Devil's Ballast

by Meg Caddy

  I leaned forward and grabbed hold of the stick Old Dad and I had placed so carefully. Then I pushed.

  There was a clack of boards, a grunt, a splash and a muffled shout. I flung myself into the heads. Sedlow was ale-addled, but not so far gone that he had been caught completely unawares. When the supporting planks had dropped into the water he’d managed to catch hold of the deck to save himself. He was dangling there now, above the open water, gripping the remaining wooden boards tightly. I couldn’t see the ocean clearly, just a sucking, swallowing black. But I could hear it. The sea was hungry.

  Sedlow’s eyes widened when he saw me.

  ‘Irish bastard!’ he choked. His hands danced on the wood, trying to get a better grip. His breeches were still around his ankles. ‘Let me up!’

  I usually went barefoot at sea but tonight was different.

  His fingers crunched beneath my boots.

  Sedlow howled but the noise cut off when I kicked him in the face: his head snapped backwards and the rest of him followed. I watched him as he dropped. The sea took him whole and the Ranger ploughed over him.

  I stood there, staring at the black waters, waiting until my breath came back to me. Then I shrank out of the heads and climbed over the wooden structure to where Old Dad and I had hidden the replacement. It didn’t take a lot of time or effort to simply slot it into the place where the other heads had been. I tested it carefully to be sure no one else would fall through. Then I strolled out of the heads and made my way across the deck.

  ‘I saw that.’

  ‘Isaac,’ I hissed. ‘God rot your eyes, I almost shat myself! Stop doing that!’

  ‘I saw that,’ he repeated. His hands were firm on the wheel, his eyes firm on me.

  ‘Saw what?’

  ‘Was that your idea? Or Dad’s?’

  No point pretending. ‘My idea. Dad’s handiwork.’

  ‘You know the penalty for murder?’

  I tensed. Isaac was a big man, and a careful one. And Calico’s best friend. Would he tell? What sort of choice would Calico be left with? Only to maroon me, or execute me outright.

  ‘I know.’ My mouth was dry, my mind flitting through different options. I didn’t think I’d be able to bribe Isaac. I couldn’t threaten him. According to Jack I wouldn’t even be able to seduce him.

  ‘Well.’ We stood facing one another for a short while, only the waves and wind murmuring between us. Then Isaac seemed to arrive at a decision. His grip on the helm relaxed. ‘Shame about Sedlow. I warned him he was leaning too far over.’

  Relief made me weak at the knees. ‘Never a good listener.’

  Isaac’s face lifted and for a moment he looked like he would smile. Then he twisted it into a glare.

  ‘Go below, Bonny,’ he said. ‘Keep your head down.’

  Richard Corner called me into the captain’s cabin the next morning. It was strange, being in Calico’s cabin without him. Half his possessions were still there.

  ‘Isaac said you saw Sedlow go overboard.’

  I shrugged. ‘Aye.’

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘Sedlow went overboard.’

  Corner’s heavy face dropped into a glower. ‘Don’t give me any of your cheek, boy,’ he growled. ‘I’m the one who has to report this to the captain. What happened?’

  I didn’t hesitate. ‘Sedlow was pissing over the side and he thought he saw something in the water. He leaned out. Isaac told him to mind. Sedlow said something about not taking orders from a slave, and then he lost his balance and over he went.’ Isaac and I had conferred about the details before dawn fell.

  ‘Where was he?’

  ‘Starboard, near the bow.’

  ‘Where were you?’

  ‘Talking to Isaac.’

  ‘And neither of you helped him once he was over? Tried to throw down a rope?’

  ‘We were going at quite a clip last night.’ I shrugged. ‘Anyway, Sedlow was a real bastard to Isaac and Old Dad. Didn’t much like me either.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘And neither of us, Isaac or me, wanted to risk our arses for someone who would just as happily drop us over the side.’ I folded my arms. ‘So no. I can’t speak for Isaac but if you want the honest truth from me I don’t care about Sedlow as much as I would any drowned bilge-rat.’

  Corner sat back in Jack’s chair, staring at me. ‘Think you’re a hard lad, don’t you, Bonny?’

  ‘You asked.’

  ‘How old are you?’

  ‘Fourteen.’ I paused. ‘Thereabouts.’ I was eighteen in truth, but it was easier for me to pass as a boy than a young man.

  Corner scratched his beard. ‘Can I give you some advice?’

  ‘I imagine you probably will.’

  ‘Bonny, you’re smart as a whip. You’re a good shot, you climb like a monkey and it’s no secret you make the captain laugh as much as you make him hopping mad. You’ll make a damn fine sailor if you just keep quiet long enough to live out a year.’ He put a big hand on my shoulder. ‘I’m happy to believe you and Isaac. You were in the wrong place at the wrong time last night. But from now onwards, you make it your business to be in the right place at the right time. Understand?’

  A hundred responses went through my head but I knew only one would end the conversation. ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Go on, then.’

  I sauntered out of the cabin, grinning at Isaac as I passed him by. He frowned, making a clear point: our brief alliance was not a friendship. I went on past him without a second look, telling myself I didn’t care. But a small part of me was disappointed. Without Calico or Old Dad on board, I felt alone.

  Still, it would only be a few days before we reached Cuba.

  9

  BONNY

  Next morning was the first time I realised something was wrong. I’d always found it uncomfortable to bind my chest but now it hurt. I crouched in the orlop, frantically trying to work through the pain before any of the lads came back down. That done, I fumbled with the lacing on my breeches. Had they always been this tight?

  That wasn’t all, though.

  Until Nassau my monthly courses had come and gone regular as the moon itself. Now I tried to figure how long it had been since my last bleed. Too long. Two months at least. I’d been so preoccupied with learning the ways of the ship and crew, with keeping my secrets, with Sedlow, that I hadn’t given it much thought. I’d just been relieved not to deal with it.

  Other details started to click into place: my ‘battle-shakes’; how lonely and miserable I’d felt in the last few days; how badly my back ached after Sedlow and his boys ducked me in the ocean, even when my other hurts had faded.

  My mother died when I was thirteen. I’d not had her to teach me about the ways of men and women, but I’d spent a lot of time in my father’s kitchen, listening to the slaves and servants talk. I’d watched when one of the slaves about my age, a girl named Phibe, grew swollen and sore with child. She had worked—hard field work—right up until the day of her labour. Then her screams had echoed through the quiet corners of the plantation. Neither she nor her child survived a day.

  How could I have been so thick? How did I not realise?

  ‘Bonny?’ Dobbin stuck his head down the companionway. ‘You gonna sleep all day? Come on, we’ll make Isla de Pinos by noon.’

  I tried to collect my scattered thoughts. ‘Isle of Pines?’

  ‘Isle of Pines,’ he confirmed.

  ‘Why are we stopping short of Cuba?’

  ‘We want to avoid Havana if we can,’ he clarified. ‘Captain’s too well-known there.’

  I didn’t know much about Calico’s childhood. I knew he’d spent a lot of it in Cuba, that he had friends there; he never said more. I tried to imagine him as a boy. He would have been errant and reckless, dragging himself and others into scrapes and even outright danger. It felt strangely like a loss, to be so excluded from his childhood. All the details I had of him came from the other men, and they were sparse enough as well.

/>   It was one of the many things that teetered in balance between us, unspoken.

  How are we going to discuss this, Calico?

  I could thank God in his questionable mercy that I’d never had a child to James Bonny. But what would Calico do? Would he find me some apothecary’s tonic to kill it in the womb? Kick me off the ship and leave me on the shore as a kept woman? Could I expose myself as a woman to the crew and raise a brat on a pirate ship? Grace O’Malley was said to have done so…

  The last thought was so stupid it took my breath away. This was no Irish ballad. Women were called the Devil’s ballast—bad luck on any voyage. If the men found out they would kill me; that, or lock me in the brig and take turns with me, and Calico might not even stop them. These men were pirates, for God’s sake. I was under no illusions about them. The moment they knew I was a woman they would become a mortal danger to me.

  ‘Oh, Calico,’ I said under my breath.

  ‘What?’ Dobbin looked over his shoulder at me.

  ‘Nothing.’ I climbed the companionway into the bright light of the morning.

  Old Dad was the first person I saw when we reached land. He came up to help us beach the jolly-boat and I saw his dark eyes flick over the rest of the skeleton crew, searching for Sedlow. Then he looked back at me and his crooked teeth flashed into a warm grin. My heart wasn’t in the smile I gave back. Sedlow’s death was not a comfort to me, not at this moment.

  Once the boat was secured we walked along the beach. Old Dad drove a bony elbow into my ribs.

  ‘Well?’

  ‘Worked beautifully,’ I admitted.

  ‘Anyone see you?’

  ‘Isaac. We came to an understanding on the matter.’

  Old Dad nodded. ‘Isaac’s a decent man. Knows how to hold his tongue. Corner ask you any questions?’

  ‘Just the ones he had to. We’re clear.’

  ‘Good lad.’ His eyes narrowed on me in the silence that followed. ‘Don’t take it hard, boy. Men like Sedlow, it’s always you or them eventually. Killing gets easy once you realise that.’

  A small part of me knew that killing shouldn’t be easy. I should have been more concerned with the guilt than with the quickening child in my belly. But I’d signed on for piracy, and here we were. Sedlow had been washed away with the filth from the heads. He wasn’t my problem anymore.

  ‘It doesn’t bother me,’ I said truthfully. ‘Where’s the captain?’

  Old Dad rolled his eyes. ‘Fetherstone and Paddy Carter are about ten paces away from a duel,’ he said. ‘Captain’s trying to level it out before Paddy shoots George in the face.’

  So Jack would be irritated and fretful before I even told him anything. And he hadn’t heard about Sedlow yet.

  ‘Thanks for your help with Sedlow,’ I said to Old Dad as we walked up the beach. It sounded grudging but I was being sincere.

  He snorted. ‘Sedlow’s been giving me French gout for the better part of a year now. I think about the Ranger ploughing over him and it’s like a lullaby. Especially when you add the fact that he fell to his death with his breeches around his ankles.’

  ‘God’s eyes, Dad, keep your voice down!’

  He grinned. ‘Go on, find something to eat before you find the captain. You know he’s bound to have some reason to send you back to the ship on scrubbing duties.’

  He didn’t know the half of it.

  I found Calico on the shore. He was frazzled, his hair standing on end from where his hands had raked it in frustration. It wasn’t an easy job, keeping our crew in line. I wasn’t anywhere near the only troublemaker.

  I didn’t want to bring him ill news, not when he was already wild-eyed, but I knew if I didn’t tell him now I never would. My hand itched to slip into his. Instead I buried both of them deep in my pockets and slouched my shoulders.

  ‘We have a problem.’

  ‘I know,’ he snapped. ‘Bloody Paddy Carter.’

  ‘That’s not what I mean.’

  ‘Say what you mean then, Bonny.’

  I knew he was just being careful, not wanting to be heard even if we were some distance from the rest of the crew, but his tone rubbed away the sympathy I had felt for him.

  ‘I’m in the family way, Jack.’

  He stopped. Faced me properly. Pale to the lips. Seeing him afraid, the man who swung into battle in a calico coat, made me twitchy and nervous.

  ‘I don’t understand.’ His voice, usually warm and strong, was flat.

  Irritation flicked through me. ‘Yes you do. I’m lugging your brat around in my belly.’

  ‘What do we do?’

  ‘You’re the captain. You tell me.’

  ‘Stop playing the clown!’

  ‘Stop raising your voice.’ We stood a short distance from the crew, on the pretext of discussing Sedlow’s death. The only good thing about this baby so far was that it saved me from that particular conversation. I took a deep breath and went on more calmly. It was somehow easier to be level when he was panicking. ‘I’m not worried, Calico. I can manage this all myself, and I will. But I thought you at least deserved to know. We’re going to have to come up with some excuse for me to leave the ship, and then I’ll have to find a place to stay on land until the thing is born. Once that’s done with, I’ll meet up with you and we can go along as if nothing happened.’

  ‘You don’t want to keep it?’

  ‘What would we do with a baby, Calico?’

  He just shook his head.

  For a moment I felt sorry for him again. ‘Would you let me keep it on the ship?’ I prompted.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Would you stay on land with me to raise it?’

  ‘No.’ No hesitation there. Calico had stolen the position of captain and he intended to keep it.

  ‘Then there’s nothing more to be said on the matter. I’ll be damned if I’m going to stay on land and keep house for you while you sail around the world having adventures. No. If you’re at sea, I’m at sea.’

  ‘And the child?’

  ‘I’ll think of something.’

  ‘You may not be able to just “think of something”, Annie.’

  I managed a smile. ‘Ridiculous man.’ I turned back towards the camp and he caught my arm.

  ‘Annie.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Do you love me?’

  I almost thought I could feel the babe squirming, but it was too early for that. It was just Calico’s earnestness.

  ‘Ah, Calico.’ I pulled my hand away and rubbed the back of my neck. ‘I came to sea with you, didn’t I?’

  I couldn’t watch his disappointment. Neither could I tell him what he wanted to hear. I’d been in love, and it was a short road to a long heartache.

  ‘Anyway,’ I said, trying to lighten my voice. ‘If you have any friends in Cuba who might want a baby, now is the time to send a message.’

  He didn’t say anything for a while. When he spoke again, his voice was subdued. ‘I know a couple. Walter and Rose Cunningham. You can stay with them. They’ve wanted children for years and had none.’

  ‘Good.’ I felt the knots easing out of my shoulders. Calico’s eyes were on the sea. Usually they were a bright clear blue, but now they seemed closer to grey. He stood very straight. There was colour high in his cheeks. I felt guilty for shrugging him off, and resentful about it. More than anything I wanted to slip my arms around him and make him smile. To quench the strange hollowness that had been growing in me since we left the last island. I reached for his elbow.

  ‘Calico?’

  He didn’t look around. I withdrew my hand and hesitated.

  I would probably have gone to kiss him if Dobbin hadn’t come around the beach at that moment. I stepped away from Calico and shoved my hands into my pockets, sinking my heels back into the sand, and glared at Dobbin. There was never a moment of peace with this crew. Someone always seemed to step in at exactly the wrong time.

  ‘Captain, Paddy Carter says he’s quitting,’ Dobbin said. />
  ‘Tell Paddy I’ll happily knock that idea out of his head,’ Calico replied. He sighed and turned away from the sea. ‘He can stand watch on the Kingston tonight.’

  Dobbin’s face eased. ‘I’ll tell him, captain.’

  ‘You too, Bonny.’

  I glanced at Calico, confused. His eyes barely flicked in my direction.

  ‘Stay on the Kingston tonight,’ he clarified. ‘We need a few watching the vessels.’

  ‘Yes, captain.’ If I sounded sharp, he didn’t react. I looked for warmth in his eyes and only found the clouds of a spent storm. His silence told me I was dismissed.

  10

  BARNET

  Barnet hadn’t intended to take the Albion to the islands surrounding Cuba but she was gathering weed and barnacles on her hull and the drag was compounding the problems wrought by the hasty repairs to the bow. The wind was good and the waters were clear, but the Albion moved through the waves like they were mud. The men were tired from patching leaks and constant pumping—and the stores had taken damage as well, leaving them with shortened rations. It made the crew sloppy and quarrelsome. Barnet spent as much time settling disputes as he did managing the damage to the ship.

  The inconvenience rankled with him. He was not a patient man.

  He strode across the quarterdeck as the sun crept out from the skin of the sea. At the companionway, he ducked his head to climb to the lower decks. The air was foul here, stale and thick. The men were at idle, dipping hardtack into their small beer, chewing on strips of dry meat. Some ruminated, like cattle, on tobacco. Smoking was forbidden.

  The men started when they saw him, caught shirking. Some tried to step back into the shadows of the orlop, hoping not to be seen. Barnet made a note of each.

  ‘Go to your duties,’ he said, keeping his voice level. ‘We drop anchor at the Isle of Pines for tonight.’ It was a concession, an unspoken promise that the men would be permitted to leave the ship, to drink and stretch their land legs on the island for a few hours at least. He did not intend to stop long in Cuba, so this would soften that particular blow and appease them.