, burst through the railings, and plunged towards the sea in a shower of splintering wood.

  Little Jane tried to snatch the ropes as they slithered past her ankles. She managed to grab one mooring rope and held on with all her might. Her arms and shoulders shook with the effort, but she was too weak to stay the cannon’s progress one iota. The rope shot through her hands like a live thing, stripping the skin off her palms as it went. Then the cannon paused in its descent, swaying precariously just below the railing, held fast by one unbroken strand of rope.

  She grabbed the taunt rope.

  For one miraculous second it held. She pulled with every fibre in her body, ignoring the coarse hempen hairs of the rope as they poked into the raw flesh of her palms.

  J. Thunders swayed below her like a pendulum, striking the hull of the ship with a sickening sound of shattering timber.

  She might as well have tried to bend iron.

  The single strand broke and the rope exploded out, lashing out at Little Jane like a whip across her forehead. She fell senseless to the ground and J. Thunders tumbled into the ocean, never to be seen again.

  It had all taken little more than a few seconds.

  A flurry of orders broke out and Long John rushed over to where Little Jane lay, just coming to, on her back on the deck. She opened her eyes to find herself enfolded in his brawny arms.

  The pirate captain’s concern poured out in a babbling stream of words. “Jane — Jane, oh Jane, thank God — what — what was ye doing? Yer head! Good lord! What was you thinking? You’re hurt!”

  But Little Jane just sat blinking at the broken railing and the rust-stained deck planks where the massive cannon had been, as if it were all a mirage. It seemed impossible that such a huge thing as J. Thunders had so suddenly up and disappeared.

  “Not hurt,” she replied vaguely, but her forehead felt hot and wet in the place the rope had struck her and there was blood around the cuffs of her shirtsleeves.

  “You are hurt!” protested Long John.

  “I’m not hu—” she started to argue, but then the palms of her hands began to smart so terribly that tears filled her eyes.

  “What happened?” asked her Papa.

  “I … I …” What had happened anyway? She had tied up the cannon’s ropes, and then gone down below to get the fat to grease the wheels. She had come up again and J. Thunders was … going over the side? It made no sense. She groped in her mind for some explanation.

  “It’s her fault!” someone shouted. “The cannon ropes weren’t tied proper!”

  Without looking, even through her throbbing headache and burning hands, she knew that voice.

  “Eh?” Long John looked up, puzzled.

  “Look!” Ned Ronk cried and he pointed to the empty deadlights fixed to the deck that the rope should have been tied to.

  Gasps and curses broke forth from the crowd of sailors.

  Long John looked from Little Jane to the deadlights and back again. “Jane …”

  “It weren’t me,” she swore vehemently through her tears. “It weren’t me! I swear it!”

  “But it was your job — tyin’ down the cannons!” called out Changez.

  “How we gonna defend ourselves now?” grumbled Mac the gunsmith.

  “Shaddup, woodworms!” bellowed Long John. “We still got a slew o’ cannons! Leave ’er out of it!”

  But somehow this did little to staunch the crew’s anger toward Little Jane. She curled up further into her father’s belly, making herself as tiny as possible, trying hard to pretend she did not hear the voices of people she’d known and lived with like family all her life turning so swiftly against her.

  “What you get fer letting a child do a man’s job,” muttered a scornful Cabrillo.

  “Just ’cause she’s kin to the captains—”

  “No good ever come of having a girl-child onboard, I always says, but no one ever listened—”

  “An ol’ fashion floggin’ oughta teach ’er!”

  “SHUT YER TRAPS!” bellowed Captain Bright, face scarlet with rage as she stomped onto the poop deck, brought up from her charting work below to investigate the source of the sudden commotion.

  “He’s
right, Cap’n,” said Ned Ronk evenly to Bonnie Mary. “She oughta be flogged. If it were any one of us, we’d have to learn our lesson. This ship’s supposed to be a floating republic! With all respect, Cap’n Bright, you and Cap’n Silver ain’t kings and queens here. We all signed the charter! Equal parts o’ everything!”

  “I tied it right! I did!” Little Jane protested, but even to her the words sounded pathetically small against the tidal wave of angry voices.

  “Flog ’er! Flog ’er!” The chant rippled through the crew assembled on the deck.

  Little Jane listened, feeling strangely detached. The thing was, she understood. Although she had no desire to be flogged, she could see their point. You had to be able to trust everyone on your crew to do their job or you’d end up at the bottom of the ocean. A weak link in the chain could easily mean death, and there was enough to deal with at sea without your shipmates proving unreliable.

  In the face of it all, her resolve began to weaken. She wondered whether she really had tied the knot off properly. It was possible it hadn’t been tight enough. She should have double checked. She should have asked. She should have—

  The terrible thunder of her father’s voice cut through her thoughts.

  “She’s under my command,” growled Captain Silver. “My responsibility. You all want te flog someone? Flog me!”

  With a dramatic gesture, Long John tore his shirt off and flung it to the deck. His broad torso shone with sweat. The tattoo of a skull in flames grinned back at the protesters, a prediction of the dire fate that lay in store for any man fool enough to cross the captain.

  Although Little Jane had not initially seen her father remove the elegant mother-of-pearl handled duelling pistol from his belt, she saw it in his hand now. He held it loosely, as one would hold some meaningless accessory, but his show of carelessness fooled no one.

  The entire ship grew silent. Waiting.

  Unruffled, Ned glared back from the other side of the deck.

  Little Jane heard the slapping of the waves against the hull clearly in the silence.