Under the Jolly Roger

by L. A. Meyer

  "Corporal, if you would. Nature calls," I say, and he goes outside. It ain't hard for him to do that, what with all the excitement out there, I know he doesn't want to come back in.

  I put the fork in and try it. Nothing. I rattle it some more. Sideways, this time. No. Somehow I've got to make the other tab.

  "Corporal Martin. I'm done."

  It's been two days of this and I'm getting scared. I still don't have it and I ain't got a lot of time. Jaimy comes down to see me more now, since we're in a certain routine in our dash for Trafalgar, and I can't do anything when he's visiting, so it's getting tight.

  I know I can't ask Jaimy to do anything in the way of the key, 'cause of his word of honor and all, and 'cause he'd probably agree that I'd be safer down here during a battle. I don't agree, and I ain't forgot about that noose that's probably waiting for me in London should I survive this.

  I've found a place, a joint between a bar and a cross brace, where I can put a tine of the fork and have a good deal of control over how it bends. I have bent one of the three tines back out of the way so it doesn't get in the way of the others, and I've taken the second one and forced it out sideways to look like the second tab on the key.

  "Oh, Private Rodgers..."

  I jam it in as soon as he leaves and wiggle it around. Nothing. I lift up the handle of the fork and try again. Third time's the charm, I pray and twist it in the lock.

  Clack!

  I suck in my breath. The lock is open! The door swings open an inch. Great! Now to get it closed before Jeffrey comes back.

  I twist the fork the other way. Click! It locks again.

  I put my key fork away and call Jeffrey back in again.

  I resolve to practice the drill till I can do it under tension and so under fire, as well.

  Try to hold Jacky Faber, will you?

  Chapter 52

  October 21,1805

  5:50 A.M.

  Signal from HMS Achilles to Lord Nelson

  on board HMS Victory:

  "Have Discovered a Strange Fleet"

  The signal is passed down to me by Private Rodgers. I know from a very excited Jaimy that we have formed up with the main body of Nelson's fleet. You should see it, Jacky! There're over thirty-two of our Ships of the Line out there! And that's just the First-Raters, not counting frigates or little brigs like us! He darts back up to the deck.

  So I guess some lookout has spotted the enemy fleet. I guess right.

  6:10 A.M.

  Signal from Nelson on board

  HMS Victory to Fleet:

  "Form Order of Sailing in Two Columns"

  Again Rodgers repeats the signal. I make myself be calm. I make no more demands to be let out. I pretend to be a good girl sitting here with my hands folded in my lap, letting the big, bold men take care of me.

  6:22 A.M.

  Signal from Nelson to Fleet:

  "Prepare for Battle"

  Then more orders from Lord Nelson: Bear up and sail large on Course E and many orders to Admiral Collingwood who, Jaimy tells me, is the commander of the Lee Column of our ships, while Nelson commands the Weather Column, which is what we are in. Lee and Weather have to do with the direction of the wind, which is off our port quarter and almost dead astern. That would be good, except that the winds are very, very light. It looks like Nelson intends to drive two columns of our ships straight into the flank of the enemy lying off the coast, and, since the winds are so light, we will be punished going in. I shiver a bit. It's going to be bloody.

  We wait. More signals back and forth between Nelson and his commanders and his big ships as we draw closer to the enemy fleet. More signals. We wait and get closer.

  At 10:45 I'm pleased to see Higgins enter the hold with a tray of food and drink. He snaps open a portable tray holder and places it outside the bars. He also has a small chair hooked over his arm.

  "This might be more to your liking, Miss, than what has been served to you in the past week or so," he says.

  I smile and say, "Thank you, Higgins. It is so good to see you."

  I pick up a hot biscuit, butter it, and bite down. It is wondrous good. The thought that one might die very shortly makes the senses very acute. "You will not get in trouble for this?"

  "No, Miss, I will not get in trouble. I have found the Captain to be a fair man, and he is very, very busy today."

  There is plenty of food and two glasses and I invite him to have some of it with me, as that would give me great comfort and pleasure.

  "No, Miss, I thought maybe your young man might share this with you on this auspicious day. I mentioned it to him on my way down."

  Ah. Good, good Higgins, what a jewel you are. I make a quick decision and I stand and pull up my skirt and stick my finger in one of the pouches of my money belt and pull out my emerald. I let the skirt fall back down and hand the stone to Higgins.

  "Take this," I say. "Of all of us, you're the one most likely to get back to London, alive and free. Sell it and take enough for you to maintain yourself till you find a new post. Then give the rest to the Home, so it can run a while longer. All I have left in the bank shall go there, too. Tell Grandfather and Mairead what has happened, but not to worry about me."

  He takes the jewel and slips it in the pocket of his jacket in such a way that Private Rodgers doesn't see. "I will do that, Miss."

  "Don't you worry about me, either, Higgins. I have a way of popping back up, so don't count me out yet."

  He smiles and says, "I would not be so foolish as to do that, Miss. Ah, here is Mr. Fletcher now. Good-bye, Miss. May I tell you that it has been the joy of my life to serve you?"

  I stand up and face him, the tears beginning to flow. "Good-bye, Higgins," I sob and reach through the bars to grasp the lapels of his jacket so as to pull him to me and kiss him on his broad forehead. "You are the finest gentleman and the absolute best of men."

  Higgins blinks and nods and places the chair so Jaimy can sit next to the bars, close to me. He bows to me one last time and then turns and leaves. I watch his straight, white-coated back disappear through the hatchway. Good-bye, Higgins.

  "This was very considerate of your man," says Jaimy.

  "Yes. I will miss him very, very much," I say, sniffling and wiping my eyes. "But here, have something to eat. You will need your strength. A glass of wine with you?" I pour it and we lift our glasses and drink to each other.

  It is a most pleasant meal. We might almost be sitting on a grassy hillside at Dovecote, having a nice picnic, instead of where we are, here at the edge of a battle.

  "Another signal, Lieutenant." Both of our heads turn around and I have to smile and shake my head.

  "You shouldn't smile at that, Jacky," says Jaimy, kindly. "After all, you made lieutenant before I did."

  11:48 A.M.

  Signal from Nelson to the Fleet:

  "England Expects Every Man Will Do His Duty"

  We both stand up.

  In a moment there's another signal from Nelson to the Fleet: Make all sail possible with safety to the masts. That means we're going in.

  "Good-bye, Jacky. I'll see you again in this life or the next."

  "Jaimy, I..." But I can say no more. I look at his face and the tears pour from my eyes as I press against the bars and we come together for maybe the last time and Oh, Jaimy... and then he's gone.

  At the ringing of the noon bell, a faraway boom is heard. The firing has started. Private Rodgers pokes his head out for a moment. "Lord, Miss, there must be fifty or sixty enemy ships out there, lined up against us," he says when he comes back. Right after that, he is called away to take his battle station as a sharpshooter.

  "I'm leaving the key hanging here, just in case ... so that you could be let out if the ship is sinking," he says. "It ... it has been an honor ... guarding you, Miss."

  "Thank you, Jeffrey. I have enjoyed your company. May God be with you."

  "And you, Miss."

  I watch his red-coated back with its two crossed white be
lts disappear up the gangway. Then I wait.

  I cannot break out too soon, or I will be caught and put back in here. No, it has to be in the real heat of battle. There are more distant booms but nothing from our ship yet.

  One Bell. It's 12:30. Many more shots. I know from the feel of the ship that we are sailing in very light winds, so we must coast into the enemy's range taking their full broadside fire while we can only fire our bow guns, so it's going to be very hot work and ... there! I feel the Wolverine shake. We have fired!

  Not yet, though. Sit, girl. Don't even open the cage yet—someone might still come down. We fire again, then again. Then I feel us turn and I feel the port guns fire and from outside I hear the cry Were-wolves! Were-wolves! Were-wolves!

  Then there's a terrible crash as we take a hit up forward.

  Now!

  I leap up and take the fork and jam it in the lock and twist. Damn! Calm down, easy now. There! The door swings open and I run for my seabag, but before I get there, I'm knocked off my feet by another blast. I hear screaming now and the crash of our full starboard broadside. We're firing on both sides—the enemy must be all around us.

  I reach my bag and pull out my uniform. I whip off my dress and wriggle into my shirt and pants—I had not put on anything under my dress this morning 'cause I figured it would come to this. On boots, on jacket, on sword. I stick my shiv in my jacket. I gotta get this all on right or the plan won't work. Put on hat, close up bag, pick it up, and head up the hatchway and into the battle, my hat crammed down low over my face.

  I blink in the sudden bright sunlight and for a moment I stand astounded. There is wreckage everywhere. There are men down, there is blood on the deck, there is constant pandemonium of shouted orders, blasts of cannon, and screams of agony.

  I look out over the sea. There are dozens and dozens of ship-to-ship fights going on. There is smoke everywhere—a cloud of it hits me in the face and makes me choke, but it blackens my face, too, which is good, so maybe I won't be recognized. But I don't think anyone cares right now 'cause when the smoke clears, there's a great shout as we see the huge bulk of Nelson's Flagship, the hundred-gun Victory, heave up on our right side, all three decks of cannon pointed over us at the Redoubtable, a French ship of the same monstrous size, that is bearing down on our port side. We're going to be pinned and crushed between them, with eighty thirty-two-pound cannons pointed over us.

  The mighty ships come together against us and the Wolverine groans as her timbers are bent and broken. There is a tremendous roar as the two big ships fire their broadsides point-blank into each other, with us poor souls in the middle.

  The first salvo takes down all of our masts and spars. There are more terrible cries of pain as men are pinned by the falling rigging. I look up, almost as if in a dream, to see the mainsail come floating almost softly down on me.

  It doesn't feel soft when it actually hits me and forces me to the deck, though. Don't panic! I tell myself, even though I'm smellin' smoke and the sail presses down hard and I can't get up. I pull out my shiv and poke it through the rough, thick canvas and rip myself a hole big enough to wriggle through. I pull my seabag out after me.

  I stand up and look about. I can't hear anything anymore but the crash of the cannons overhead. The Victory and the Redoubtable continue to pound round after round into each other's sides. There are men falling from their decks to ours, dead men, headless men, armless and legless men, parts and pieces and showers of blood.

  I stagger over the wreckage to my old station, my old Division One, to the port guns, some of which are still firing. Oh, Lord, there's Harkness lying over there facedown in his own blood. I look over at the Redoubtable and I could reach out and touch her sides, she's that close.

  Numb, I go over to take Harkness's place.

  "Swab! Powder!" I see a blackened Tucker give up his load of powder and head down for another. "Wad! Ball! Wad! Clear behind! Fire!"

  Crrrrash!

  I don't have to aim. I just pull the lanyard and the gun bucks and another ball crashes into the side of the Redoubtable. "Swab!" I shout again.

  Through the smoke I see another huge ship pulling up on the other side of the Redoubtable. I can see the ship's name writ on her side. It is the ninety-eight gun Temeraire and now the Redoubtable is taking it from both sides.

  "Powder! Wad!" The Temeraire ...that's the ship that Willy's on, my dazed mind remembers. Willy from the Brotherhood. Where's Davy in all this? And Tink? I know Robin's over there on the Revenge, but where ... "Ball! Wad! Clear behind! Fire!"

  Crrrash!

  Our charge spits fire and flame and iron into the enemy's side, not two feet away. Splinters fly everywhere and men cry out, but still they reload and fire and reload again.

  Through the smoke I see that one of the Redoubtable's gunports most near us, which had been closed, now opens and instead of a gun pointed at us, it is a crowd of Frenchmen who are trying to board us. They're crowding right through the port and coming at us with pikes and muskets and cutlasses and the battle is now hand to hand and as nasty as it gets. Their muskets pop and a man by my side cries out and falls and I see that it is Shaughnessy and I pull out my sword and I strike at an arm that holds a pike and feel the point of my sword ripping through skin and muscle and hitting bone. I am sickened when I feel that horrible ripping of flesh and hear the scream that follows it, but still I thrust and thrust and thrust again at the men coming through the portal and I'm screaming, too. Come on, boys! Pikes! Swabs! Axes! Anything to keep them away! Push 'em back! Oh, lads, we've got to push 'em back! and my men are at my side hacking and flailing away at the would-be boarders until they retreat into the darkness of their hold to lick their wounds and we pause to lick ours.

  I kneel down and lift Shaughnessy's head, but I see that he is gone and so I gently lay him back down and stand up and go back to the guns and Swab! Powder! Wad! Ball! Wad! Clear behind! Fire! Don't think about nothing, just do it, over and over and over again. Don't think about nothing...

  Crrrash!

  The pounding of the great guns from the Victory goes on and on and on and my ears are now numb with the sound so I can't hardly hear anything anymore. The Redoubtable reels from the pounding it's taking. It can't take much more of this, it just can't, getting it from both sides, I'm thinking, and I am right. With a great wrenching, snapping crackle, her main comes down and then her mizzen and the mortally wounded Redoubtable lurches away from us and begins to sink.

  It will not take long. She will go under and hundreds and hundreds of French officers, men, and, yes, boys, too, will go down with her and I helped put them there and may God have mercy on my soul...

  The Victory, herself wounded, pulls away from our starboard side. The Wolverine is shattered and, for sure, her battle, our battle, is over.

  I have lost all sense of time. I don't know whether it's been minutes or hours since this all began. I stand exhausted, weak in the knees as men swarm around me, swinging axes to cut away the fallen rigging. No, no, girl ... you must move. I shake myself out of my daze and I sheath my sword and I dash up to look at the quarterdeck. Thank God! Jaimy's there and still standing on both his legs.

  I take up my seabag again and hurry across the deck to one of the two lifeboats, the one right now not buried under the wreckage. I spy a man nearby and order, in my deepest voice, "You there! Lower that boat! I have an urgent message for the Flag!" I am covered with powder dust, but it doesn't matter, for the man turns and it is Jared and he knows me right off. Am I now undone, after all this?

  No, I am not. He goes over to the boat davit and says, "Aye, Lieutenant." He keeps up the pretense and the boat goes down into the water and the sail is raised. I throw my seabag over the rail into the boat and then ready myself to jump in alongside it. I go to Jared and put my hand on his arm and look into his eyes. "Good-bye and thank you, Joseph Jared. Thank you for saving my life one more time."

  He puts his fingers to his brow and salutes, smiling his cocky grin in spit
e of everything lying in ruins about us. "Good-bye, Lieutenant. I'll collect my thanks from you when next we meet."

  I jump down, put the tiller over, and pull away from the Wolverine to freedom.

  As I thread my way out, I look at all the devastation around me and I am sickened. So much death, so much waste.

  I twist around to take a last look at the Wolverine, hoping maybe to see Jaimy again and...

  Uh-oh.

  The Wolverine is sinking. She's already lost two feet of freeboard and she's going down by the stern. They are abandoning ship. They are passing the wounded down into their one remaining lifeboat. There will not be enough room for all of them because I have taken the other lifeboat. I, the one to whom they have been most loyal and true. I have taken their lifeboat, that I might save my own life.

  Captain Trumbull comes to the rail and looks out at me. He might try to pry up boards from his deck to make a raft to carry his wounded, but I know he will not have enough time.

  Damn!

  I put the tiller to the boom and, turning the boat around, I head back to the Wolverine and, probably, to my doom.

  I pull up alongside and men climb down into the boat. There's Tucker and Eli, and Drake, too. Then Tom comes down, his face ashen. "Tom," I say, "is Ned..." A quick shake of his head is all he says in reply. It is enough. Oh, God, Ned...

  More men come down into the boat, then I hear "Wounded coming down," and I look up and I see George Piggott all limp, cradled in Higgins's arms, Higgins's once-white steward's coat spattered with blood ... Georgie's blood. Higgins gently hands him down. Aw, Georgie, no... Blood from a wound on his left side splatters onto my upturned face as he's lowered into my lap.