by Brenda Novak
Jeannette shrugged. “I found her.”
“Do you want her back?”
“Not if the Hawkers are taking good care of her.”
“They are good people. I am sure she’s fine,” Treynor said and left.
Wondering if he’d had any sleep beyond an occasional doze at her bedside, Jeannette locked the door behind him, blew out the lamp, and climbed back into his hammock.
“All hands!” The bosun’s voice rang down the companionway. “Larboard watch, ahoy. Rouse out there, you sleepers. Hey! Out or down here.”
With her stomach full for the first time in two days, Jeannette’s eyes grew heavy again. The warm bedding smelled of Treynor, and his hammock swung as steadily as a pendulum, lulling her to sleep. She had all but succumbed to its blessed oblivion when she heard the doorknob rattle.
Sitting up, she tried to see through the darkness. How much time had passed since Treynor left? Could he be returning? Did he need something?
She managed to wrap the blankets around her naked body and climb out of the hammock, which, encumbered as she was, proved no easy feat. Then she padded to the door, expecting the lieutenant’s voice to tell her to open it.
A soft knock came instead. “Jean Vicard? You in there, froggy?”
Cunnington! Jeannette jumped back as though burned.
“You might have escaped without a scratch the other day, but I am willing to bet it is just matter of time before you earn another whipping.” His voice was laced with the promise of violence. “And I shall watch with pleasure.”
Jeannette bit her tongue against a stinging rejoinder. Cunnington hated her enough already. The last thing she needed was to provoke him to act on his words. “I will see to my duty in future, m’sieu.”
His laugh sounded like a high whine through the door. “I will keep my eye on you, just to be sure.”
The knob rattled again. “Do you hear me, froggy bastard?”
Afraid he’d keep banging or force his way in if she didn’t, Jeannette responded. “Oui.”
Silence fell, then she heard the tread of boots on the wood planking as he moved away. But she couldn’t relax after that. She lit a lamp and began to search for her clothes. Being naked left her feeling especially vulnerable, not only to Cunnington, should he demand she open up to him, but to Treynor when he returned.
Her breeches and shirt were in a heap against the wall. Jeannette donned them before taking a seat on the floor in the corner. She didn’t want to soil Treynor’s linens with her dirty clothes any more than he wanted her to.
Hugging her knees to her chest, she waited several minutes before creeping across the room. She wanted to make sure Cunnington had truly left, but even after pressing her cheek to the floor she couldn’t see anything through the narrow crack beneath the door. For all she knew, he hovered about the corridor, waiting for her to peek outside.
She returned to where she had been sitting and tried to doze off, but the itchy stiffness of her clothes prevented her. Preoccupied with thoughts of Cunnington, she fidgeted for an interminable time. But eventually she remembered Amelia, the woman she had met in the hold. Had Amelia’s beau brought her something to eat? Was she warm enough?
Treynor had left food for her, which provided an opportunity. Each watch lasted four hours. She didn’t know how much of that time remained, but she hoped it would be enough to visit Amelia. It seemed unlikely that whoever had impregnated her was taking good care of her.
After strapping down her breasts so she could venture from the cabin, she wrapped some bread and cheese and a few slices of cold meat in the napkin that had covered the food and placed the small bundle under her hat. Then she stole the wool blanket from on top of the lieutenant’s feather comforter and rolled it up, tucking it beneath her arm.
Despite a firm belief that Cunnington had returned to his own cabin, Jeannette’s fingers shook as she unlocked the door. She waited several seconds before swinging it open, half-expecting a hand on the opposite side to force it the rest of the way.
When she finally stuck her head out, she found the corridor empty.
Taking a small lamp, she sallied forth before she could lose her nerve and headed to the companionway that would lead to the lower decks.
Almost directly below the lieutenant’s cabin, she stumbled upon the galley. The ship’s cook was there, a one-legged, balding man with long sideburns. He had already lit the range and was busy preparing what looked to be an oatmeal gruel for breakfast.
“Morning,” Jeannette murmured as she passed.
He nodded, and she hurried on.
The decks were being scrubbed again, with sand and holystone, then mop and bucket. Other men polished brass fittings until they gleamed in the predawn light that was just beginning to filter through the portholes.
She descended another steep flight of stairs lined with cannonballs set into wooden planks and found several locked rooms, which she guessed were gunpowder stores, maybe even a handling chamber or two.
In the very cradle of the ship’s hull, the hold was cool, damp, and pitch-black beyond the circle of Jeannette’s light. No seamen hefted barrels through the door and up the stairs. Neither did any voices break the silence until Jeannette raised her own in a whisper.
“Amelia? Are you here?”
Nothing. Only creaking timbers and an occasional scratching broke the tomblike stillness. This last noise caused the hair on Jeannette’s arms to stand on end despite her efforts to ignore it. Rats. From the sound of their movements, they hovered just beyond the ring of her light, but she tried to convince herself that only her fear made them seem so bold.
Wrinkling her nose against the noxious air, she lifted her lantern high and called louder. “Amelia! It is me, Jeannette.”
The halo of her lamp revealed only barrels and crates. The outer reaches of the hold were draped in blackness; waves outside brushed against the hull, seeming to order all within not to break the silence.
Shhh …shhh …shhh …
Jeannette opened her mouth to call again when an angry voice finally snapped, “Go away!”
“Amelia?” She paused, unable to remember with any certainty the sound of her friend’s voice. “Is it you?”
“Aye, ‘tis me. Who’d ye expect? But I don’t need the likes of ye thunderin’ about down ‘ere, callin’ after me. Ye’ll cause me nothin’ but grief, that ye will. Ye almost got me caught last time.”
“I have brought something for you to eat.” Gingerly, because of her sore stomach and aching head, Jeannette walked closer to the voice. “Are you hungry?”
Momentary silence answered her, as if Amelia’s hunger warred with her desire to be left alone.
“A bit,” she admitted at last.
“Hasn’t anyone brought you some food?”
Another silence, then, “Ye can take yer grub an’ go. My man will be ‘ere any minute. ‘E’s just busy, ye know. ‘Tis ‘ard ter get away.”
So the situation was as she’d feared…. “Come and eat. I got the food from Lieutenant Treynor’s cabin so it’s fresh. And there is meat.”
“Why don’t ye eat it yerself then?”
It wasn’t difficult to hear her skepticism. “I am full.”
Amelia crept out from a narrow alley between the ship’s stores and entered the light, giving Jeannette her first glimpse of the pregnant stowaway. Her heart-shaped face was plain, but not wholly unattractive, and she certainly wasn’t as old as Jeannette had hoped—probably no more than fifteen. She possessed a rather pointy chin, a quick, furtive gaze, and long, stringy dark hair that fell down her back, matted with the same dirt and grime that stained her dress. As for the pregnancy, her stomach was every bit as swollen as Jeannette had feared.
Amelia squinted against the lamp’s brightness as Jeannette retrieved the food from under her hat and placed it in the girl’s outstretched hands.
“What’s the lieutenant to ye?” she asked, swallowing an entire mouthful almost before she had begun to ch
ew.
“The lieutenant?”
“The man what came after ye. Ye daft?” She stopped eating long enough to shoot Jeannette an irritated glance.
“He is nothing to me, of course. He is an officer—”
“I know who ‘e is. What I can’t figure is where ye fit in.” Her gaze slid over Jeannette’s boy’s clothing.
“I do not fit in,” Jeannette admitted. “I stole aboard like you, which is why I am wearing these clothes.”
“Then ‘ow’d the lieutenant find out about ye? An’ if ‘e caught ye—which I saw that ‘e did—what ye doin’ runnin’ about an’ carryin’ off ‘is food?”
Jeannette almost explained that the food she’d brought had been given to her, not stolen, except that she had, indeed, taken the blanket. “I brought something to keep you warm,” she said, ignoring the question.
“Ye’ll get yerself flogged, woman or no.” Amelia glanced askance at the covering Jeannette held out. “The navy don’t take kindly ter thieves.”
Jeannette’s gazed move to Amelia’s swollen belly. “At the moment, you need it more than the lieutenant. Here.”
Amelia shook her head. “Oh, no ye don’t. I’ll not be caught with an officer’s blanket.”
“Take it.” Jeannette wondered how a child born to this stubborn girl would ever survive. “You can always tell them you found it.”
Amelia made a noise of incredulity. “They’d never believe me!”
“Then say I gave it to you. I will not deny it.”
“An’ why would ye do that for me?”
Jeannette sat the blanket on the closest barrel. “Not for you. For the baby. How is it, by the way?”
She shrugged. “It’s still there.”
“You have been feeling well then?”
“Better now.” She cracked a smile. “Thanks for the food. I’m sorry I was …well, ye know…”
“I understand. Have you had anything to drink?”
“Aye. There’s a leaky barrel. Rum,” she announced as if it was liquid gold.
“Why not come out of here?” Jeannette asked. “This dank place cannot be good for you. The smell alone would kill me. And what about the rats?”
“They don’t bother ye so long as ye can move.” The suspicious look returned to Amelia’s face. “Who are ye, anyway?”
“I told you. I am no different than you—”
“Oh, yer different all right, with yer fancy French accent and fine speech. But I’m not one ter nose in what don’t concern me. An’ if ye really want ter ‘elp me, ye’ll keep yer bloody trap shut an’ not come back ‘ere.”
But how could she? “What about your baby?”
“My baby is just that—my baby! Ye worry about yerself before ye get us both in trouble.”
Jeannette silently cursed the sailor who had gotten Amelia with child and then, by all indications, abandoned her. “Can I give your man a message for you?” she asked, hoping to deliver him a good tongue-lashing as well. “If you will give me his name, I could—”
“No!” The protective note in Amelia’s voice warned Jeannette not to press the issue. She’d only undermine Amelia’s trust and ultimately get nowhere.
“All right. I am staying in Lieutenant Treynor’s cabin for the next couple of days if …if you need anything. Otherwise—”
“Are ye Treynor’s girl, then?” Wistful admiration overrode Amelia’s gruff manner. “That man’s ‘andsome as the devil, that ‘e is.”
Jeannette flushed. Treynor was virile enough to tempt the most virtuous maid, to say nothing of the hussies. Even she had to admit that. “No. He is …he is merely helping me a bit.”
Amelia let out a soft snicker. “A man such as ‘e likes to use what ‘e’s got in ‘is breeches. If ye don’t know that yet, ye’ll be learnin’ it soon enough.”
“I’d better go.” Unwilling to examine Treynor’s motives in front of the other woman, or to even consider them herself, Jeannette stepped away.
A backward glance revealed Amelia draping Treynor’s blanket around her shoulders. With that small reassurance, Jeannette let herself out of the dark hold, but voices on the landing near the companionway caused her to pause in the shadows. A knot of sailors huddled near a lantern that swung there. Fortunately, none of them wore an officer’s uniform.
Ducking her head, she proceeded toward the stairs only to be yanked back by the collar and relieved of her lamp.
“‘Ey, lookee ‘ere!” The man who grasped her by the coat raised the light to her face. “This lad’s the one what got Lieutenant Treynor flogged.”
The dirt-streaked faces of the others turned her way, all except three who crouched near a lamp of their own, busy with something Jeannette couldn’t quite see. At their feet lay several bottles of colored liquid and a rag.
“Wanted ter run off, did ye? Changed yer mind about a life of rum, buggery, and the lash?”
An aging tar, wearing a greasy bandanna, ripped off a thick, yellow fingernail with his teeth and spat it on the floor. “‘Is tender flesh ‘as never seen the likes of the whip, I’ll bet.”
Having learned her lesson from that incident with the petty officer, Jeannette kept silent. These sailors hated anything or anyone French. She didn’t want to give them further reason to bother with her.
“Did the lieutenant give ye the beatin’ ye deserved?” It was the man who held her that spoke. “‘Tis only right ye get somethin’. I’ve always taken me own stripes.”
That he probably never had a choice left little room for pride, but Jeannette was not of a mind to point that out. She nodded, wincing against the pounding of her head and the fear that was making it difficult to breathe. The slightest provocation could cause them to take to their fists, as the petty officer had done.
The man holding the light glanced up. Without his curly, dark head in the way, Jeannette could see what they were doing. A bare-chested sailor was having his arm tattooed by a tall, gaunt-looking man.
“Jack, ‘e’s just a lad. Let ‘im go,” said the tattoo recipient.
“Go back ter admirin’ Smedley’s work there, Beaner. It’s all in good sport. This snot-nosed French brat could use a lesson on ‘ow to get along in the navy.” He jammed his face in front of Jeannette’s. “Ye see, lad, tattoos are manly things. They might ‘urt some, but notice ‘ow Beaner acts as though it merely tickles.”
“He’s even paying for the pleasure,” Smedley pointed out with a self-satisfied grin.
“I’ll not give ye a farthin’ unless ye make this bloody ship into a man-of-war. Looks like a stoved-in skiff so far,” Beaner said with a chuckle.
“You couldn’t settle for hearts and anchors, like everyone else,” the tattooer grumbled.
“Like ye said, I’m payin’ for it. I should get what I like, eh?”
The light swayed as the men guffawed, evoking a curse from the one bent over Beaner’s arm.
“Hold bloody still!”
“I got an idea.” Jack pulled Jeannette closer to Smedley and Beaner. “A tattoo might ‘elp rid this lad of ‘is French cowardice. Make ‘im a real sailor.”
“Aye,” one of his companions agreed. “Let’s make ‘im look like a gen-yoo-ine tar. Toughen ‘im up.”
Hoping to break Jack’s grip and run up the stairs, Jeannette struggled in earnest. She doubted the sailors were interested enough to follow her very far. They’d been drinking—the water on the ship tasted so bad that most sailors consumed little liquid besides ale and as much rum as they could get their hands on. They were just having a bit of fun.
But she couldn’t risk them having that fun at her expense.
“What do ye say, lad?” Jack took firmer hold of the front of her coat and lifted her off her feet with one brawny arm.
Jeannette cleared her throat. “I have no coin.”
“Thomas Smedley’s not a greedy man, eh, Smed?” Jack glanced at the artist.
Smedley cocked an eyebrow at them. “I might find it in my heart to do the wee lad a
favor, should the rest of you make generous with your rum rations this evening.”
The group’s enthusiasm dimmed at the prospect of sharing their rum until Jack shored it up again. “We’ll slake yer thirst well enough, eh, boys? What’s a wee draught to us, after all?”
He pulled Jeannette closer, and her trepidation escalated. She couldn’t allow them to mark her skin like a common sailor. And what part of her body would they choose to mar? Her boy’s costume couldn’t withstand much scrutiny, even by drunkards.
“Please.” She twisted in her coat, trying to pry Jack’s fingers away, but flailed helplessly, suspended in air. “I don’t want a tattoo. I have work to do, no? You will get me another beating if I do not get on my way.”
“Ye deserve a taste o’ pain for the lieutenant’s floggin’,” Jack said, her coat still firmly in his grasp.
Thomas Smedley used an ink-stained rag to wipe the arm of his current patron. “What should I put on the boy? Beaner’s done.”
Beaner flexed so all could admire the improved frigate tattooed on his upper arm. Then he stood and moved out of the way.
“French bastard,” someone volunteered.
The laughter swelled as another cried, “Son of a French whore.”
“Bloody coward, is more like it,” Smedley responded. “Set him down here, Jack.”
The sight of the needle made Jeannette frantic. “No! Mon Dieu, let me go!” Managing to break Jack’s hold, she tried to dash up the stairs, but one of his mates grabbed her arm and hauled her back.
Beaner counted out his coin and tossed it at Smedley.
“Mr. Beaner, please, do not let them do this,” she pleaded, appealing to the one who had seemed most sympathetic to her.
Beaner seemed mildly surprised. “It’s not so bad. I just paid good money for the privilege.” Again, he displayed the result of Smedley’s work, then gave her hat a friendly jerk. “Don’t worry, lad, I’ll make sure they don’t give ye anythin’ too vulgar.” With that he turned to Smedley. “Put an anchor on ‘is arm or some such.”
“‘E’ll ‘ave nothin’ so plain,” Jack argued. “Do a ‘eart on his pecker. That’ll give ‘im somethin’ to show the ladies.”