by L. A. Meyer
I hold her there in the darkness and gradually her trembling subsides and then stops. She stiffens and stands straight and shrugs off my arms.
"Come on, we've got to take care of him and then get back," I say, kneeling back down next to the body.
We roll Sammy under a shelf and cover him with some pieces of canvas that we find. Then we crawl back into the Hold, taking the lamp with us, and button up the boards.
In the light of the lamp, I watch Clarissa get back into her kip and crawl over to Lissette, who is sleeping sitting up, with her back to the wall. Clarissa puts her head in the French girl's lap and closes her eyes. She goes to sleep immediately, breathing gently in and out, her breath making a curl that has fallen across her cheek flutter slightly. She sleeps like a baby.
What a piece of work you are, Clarissa.
I lie awake in the dark, unable to get the thought of Sammy Nettles out of my mind. Sure, he had it coming, but to have held on to his legs like that and to have felt the very life go out of him ... Well, sleep will not come easy this night.
We've got to go tomorrow, now, 'cause they'll be looking for him and they will find him. And in their search, they will also find evidence of our preparations and all will be lost. Yes, tomorrow we go.
The die is cast.
Chapter 50
In the morning, just as the first light of dawn is breaking, the watch wakes me and I awaken Clarissa and we both wake Dolley and the three of us quietly rouse the rest of the girls and tell them that Plan A is on for real today and there's no going back now—"'cause we killed Nettles last night when he caught us out of the Hold, and it won't be long before they find his body"—and they are to make themselves ready. And while they are quiet about it, the Hold positively hums with excitement. It's on!
No tears are shed for Sammy's departure from this world.
Then the flaps go up and Hughie rises to go get the burgoo. When he comes back, Sin-Kay is with him and a quick inspection is held. Sin-Kay has lost patience with us and wants only for this voyage to be over, and he takes the roll and is gone very quickly.
The burgoo and water are given out and everyone eats and drinks, every spoonful, every drop ... everyone except Rebecca.
Last night, after I had climbed back into our kip, I felt Rebecca's forehead again ... Uh-oh ... I then slipped my hand under her shirt and found her chest soaked with sweat. Damn! I lay down next to her and held her to me, for I knew that after the hot sweats come the chills, and indeed, they did come. I begged Annie and Sylvie to look after her on this day, to make sure she got through the Rat Hole and made it to the boat, and they, of course, gathered her shaking form to them and vowed they would. Damn!
The girls get dressed as excitedly as they ever did for any high tea, and for the first time in a long while, they put on their stockings, their shoes, and their Lawson Peabody School for Young Girls uniform dresses. Everyone, that is, 'cept me—I shove all my extra stuff in my seabag, 'cause I got to be able to move free.
We are ready to go. Come on, Mick and Keefe.
While waiting for the hooks, I look over at Connie, who is sitting by Elspeth, and I know she is trying to raise Elspeth's spirits enough to make the crawl through the Hole and the dash for the boat. Annie and Sylvie are doing the same with poor Rebecca—they have gotten her dressed and she is at least able to stand, however shakily.
All the girls are jumpy, ready to leap out of their skins. I think for a moment, and then say, "Connie, if you'd like to offer up something now, feel free..."
She looks at me, rises, holds out her hands, palms up, and looks heavenward. "Lord," she begins, "You, who delivered the Hebrew children out of bondage and then led them to the Promised Land ... You, who delivered Daniel from the Lion's Den ... You, who delivered Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego from the Fiery Furnace ... You who delivered all those of Your children, maybe, just maybe, You can find it in Your wisdom and mercy to deliver the girls of the Lawson Peabody from their own bondage, so that they can continue to serve You, each in her own way. Amen."
There is a chorus of amens. Heartfelt ones, I believe.
Good job, Connie, I'm thinkin'. Short and to the point.
The top hatch opens and the hooks come swinging down! Glory be!
"Hooks coming," says Julia on lookout. "Captain's on the quarterdeck."
It is the signal to start Plan A.
Clarissa stands and looks at me hard and her look demands of me, You swear you will cover for me?
I nod. I will, Sister, I swear. The hooks are all the way down now.
"Very well, then." She goes to the bars, takes a deep breath, and screams out, "Captain! Come here! I wanna bath!"
"What the hell?" we hear the Captain say, and hear his footsteps approach.
I jump down into the Pit and call up to Mick and Keefe as I hook the first tub, "Mick! Keefe! She's gonna do it! Blondie's really gonna do it"
Their heads appear over the side of the top hatch.
"Wot?"
"Blondie's gonna take a bath right out there on the deck! Tell Cookie and the others!" Their heads disappear and the sound of running feet is heard as the word is spread.
"Now what do you want?" demands the Captain.
"I have to take a bath. I'm getting a rash. No sultan's gonna want to buy me if I have a rash. He'll think I'll give him a disease," says Clarissa, firmly.
"We ain't got a bathtub, so you can't have one. Now, shut up."
"You got a hose right back there. I've seen it. I'll bathe right there. You got some soap?"
I think the entire crew is now back aft of our cage, listening eagerly to this exchange. Sin-Kay then appears on deck.
"What is this, then?" he asks.
"Blondie there wants to be hosed off on the fantail," says the Captain.
"I absolutely forbid it!" says Sin-Kay. "I am in charge of the cargo!"
There is instantly a loud "hmmmmmm!" from the crew. The Captain looks around at his increasingly mutinous crew, and I know what is going through his mind—he's got a crew half out of its collective wits with superstitious terror over the sightings of the Black Ghost, he's got men terrified of being turned into giant seaweed sponges, he's got sailors worried he's gonna kill 'em at the end of the voyage—he's got to figure, Hell, why not toss them a bone, and keep 'em happy?
"And I am in charge of this ship!" says the Captain to the outraged Sin-Kay, "as I have informed you before." He strides to the gangway. "Bring her up! Pump up the hose!"
There is a mighty roar of approval from the crew.
Sin-Kay, plainly outraged, comes down the hatchway and opens the cage door. "All right, you," he snarls. "Get out here."
Clarissa takes one last look at me, straightens her back, puts on the Look, and goes out the door.
Take it slow, Sister, take it real slow.
Sin-Kay locks the door and follows her out of the hatchway.
"Plan A ... Ready!" I shout and everyone flies into action. Abby and Helen are at the gate, whipping the wires from off their waists and lashing the gate shut. Then they join the others, who have rushed down under the Stage to carry out their own parts.
I go down there myself and see the boards coming off the Holes. I take my seabag and before handing it over to Martha's care, I withdraw from it my sword Persephone, sleeping silently in her sheath. She who had lain there quietly the entire time we were here, taking up the whole length of the bag. She will not be quiet now, oh no. I strap her harness around my waist and go back out and up on the Balcony and look aft.
As I look out, there is a roar from the crew. I guess Clarissa has taken off her dress.
I turn around. Annie and Sylvie each throw their bag of fused powder up at my feet and then go back to Rebecca. Wilhelmina carefully places a lit candle on the Balcony, next to me. All that would have been for Plan B, if the ruse with Clarissa hadn't worked and they didn't let her out to perform her little ... diversion ... and we had to blast our way out. But that, thankfully, did not happen.
"Plan A ... Go!" I shout and run back down to the gate and say to Hughie, "Hughie! Go! Go! Go!" He looks at me, shocked, scared, and not moving. "Hughie! Get to the boat! Go! Go! Go!" Then he nods and goes up the stairs and—Sin-Kay had locked the upper door when he went out. Hughie rattles the door. Damn!
"Hughie! Break it down! You can do it! I know you can!" I cry desperately. "Come down to the bottom of the stairs and take a run up and put your shoulder to it! Please, Hughie, try!"
He lumbers back down, turns, and charges up the stairs, and Hugh the Grand crashes through the top door as if it were made of straw. Hooray, Hughie!
I go back down to look under the Stage. The girls are going through. Dolley and the Dianas are already gone. There goes Cathy, grabbing a bottle of water on her way out. Now Annie and Sylvie are guiding Rebecca through, now Sally, now...
There is another roar from outside. I can only imagine that Clarissa is playing her part well.
There go Caroline and Frances and Julia, and now Dorothea is bending down to light the fuse. It catches and I see her mouth working one one hundred, two one hundred, three one hundred, and then she, too, is gone through the Rat Hole.
I look about me. I am the only one in the Hold of the Bloodhound, and it is weirdly quiet, the only motion being the white rags hanging under the Stage, swaying slightly with the motion of the ship.
In the hurly-burly of getting the Plan in motion, there was no time for doubtful thoughts to creep into my mind and to sap my spirit, but because I am alone in the now-quiet Hold, such thoughts do come to me and my heart starts to pound and my knees start to shake. Oh, to hell with it! The Plan will either work or it won't and there's no stopping now. We have everything to gain and nothing whatsoever to lose.
Another cheer from outside. I go over to begin my climb up the tub rope.
Then I see the tub starting to lift. Christ! I thought I'd have to climb the damned thing, but what the hell, I'll take the ride.
I run over to it, leap to catch the rope, swing my feet onto the edges of the hole, straighten up, and wait as I am cranked, legs trembling, into the blessed sunlight for what may well be my last fight on this earth. Or rather, on this sea. The absurdity of it strikes me: the knight-errant Lieutenant Jacky Faber, Royal Navy, sword in hand, being lifted up to the field of battle, riding not on noble steed, but on the lip of a chamber pot. It is somehow fitting.
When my feet are level with the hatch top, I step off onto it and blink for a moment as my eyes get used to the sunlight. I see Mick's back, his hand still working the ratchet that lifted me up, his head turned, gazing aft. There is yet another cheer, but it is not for my grand entrance, oh no, it is not for me, and for once I don't mind. The cheers are for Clarissa, and I see her there, seated on a bollard, languidly peeling off her second stocking and tossing it aside. Clarissa may be an aristocrat, but right now she is showing a part of her that is pure pagan temptress. There is not a single pair of eyes on me, or anywhere else, for that matter.
Clarissa Worthington Howe rises to her feet, arches her back, and puts her hands on the hem of her undershirt. Then she slowly, slowly pulls it up. The crew sucks in a common breath.
I look back at the lifeboat. I see Dorothea getting in, her lips moving in her careful count. I turn back to face the crowd and draw my sword. I hear the soft sound of Katy's bare feet on the hatch top as she comes up on my right side. Then Chrissy comes up on my left. Both of them have arrows nocked and ready.
Clarissa puts her hands on the waistband of her drawers and slowly, slowly pulls them down, and then off.
"Fifty!" comes the call from Dorothea. "Fifty-one ... fifty-two..."
"Clarissa! Now!" I shout and there is a pink-and-white blond blur as she leaps up and dashes past me on her way to the lifeboat. All heads turn to watch her go and their gaze falls on me.
"What the hell?" is the most common of the expressions of surprise. "The girls are out!"
"Listen to me! All of you!" I shout. "There is a fuse right now burning down in the powder magazine! Lift your noses and perhaps you can smell the burning powder..."
"Fifty-three ... fifty-four..."
"It is a timed fuse, and when that girl gets to one hundred, the powder's gonna blow the guts out of this ship and send it straight to the bottom!"
"Like hell it will," says Bo'sun Chubbuck, swinging his club as he comes for me.
He doesn't reach me, however, for Katy's bow twangs and she puts an arrow in his throat and another quickly follows into his belly. He doesn't seem to notice that one so much as the one in his neck, which he bats at as if it were a bothersome bee instead of what will be the end of his life.
"...fifty-five ... fifty-six..."
The crowd seems stunned into inaction. Then the Mate Dunphy gathers up his courage and says, "I'll get that damned fuse!" and he would easily have done it, I'm sure, since he had a good forty seconds to get down below and pull it, if Chrissy hadn't stopped him with a shaft in his side as he tried to run past her. She did it as coolly as if she were setting out plates for a tea party for her dollies. Katy and her girls have been practicing shooting and re-nocking and they can do it with amazing speed. When Dunphy pitches over and falls to the deck, Christina King of the Beacon Hill Kings puts another arrow in his chest.
"...fifty-seven ... fifty-eight..."
"Sailors!" I cry out to the stunned crew. "You may yet save your lives! You have time to get in that lifeboat there! You have no weapons, you cannot take us! The Captain was going to kill you anyway, you know that! Why try to save him and his lousy ship?"
"...fifty-nine ... sixty..."
I see Mick down below me, looking up all stupid.
"Go, Mick! Keefe! Run! Save yourselves!"
"...sixty-one..."
That does it. Those two break and run for the boat and the rest of the crew follows them, frantic to get off the ship. The first ones there let loose the davit lines and the boat plunges down and men pile in, crawling over each other in their haste. I'm sure there were some who thought to get in our boat, but the sight of Rose, Hermione, and Minerva with drawn bows and arrows pointed right at them made them reconsider and flee back to the boat we had provided for them. I look around and see that there is one sailor, Carruthers, I think, kneeling on the deck, blood running out of his neck and over his hands. I look in the boat, where delicate little Julia Winslow sits with a strange expression on her face and a jagged, bloody, broken bottle in her hand.
I turn back to check the action on the quarterdeck.
"...sixty-two..."
"This is not happening," says the Captain, shaking in rage and disbelief. All this time, he has been standing there, stock-still. Then he runs down into his cabin.
What? Does he think that will save him?
"Katy. Chrissy. Get back to the boat. Help your other Dianas cover the retreat."
"...sixty-four ... sixty-five..."
They immediately turn and go and I'm about to follow them, when a purple-sleeved arm goes around my neck and a pistol is pressed against my ear. My heart sinks. It is Sin-Kay. I hadn't counted on him doing anything in the fracas, but he had been hanging back, waiting for his chance, and I guess he found it and I am that chance. I am held fast.
"You scheming bitch. You think you have triumphed, but you have not," he hisses in my other ear. "We are going over to that boat. You are going to tell those girls to drop their weapons. We will then get in that boat and we will sail away. I will not lose my cargo!" He grinds the barrel hard into my temple. "Do you hear? Now move!"
I'm trying to get my sword around on him, but I can't. I can't—he's holding me too close—and he begins to shove me toward the boat, then...
"What? Hurt Mary? Mister hurt Mary?" cries Hughie.
Uh-oh... Hughie has gotten out of the boat and is coming toward us, pointing at Sin-Kay. "No, Mister, don't hurt Mary. Stop, Mister..."
"Get the hell away from me, you idiot, damn you!" yells Sin-Kay, but Hughie doesn't get the hell away.
What he does is clamp his massive paw around Sin-Kay's neck and rips him off me. As I spin away, Hughie wraps his arms around Sin-Kay's, pinning his arms to his sides.
"...seventy-two ... seventy-three..."
The pistol fires, and Hughie jerks. A strange look comes over his face, a look of bewilderment that changes quickly to anger. Hughie squeezes, his left hand grasping the wrist of his right. Sin-Kay gasps, his breath gone, his face swells, his eyes bulge. Hughie squeezes harder.
Then there is a sickening pop.
I know it is the sound of Sin-Kay's lower spine snapping.
"Hughie! Get back to the boat!" I plead, shaking him by the shoulder. "Go now, Mister's done!"
Confused, Hughie steps back, releasing his hold. Sin-Kay slumps to the deck, his legs flop around, all useless now. And—Oh, Lord—there is a spreading red stain on the front of Hughie's shirt. I choke down a sob and shove him back toward the boat. He goes.
"...seventy-eight ... seventy-nine..."
Sin-Kay raises his torso by pushing up with his hands. Sheer terror is writ large on his face, as he knows full well that he is now a dead man.
"Enjoy your time in Hell, Jerome." I sneer down at him, and staying well clear of the clutch of his hands, I turn to go to the boat. I wish I could be more gracious in victory, but I can't.
On my way over the hatch top, I see that the crew's boat is filled to overflowing, and, wonder of wonders, there's Nettles, staggering out of the hatch, holding his head and moaning. We didn't kill him after all—the scumbag just went into a coma and he woke up just in time. Glory be ... He lurches forward and falls into the boat, just as it pulls away from the side.
"...eighty-one ... eighty-two..."
Time to go. Farewell, Bloodhound.
I see that Hughie has gotten the boat down to the water, and I'm almost to it, when I find that things ain't over yet. Captain Blodgett has come out of his cabin, and aside from a crazed look on his face, he bears two pistols in his hands.
Uh-oh...
"Katy, get your girls in! Cathy, pull away and lay off! Pick me up in the water! Do it, now!"