The Whaler (The Island of Sylt Book 1)

by Ines Thorn

  She kicked against his chest and pulled his hair. “Put me down!” she screamed. But the man just laughed and swatted her backside heavily with his huge hand. Maren kicked, screamed, and hit. She couldn’t hear the laughter of the others anymore, only her own cries as she fought for her life.

  Suddenly a voice thundered through the taproom. “Put her down. Immediately!” Then two strong hands gripped her by the waist and set her on her feet. Maren was shaking with fear and anger. She hauled off and gave the sailor such a hard slap that it echoed through the room. A strong hand grabbed her by the wrist. “Stop that!” Only then did Maren realize that Captain Boyse was standing next to her.

  The sailor who’d tried to take her to the livery barn shifted embarrassedly from one leg to the other. “Sorry, Boyse. I didn’t know the girl belonged to you. Otherwise, I never would have touched her.”

  “I don’t belong to the captain,” Maren hissed. She tore herself away from Boyse, smoothed her hair, and straightened her skirts. She felt the blood rising to her cheeks, and her legs were trembling. She would have liked to cry, but she wouldn’t do it in front of the men, so she swallowed her tears.

  “No one touches the girl!” the captain ordered, looking every man in the eyes in turn until they each nodded. “I hope you’ve understood me. She’s one of my ship’s boys, and I need her.”

  After that announcement, the men slunk away. Boyse regarded her creased dress and sighed as though Maren were a great burden to him. “It’s late already. The men won’t be sober much longer. Once the Branntwein begins to flow, they’ll forget their promises. You’ll come with me.”

  He took her by the wrist and pulled her up the narrow stairs. At the top, he opened a door to a room with a wide bed, a shelf with a pitcher and basin, and a bedside table with a whale-oil lamp. Boyse threw one of the straw mattresses from the bed onto the hard wooden floor, followed by a blanket. “Lie there and sleep,” he ordered. “And mind you don’t snore.”

  When Boyse had tossed the mattress, a thin, scanty shift decorated with lace fell at Maren’s feet. She lifted the garment with one finger and waved it in front of the captain’s nose. “You dropped something,” she said with anger. “And I’m sorry you have to spend the night with me instead.”

  She thought she saw a flash of amusement in Boyse’s eyes. “Don’t talk so much. Just go to sleep,” he said.

  At first, Maren couldn’t sleep at all. She missed Thies, Finja, and the entire island. Life was hard there, but at least she had known what was going to happen and what was expected of her. Here in this strange city, she felt more lost and alone than she had in her whole life. She knew very well that every day would bring new, unpleasant surprises, about which she wasn’t the least bit curious. And when she thought about having to spend the next half year with Captain Boyse, she sighed, and her forehead creased with worry. On the bed, the captain breathed so calmly and deeply that Maren assumed he must already be dreaming. That in turn annoyed her so much that she herself couldn’t fall asleep . . .

  . . . Something was shaking her. Maren pulled the blanket more tightly around her and groaned, trying to stop the shaking, but then someone grabbed her shoulder, and she opened her eyes. The captain was standing over her.

  “What is it?” she asked, annoyed.

  Boyse laughed. “You called my name in your sleep,” he said, with an undercurrent of amusement. “So I thought I should wake you from your nightmare.”

  “I wasn’t having a nightmare,” Maren hissed. “You shouldn’t have woken me.”

  “Fine,” the captain said. “If you were sleeping well, I won’t begrudge you that. But you woke me up.”

  Maren could practically hear the grin in his voice.

  “If someone calls me, I come.”

  “I didn’t call you,” Maren insisted. “You must be mistaken.”

  “Then everything’s fine, and you can go back to sleep. But see that you don’t call my name again. As a sea captain, I react instantly to that.”

  “I didn’t—Oh, think what you want.” Maren pulled the blanket around her again, but sleep refused to return.

  CHAPTER 13

  It took over two days for the crew to be signed on, two days which seemed like an eternity to Maren. Captain Boyse had reserved a large table in the taproom, and finally all the men who wanted to work on his ship had arrived. Most came from Sylt and had signed on back on the island, and they had already been at sea with Boyse before. But the whaling ship that the captain was to command this year sailed under a Dutch flag, and it was so large that now sailors from the other North Frisian Islands had a chance to work with him. Most of them knew each other, and that was important because the ship’s crew would be a replacement for their families for months on end. The work on a whaling ship was dangerous, so it was also important for them to trust one another and know what they could expect from each other. In total, Boyse hired one hundred seventy-five seamen. That included six officers, eleven boatheaders, three carpenters, four mates, and three bosuns. There were also six cooks and six cooks’ drudges, of which Maren was one. Additionally, there were forty-four sailors, forty-one harpooners, forty-two blubber cutters, coopers, able seamen, a barber, a blacksmith, and normal ship’s boys. Most of the men whom Maren didn’t know from Sylt were different from any of the men she’d known until then. She felt shy around them, and they spoke a language she didn’t understand. One wore a black patch over his right eye, another had an anchor tattooed on his lower arm, and another wore his hair as long as a girl’s.

  Boyse had ordered her to stay put on a bench near him. “I don’t want to have to search all of Amsterdam for you,” he’d said to justify his decision, but Maren was bored. What difference would it make if I just peeked around the next corner? she thought. There are so many people walking around here during the day that nothing could happen to me. Besides, I remember the name of the boardinghouse and the street, so I can ask if I get lost. She cast a glance at Boyse, who was just offering to pay a ship’s boy eleven Dutch guilders, and snuck out of the room.

  When she opened the door to the street, she was struck dumb by the colorful chaos in the alleyway. Carts and carriages rumbled by, and someone was pulling a food wagon which had enticing smells wafting out of it. Water carriers walked with yokes on their shoulders and full buckets dangling from the ends. For a few copper pennies, they’d allow any thirsty person to drink directly from the same ladle, which made Maren shudder with disgust. Nearby, a tailor sat at a table behind an open window, holding numerous pins between his lips. A richly dressed woman strode proudly down the street with her serving maid hurrying behind her with a willow basket on her arm. A few women stood on a corner laughing together. A man who was missing both his legs sat in an entryway, asking passersby if they could spare a piece of bread for him.

  All of this was new to Maren. She had barely taken a few steps when her eyes began to burn with all the colors and images. Her ears hummed from the noise, and she felt a headache coming on. When she came to a church, she sat down on the steps to rest a little. How she would have loved to share this experience with Thies! He’d earned his officer’s commission, but this year had found no employment. Not even on a merchant’s ship.

  When the church bell rang its evening peal, Maren got up and went back to the boardinghouse. She opened the door quietly and saw an officer arguing with Captain Boyse. “We still need another good man on the bridge,” the officer was saying. “But now they’ve all been hired.” He sounded reproachful.

  “Then we’ll take one of the Dutch or East Frisian men. They’re not bad,” the captain retorted.

  “You should have taken Thies Heinen. He’s a good man, and you know it. I don’t understand why you refused him. And not only that, you made sure he wasn’t able to get any job at all this year. And now you’ve got that girl as a ship’s boy! No one has done anything like that in all the days of Christian seafaring. I’d like to know why you are doing such absurd things.”

 
; Captain Boyse waved his comment aside. “It’s personal, and it has nothing to do with you. Besides, Maren won’t be the only woman on board. I’ve decided to bring Zelda.”

  “What? We’re a whaling ship, not a pleasure boat.” The officer sniffed indignantly.

  “I hired Zelda to keep an eye on Maren. Aside from that, she’ll do all the mending.”

  The officer shook his head. “I’m against it,” he insisted. “Women have no place on a whaling ship.”

  Captain Boyse shrugged. “If you don’t like it, go work on another boat. But don’t forget we’re the ones who come home with the best catch.”

  Another man walked toward them. Maren could tell by the way he moved that he was a harpooner, a hunter. “The other whalers will call us fools. They’ll laugh when they hear we have women on board.” He scratched his neck. “Our work is too hard for women.”

  The officer spoke again. “Some will laugh, I think, but others will be jealous. We won’t have to go to whores in every harbor if we have two right on the ship.”

  He’d barely finished speaking when Boyse leapt to his feet. His face was red, and Maren could see the veins pulsing on his forehead. “There will be no whores on my ship!” he shouted so loudly that the cups on the shelf shook. “Zelda and Maren will work like all the others. And I’ll personally cut the throat of anyone who even dares to look at them the wrong way.”

  The officer shook his head again in disbelief, and then turned away and went to sit with the other seamen whom Boyse had contracted. Every now and then, they peered curiously at the captain, who was sitting again and seemed to have calmed down.

  So that’s why, Maren thought. It’s his fault that Thies didn’t get hired. He didn’t want me to be able to pay back the loan. He forced me to work on his ship intentionally. Rage boiled up inside of her again. She would have liked to go straight to the captain and shout directly into his face what she thought about his behavior. But his burst of anger had taken the edge off of her own. Soon, she decided. Soon I will tell him what I think of him. I think he’s churlish, mean, and a poor loser. It was more than clear to Maren now. The captain wanted to take revenge on her for refusing his marriage proposal.

  The next morning, the captain ordered Maren to pack her things. “We’re boarding the ship today. She’s called Rán, after the Norse goddess of the sea. Blue peter has already been raised.”

  “I know who Rán is,” Maren answered scornfully. “And I’m sure I’ll meet Blue Peter soon enough.”

  Boyse broke into laughter. “Oh, yes, you certainly will. But ‘blue peter’ isn’t a man; it’s a signal flag which is hoisted shortly before a ship sails so the crew knows it’s time to get on board. That’s also the time the contractors come with their invoices.”

  Maren’s brow creased. “You’re making fun of me,” she complained. “It’s easy to make fun of someone going to sea for the first time.”

  Then the captain’s expression became serious. “You’re a ship’s boy like all the others. A ship’s boy is everyone’s scapegoat. The men will often make fun of you. You’d better start getting used to it.”

  “There are some things I will never get used to!” Maren launched her hairbrush angrily into the sea chest. She was furious at the captain. Not only because he’d made fun of her, but above all because he’d ruined Thies’s chances of getting hired. Then she looked up. Captain Boyse was standing directly in front of her in his broad stance with his hands on his hips.

  “First, you must learn that you don’t talk back to your captain,” he said in rebuke. “You are under my orders, and everything I say is law for you.”

  Maren flinched with shock. She wasn’t accustomed to obeying anyone. Her parents had usually let her have her way, and Thies had never been bossy with her.

  “I don’t like to be ordered around by anyone,” Maren said. She would have also liked to tell him what she thought about what he had done to Thies, but Boyse’s face had already turned dangerously red, so she resigned herself to glaring angrily at him.

  Boyse grabbed her hand and lifted her off the floor with one powerful tug. Then he gripped her chin firmly in one hand and forced her to look at him. “Whaling is more dangerous than you can imagine. You have to obey me for your own safety.”

  Maren swallowed. She would have liked to nod to show him she understood, but his grip on her chin was as solid as iron. “Let me go,” she hissed. When he did what she asked, she added, “I understand, but don’t think you can tell me what to do when I’m not aboard the ship. And if others think they can give me orders, then they are sadly mistaken.”

  “Oh, no, dear child. On board the Rán there will be many who have a right to tell you what to do. A galley drudge has the lowest status on the ship. You’ll have to obey everyone, whether you like it or not.” Then he sighed. “Whatever possessed me to take you with me? You’ll surely be more trouble than you’re worth. I should have left you with Thies and not bothered about the money you owe me.”

  That was just the chance Maren had been waiting for. “I’d be happy to return to Sylt,” she said curtly. “You know very well that I’m not here of my own free will.”

  For a moment, Boyse looked at her with his eyes narrowed. Then he took a step toward her. “Oh, no, my girl,” he said in a dangerously quiet voice. “You will work for every copper penny you owe me. And I will see to it. You won’t have a single hour to worry about it. You’ll work just as hard as all the others. If you behave as impetuously with my men as you do with me, then you’ll find trouble for sure. And there’s one thing I can promise you. You will be a completely different person when we come back to Amsterdam in the autumn. Your life will be different, and both your heart and your soul will be transformed.”

  Maren shrank back in fear. Boyse’s words sounded like a threat, but at the same time she’d realized that there were different rules here than on Sylt. She believed every word he said. Yes, she thought. I will be a different person. And I can only hope I’ll like what I’ve become. But there was one thing she didn’t understand. Captain Boyse seemed to hate her. Every time he saw her, his gaze darkened. Why hadn’t he hired Thies instead? Thies would have been able to earn far more money to pay off the debt faster, and he would have been far more useful. Did he just want to humiliate her at the deepest level? Was it revenge that motivated him? But then why was he bringing Zelda along? Had she done something to him? Did he want to get revenge on her too? Or did he really want her to come along to create a buffer between Maren and all the rough men who would be terribly desperate for a woman?

  When the captain left the room in a huff and the door had closed behind him, Maren sighed. She was alone here and had no friends or allies. She understood now that the men would follow Boyse’s orders, and there was no one who could protect her from the captain’s whims. She folded her thick winter skirt tidily and put it carefully into the sea chest. She thought of Thies again, and this time a little annoyance slipped into her heart. She knew that Boyse had refused to hire him. Maybe he’d encouraged the other whaling captains not to hire Thies either. But what about the merchant ships? Thies could’ve found work on one of those. Had he just given up when Boyse refused to hire him? Why hadn’t he at least come to Amsterdam to look for another job, where there was plenty of opportunity? He hadn’t really fought for what he wanted. She could see that now. Then she realized something and paused in the middle of her packing. No, Thies had done the right thing. He hadn’t known that she had to work for Captain Boyse. He hadn’t struggled to get another position because he had wanted to be with her.

  Maren sighed with relief when that logical conclusion occurred to her. And actually, he couldn’t really leave the island. He had to take care of his mother and sister, and now Maren’s mother too. At that thought, she was overwhelmed by a feeling of tenderness. Oh, Thies, she thought with a sigh. How I wish I could be with you now.

  CHAPTER 14

  The Rán had previously been a merchant’s ship. The entire hull
was about ninety feet long and twenty feet wide, with a band of doubled oak planking at the waterline to protect it from drift ice. The protective band extended one yard above and below the waterline, not quite to the keel. The bow of the ship was strengthened with metal sheeting as protection against the Arctic ice.

  Barrels full of saltwater served as ballast on the outward-bound journey, and on the return journey, they would hopefully be filled with whale blubber and oil. She was a square-rigged brig, and the huge topgallant sail luffed in the breeze as the last provisions were carried on board.

  Of course, Maren had often seen large ships in the harbors of Sylt, but rarely so close up. She felt impossibly small beside the wooden giant. The other sailors were already hurrying up the gangplank and disappearing down the main hatch to reserve the best places to sleep. But Maren knew nothing of this custom, and watched instead as the whaling equipment was loaded. There were numerous barrels, gigantic whale ropes, six completely new whaleboats with their sails and oarlocks, fifty harpoon shafts made of hardwood, and sixty harpoons with iron tips and barbs. There were walrus harpoons, ice saws, ice axes, gigantic flensing knives, fish kettles, and three try-pots made of gleaming copper, for rendering whale blubber into oil.

  The provisions for the crew were also being loaded and included sixty chickens, a dozen lambs, several sacks of dried grain, barrels filled with sauerkraut and white cabbage, ham, boxes of salt, dried cod, honey, and smoked sides of beef. Additionally, candles, slabs of beeswax, oil lamps, firewood, bales of cloth, and a huge ship’s apothecary were loaded.

  Maren watched the proceedings with wide eyes. She couldn’t believe how much material disappeared into the belly of the ship. Finally, one of the sailors from Rantum called out to her. “Ho, girl! Are you coming, or shall we leave without you?” Maren quickly grabbed her sea chest and dragged it up the steep gangplank. Below her, a coach stopped directly in front of the pier. Zelda got out wearing a dress with a loosely laced bodice. The men on the deck whooped, and Zelda waved to them good-humoredly while the coachman unloaded several wooden chests.