by Meg Caddy
‘You just screamed our name to the whole of Port Royal!’ he snarled.
‘It’s a good name.’ I doubled my step to keep up with him. ‘And now we have a good ship to match. Look at her, captain. She’s beautiful!’ I shrugged my way out of his grip. ‘She’s beautiful. We’ve been limping around on Ranger for months now. Living thin, living hard. This is the beginning of something bigger. Just look at Edward Teach! Say what you like about old Blackbeard, he took what he wanted.’ And had held the seas in terror for his whole career.
‘Edward Teach was a rapist and a madman, and now he’s a dead man. Corner!’
Richard Corner, quartermaster and a helmsman, lumbered over to us. He was bearded and heavy-set, with big hands and an ugly face. I liked him, though he didn’t have much time for my cheek.
‘Bonny here is going to scrub every damned inch of this ship,’ Calico told the quartermaster. ‘If I find even a speck of blood by the time he’s done, he’s not getting paid any time this year. Keep two eyes on him, make sure he doesn’t spare any effort.’
‘Aye, Cap.’
‘And when you’re done, Bonny,’ Calico went on, ‘you can head back to the Ranger, because you’re picking oakum in the brig until we reach Cuba.’
‘What?’ I didn’t want to sit on the Ranger and pick apart old ropes. I wanted to sail on our beautiful new ship. The ship that had flown our flag.
‘You defied me in front of the crew. You disobeyed my orders. You left your position with the gunners.’
‘I’m quicker than half the men on this ship!’
‘That’s why you’re with the gunners! Keep arguing with me and you’ll be flogged.’
I knew he only said it for show but fear beat against my stomach when the words hit me. A small part of me remained curled up in the corner of a room, holding my arms over my head for protection. The thought flickered into anger. Calico opened his mouth and then closed it again. Maybe he knew he’d gone too far.
Then I shrugged and snatched a bucket out of Richard Corner’s hands. Calico couldn’t afford to call after me. The crew would ask questions.
I knew that would gnaw at him and I was glad of it. He would have to make it up to me later.
Old Dad came to work alongside me, chuckling. ‘You got him all riled now, boy.’ He only had a few teeth left and they were baccy-yellow. ‘When are you gonna learn to take orders?’
I dropped to my knees and started to scrub the decks with the stiff brush. ‘When he gives better orders.’
‘He’s the captain. You’ll have an easier life if you just do as you’re told.’
‘Easy is a little too close to dull.’ I glanced at him. He was shirtless and skinny. I could count his ribs, and the raised scars that criss-crossed his dark back. ‘Besides. You’re the one who let me into the boarding party.’
Old Dad shrugged. ‘I like you, boy, but you’re stupid to question the captain. Especially in front of the crew.’
‘Stupid, is it? I should pour this bucket over your head.’
He showed me all of his teeth. ‘That would be even more stupid.’
He was old but he was wiry and quick. Richard Corner once told me he’d seen Old Dad kill a man using only a sextant. I had the good sense to keep the old fellow sweet.
‘I like you too, old man,’ I said.
‘Of course you do. Now put your back into it, Bonny. Decks won’t scrub themselves.’
My anger at Calico seeped away after three hours of scrubbing. I was too tired to hold a grudge. When I was done, I crossed to the Ranger to pick oakum in the brig as ordered. Truth told, I was glad of the smaller crew. Fewer people around, more chance to remove the bindings from my breasts and change my shirt to something looser. If I left the bandages too long, they dug red welts into my sides and made my chest ache.
Over the months at sea I had suffered in the crowd of the ship. Pirate crews almost always ran heavy for numbers in a fight. It meant there was less to do by way of chores, but also that there was no hope of privacy. That was difficult at the best of times. Almost impossible when I needed to change the bindings, or when my monthly courses were due, or when I wanted time with Calico.
The skeleton crew on the Ranger troubled me. Jimmy Dobbin and Noah Harwood were about my age. They weren’t overly bright and they liked to scrap, but I could work my way around them. Richard Corner was a stout fellow with a stout heart. He told good stories and he half-liked it when I ran my mouth off at him. Sedlow and Isaac, however, were a different matter.
Isaac was one of the helmsmen. He was a big, broad man; like Old Dad, a former slave. Smart. Watchful. Calico’s dearest friend. I didn’t think he knew what I was, but not a day passed that I didn’t feel his suspicious eyes on me. He was waiting for some sort of slip, and I didn’t know what he’d do if he caught one. He stood at the wheel the day after we took the Kingston, sweat gleaming off his deep brown skin. It was a hot day and we were the only two not to have stripped our shirts. I imagined that Isaac, too, had more than anyone’s fair share of scars.
And Sedlow…I watched him out of the corner of my eye as he prowled the starboard side. Tall, lean. Not an ugly man, in low light, but mean. Mean like a boy drowning a kitten in a bag to feel its panic. Mean like my husband.
Sedlow had not come after me yet; not really. Just the odd shove or cuff about the head. But cruelty was graven in every line of his face. He was a man who liked to hurt just because he could. I couldn’t tell, now, if he was pleased or angry to be on the Ranger. He’d been sent over as the second carpenter. It was an important role on any ship and though Old Dad was better, Sedlow could hold his own. If he was unhappy to be left here he would take it out on the smallest crewman aboard and that was me by a good half a head. If he was pleased, that didn’t bode well either.
‘Eyes down, Bonny.’ Corner passed me. He had a coil of rope over his shoulder. ‘Do your work. Don’t start any fights.’
I shielded my eyes from the sun. ‘Who said anything about fights?’
‘I’ve known you for two months. Think I don’t recognise when you’re spoiling for one? Captain’s rowing over soon to give us the charts. I want things running smooth when he arrives. So keep your eyes down, pick oakum, and just…Just.’
‘Mister Corner, I don’t know what you’re talking about.’
‘First week out with us, you called George Fetherstone a…what was it?’
‘A bed-swerving fustilarian? That doesn’t sound like something I’d say.’
‘Your tongue is quicker than your wits, boy. And we both know which will serve you better.’ He tossed my hair and went on his way, leaving me to my thoughts. I knew he was right but I had spent two voiceless years in Nassau. Now I couldn’t seem to help myself when it came to saucing the other crewmen—especially those like Fetherstone, who acted like he had a ramrod permanently shoved up his arse.
The Kingston slowed and put down anchor. I feigned disinterest as they lowered a jolly-boat but my eyes tracked Calico when he came across to us. He always wore the patchwork coat for battle but it was a warm night and he was just in a shirt and breeches now. He looked less the captain and more the man. When he reached the Ranger he strolled across the deck, talking easily with his crew. He and Isaac clasped hands and laughed over some shared jest. I hunched my shoulders and concentrated on picking apart the old rope. The fibres would be mixed with tar and used to plug the space between the boards when the sea and the changing weather shrank the wood. It was hard work on the fingers, and dull besides. But right now I was glad of it.
‘Bonny.’
I couldn’t pretend I didn’t hear him. He stood by his cabin, arms folded, watching me.
‘Aye?’
He walked into his cabin, leaving the door open for me. I set my teeth, dropped my oakum into a bucket and trudged after him. Whether or not he lectured me, I could feel the eyes of the other crewmen. Their stare prickled and heated my skin. I stepped through Calico’s door and closed it behind me. It was dark an
d cramped in there. Calico dressed like a patchwork king but he lived like a common man. There was a pallet, and a small table bolted to the deck. A chest in the corner, where he usually stowed his coat and what few valuables he didn’t keep on his person. The cabin smelled of him: tar, smoke, brandy.
‘Keep your voice low,’ he said.
‘I’m not an idiot.’
‘Our flag on the mast of the Kingston says otherwise. What was the point?’
I shrugged. ‘No sense in us having a fleet unless the ocean knows about it, Calico.’
‘You made us a target.’
‘We’ll always be a target. Question is whether we slink in the shadows or fly our colours. I figured you’d want to fly our colours.’
‘You figured wrong.’
‘Is anyone following us?’
‘Not yet. They’ll come. We’ve outrun any followers so far but that can’t last. You’ve put us all in danger.’ He paused. ‘And you cannot undermine me in front of the others.’
‘Or what? You’ll have me flogged? I may as well return to my husband.’
He winced. ‘My words were for the crew’s benefit.’
This was as close to an apology as I’d get. I folded my arms and leaned against the cabin wall.
‘You know I’d never hurt you,’ he went on.
‘So you’ve said.’
Our eyes met. My stomach swooped. I dropped my gaze. I’d promised myself I wouldn’t be a giddy fool around Calico Jack, but I couldn’t help myself when he looked at me like that.
He took my hand and drew me to him. I didn’t pull away.
‘Why send me back to the Ranger?’ I asked. ‘I came to sea to be with you.’ This was not entirely true. I’d had plenty of good reasons to leave Nassau. If Calico hadn’t taken me aboard, I would have found another ship.
‘You’re distracting,’ he said. ‘Better for us to work on different ships, for now. And you’ll have more space here to…it’s safer for you without so many others around. But we’re bound for Cuba, and we’ll spend some time in the islands nearby. We’ll find some excuse to be alone. Properly alone.’ His lips brushed the corner of my mouth and I found I couldn’t hold onto my irritation. Here, in Calico’s cabin, was the only place I could relax, and be Annie instead of Andrew. A space between the world of corsets and the world of corsairs.
‘And then what?’ I asked. ‘You’ll make an honest woman of me?’
His soft laugh won me. ‘I wouldn’t dare.’
4
BONNY
Calico left before night fell. I felt lighter. Couldn’t tell if it was relief that things were once more easy between us, or if I just felt hollow with his absence. Either way, I finished my meal and my tasks for the day and went to the rigging. It was my favourite part of the ship. When I was a child I liked to climb trees, a tiny buccaneer who stole birds’ eggs and scared squirrels. At the time the canopy had felt like the crown of the world. Now the trees seemed tame compared to the sway and take of the rig. Each time a wave rolled beneath us, the mast tilted impossibly far—so far it seemed there could be no hope of coming back up again.
The larboard side was endless ocean. It shone as the sun started its descent. Above, the clouds mirrored the waves, starting in deep and rolling down towards us. The ridge of each cloud was tipped with white, pink, red, gold. I sat with my legs through the gaps in the rigging and rested my chin on a ratline. My arms dangled, elbows crooked in knotted corners. The rigging swung gently with a breeze.
I wasn’t used to the quiet. As a child in Ireland I’d run riot with the local lads. Even when I was up in the trees I’d been causing trouble: pelting people with eggs, calling out insults, trying to escape bigger children. Later, in Charles Town, I’d fought and scrapped and slept my way out of my father’s favour. And in Nassau…
I didn’t want to think about Nassau but it crowded the peace out of my mind.
A small, cramped room. Thick, hot air. The taste of blood on my lips. No gun, no sword—only a half a board of wood, sharp where it had snapped off. My hands were raw and sore from prying it up. Every noise made me twitch. Couldn’t leave. Couldn’t stay.
He’d be home soon.
I closed my eyes and listened to the sound of the ocean. It whispered of freedom and revenge and when I opened my eyes the dark swelter of Nassau was far behind me.
‘Bonny! Get down here!’
The sun was low. I must have slipped out of time. I glanced at the deck.
Sedlow was calling for me.
Watch yourself, Bonny, I told myself as I climbed down the rigging. I didn’t rush. No need for him to think I was too eager to obey. I was cabin boy for the crew but that didn’t mean he could get used to me jumping to attention every time he lifted his voice.
My feet found the deck.
‘Here.’ He shoved a bucket at me. ‘Bilge pump’s stuck.’
My lips turned. Usually a stuck pump meant there was a dead rat in it. I had no desire to go down to the bilge, the very deepest section of the ship where foul water and vermin gathered.
‘Why are you giving it to me?’ I asked. ‘Bilge pump’s your job today.’
‘Do as you’re told, boy.’
‘Mister Corner gave me my own jobs, and I’ve done them all. Doesn’t say anywhere in the Articles that I have to do your jobs too.’ The Articles were the laws of the ship, signed by each man aboard.
Sedlow’s face settled into a glare. He was bigger than me—but then, almost everyone was. He was built solid, too. A brawler. I knew he’d been a slaver before he signed on with Calico.
He grabbed my arm. Twisted it. Lowered his voice.
‘You’re getting cocky, boy,’ he rasped. ‘Think you’re too good to do the work? Think you’re better than us?’
I bit my tongue but a retort slipped out anyway. ‘It’s not that I’ve given it a lot of thought, to be honest.’
‘Captain lets you have the run of things, don’t he? Doesn’t seem to matter how many times you go against his word. Why’s that, I wonder?’
I pulled against his arm and he yanked me closer. His breath smelled of tobacco and tooth-rot. ‘Maybe I know why,’ he said. ‘I’m thinking the captain’s got a fancy for the cabin boy…’
I tensed my muscles, ready to move. Ready to drop the heavy wooden bucket on his foot and ram the heel of my palm into his nose. Spin when he released my arm, kick him in the crotch. Grab his head. Yank it into my knee. His hand tightened. I drew back my arm.
‘Sedlow.’
Isaac was a big fellow but he moved real quiet. Sedlow’s eyes latched onto him. In days past Isaac may have been a slave and Sedlow may have been a slaver. Here and now Isaac had a gun.
Sedlow knew better than to try his luck with Calico’s right hand. He dropped my arm and spat on the deck. ‘Boy can’t take orders.’
‘Depends who’s giving them.’ Isaac never raised his voice. He was still and relaxed now, his dark gaze unwavering on Sedlow’s face. ‘Aren’t you supposed to be pumping the bilge?’ A vein twitched at Sedlow’s temple. I watched, enjoying the moment. Sedlow knew Isaac outranked him. More to the point, Isaac was capable of beating him senseless. I didn’t imagine the sting of that knowledge would ever fade for Sedlow, who wheeled about and set off down the deck.
I glanced at Isaac, trying not to let my relief show.
‘I should have let him clout you,’ he growled. ‘Might’ve stopped your mouth.’
‘Possible but not probable. I had the situation in hand.’
‘He’s worth two of you!’
‘Isaac, he’s not even worth one.’
‘He’s going to be after you now. You know that. And the captain won’t always be here to watch your back. Neither will I.’ He lowered his voice. ‘You know what your problem is, Bonny?’
‘I do hope you’re going to tell me.’
‘Ship.’
It startled a laugh out of me. ‘Ship? Isaac, are you addled?’
‘No.’ He grabbed my shoul
der and spun me around. ‘Ship.’
There was a vessel to the stern. Not too close but gaining fast. In the new darkness I couldn’t tell if her port lids were flipped but I knew she was big. A man-o-war. Her sails were just thin slivers of cloud to my eye, but enough to bring them after us at a good speed.
I muttered an oath. Our skeleton crew would be no match for another ship, especially not one of her size. The rest of the crew, ahead on the Kingston, couldn’t come about and reach us in time. A firefight with the man-o-war would be our end. We’d be a cluster of sinking splinters in less than an hour.
If they were hunting us, our only chance was to run.
There was no time to raise a flag to warn the Kingston. Isaac ran the length of the ship. He reached the bow and leaned over so far I thought he might fall.
‘Captain!’
We were close enough that one of the lads on the Kingston swung around when Isaac called. He went sprinting for Calico. Richard Corner grabbed my shoulder and shoved me away from the rail.
‘Get on the swivel gun!’ he shouted. ‘Sedlow, you too. Dobbin, Harwood, up in the rigging!’
I skidded across the deck and dropped to my knees in front of the swivel gun. It was smaller than our other guns but it could do some hellish damage, and it was the only one that would do us any good here. We couldn’t take a broadside from the other ship but we could fire the swivel from our stern, aiming at the bow of the ship behind us. It gave a small target area but if we were careful we might slow her down.
Sedlow pulled the swivel into position. I gripped the rail and swung myself almost out above the water to ram the shot and more wadding into the guns. The ocean gaped beneath me. My hands, slick with sweat, jumped on the rope as I slipped. I strained and pushed myself back onto the ship. We jammed an iron into a small touch-hole to break open the cartridge. I filtered more powder into the touch-hole and helped Sedlow mount the gun.
‘Hold!’ Corner commanded. ‘Hold. Wait until captain gives us the signal.’
I didn’t want to hold. Sedlow’s breath was harsh and loud on the other side of the bore. I could feel my heartbeat not just in my chest but in my temples, through my throat, behind my eyes, in my fingertips. I wanted to move, but instead I braced my shoulder on the swivel gun and waited. I didn’t recognise the other ship’s colours, which meant it was unlikely she was a pirate or naval vessel. Now she was nearing I could make out faint ridges jutting out from her side. Her port lids were open. If she came alongside us, we’d be hit with volleys of shot.
