Secrets of the Realm

by Bev Stout

  She turned to Christopher. "Were you saying something?"

  His shoulders sagged. "Nothing important."

  "Andrés," called Mr. Montgomery. "Vast improvement, lad."

  He then looked up into the cloudless sky. "And if there is any inclement weather this fine day, you most certainly are prepared. What is your opinion, Captain Hawke?"

  Annie turned to the unhurried footsteps coming up behind her and snapped to attention.

  Captain Hawke studied her over-sized clothes. "Hmm, are you hiding contraband under there?"

  His eyes then drifted from her jacket down to her stockings which were slowly disappearing under the rolled cuffs of her trousers.

  When Annie realized her trousers had slipped past her hips, she reached under her jacket and tugged up on them. To her relief, they had not reached the point of no return.

  Captain Hawke shook his head. "You don't have any meat on your bones, boy. Why didn't you get yourself a belt?"

  "Couldn't find one small enough, Captain," Annie said.

  "We can't have you going around with your trousers falling down around your ankles; now can we? Sailors mend their own clothes. You better be good with a needle and thread."

  "I have sewed on a button or two. Me mum was a seamstress," Annie said.

  "Your cuffs, hack 'em off." Captain Hawke said.

  She cocked her head. "Uh, pardon me, Captain."

  "Don't roll up your cuffs; hack 'em off," he repeated. "And where's your knife?"

  "Christopher didn't say anything about a knife, Captain." Annie didn't want to get Christopher in trouble for the oversight; but with the captain obviously annoyed, she wasn't about to make her life any more complicated than it already was.

  The captain noticed Annie admiring his ivory handled knife. "You like my knife, boy?" Captain Hawke said.

  "It is quite handsome, Captain. I have never seen a knife handle carved like a monkey before. And are those ruby eyes?" she asked.

  "That they are. Some people believe monkeys are good luck."

  "Are you one of those people?" Annie asked.

  "No. I don't believe in that superstitious nonsense."

  "Tell Andrés how you got the knife, Captain," Christopher said.

  "You tell him, Christopher," Captain Hawke replied.

  Christopher didn't need any more encouragement. He told the story at break-neck speed. "An old sailor named Mason Rain had taken a liking to him." Christopher pointed to the captain. "They were shipmates when Rain said that one day his knife would be his." He again pointed to the captain. "Rain made good his promise, but not the way he thought he would. His knife was no match against a flintlock pistol."

  Annie whispered, "The captain shot him?"

  "No, he didn't shoot Rain. Another sailor did, and then that sailor took Rain's earrings. Gold, they were. And while that murderous fiend emptied the old man's sea chest, the captain, who wasn't a captain at the time, rolled Rain's body over and took the knife. It was rightly his, you know. I didn't leave anything out, did I Captain Hawke?"

  The captain suppressed a yawn with his hand. "You about put me to sleep, lad."

  Christopher looked at Annie. "It is better when Symington tells it. Now, he's a good storyteller."

  "Christopher, here's a story you can tell the crew," Captain Hawke said. "It is the one about the captain giving his lucky knife to his curious cabin boy. See what you can do with that one."

  Captain Hawke then unsheathed his weapon and handed the knife, handle first, to Annie.

  She waved her hands in protest. "Captain, I cannot possibly accept anything of such value."

  "You saw my knife collection. This one is nothing more than a mere trinket, and you need a knife."

  Christopher leaned down to Annie. "He never was that generous with me. I would take the knife if I were you. You are going to need all the luck you can get."

  "It didn't bring Mr. Rain much luck, now did it," Annie murmured.

  Mr. Montgomery broke in. "Accept the captain's generosity and be done with it."

  He turned to the captain. "However, the boy needs a knife belt that fits him. Don't you agree, Captain?"

  "You are quite correct, Mr. Montgomery. Mr. Allan can make the boy a proper knife belt. Until then, it stays with me."

  "Thank you, Captain. I won't be needing it soon; will I?" Annie asked.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Annie knotted the last stitch and pulled on the scratchy trousers. Without Abigail's freestanding cheval mirror, Annie had to rely on how the trousers hugged her hips rather than how they looked on her. She yanked down on the sides. A snug fit, she thought.

  "Doc, what do you think?"

  He glanced up from his cup of tea and inspected her work. "After the captain sees those stitches, he will send you off to repair sails."

  Annie hoped Doc meant that as a compliment.

  Banging on the door startled them both. While Annie grabbed her cap off the table, Doc wiped off the hot tea that splashed onto his hand.

  "Captain Hawke wants Andrés on the quarter deck!" An unfamiliar voice shouted.

  Annie quickly pulled her cap down over her ears. She scurried through the passageway and up the ladder.

  She skidded to a halt at Captain Hawke's feet.

  He inquired in a gruff tone, "Will this be your first time at sea, boy?"

  "No, Captain, I am a fisherman's son." The half-truth came out easily.

  "Am I to presume, then, that you have your sea legs?"

  "Aye, Captain. I won't be getting seasick if that is what you are worried about."

  Seeing his raised eyebrow, Annie wondered if he doubted her. His next words confirmed her suspicions.

  "Perhaps, it is you who should be worried. I have seen your hands, Andrés. It has been a long time since you fished on anyone's boat. Tomorrow, after you have spewed your guts over the side, you will begin your duties; but for now, Christopher will show you how to climb the mast."

  As if he were swatting at an annoying fly, he waved her off with the back of his hand.

  * * *

  Annie stood at the bottom of the foremast watching Christopher maneuver the ratlines.

  "What you waiting for!" he yelled down at her.

  Grasping the lines, each one more than a foot apart, Annie sucked in her breath. While she made her ascent, the thick lines dug into the palms of her hands and the soles of her feet.

  "Don't look down!" Christopher shouted.

  "You are!"

  "I have done this a thousand times. Look at the lines in front of you, nothing else."

  Annie concentrated on the lines. She clung to them in a death grip, putting hand over hand. She wished there were tree limbs to caress her shoulders or leaves to brush against her cheek, but only a cool breeze greeted her through the crisscrossed lines.

  When she reached the yardarm attached horizontally across the mast, a gush of air poured from her lungs. "I made it."

  Christopher offered her his forearm. "That you did, Andrés. Hold on. Ready?" His tongue ran along cracked lips as he helped her onto the yard. "If you get dizzy, close your eyes and don't let go."

  Annie had no intention of closing her eyes. They were wide with awe. Safely on the yardarm, she marveled at the perfect view of sailors finishing their day's labor and of ships dotting the harbor. "It is amazing up here, Christopher."

  "I know. I never tire of it. It is even more amazing when you are swaying with the wind in a storm."

  "I will take your word for it," Annie said as she looked at Christopher's sea-ravaged face. Running the back of her fingers across her smooth cheek, she wondered how long it would take her face to be etched like his. "Did you always want to be a sailor?" she asked.

  "Not always. But when my father died of consumption, I knew I had to take care of me mum. I could have been a cabinet maker like Father, but I decided to make my fortune out at sea."

  "Have you made your fortune?"

  He laughed. "Not a fortune, but I have
never regretted my decision. On my first day on the Realm, Captain Hawke ordered me to climb the mast. Symington said what everyone was thinking, 'Why did the cap'n hire a cripple to be his cabin boy?' But I proved myself."

  "From what I have seen, nothing slows you down, Christopher. Looks can be deceiving."

  He laughed. "Aye, look at you."

  "Uh, what do you mean?"

  "You are stronger than you look. I didn't expect you to climb the ratlines so fast. You are barely winded," he said. "Now it is my turn to ask you a question. Have you always loved the sea, Andrés?"

  "Always," she said.

  Annie remembered standing in frigid water up to her ankles with her mother by her side, prying limpets off the rocks for bait. Memories flooded her mind: the fishing nets, coiled ropes, her father's coble hauled to shore. Her recollections abruptly ended at the shrill sound of the bosun's pipe.

  "Mr. Allan's piping orders. Best you be off, too, Andrés," Christopher said.

  "Aye, I'll follow you down," Annie replied.

  "No, you go first. Don't want you landing on top of me if you should lose your grip."

  Annie's stomach tightened. "I hope you are joshing me."

  Christopher's ready smile was nowhere to be seen. "I take my safety seriously, Andrés. Have to take care of me mum, you know."

  Annie gulped hard. "Meet you at the bottom," she said with as much enthusiasm as she could gather.

  CHAPTER NINE

  With Christopher and the crew off celebrating their last night in England, Annie explored the lower decks of the Realm alone. Since Symington was gone, her first stop was the carpenter's storeroom. She quickly became bored with the tools of the trade: axes, hammers, nails and various items she did not recognize. From there, she went to the area of the ship that she was most interested in, the abandoned gun deck.

  The low ceiling and stale air made for a less than hospitable environment. On both sides were eight cannons, all nine pounders, sitting on eight sturdy elm carriages. Christopher had explained earlier to Annie that the weight referred to the cannonballs and not the cannons. She ran her hand over one of the balls. She pictured gun ports swinging open, a pirate ship off in the distance. But a draught board, its game pieces scattered under a hammock, reminded her that the gun deck was not only a place to do battle, it was home to forty-eight sailors.

  Out of the corner of Annie's eye, she saw movement. She suddenly realized she wasn't alone. The hammock hanging above the draught board was occupied. A dark figure, not particularly big, emerged in front of her. One foot plopped down and then the other. His smile revealed teeth filed into sharp points. When he blew out the candle in her hand, Annie took it as her cue to run.

  She dropped the candle holder and sprinted to the ladder. Annie expected the man to be on her heels and drag her back, kicking and screaming, to his lair. Instead, she heard only maniacal laughter fading in the distance.

  Once she caught her breath and her heart stopped pounding in her chest, Annie decided to check out a safer place, the mess deck. Perhaps, she could join in the camaraderie of at least a few sailors eating and swapping stories.

  To her disappointment, Annie found only the ship's cook, Mr. Waverly, sitting on a bench secured to the deck.

  "Has everyone gone ashore?" Annie asked.

  "Most of them," Mr. Waverly said as he scooped mash and peas onto the back of his fork. "Only you, Doc, and the men on watch will be eatin' my fine cookin' tonight."

  "When will you be going ashore, Mr. Waverly?"

  "I am too old for that foolishness. Besides, I have no one to go home to. Not like some of the men, who will be spending their last night with the missus and their brood."

  "What about Mr. Montgomery? He sure was all fancied up this afternoon, and he smelled real good." Annie tried not to blush.

  "All I know is that the first mate won't be downin' sour whiskey at The Black Anchor Pub. He'll be doin' somethin' more suitable for a fine gentleman like himself.

  "He is nothin' like the captain, you know, but they are closer than two babes in a mother's womb." Mr. Waverley wagged his plump finger at Annie. "Now don't go tellin' no one I said that."

  "I promise, Mr. Waverley, I won't."

  "Ah, you are a good lad, aren't you?" he said as he pushed a bowl of blackberries toward her.

  Annie took a handful of the berries and plopped them into her mouth. They were not as sweet as she would have liked, but they were tasty, nevertheless.

  "I didn't have a chance to ask Christopher where he was going," she said

  "Visit his mum if he has the time is my guess."

  "So, he won't be going to a tavern."

  Mr. Waverly shrugged. "I didn't say that, but if he does, he will be outta there as soon as the fightin' starts."

  "And the captain?"

  "The captain will have a lady on his arm, maybe two. No strumpets, mind you. He has better taste than that. He has quite the eye for the ladies and they have quite the eye for him," he said with a wink.

  "How do you know?"

  The old cook spread his beefy arms and scanned the mess deck. "More stories are told here than in the fo'c'sle. Only most of these ones are true."

  * * *

  Annie placed a tray of food she retrieved from the galley on Doc's desk.

  "Have you eaten?" he asked.

  "A little."

  Doc yawned as he pierced a piece of roast beef with his fork. He looked up from his plate. "Long day tomorrow, you need to turn in early."

  "I will."

  Annie couldn't sleep any better than she could eat. Staring into the darkness, she listened to Doc's snoring that all but shook the bottles in the medicine cabinet. Annie kicked off her blanket and crept out of the cabin.

  On the quarterdeck, she sat cross-legged watching sailors returning from their night of celebration. Some staggered aboard. Their shipmates carried others, bloodied from fighting or in drunken stupors.

  A cheery voice called out from the shadows, "Do you want company, lad?"

  Annie jumped to attention. "Certainly, Mr. Montgomery."

  "Relax, boy," Mr. Montgomery said. "Are you excited about tomorrow?"

  "Aye, sir." Even in the dim glow of the lanterns, Annie saw his well-tailored clothes were still in pristine condition. He definitely had been celebrating in a more dignified manner than his fellow shipmates had been.

  "Want to play a game, Andrés?" Mr. Montgomery asked.

  Annie tilted her head. "A game, sir?"

  "Just something to pass the time. Are you interested?"

  Annie nodded. "Yes, sir."

  "All right then. Pick a sailor and tell me about his life before he became a member of the Realm."

  "But I don't know most of them."

  "You don't have to. Guess what their story is. For instance, see that fellow over there? He signed on while I had business in town."

  The young man Mr. Montgomery referred to was in his late teens. Unlike most of the sailors, his black hair hung below his shoulders. Rolled-up sleeves revealed muscular arms.

  When he introduced himself to Annie earlier in the day, he had taken her breath away. "His name is Ambrose Barrette," Annie said. "But he prefers being called Barrette."

  "He is certainly a brawny fellow, no doubt a blacksmith's apprentice," Mr. Montgomery said. "I'd wager he was too friendly with the blacksmith's daughter. Her father then chased Barrette out of town, and that is the reason he is now a member of our fine crew."

  "That is amazing, sir. Christopher told me that Barrette was a blacksmith's apprentice. But I don't know about the rest of your story. How do you know if you are right or not?"

  "I don't. But whatever Barrette's story is, the possibilities are high that he is running away from someone or something."

  Wise or not, Annie could not resist asking the first mate, "What would my story be, Mr. Montgomery?"

  "Hmm, let's see." The first mate studied Annie. "The clothes you wore when I first saw you weren't yours. You have
had a good life as well as a bad one. You should not be well educated, but you are. You are a paradox, lad."

  "How often are you right?" Annie asked.

  "Often enough."

  "If you don't mind me saying, sir, you are a paradox as well."

  The jovial first mate's smile disappeared.

  "I am guessing you are an Oxford gentleman, and you should be the owner of this vessel, not her first mate. You are as indebted to the captain as he is to you. How did I do, sir?"

  Mr. Montgomery's brow knitted together. "You play the game well…well, indeed. Now go below and get some sleep, busy day tomorrow."

  CHAPTER TEN

  "Time to get up!"

  Annie pulled the blanket over her head. "What time is it?"

  "Four bells."

  "Four what?" She said groggily while she stretched her arms.

  "Four bells," Doc repeated. "It's the way sailors tell time."

  "Maybe you can explain it better to me than Christopher did."

  "The striking of a bell represents thirty minutes. There are eight bells, one for each half hour of a four-hour watch. Right now, it is four bells, six o'clock, two hours into the morning watch."

  Annie shot straight up. "The captain wanted his breakfast two hours ago!"

  "He is too busy to worry about eating now. I am surprised Mr. Allan's confounded whistling on that pipe of his didn't wake you."

  Annie heard the Realm buzz with activity. Looking up at the overhead, Doc tapped his lips twice. "I am accustomed to all kinds of movement and sound down here. I know when the ship changes course and how bad a storm is without feeling a drop of rain."

  He tapped his lips a third time. "But that racket—I just don't know."

  Wearing the same clothes from the night before, Annie folded her blankets and pulled on her knitted cap. "I think it's quieted down," she said. "I'll take a look."

  "Wait!"

  It was too late. Annie opened the door. At the sound of rushing footsteps, Doc pulled her back and quickly closed the door as Ambrose Barrette dashed by.

  Annie pressed her ear to the door. She trembled as Barrette cursed his pursuers. After a brief struggle, an uneasy silence followed and then voices boasted of their catch. Annie backed away from the door when she heard what sounded like a body being dragged down the passageway. She and Doc stared at the door as the minutes passed like hours. Annie could wait no longer. Against Doc's protests, she again went for the door. He grabbed her arm, but she pulled free and opened the door a crack. Convinced the passageway was clear, she ran to the hatch.