by L. A. Meyer
"But, but—," sputters Bliffil.
"You are excused, Mr. Bliffil. And, in the future, please remember who is the Captain of this ship, British Intelligence notwithstanding. And do not lie to me, ever again."
Bliffil manages a jerky bow, glares at me, and leaves the cabin.
The Captain watches him depart with an expression of deep disdain on his face and then he turns to me.
"Do not fear, Miss Faber. You will be treated civilly while you are on board the Dauntless, no matter what may be the nature of your crimes against the Crown. I bid you good night."
I bow my head in acknowledgment of this kindness. "Thank you, Sir. Good night."
"Doctor, please call in the Sergeant," says Captain Hudson.
He does it and the Marine comes in and I am taken back down to the dank brig. The door is opened and I am locked inside.
I lie down on the bench and pull up the rough blanket and give myself over to the deepest despair. As the tears begin again, I feel that I am lost this time for good and ever, that there is nothing but horror that waits for me, not Jaimy, not happiness, nothing but a hempen noose.
But, as sleep comes on, as it always does, even unto the condemned, I think I hear something whispered low from outside. This causes my eyes to open again and makes me lift my head to listen ... what? ... I could be mistaken. No, it's probably just the creak of the timbers, the chafing of the running gear, but, then ... did I really hear it?
Welcome back, Puss.
Chapter 3
Once again I wake in a cell, stiff and unhappy. I should be used to it by now, I think, groaning as I rise to meet the day. At least this brig, not being an open cage like the others I have been in, affords a little more privacy. 'Course it's very dark—the only light filtering through the bars of the door is that of the lantern hanging by the sentry. I have to feel around for the chamber pot.
After I have accomplished that, I peer through the bars and see the sentry, half asleep, leaning against the bulkhead. I have heard them change the guard every four hours through the night, just like the watches stood on deck. This latest guardsman looks as if he is profoundly seasick as well as tired, and it is not surprising, as we have been going through some rough seas. Since the jail is built as far forward as possible, we bear the brunt of the ship's heaving up and down and crashing into the heavy waves right outside the three-inch planks of its hull. The boards have been groaning and twisting and the seawater has been seeping in through the cracks and streaming down the brig walls, and as we are down in the depths of the ship, close to the bilges, it stinks, too. The dampness causes my undergarments to stick to me in a most uncomfortable way, and I know that if they keep me locked up in here for the entire voyage, a mortal sickness might well save the Crown the bother of hanging me. I wrap the soggy blanket around myself and sit back down on the bench, truly and completely miserable.
Then I hear footfalls on the upper hatchway, but I notice that the Marine does not. I shake off my misery. I have been in worse fixes than this, and if this proves to be my last predicament, then so be it. Get on with it, girl.
"Marine!" I hiss, saving him from a flogging. "Wake up! Someone's coming!"
The soldier shakes his head and snaps to, just as Bliffil comes down into the brig area.
"I am here to interrogate you," he says, and though I cannot see his face in the gloom I can hear the smile in his voice. "I have many questions."
"You go to Hell, Bliffil," I say. "I know what 'interrogation' means to an Intelligence Officer. You are here to beat me again—I remember well what you considered to be sport back on the Dolphin."
"Hmmm, we'll see about that, won't we? Private, open this door."
The guard, looking rather splendid in his scarlet jacket with the crossed white belts and the pipe-clay buttons, hits a brace and says, not too happily, "I'm sorry, Sir, but the Captain left strict orders that the door is to be opened only on his direct order. Sir."
Bliffil spins around and barks, "What? I am Lieutenant Bliffil and I order you to open that door right now or your back will pay for it!"
"I fear my Major and my Captain much more than I fear you, Sir, and I have my orders," answers the Marine, firmly.
Good for you, lad.
"Ain't so easy ordering men of real honor around, is it, Bliffil?" I sneers, getting up from the bench and putting my face to the bars. "Do the people on this ship know that you were put off the Dolphin for cowardice shown during an encounter with an enemy? Do they?"
They will now, by God. If the Marine sentry does not spread the word, those others who I know are listening outside these bulkheads will do it. There are no secrets on a ship.
Bliffil puts his own face to the bars. "You little piece of gutter trash. You have caused nothing but damage to my reputation since the moment you connived your way onto a Royal Navy ship, and I shall repay you. I will watch you hang."
I shove my face up to his. "If I do hang, Bliffil, I will leave this world knowin' I did what I could to lead a virtuous life, tryin' to do my best for my Service, my country, and my friends. What will you have to say when your time comes, you slimy pig?"
"Pah!" he spits and turns to leave. "We'll see about this, and we'll see about you, too, Private!"
I work up a gob of spit, myself, and launch it at his retreating back. "Go find some little boys to beat up, you cowardly bastard! I'm sure there are some ship's boys upon this vessel that will slake your thirst to hurt and shame and defile!"
The hatch door closes and we are left in silence.
After a while I ask, "Are we to have no breakfast?" Even though I am caught and probably condemned, I still get hungry.
"The watch is about to change, Miss," replies the Marine. "I'm sure they'll have something for you soon. Uh ... and ... umm ... Miss ... thank you for ... you know..."
"It was nothing, Private ... If I might know your name...?"
"Jonathan Morris, Miss."
"Ah, Jonathan Morris, a fine name indeed. No, we all get sleepy sometimes, especially on a boring watch such as this, and you are not to be blamed. However, if you get into any trouble over this thing with your Major..."
"Stebbins, Miss. Major Stebbins."
"Then you will refer him to me, and I will give him an exact account of what happened here. Believe me, Jonathan, you did your duty, and you shall not be whipped on account of Mr. Bliffil."
"Thank you, Miss. That eases my worry a great deal."
There is a clatter at the hatchway and a sailor, a cook's helper from the look of his dress, comes in bearing a tray.
"Under the door," says Jonathan, and the steward slides the tray through an opening under my cage door, and then leaves.
"Will you take the lantern over here so that I might be able to see what I am to eat? Thank you, Jonathan. I hope you know that your presence gives me comfort in my hour of need." A little maidenly sob and sniffle and that's it for now. Don't overdo it.
I stoop down to pick up the tray and sit back on the bench with it on my lap. There is a cup of steaming hot tea, and I take a sip of it and am surprised to taste the sugar that's in it. Ummm ... it is very good, the best thing I have tasted in the last day or so. I put down the cup and turn my attention to the bowl. There is a spoon next to it, and I run it through the contents of said bowl. It is, of course, burgoo, which is oatmeal mush blended with whatever is at hand, in this case some chopped carrots and several pieces of pretty lean pork. There is even a layer of maple syrup on top and, wonder of wonders, a fresh biscuit to the side. I waste no time in getting it down, and it is very, very good. No bugs in the biscuit, either, far as I can tell.
This is not the usual fare, I think, putting the now licked-clean bowl, cup, spoon, and tray back under the door. Could it be that I have a friend aboard?
I see a snout poking up through a crack in the floorboards—a rat, attracted by the smell of my breakfast. I take off my right shoe and fling it at the rat and his nose disappears, but I know he will be back alon
g with many of his friends and soon the little buggers will be feasting on me when I am asleep. The thought gives me shivers—between the rats, the damp, and the cold, I will not live to attend my own execution. I must get out of here. Think, dammit!
I lean back against the front bulkhead next to the door, the only dry wall in the cell, to do just that. Think!
I force myself back to yesterday, to that moment when I last saw the Nancy B. Despite my inner turmoil at that time, while I was watching my life falling apart before me, I remember looking over and seeing ... what? Ah, the crane swinging over the hatch, that's what it was. I saw no more as I was taken away, but I now know what my crew intended—they were dumping the cargo of granite. The better to speed up north to Boston and alert Ezra Pickering, my good friend and lawyer? Nay, knowing them, it's much more likely they are shadowing this ship even now as it makes its way across the Atlantic, staying just out of sight beneath the horizon, and waiting to see when I make my break for it. Such good friends, I think, a tear working its way down my cheek.
I shake my head to further concentrate on my desperate situation. What else happened yesterday...? The vile Bliffil, to be sure, and then Captain Hannibal Hudson, who seems to be an honorable man, but one who knows his duty and will be honor-bound to deliver me to the Admiralty. The Doctor and his examination, what else...? What...? Yes! The Doctor! Dr. Sebastian, with his microscope and specimens! That's it!
I spring to my feet. "Jonathan! When will you be relieved?"
"At eight o'clock, Miss," answers my Marine. "About fifteen minutes from now."
"Good. Now, Jonathan, if you would, please get my seabag. It's over there. Open it up, and on the top to the right, you'll see a small, framed, miniature portrait..."
"Now, Miss, I can't..."
"You don't have to give it to me. Just take it out and put it on the top of my bag."
Anxiously watching the hatchway door, Private Morris leans his musket against the bulkhead and goes over to the bag and opens it up.
"It's not here," he says, rummaging about in amongst some of the frilly female things in there. I had not brought all of my clothes with me on what turned out to be my last journey down to the Caribbean on the Nancy B—none of my riding habits, nor some of my other dresses and my winter stuff, for sure, all of which I left hanging in Amy's closet back at Dovecote—but there are still plenty of things in there.
I know he's embarrassed, but I push him on. "That Bliffil messed things up in there. Keep looking. It's wrapped in waxed paper. There! That's it!" I exclaim, as I see the small package emerge in Jonathan's hand. "Good! Unwrap it and lay it on the bag. Right, just like that. And when you are relieved, if you will ask Dr. Sebastian to come down to see me, I would so very much appreciate it, oh, yes I would, Jonathan."
Nodding, as he lays the portrait on the bag, the Marine resumes his post, at Attention, his musket again beside him at Parade Rest. Just in time, I see, as his relief, a Corporal, comes stomping down the hatchway to take his place.
"Report, Private Morris," he says, obviously a man swelled with a sense of his own importance—it is plain that he has not been a Corporal long, else he would not be quite so formal with a man only one rank below him.
"She is locked in there, Corporal Phillips," says Jonathan. "She has had her breakfast. The standing orders are that the door is not to be opened except on Captain Hudson's direct order."
"Very well," puffs Corporal Phillips. "You are relieved, Private Morris."
Jonathan salutes by bringing his arm across his chest and then leaves the room, but not before giving me a glance as I look after him through the bars. Good boy! I just know you'll do it!
I sit back down on the bench and wait.
***
I do not have to wait very long. In about half an hour, Dr. Sebastian, dressed in his white lab coat, comes down the hatch and into the brig area. Actually, he's wearing a once-white lab coat, one that's now covered with many stains of dubious, and generally very bloody, origin.
"So what is the problem, then?" asks the Doctor of the Marine. "Is she sick?"
"I don't know nothin' about it, Sir," replies the stolid Phillips. "You'll 'ave to ask 'er."
The Doctor strides to the door of the cage. "What is it? Hurry up. I am a busy man."
I rise to face him.
"Doctor. Please go to that bag lying over there and look at what sits upon it."
Mystified, he glances at my bag and then goes to pick up the miniature portrait of Jaimy.
"So?" he says, after looking at it for a moment.
"I did that portrait, Dr. Sebastian," I say. "At my school, the Lawson Peabody School for Young Girls, I was considered to be one of the best at Drawing and Rendering." Time for the big eyes now, girl.
"It is quite well done," he says, "but did you call me down here to critique your art?"
"I saw yesterday in my visit to your clinic that you are a man of Science, Doctor. I saw that you had various specimens on your laboratory table."
"Yes, the Caribbean was most rich in new species. I look forward to discussing them with my learned colleagues at the Royal Society upon our return."
Batting the eyelashes, I go on. "And next to them—forgive me, Doctor—there were some rather clumsy drawings."
"It is true, I do not have much of the limner's skill," he admits, stiffly. "But I needed to try, for some of my findings were quite perishable."
"Yes, but I do have that skill, Sir, and I also have my colors, brushes, and good paper right there in my seabag," I say in a rush of words. "I could do the drawings for you under your direction. You would have a fine portfolio to show your fellow naturalists and maybe even publish, and if I could get out of this pesthole for even a few hours a day to accomplish the task, oh, Sir, it would do wonders for my constitution!"
"Publish, eh?" he murmurs, fingers to chin, thinking. That nailed him, I'm thinking.
"Doctor, if I am kept here in this dampness and gloom for the entire voyage, you would have no fine illustrations of your work but only my poor body to dissect because I will surely take sick and die." I work up a few tears on that.
"This is, indeed, a sty. Close to what Dante envisioned as one of the lower levels of Hell." He looks about and continues to muse upon what I have offered.
"And I do have some Science, Sir, having been somewhat educated at the Lawson Peabody School for Young Girls in Boston. I know, for example, that the proper name for the black rat that was biting at my legs last night is Rattus, genus Rattus, family Muridae, order Rodentia, class Mammalia, phylum Chordata, kingdom Animalia, and I—"
"Very well, I shall talk to the Captain," says Dr. Sebastian. He turns and leaves the brig.
Oh, thank you, Mr. Sackett, for making us dissect those dead and disgusting rats in Science class!
***
It is not long after the changing of the Noon Watch, when the not-very-good company of Corporal Phillips has turned into the much more companionable Private William Kent, that a Marine Sergeant, a grizzled old veteran, comes into the hold. I had just discovered that Private Kent is also from Cheapside, and that we have quite a few names and places in common. I had been telling him, to his great satisfaction, of the swift end of Cornelius Muck, the Cheapside Ghoul, on board the Wolverine, when the Sergeant interrupts.
"'Avin' a bit of a chat wi' the bint, are ye, Billy?" growls the man to his subordinate.
"Just tryin' to bring the poor thing some cheer, Sergeant Gibbs," retorts Private Kent, once more back at Attention.
"Well, belay that and bring 'er out," says Gibbs. "Major Stebbins sez it's Captain's orders. Bind her up and let's take 'er up to 'is cabin. There's some manacles over there that'll serve."
The Private removes the cell key from his belt and thrusts it into the keyhole to open the door. I'm standing still wrapped in the blanket as I step out into the light of the lantern.
"Wait, William," I say, throwing off the blanket and pointing at my black dress that hangs on a hook on
the bulkhead. I had taken it off last night and handed it out to Private Morris to keep it from the damp after I was brought back down into this pit. "Hand me my dress, if you would."
I cannot see by the dim light of the lantern, but I know he is blushing, which is silly, since I am covered in my undergarments from knee to chest, but what the hell. I pull the dress over my head and smooth it down. Then I turn my back to the young Marine. "Button me up, Billy. Sergeant, please hand me that hairpiece that hangs over there. Thanks."
I feel Billy Kent's fingers working clumsily at the buttons at the back of my neck. I can hear his breath there, too, and I smile to myself. Oh, Billy, you silly boy, you.
"Sergeant, my hairpiece? Thanks."
I pull the wig on my head and fluff it up with my fingers. I can feel that it, too, is damp, but I do what I can with it.
"How do I look?" I ask, and I can tell from Billy's stunned look that I look good enough. I pinch my cheeks to pink them up and then stick out my wrists for the Sergeant to clap the metal cuffs on them.
They are snapped on and I say, "Lead the way, Sergeant," and I head up the gangway between the two soldiers.
I am blinded by the sudden bright light when we emerge on deck and so grab Billy's arm to steady myself. Well, I don't really have to, but I do it anyway. In a moment my eyes get used to it, and I see that we have a beautiful day up here with a good breeze and the Dauntless simply tearing along, all sails perfectly set and taut as drums. It sets my heart soaring to see her rip through the waves so clean and fast. But it shouldn't, girl, I tell myself, considering where this ship means to take you.
On our way from the bow of the ship to the after part where the Captain's cabin lies, we pass sailors on deck and in the rigging attending to their tasks, and I hear, half whispered, half spoken...
It's her! That's Jacky Faber!
Are you sure?
'Course I'm sure.
Cor, wait'll I tell me kids I saw Jacky Faber, her ownself, with me very own eyes.
Damn me, Puss-in-Boots, right down there.
I reflect on the vagaries of fame as we make our way along and decide that I'd much rather be a living nobody than a hanged person of renown, rotting away on some gibbet like poor old Captain Kidd, but still, it doesn't hurt to have some possibly sympathetic souls aboard.
