I went back to the chest and riffled under the three emblems. All that was beneath them was a mysterious piece of vellum. I stared at it. The alphabet was on the left in separate columns, with a different arrangement of x’s and y’s by each letter.
“What’s that?” asked Fence, sniffing again.
“I’m not sure. But it’s important as hell or my name’s not Robin Starveling,” said I, examining it. “Hold the candle closer.”
A xxxxx G xxyyx N xyyxx T yxxyx
B xxxxy H xxyyy O xyyxy U/V yxxyy
C xxxyx I/J xyxxx P xyyyx W yxyxx
D xxxyy K xyxxy Q xyyyy X yxyxy
E xxyxx L xyxyx R yxxxx Y yxyxx
F xxyxy M xyxyy S yxxxy Z yxyyy
It wasn’t very clear despite the light cast by the candle, but I kept looking at the vellum till the x’s squiggled up and down and began to jig. What could it all mean?
Scratcher’s snores ceased, and he moaned. He was waking up! My heart clip-clopped. I inched the chest shut, but still kept ahold of the vellum. Fence pinched the wick of his candle. After a sickening silence that seemed to last till doomsday, Scratcher’s breath caught and he began to snore again.
“This way,” I whispered. We crawled on hands and knees over bundles and boots, until we reached the ladder beneath the hatch. It was still slung open to draw in fresh salty air, such air, that is, as would consent to brave the fug and travel down to the colonists.
My purpose was to climb up to the deck, sick though it would make me to see a seascape unanchored to land. I would be able to view the vellum more clearly up there. But before I shinned the ladder, a cloud above passed, and the man in the moon peered in upon us, making it light enough to see. I started to examine the x’s and y’s again, Fence getting in the way more often than not. For a small boy, he certainly had an incredibly big head, and he kept thrusting it in front of mine to get a better look at the sheet of dancing and mysterious letters.
“Move your bonce,” I said, annoyed.
Just then, fingers grasped my shoulder hard, nails digging into my skin like grappling hooks. “Get off,” I yelled.
My cries disturbed the dreams of one or two travellers, whose pale faces stared at me for a moment, before their owners blinked and fell back to sleep.
A growl. The sickening stench of farts and tomcats and sour wine, stronger than all the other stinks of the hold. As the nails dug even deeper into my shoulder, I imagined blood spurting from crescent-shaped wounds.
“Give over. You’re killing me.”
“Shut yer yap, cockroach.”
I turned, though I already knew who it was: Proule, that coffin-mouthed ruffian. My belly heaved.
CHAPTER 9
IT’S A CIPHER!
At that moment the Valentine’s prow churned out of the water, hurling me into him. He shoved me backwards, punched me, and before I could recover, tore the vellum from my hand. and before I could recover, tore the vellum from my hand.
“What the ruddy hell is this?” He flapped the vellum. The moon shone in. His bald head reflected it.
I could taste blood. My belly heaved again. What could it be that wouldn’t incriminate us? That wouldn’t send Proule howling to Scratcher? I couldn’t think of a damn thing.
“I said, cockroach, what the hell is this?”
Fence had slipped as the ship nosed out of the sea. He came crawling slowly on all fours, his head down.
“Please, Master Proule…”
“What?”
“It’s a list of my duties from the admiral, Sir George Winters, good Master Proule.” He began, baby-like, to suck the tip of his thumb.
At this point I noticed Proule was holding the vellum upside down. Could he even read? I decided to chance it. Taking my cue from quick thinker Fence, I said, “All those things on the left, they’re the days of the week, enough for a month. Next to them are the duties. Sweep the deck; take Sir Thomas Boors his dinner; empty the piss pail and shit buckets overboard.” I had seen Fence perform such-like duties before.
“Why would the likes of yer be reading it in the middle of the ruddy night?”
“He forgot a duty, sir, yesterday, the dinner one, and got in trouble with Sir Thomas Boors.” I felt sure that if asked, Boors wouldn’t remember one way or the other. “We were figuring out where Fence went wrong — he’s not much of a reader, and I’m a worse one, sir, true it is. Why, some days I can barely read at all.”
“Aye, sir.” Fence’s head came up, and his thumb came out, his expression earnest. “We were figuring it out so I wouldn’t make the same mistake again and come in for a good thrashing.”
Proule looked from Fence to me and back again. Then he squinted at the page, one eye shut, turning it sideways and over and right side up. No question about it. He didn’t trust us, but he couldn’t read. The rogue was flummoxed.
Fence stood up. “It’s mine! As I told you, it’s from the admiral. And if you don’t give it back, I’ll tell him you’ve stole it from me.”
“Yer shan’t if yer know what’s good for yer.”
“I’ll do it, sir. I will.” God be praised. That boy had real guts.
Proule flinched, then thrust his head forward. He opened his mangy mouth wide as a corcodillo basking in the sun. For a moment I was afraid he was going to snap his rotting fangs shut on Fence’s nose. But, “Yers, is it, yer cheeky dog? Don’t yer be wasting my time again, y’hear me? I’m an important man with important doings.”
He ground the vellum into his palm, screwed it up, then tossed it away. As he ran up the ladder, taking his rancid reek with him, I crept over to retrieve the crumpled sheet. I smoothed it and stuck it in my shirt, relief flooding my veins. I had a sudden thought and took it out again, holding it beneath the open hatch. The moon illuminated the script for a moment, disappearing as the ship lurched and we tacked southwest into the dark night. But I’d had enough time to check my theory. I’d been right. What I had here was a cipher key. A real one, sure enough. Though as to what it was supposed to decipher, and how I or anyone else was supposed to decipher it, I had not a single clue.
“Tomorrow,” I mouthed to Fence, tucking the cipher away. “Tomorrow we will talk.”
He nodded, and lay down right on the spot to sleep, one arm curled around a rung of the ladder, the hand of the other holding his candle stub. He looked amazingly peaceful, considering all that had happened.
For the first time in my miserable joke of a life I knew that I had a true and gallant friend. It was a strange feeling, not entirely comfortable, like the prickly sensation I once got from an old woolen jerkin when I had no shirt to wear under it. But the jerkin, though itchy, had been warm. And the thought of having a real ally was both itchy and warmish too.
I found a place in the wooden skeleton of the ship, two curved ribs with a narrow gap between them, in which to stow the cipher key. The next night, when the hold was dark and as quiet as it could be with its gaggle of voyagers, littler voyagers, and beasts, Fence and I took it out and examined it until the candle he was holding melted down and scorched his fingers. But I was a quick study and by then I knew the pattern of it off by heart. We still didn’t have the meaning, though, which it refused, quite obstinately, to yield to us.
“There is a meaning to it, though, I’m sure,” I whispered to Fence at noontide, knocking as many maggots as I could off a bloated piece of salt meat with an iron nail I’d found. Some of them held on tight, but I couldn’t bear to actually touch them.
“Right you are.”
“Each letter is represented by five x’s or y’s, or a mix of them. It must stand for something.”
“If we could get some of the other papers in the chest, it’s likely they’d give us clues,” said Fence, who had scarfed down his foul meat and biscuit, worms and weevils and all.
“I’ve learned the cipher key down to the last x and y. It’s burnt on my brain.”
“Good on you,” Fence grinned at me. A last shred of beef was visible on his tooth.
“But we should return the damn thing. We’re lucky Scratcher hasn’t noticed it’s missing, but he will, true it is, if we hold on to it much longer.”
I shut my eyes tight, shoved the meat into my mouth, and swallowed it quick, barely chewing. I had to eat. My rags were so hanging off me that I had tied my long hose on with string purloined from one of the crew. But my gorge rose at the thought and certainty of the worms, which had gone down my gullet hanging onto the meat like sailors clinging to a barrel after a shipwreck. I felt a feathery movement in my throat. My mouth filled with grease, vomit, and drowning maggots.
I pushed by Fence, by chickens and voyagers and lumpy fardels, and sped up the ladder to the deck, spewing the meager contents of my belly over the side.
“Sorry you’re sick. But cheer up. It’s raining. That should cool us down,” Fence announced as he joined me.
Raining it was. After days and days of burning weather. Still hot as Hades, despite what Fence said, but raining. Mist obscured the hot eye of the sun and the other ships as the warm and welcome drops fell on my upturned face. The relief, however, didn’t last long as the sea was beginning to roil. During the night, feeling sickish for a second time as the sea grew rougher, I stole a last look at the cipher by candlelight, making sure I knew every x and y of it. The small guttering flame went out as we hit a large wave. I tucked the cipher under my shirt to return it to the chest, but could not for the moment, as there was too much hurly-burly in the hold. The sea quietened some at last, and the voyagers quieted also. Too tired to move, I drifted to sleep where I was, every so often waking as damp entered through crevices in the deck above, cramping my knees.
“I couldn’t return the bloody thing,” I told Fence the next day. I was rubbing my calves and trying to stretch my legs back out to normal. The wind was rising again. “I’ll put it back between the timbers.”
“Between the timbers?”
“Isn’t that what I said?”
Fence could have his annoying moments too.
“No, Robin, don’t do that. Keep everything important to you right close about. A huge storm is coming. I feel it here.” He pressed the front of his head. There was a pinched look to him, as if the devil had caught his nose and twisted it around and around.
“Keep everything important to you right close about,” mocked Mary. I hadn’t realized she was standing behind us. “Keep everything important to you close about, young cowards, lest we sink.” She tweaked my ear. “Ha ha ha. Skin and bones toad like you will drown in the blink of an eye if the ship goes down.”
“Fat fish like you will sink to the bottom of the sea and drown first.” But I shuddered.
“Fishes don’t drown.” Mary stalked away.
“No more do toads,” I yelled after her, trying to be brave.
CHAPTER 10
PELTED BY MARY AND RAIN
The rain continued. The ship reared up to the roof of heaven and down to the depths of hell.
“Don’t worry, this be’ant dangerous,” Piggsley said, as he went upstairs to the deck. “I’m to my bed. I’ll take the dog with me so he don’t go overboor.” This was the ship’s dog, who had of late been following me around like I was a meat bone. Even hard shoving didn’t deter him. He could stand his ground without so much as a baring of teeth.
I loved animals for the most part but I hated dogs, filthy, wormy creatures. They’d taken a bite out of my rear end often enough in Plymouth, and they were notorious for pinching food from barrows that could have gone into my own belly. Ma Oldham had two hugely fat, bad-tempered lapdogs whose names were Trusty and Ruffles, or Rusty and Truffles, I could never remember which. Neither of them was averse to taking a nip out of my ankle, too short they were to reach my bum. So I was glad to see this one disappear, at least for the moment, especially as he did his business wherever he happened to be. And I kept stepping in it.
I was still thinking about tempests, about dogs and their villainous ways and their confusion of names, when something sharp sped through the air and hit me on the head. It bounced away before I could see what it was. I thought at first it had come out of the hammock, which swung alarmingly. My forehead must be bleeding. I clapped my hand to it. I felt a sticky wetness and a hard pain. I staggered up with a loud cry. It was Mary, and the witch was laughing. Her hand reared above her shoulder, her fingers still splayed open. She’d cut me. A small cut, but a cut nevertheless. Soon, if I wasn’t careful, I’d be as brainless as Boors.
“A stone. I meant it for your better,” she cackled. “Scratcher, I mean. Pig that he is. Shame it missed him. Lucky it hit you.” Incredible! She was more interested in revenge than safety, even with us jouncing up and down in the hold as if on wayward horses.
She cackled again. “I’ve been through this before. I’ll go through it again in the future. This ain’t nothing to what I’ve seen. I ain’t afraid of a rogue wave or two.”
Scratcher had been sleeping most of the day and evening, between bouts of drinking. He snorted and woke now, gripping the sides of his hammock. His knuckles were stretched taut. He took one hand off the canvas and fumbled in his clothing. After a moment he pissed in a huge arc onto the floor. He was worse than the bloody dog. His eyes were glaring, first at Mary, then at me. His face was grey and menacing in the half dark.
“She cut me, Master Thatcher, with a stone.”
“Shut up or I’ll cut you worse.” The two deep lines running down his cheeks looked in the dimness as if they’d been painted on. He lay back down.
The ship rolled. He suddenly sat bolt upright. “I must go see Boors immediately.” He sounded stone cold sober, and was struggling to put on his jerkin as his hammock rocked precariously. “I must get to his cabin. Starveling, you bone bag, my boots have slid away. Find my goddamn boots.” Boots on, with no little help from me, he rushed up to the first deck. I went after him.
“Stay below,” he commanded. “Who told you to follow me, carrytale that you are?”
“Carrytale, sir? Not I, on my life. Merely your servant, here to aid you in all your endeavours.” We were under the top deck. Heedless sailors lay in hammocks, covered by the deck above. But it still rained in at the sides, and the sea was high and ominous. I tried to assure myself of our safety. After all, the mariners seemed unperturbed by the storm; they had doubtless been through rougher waters in the past. But true it is that one careless move, one slight push, could pitch me or anyone else into the water.
Scratcher moved among the crew and across the deck. I took his silence as assent and followed close upon him. He was already knocking on one of the doors of the middle rooms. No response. He banged harder. Boors appeared, in nightgown and cap.
“What is it? Is there a fly? I thought I had them quite cleared out despite the hot weather.”
“No Sir Thomas. It is merely I, William Thatcher, come to remind you to keep your promise.”
“Promise, promise. What promise is that?” He took off his nightcap and scratched his head in bewilderment.
“In the event of a storm, Sir Thomas … you remember, surely?”
“Of course I remember.” He paused. “What is it I remember, exactly?”
“Make for the Isle of Devils.”
“Of course, of course.” He neighed.
“Tell Sir George Winters to do so,” prompted Scratcher.
“Sir George…?” Boors was, if anything, getting worse.
“Winters. The admiral.”
“Oh, yes, of course. I’ll tell Sir George Winters right away, sure as shipshape.”
“That’s if there can be any making for anywhere in this weather,” muttered Scratcher, water running down the deep lines in his face as if they were trenches. “And that’s if Winters will obey your commands.”
“Yes. Thank you. Good night,” said Boors, ever the gentleman. He put his cap back on.
“Good night, sir,” I replied.
“Old fool,” Scratcher said, as Boors closed the door on his own thumb and was obliged to open it
again. He let out a yelp, and his straggly beard bristled.
A wall of water poured over the deck. The cannons groaned, straining against the ropes that held them in place. We scrambled for safety as the pilot was thrown off balance and fell from on high among us; he seemed unhurt, racing back to the helm to try to direct the ship. Boors, who had been following us, scurried back to his room.
That afternoon there was a lull, but later the wind grew stronger, roaring without cease, so loud that we could hear it below, despite the usual din. Rain pelted the hatch, a small stream of water leaking through it and down the ladder. Water was coming in also through gaps in the timbers. Those who had fallen asleep began to wake and moan as they tried to light lanterns. I had been cowering in a corner, legs drawn up, but now rose and pushed my body against the tilt of the boat so I could reach a wooden support and hold on.
The ship creaked as though about to split in half. Children were howling. Women and men were shouting and trying to hang onto their belongings, to one another, and to the upright supports, as I did. A memory of meat and maggots came back to me, and I threw up into the bilge.
“Look to my chest, you snivelling fish brain,” yelled Scratcher. The chest, like much else in the hold, was sliding across the wet floor. A barrel was sliding too, before falling on its side and rolling.
“Look to my chest, I said. And stop that keg, before it bursts and the hold is awash in beer.”
I meant not to budge, whatever Scratcher said, but lost my grip and fell over when the ship’s prow reared up and out of the water. I slid like an eel along the floor as the boat lurched violently down. There was nothing for me to grab hold of. I had lost my place and the supports were few and far between, already thickly surrounded by others fighting to keep their balance; everything seemed in motion. We listed to the right. My feet hit the side and for an instant I was anchored. Then, as the boat listed the other way, I began to slide back. My shoulder hit the chest and I stumbled up and sat on it. It moved little after that, but I felt that at any second I would be hurled elsewhere. The beer barrel hit it too, coming to a sharp halt as it did so. Then it rolled again, exploding beer into the water. Everything else slithered and skidded as the ship reeled.
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