by L. A. Meyer
Through all the noise and confusion I have a clear thought of regret. Maybe we're going to die. Both Jaimy and I. Maybe I was stupid to deny us anything. What's it goin' to matter now? Maybe...
Another explosion brings me back to the terror of the moment. One of the pirate ships has exploded and two of them are on fire. One is wallowing and sinking. Men are jumping off. Only LeFievre's flagship is left and it is full of fight. He has managed to bring his ship around and is pouring broadside after broadside into us. LeFievre must be furious with the loss of his fleet, and he means to make us pay.
"In for the kill, Mr. Haywood. We'll take her if we can, sink her if we must."
"Aye, Sir."
Orders are given and we closes with the pirate. His guns are blazin' away and so are ours. We are rocked with a hit on the starboard bow and we knock down his mizzenmast. Then, with a cheer, we see his main teeter all askew and then go down. It should be over. Please let it be over. Please let me go to see if...
"What's he doing there?" The Captain is peering through his glass at the confusion on the other ship.
"It appears he's off-loading treasure into that boat," says the First Mate, fairly licking his lips.
"I can see that," says the Captain with some irritation. "I mean on the other side of his ship. I see a sail sticking up."
Mr. Haywood shifts his glass. "They seem to be loading it with something, too. Maybe it's more treasure."
Although I don't have a telescope, I can see what they're talking about. It's a small boat, with a single sail. One of their lifeboats. Maybe they are trying to save their lives, I thinks. I know I'd be thinkin' that if I was them. Then that boat moves away from the side of the ship and all the pirates run to the remaining lifeboats and get in. How can they possibly hope to get away, I wonders.
I finds out.
The small boat heads straight for our bow. The rudder and the sail are tied down. There is no one in the boat, just piles of black kegs and white bags. And sparkles of fire from the fuses.
"Fireship!" screams the Captain. "Hard left rudder! Clear the fo'c'sle!"
Men pour from the bow of the ship, gunners from the guns, Marines from the masts, men from the anchor locker and the orlop, there's Mr. Lawrence and Davy and...
"Get down!" yells the Captain and hits the deck. I stands there all stupid, and he reaches out and yanks me feet out from under me. Me drum rolls away as I goes down and I see it bounce over the side, but before it does there's this sheet of white light and I see the skin of the drum go all orange and then turn black and gone. Then the blast hits.
I screams out, but I can't hear my own voice and I thinks I screams out Jaimy's name but I don't know 'cause all is lost in the roar of the firestorm.
Chapter 35
It's been three days now and we're still sinking.
LeFievre's fireship blasted a massive hole in the starboard bow. The bowsprit and its netting are gone. The figurehead, the woman with the dolphins, is smouldering splinters. The seas pour into the blackened hole every time we rock in the swells, as the hole is right at the waterline. The carpenter is unable to fix it; it's just too big and too far across. We have tried stretching canvas across the gap, but that is soon ripped off by the force of the sea. The Bo'sun took a bunch of us down in the hold, and we shifted cargo to put a list on the ship so that it leans over enough so that the hole is just out of the water, but the seas still slop in. If we have a storm, we are lost. If we don't get to land, we are lost. If the water level in the hold gets above a certain mark, we are lost.
We are on the pumps every second. Every pump on the ship, big and small, is taken to the forward hold and put in service. It is killing work, and we go in shifts of half hour on, half hour off. We collapse next to our pump, and we sleep next to it. We ship's boys have been given the small deck pump, the one used to hose us off that day long ago. There's only Jaimy, Davy, and me now, as Tink caught a musket ball in his leg and is in sick bay. The bullet didn't hit the bone, so he might not lose the leg if infection don't set in, and we prays that it don't.
We lost eighteen men dead, thirty wounded, in that battle. Henderson was one, he who was a constant friend to me and always looked out for my poor self when I was green. Lafferty, another good one. Both of 'em blown off the fo'c'sle and never seen by earthly eyes again. And Grant, he who could play the fiddle and the concertina, and I can't make myself believe those fingers will move no more. Mr. Barkley, midshipman, one of the younger squeakers, and Joshua Spense, the Kingston man. I'm glad he had that last liberty in his own town. He should have deserted when he had the chance. Not very military of me to think that, but I don't care. I'm too tired.
Mr. Greenshaw, the Master, is still alive, but only just barely. His leg went over the side with the dead seamen right away after the blast. No time for ceremony now. No time for grief. We'll say the words later, if we can.
LeFievre and what's left of his crew got away.
The pump handle is a T-shaped bar and you put your hands on the cross piece of the T and you lift it up and you push it down. On the upstroke you hear the valve breathe in with a soggy sigh, and on the downstroke you hear the bit of water pushed up through the pipe and out over the side. I've figured that when I do it 1 get maybe a half gallon a minute out. Prolly less. Up and down, up and down till all sense of time and place fades away, and you do it till your time is up or you collapse and are dragged away.
When we first started we joked and cheered each other on, but after a while we couldn't, just couldn't. We only pushed on the bar and went up and down and up and down, and days and nights went by. Jaimy tried to work harder to take up some of my time and I tried not to let him but I couldn't keep up and I went for food for all of us, and we ate it and pumped and pumped and slept and pumped and in the morning, we saw that we had lost ground. There was two more feet of water in the hold and that just about tore the hearts out of us. I go back up on deck to get some biscuits and tea to take back, but Mr. Haywood stops me. He is stripped to the waist 'cause he has been on the pumps, too, and all the officers and midshipmen and the Captain, too, and I stand there weaving back and forth in front of him with the mugs and the biscuits in me hands and me eyes about to roll back in me head, and I ain't thinkin' too good and...
"Faber. What pump are you on?"
"Number-three-deck pump, Sir. just down there."
"Right. Take that down to your mates and then go to your hammock and go to sleep. I'll send someone to take your place, and then I'll send someone to wake you in two hours."
This must be a dream. I must still be down next to the pump.
"But, Sir, me mates—"
"Do it, Faber. No back talk."
I do it.
I go back and tell the lads, and they nod and take the food. A sailor shows up to take my place. I stumble out and over to our old kip. None of the hammocks are hung 'cause no one's slept since the battle. I fall down toward a pile of powder rags and swabs. I am asleep before I hit them.
I sleep a sleep that's too deep for dreamin', but I'm hauled out of it way too soon, and it's Muck I feel shaking my shoulder and lifting me up and putting me in his cart, and I moans, No, Muck, I ain't drownded yet, but it's not Muck. It's a seaman who's saying, "Wake up, Jacky. Mr. Haywood wants you topside. Now."
Mr. Haywood sees me come on deck and takes me by the arm and points up the mainmast.
"See the lookout up there, boy?"
The lookout is standing, glass to eye, on the little platform at the doubling of the maintopmast with the topgallant, about a hundred feet up.
"Yes, Sir," says I, tryin' not to yawn in his face.
"Now see the place above him, on the main royal, where the backstays and the shroud lines come together?"
"Yes, Sir."
"Good. I want you to go up and relieve the lookout and take his glass and climb up to that spot and search the horizon. Especially the horizon to the south. When you climb up there, you should be a good twenty-five feet higher and th
at will give you a better view. Do you understand, boy?"
"Aye, Sir."
"Good. Then do it. Now."
I head for the ratlines and on the way pick up a short length of light line. I hook my toes on the netting and up I climb.
When I get up to Harper, the lookout, I take his glass and turn from him and loosen my vest and jam the glass down in and ask him to give me a boost before he goes. He flings me up so's I can grab a backstay and swing out and climb up it to where it joins the main royal mast. When I get there, I wrap my legs around the mast and sort of sit on the lines. They are under powerful pressure from holding up the mast and all, and it's like sitting on thin, sloping iron bars but I'll have to bear it. I tie the line I brung with me around myself and around the mast and then take out the glass and tie the end of the line around that so's I don't drop it. I put the telescope to my eye and look south.
Nothing.
I brace the glass against the mast and slowly scan the whole horizon. In the glass the horizon wiggles in the heat of the morning but shows nothing else. We're heading dead west 'cause we know the South American continent lies off there someplace, we just don't know where, and there ain't nothin' but ocean in the other direction. I concentrate on the southern part again.
I search the southern sea off the port side of the ship for a full half hour as ordered. Nothing. I figure I'll give it a rest and give all the compass points a quick look. North, northeast, east, southeast, south, southwest, west, northwest, north. Nothing.
Alas, the dear Dolphin, my only home ever, my port in the storm, the refuge what saved a poor girl from...
What's that?
North-northwest bearing, two points ahead of the starboard beam: a smudge. Prolly nothing. It's like the horizon was a pencil line and it was just rubbed a little right there. Don't lose it. Prolly just clouds.
Both my legs are falling asleep from sitting on the wires. I try to scootch up a bit, but I can't without taking my eyes off the smudge, which ain't changin' none, since we ain't goin' towards it.
I need to get up higher.
I take the glass from my eye and look up. There's still another ten, maybe twelve feet of bare mast to the top, and then there's a flat place on top of the mast, a small plate to keep the rainwater out of the wood grain to keep it from rotting. I know that 'cause all of us ship's boys have touched the top of the highest mast 'cause we dared each other to do it, and so we had to do it. I retie the line around my waist so that it forms a loop around me and the mast. I put the glass back in my vest and start up.
I lean back against the rope and slowly shinny up, pulling the rope with me as I go, inch by inch. I get to the top and look down at the deck, one hundred and fifty feet below. I could not be higher—every bit of the Dolphin is below me now. Well, sort of, 'cause there is actually only water beneath me on account of the list on the ship. If I take a tumble, I'll make quite a splash, but at least I won't smash against the deck and make a mess. Still be dead, though. I pull out the glass and lay it on the top plate and train it on the spot.
There!
I don't think it's a cloud! It seems to have ends, like cliffs. But I can't be sure. It could be a fog bank. But on a clear day like this?
"Mr. Haywood. On deck there," I say not loud 'cause I don't want to get the crew's hopes up. No one hears me.
I see Willy crossing the deck far below.
I call out, "Willy!" and he looks up.
"Get Mr. Haywood. Quiet, like."
The First Mate is up the mast in a flash with his own glass.
"There, Sir," I say with my eye still on the glass. "To the northwest, two points ahead of the beam. About zero seven zero, relative. Maybe it's clouds, Sir, I don't know..."
"I don't see anything," he says, disgusted. Then he looks at me a good thirty, forty feet above him.
"Johnson. Get up here," he calls down. The small and wiry Johnson bounds up to the platform. "Get up as close as you can to Faber. Take my glass."
In a moment, I feel his head butt up against my leg. "Where away, Jacky?"
I keep the glass to my eye and point. He squints in his glass.
"Sir!" says Johnson. "There's something! It's land!"
Mr. Haywood calls down orders and the Dolphin slowly turns toward her salvation.
"Good work, Faber. Don't fall on your way down. Report back to your pump."
It takes us the full day to get there, wallowing as we are. When we get close, I'm called up again and sent into the foretop, the dear old foretop, to spot the shallows in the clear bright water. I think they have me do it 'cause I'm pretty useless on the pump.
Already I can see heads of coral poking up from way below as we head in to the island. They've found a likely little cove that's protected by an arm of sand and coral that reaches out and encircles it. The Captain keeps us off till almost high tide and then we go in under very little sail. It's dangerous for the ship as we could run aground too soon and sink in sight of land, but we have no other choice. At least we know we're not going to drown, and that is a wonderful thing.
I call out when I see something and the ground is coming up fast, but the stands of sharp coral that could rip the bottom right off the ship thin out and then it's all white sand. We slip up on the sand, and I swear the Dolphin sighs as she leans over and comes to rest, safe.
There is no cheering. All just rig hammocks and fall into them. The exhaustion is total—officer, seaman, and boy. There are no watches set, no food prepared, nothing but sweet sleep. I meet Jaimy staggering back to our hammock. I take his arm and put it around my shoulders and help him the rest of the way.
"Jacky," he whispers, "tonight I want ... I want us to sleep at the same end of the hammock. Just sleep..."
Our hammocks are the kind that fold up around a person so you can't see in. What's the harm, I thinks. Besides, no one cares about nothing except blessed sleep.
"Just sleep...," he goes on dreamily. "I just want to sleep ... and wake up in the morning with your head on my shoulder and your breath on my face."
We crawl in and enfold into each other and the rough canvas of our dear, dear hammock feels like the finest of velvet.
Chapter 36
The first thing I feel in the morning is someone lifting the flap of the hammock off of our faces, and I open an eyelid and it's Davy's shocked face I'm seeing looking down.
I let out a low moan and lift my hand and tap Jaimy on the chest. His eyes flutter open and sense returns to them and he looks at me and smiles. I point up and he follows my point and sees Davy. He starts. Then he relaxes and strokes my hair with the hand that's connected to the arm and shoulder that my head is lying on and says, "Davy, put your hand on your tattoo and swear that you will never tell a soul about this. At least not yet."
Davy is still struck dumb.
"Is there anyone else in here?" Jaimy asks Davy.
I see Davy look quickly around the hold. He recovers the power of speech. "No, they're all on the beach, but—"
"Then swear, Davy, or the Brotherhood was nothing but a bunch of little boys playing games."
Davy stands there scowling a bit and then comes back to his ordinary self. "All right, you sods," he hisses, "I swears I won't tell no one I caught the both of you in disgustin' mortal sin for which you'll roast in Hell forever."
"All right, then." Jaimy takes a deep breath. "Jacky is the girl that you saw me with in Kingston. And, she is actually ... well, a girl. Really, she is."
Davy looks at me all in confusion. He silently mouths the word girl, all unbelieving. I take my hand from Jaimy's chest and give Davy a little finger wave.
" Allo, Day-vee, you var-ee preety boy, I theenk. Eet ees nice to see you again, Day-vee..."
He's about to choke. "All this time! All this time you two have been..."
Davy looks like what I imagine a startled fish looks like under water, all gulpy and pop-eyed. I don't care. I've had the most beautiful sleep of my life and I'm feeling deliciously drowsy. And wic
ked. I burrow my face in Jaimy's neck.
"I've only known for about two weeks. And we haven't been anything," says Jaimy. "So remember, you are forsworn, Davy. Don't even tell Tink. He's in no shape for keeping secrets."
I squirm around and let my leg slip over Jaimy and take a deep, deep breath, then let it out oh-so-slowly as a deep sigh of contentment, and I nuzzle Jaimy's ear with my nose and say all sleepily, "David, do you mind? I'm not quite dressed."
Davy lets fly an oath and storms out of the hold. We hear his fist hit the wall as he leaves.
"You really are evil, you know," says Jaimy.
"I know," I murmurs. "I shall have to pay."
***
The beach encampment has already been laid out by the time Jaimy and I emerge blinking into the sun. There's a steep list on the ship now that it's fully heeled over on the sandy bottom, and it ain't too comfortable for doin' much of anything 'cept swingin' in a hammock. There's tents been put up to shelter the sick bay, which has been moved out of the ship, and the kitchen has been set up and there's cauldrons steaming and gruel cooking and smelling right good. There's tables, even. I realize, a little guiltily, that some people were working while we slumbered on. Do I really feel guilty, though? Nah. I feel wonderful.
We go over to see Tink and he's all gray and tired looking, but he's cheerful and his wound looks better, if rather grisly. We go to get something to eat and we meet Davy on the way and he joins us but can't stop staring at me till we threaten to hurt him, so he stops, but every now and then he blurts out something like, "In the netting! That's why you wouldn't go splashin' in the swells no more!"