by L. A. Meyer
It don't matter what I say, another pint of ale is shoved in my fist and I stick my nose in the foam and drink some of it, but I give the rest to Jaimy, and he passes it off to Willy, who seems to be swallowing up everything in sight, a growin' boy is our Willy.
The Dolphins ain't the only ones in this tavern; there's men from the Endeavor and the Surprise, and some merchantmen, too, and the talk is swirlin' about, and some of the talk is that the Dolphin is headin' for the Caribbean to search for more pirates 'cause we're so good at catchin' 'em and makin' squadron commanders rich. Then I hear Bloody Jack said in the talk and I know they mean me and I don't like it. I wish they'd stop with that. My ears burn 'cause I know I'm bein' looked at behind my back.
My good sense, which has been hangin' back all day, tells me it's time for the Brotherhood to get back to the ship before we get knocked on the head for the few pennies we have left or get so drunk we can't get back to the dear Dolphin and are left here and other lads take our places. Other lads like the ones in this tavern who are jealous of our good fortune and ain't shy in showin' it. I see a couple of boys from the Surprise glarin' at Davy and Tink and Jaimy at the bar with all their prize money to spend. I know they're about to make a comment on the boys' cute outfits and the blood will flow.
"Awright, lads," I say. "Drink up. Time to get back before they discover we're gone. Looks like we're gonna have to help poor Willy."
They groan and say no, but Jaimy finishes his and gets up and the others follow. Tink and Davy put a hand under Willy's arms and we head out into the sun. Before I go I slap my last few coins on the bar. "A drink for every mother's son of a ship's boy in the house," I says loud enough for all to hear. "God bless ship's boys!"
We are not followed as we roll back to the ship, singin' and laughin' and exultin' in a great day. We have tasted oranges and ale. We have seen a foreign country. I have found out that I am not dying, not of that, anyway, and it all makes me so happy that I can barely contain the poundin' heart that beats in my chest.
I'm with me mates, and Stewed, Blued, and Tattooed, we sail for the Caribbean Sea.
PART III
As the Scholar Has Said,
"The Knowledge That One Is to Be Hanged in the Morning,
Concentrates the Attention Most Wonderfully."
Chapter 19
We've been in the Caribbean for three months now, and the sea is such a color of blue that I can't believe my eyes are seeing it. It's so clear that when we come around an island in our search for pirates and get in shallower water, the most astonishing rocks and reefs pop out of the depths and look like strange castles, right there up close instead of fifty feet down like they really are. Tilly has rigged up brightly colored lures with feathers and hooks and trailed them on long lines off the fantail. Fishes bite on them and Tilly cranks them in on a reel that he has mounted on a stiff pole that bends with the fishes' desperate struggles, and when the fish get close to the side all brilliant in their colors but all tired out now, men with gaff hooks lean over and hook them in their gills most cruelly and hoist them aboard where they gasp and flop on the deck for a while. Their color slowly dulls as they die. It's a shame, but they are very tasty.
Tilly goes on about this book The Compleat Angler and has us all make small lures and lines, and we catch fish, too. A useful skill, I decide, and resolve to keep my lure and line for future use. Like when I have my own ship and need something to eat and can't afford the Horse.
***
This part of the voyage has proved uneventful, except for some fearsome hurricanes during the hottest months when I thought we were all lost for sure. I could not believe that such mountains of water could be and that we could survive them. We sailed under bare poles with only a scrap of canvas aloft to keep the Dolphins head into the wind, and all of us were up for days without sleep, but the good ship held, and so did we. Now the weather has turned cooler and the storms have stopped and great slick swells are all that move on the water, except for us.
We prowl on.
We have not caught any major prizes yet. Once again the pirates prove quite wily, slipping in and out of tiny bays and behind little cays and islands. We have seen some burned villages, and the Captain has sent boats full of armed men in to investigate and they came back with stories of the pirate LeFievre and how he ravaged the town and stole everything worth taking, and not just gold and silver. He also takes women and children, for ransom if white, for selling as slaves if black. The rest of the townspeople flee into the hills, and LeFievre burns the town. He has many ships now, and reports from survivors are that he is growing in his pride and struts about in fine silks and talks of setting up his own kingdom on one of the islands. But he could not grow so foolish as to take on a Kings ship, could he?
We have chased down some suspicious boats but have turned up nothing. Once we chased a ship and were running her down when the pirate crew began tossing their captives overboard. We put the boats in the water when the first people were thrown over and kept up the pursuit, but the pirates kept throwing more captives over, one at a time so they got strung out in a line that was too much for the boats, and so we had to stop, so ending the chase, and then the pirates stopped pitching captives. The Captain was fuming, and I know he's trying to think of a way around this caper for the next time it happens. We took the lucky hostages—the ones that didn't drown or weren't still on the pirate ship—back to their town and at least gained the good will of the people. Can't spend that, though.
Whenever a boat is sent out on errands away from the ship, several of us ship's boys are always included in the boat's crew so we can learn to sail and handle small boats. We learn about booms and mainsheets and downhauls and the parts of the sail and how to hold the tiller and tuck the sail in just so, which I think is just fine till one day Tink and I are out in a boat with about ten seamen, which is going into a small deserted cay to look for fresh water. Tink is trimming the sail and I'm on the tiller, keeping the course true for the little dot of an island bobbing up ahead, when I says to the coxswain how grand it is that he's teaching us all this useful knowledge, but he shakes his head and says all ruefully, "Ah, Jacky, I'm afraid that's not what you're here for."
I find this a good deal strange and ask, "What are we here for, then?"
The coxswain, who's in charge of all the small boats on the ship and whose name is Hardy, looks away all shy. "It's a delicate thing, boy," he says, "and not spoke of much." There are grunts of agreement from some of the men. Some of them shake their heads and look off, somber.
"All right," says I, not to be put off, "let's have it. Just why are we here, then, if not to be taught our seamanship?"
After some silence, Hardy sees that I'm startin' to get really steamed at all this, and he says, "Well, Jack, it's this way, and it's nothin' personal, but when a boat goes off out of sight of the mother ship it always carries a couple of boys 'cause..." He hesitates.
"Oh, for Chris'sakes," booms out a seaman named Javerts, "I'll tell the boy. It's 'cause the ship's boys is the first ones eaten if the boat gets lost and can't find its way back."
I look for signs that they're jokin' with Tink and me, but their faces don't betray it.
"You've got to see the wisdom of it, lads," says Hardy. "We wouldn't want to be eatin' a sailor what could pull a decent oar, now, would we?"
Javerts, who's a really disagreeable-lookin' cove with a red gash of a scar that goes clear across one cheek, over his grisly lump of a nose, and onto the other cheek, reaches over and grabs me leg and squeezes it, as if checkin' it for tenderness. His fingers go completely around my thigh. "I wants little Jacky in any boat I'm ever sent out in, for sure. I'll take one of the hams."
I jerk my leg away. "You sods are just havin' us on," I say, but still their faces stay stony and grim. "Ain't you?"
Snag is in the boat and he chimes in with, "It ain't just for our own nourishment and enjoyment, oh no," he says. "Say some nasty sharks happen to circle around the boat, looki
n' to make trouble for poor honest seamen, well, we just toss em a spare ship's boy and behold—them sharks turns just as nice as any gentlemen and they tips their fins to ye as they leave."
This cuts it, and roars of laughter at my red and gullible face go out across the water.
The sods.
It is good that the weather has turned cooler. I would be stifling otherwise because now I have to wear Charlie's old vest on the inside, under my white shirt, to squash down my chest, which is suddenly and traitorously growing and threatening to give me away. It works, but I fear that soon I won't be able to breathe. Maybe I won't grow very big.
Yesterday, Tilly's words were billowing, burgeoning, and blossoming. I could have swatted him.
"All I really want is a small ship," says I, "that could carry a respectable cargo and be able to be handled with just a few—"
"We know what you want, Jacky," says Davy. "Just put a sock in it."
"Piss off, Davy," snarls I, steamed up at being interrupted. "Someday, you vile little scab, someday when the wars are all over and you're stranded on shore, you'll come to the fine offices of Faber Shipping Company Worldwide and say, 'Will ye be givin' me a post now, Jacky?' and I will not."
Davy laughs. "You'll have to, Jack, because of the Oath of the Brotherhood."
"Well then, Davy, I'll give you a post as ship's boy and I'll keep you as ship's boy till you go all bald and stooped in the back, and won't you scrub the head till it shines, by God!"
They all roll around and hoot and snort at the very idea of Faber Shipping. I'll show you, you sods. Just you wait.
I go back to fingering my pennywhistle, which I find I can play very softly up here in the top when the wind's blowing and not get in trouble. I've added a few more jigs, "Haste to the Wedding" and 'The Hare in the Corn," and another mournful one, "My Bonnie Light Horseman," which is powerful sad and beautiful, but the girl don't get killed and thrown in a lonesome grave in this one, for a change. It's the boy who dies. In war.
The lads are back to predicting what noble sailors they're going to grow up to be and how brave they were in the last fight, but Jaimy don't join in and is quiet, and I know it's because he don't think much of the way he acted in the fight on the pirate ship. And maybe it's something else.
A few nights ago Jaimy and I were on the midwatch and it was calm and peaceful on the ocean, just a gentle breeze, and after we got coffee for the men on watch we got some for ourselves and sat sipping it and watched the constellations wheel about the night sky.
Jaimy starts talking about his family, how there's three sisters at home and one older brother what got sent off to school, but there wasn't enough money for Jaimy, so he got sent off to sea but couldn't go as a midshipman 'cause his dad couldn't buy him a place and he had no influence with the Navy, so ship's boy was the best he could do. It purely mortified his father to send him off, and his mother like to died with grief, but what else was there to do, what with the family wine business having just about perished because of the blockades of the French ports. His father had inherited some money and his mother came from a good family, but everything was gone now. His brother, George, was in school to become a solicitor, but it would be years before he could practice law and make any money.
"So I guess it's up to me," says Jaimy, all glum. "And I haven't made a very good show of it so far."
"Sure you have," says I. "You're sure to be made midshipman soon. You're quick at the studies and Tilly's sure to recommend you, and I know the Captain's noticed your bravery."
"My bravery," he snorts, hanging his head.
"Jaimy, you were the first one over. Everyone saw that. You could not have been braver."
"But when I got over, I just stood there like a fool. I didn't know what to do."
Aye, Jaimy, I thinks. It's one thing to dream of glory in battle and quite another to actually stick a sword into another person's soft parts. Or a bullet.
"You were right behind me and you actually did something. You acted like ... like an officer. You should be the one picked for midshipman. You and Mr. Lawrence took that ship. You saved my very life."
"I shot a man in the back, that's all I did, and I'll probably have to answer for that someday. There was no bravery in it.
"No, you conducted yourself with honor. You should be proud."
"Honor?" I hisses in the dark. "Honor? Honor to me is keepin' my head down and my tail covered and hopin' I don't disgrace myself when things get chancy."
He laughs softly in the dark and says, "But you're Bloody Jack, famous in legend and song."
In the gloom, I see him reach out, as if he's going to give me an affectionate head rub, but then he stops and takes back his hand. He turns his head and looks away.
"I don't like being called that, Jaimy."
I would have liked the pet, but I don't say so.
"Why not?"
"Because I'm really not bloody-minded at all. I'm really a peaceful sort of coward."
"Right," he says. "Look. There's Orion up there."
I look up to see The Hunter turning about high in the night sky.
"Yes. There's Rigel in his leg and good old Betelgeuse on his shoulder."
"And Aldebaran up in Taurus."
The breeze slips down from the curve of the massive sail hanging over our heads and flows around us, a warm river of air. Some of Jaimy's hair has come loose from his braid and whips gently across his face. I gaze upon him in the moonlight as he looks off across the water.
Oh, Jaimy, I want to tell you so bad.
Chapter 20
It's just another Sunday, just another inspection. We scrub her down, we shine her up, and we wait for the Captain to come around.
At least we're presentable now, and I make sure the boys are all lined up nice in our kip and their uniforms are clean and crisp. Now that they're all used to wearing them, I think I shall have to make us some neat caps. A cap would be good for me, too, because I could hide my growing hair up in it. My hair ain't long enough for a pigtail yet, but it's getting long enough to make me look more like a girl and that's not good. The caps will be blue, of course, with white stripes around the headband and a blue ribbon hanging down in back and...
"Who made you the bleedin' boss?" growls Tink.
"Someone's got to get you swine all in a line, all shipshape and Bristol fashion," says I, and then Captain Locke is there, with his usual party.
"The boys are looking tidy," says he. "And they're certainly growing." He's looking at Willy's hairy legs sticking out from the bottom of his trousers.
"Very good," he says, looking about, "however, we're going to have to do something about this." He points to the pile of our bedding behind us, which I did try to fold and neaten up before, but of little use. "I won't have my guns cluttered up so."
He casts his eyes to the overhead, where the hammock hooks are attached. The hammocks are only put up at night. During the day they are rolled up and stored with the seamen's seabags over by the bulkhead. "Let's rig up some hammocks for them."
The Bo'sun murmurs something about not bein' enough room, Sir, not for five, to the First Mate, who passes on the information to the Captain, who heard it well enough the first time but naval custom must be observed.
"Well, then, set up three," he orders firmly. "We lost that many men from the lower deck in the last fight. Put the big one"—and he points to Willy—"in one by himself. The others can sleep two by two in the other hammocks, head to foot. It will do for a while. Make it so."
"It should be Jaimy and me in one hammock, Tink and Davy in the other, 'cause Jaimy and I got watch together and that way we won't be woke for nothing when the watch changes," says I, all firm and full of sweet reason. "Plus, he's biggest, not counting Willy, and I'm smallest, and Tink and Davy are the mediums, so it all works out equal, like."
"Why you want to sleep with Jaimy?" sneers Davy all leering and snide. "I swears you are one of those pederasties, Jacky, wi' all yer airs and all yer—"
Willy's sitting with his back leaning on the mast, beaming with joy to be above the argument. "Cheer up, Davy," he says. "Ye and Tink can de-light each other wi' yer farts all the night long."
Such a delicious bit of wit from the usually dim Willy brings such gales of laughter from all of us that the question is decided in my favor.
"I still thinks ye t' be a bleedin' little fairy," says Davy in defeat.
That I be, Davy, that I be. A right little elf.
It being Sunday we have our dancing and playing and singing, and me and my whistle are a real part of it now. It ain't all just one big show, sometimes it's just quiet trading of songs and tunes and words to ballads amongst mates, and that's the way it was today. It's hot and the Brotherhood takes the time for a dowsing in the bowsprit netting and they calls for me saying, "Come on, Jacky," but I says, "No, I'm needed for the playing on the whistle," which ain't exactly true, but the lads are in there all starkers this time and I can't even take off me shirt now, let alone me pants. I get away with the excuse this time, but it won't be long, I know.
I notice the boys are growing a bit of hair under their arms and around their dangly bits. I make a note to myself to make my fake cod a little bigger.
I, too, am furring up in the same sort of places. Soon I'll be a proper little ape, I will.