by Cylin Busby
“You’ve made out all right, Moses,” Chippy said. “In fact, with your trousers, I rightly forget that you’ve only one leg!” He laughed and turned to the other men in the room. “Is there another sailor aboard who can turn a jig as well?”
“How was it that you lost it, man?” Archer asked Moses, and the galley fell quiet. I noticed that the other sailors were suddenly very busy eating their grub and looking down at their hands. There was an awkward stillness before Moses finally spoke again.
“I did not lose it; it was taken from me,” Moses said, trying for a laugh that didn’t come. When it was clear that Archer was still waiting for an answer, Moses grabbed up a kitchen cloth, dried his hands, and reached into the cabinet for a bottle of brown drink. “It’s time for the captain’s nip of this,” he said, making his way to the door. “Helps to keep the pain at bay, and the fever as well. Chippy, when you’ve done, take that pot from the stove?” Usually I would follow close behind Moses, hoping for a visit with the captain, but I knew that if I went this night, I would miss an interesting exchange, so I jumped up on Sean’s lap for a scratch behind the ears and to listen.
After Moses was out of earshot, Archer looked around at the relieved faces of the sailors. “Obviously, I’ve asked something he hasn’t an answer for, is that it?”
“He’s an answer; it’s just long in the telling.” Sean spoke quietly and met Archer’s eyes. “If you’d seen the man’s back, you’d know better what he’s been through. His hide is cross-marked with raised scars from so many beatings, I wonder if he can number them.”
I licked my front paw and scrubbed my face clean as I listened to the sailors. I myself had seen Moses in his sleeping shirt, but had never taken notice of his back. Surely it couldn’t be as bad as Archer’s—the pink and splotchy color it took on when he removed his shirt on deck. Or Smyth’s, which was peeling and had ugly brown spots all over it.
“I’ve heard that when he was a boy, he was made to work on a slaver with a horribly cruel captain. He never speaks of it,” Dougherty added, scraping his soup bowl with a piece of hardtack.
“Is this true?” Archer said, suddenly more curious. “He was indentured? It’s a wonder he gave up that line of work. He could have made an excellent profit.”
“Running slaves is criminal, and he’s not the stomach to see men and women sold like meat, beaten and locked up,” Chippy growled. “Have you?” On nights when Chippy had been drinking from the brown bottle and got gruff, I usually hid myself behind the stove to keep out of his way. But tonight I stayed on Sean’s lap to hear what Archer might have to say for himself.
“Not I,” Archer responded quickly. “But there are some who still run slavers, and they make a great deal of money.” Archer looked somewhat nervous. “In fact, they turn a profit of two or three times the Melissa Rae.”
Sean put his hand under me and scooped me from his lap before standing to put his wooden bowl into Moses’s washbasin. “Slaving’s a bad, dirty business, no matter what coin it brings”—and he locked eyes once more with Archer, who suddenly looked away.
As Sean opened the door to the galley, I slid out with him, wove my way around his feet, and quickly made up to the deck, where now the stars were full out and the Melissa Rae moved swift and silent through the still night sea. It had not been wise to stay below and listen in on the gossip and arguments. The sailors’ talk had left me feeling sad and a bit lost. I knew now that Moses, who had been the most kind to me, had been treated very badly in his life, and that was a knowledge I did not want to have. Their talk about the captain also made me especially worried for his health, and I longed to see him.
Outside the captain’s quarters, I could see a sliver of light beneath the door; Moses was still inside. I went to lift my paw and scratch at the door when I heard, from within, a quiet singing—Moses’s voice in a tune. I did not know the words, but still the song was lovely, and I knew Moses was trying to soothe the captain’s pain, as he did on some nights when the fever was terribly bad.
It is of a flash packet,
A packet of fame.
She is bound to New York;
The Melissa Rae’s her name.
She is bound to the west’ard
Where the stormy winds blow.
Bound away to the west’ard,
Good Lord, let her go.
I lay outside the wooden door and listened to his voice, and the slap of the waves against the ship, and I wished and hoped with my entire small being that the captain would find his health again. I could not bear the thought of him being sewn into a hammock, like Slattery was, and thrown over the side of the ship. Whenever I thought of Slattery, the image of my mother, curled in our basket, came into my mind as well, though I tried never to think of that day. She had looked only asleep, but that was not so—she was never to wake. I preferred to remember her as she had been: brave, agile, and strong, but also warm and loving.
I wondered after what the sailors had said, some nights ago, about my mother’s hunting skills and how she would leave a line of dead vermin outside the captain’s door. If I could do the same, if I could capture one of the rats that plagued the ship and ate into the sailor’s food, spreading their fleas and dirt where they pleased, perhaps I could also bring a smile to the captain’s face. Suddenly I leapt to my paws—I knew at once what I needed to do to help the captain mend! It would not be easy, as the rats had had the run of the ship since my mother’s passing, and they had grown fat and bold.
I looked at the open hatch to the tween deck and took in a deep breath of fresh night air before making my way stealthily down the ladder into the dark. I came to a second hatch that would lead me down into the hold, and it was closed tight. I tried it with my paws, but to no avail. I knew of another hatch, amidships, that was sometimes kept open to air the stores below. I crossed the tween deck in the dark and found it open. I descended into the hold, where I had never ventured alone before, placing one paw carefully in front of the other. As my eyes adjusted to the dark and the parcels took shape around me in the murky black, I perked my ears, put my tail into the air, and made myself a promise: I would not come up until I had a rat to place outside the captain’s door, no matter how long it took.
Below the deck was not a totally foreign place to me; I had lived down in the galley with my mother and siblings for some weeks following my birth. In fact, until my mother brought me topside on the day we left port, below deck was my whole world. But I had not set paw in the hold since my mother’s passing—and since I had learned that the terrible rats I so feared kept themselves hidden there as well.
Straight below the main deck, or what the sailors called between decks, was where the galley and the sailors’ sleeping quarters were located. But underneath that was the wide-open space that made up the whole basement of the ship, which we called the hold. Now as I made my way across the barrels and crates, the place took on a new meaning to me. Mother had brought me here once or twice, just the two of us, after my siblings had all been taken away by other captains. I was still so small then, she had carried me down into the hold, and roamed the length of it. I realized only now what she must have been doing: searching for her hated foes, the rats, before the Melissa Rae was loaded for the next journey.
When I had been below with my mother, there had been no parcels here. The Melissa Rae had been unloaded before Mother gave birth to us, so we found ourselves in a long, open space, the length of the entire ship, with only posts lining the middle to support the weight of the decks, and the bases of the three masts, as big around as tree trunks. On either side of the hold were metal bars that spanned from top to bottom, forming caged sections used to store the heaviest goods and keep them in their spots, so as to even out the balance of the ship.
Here was where the real employment of the Melissa Rae happened, yet no sailor ever had to work in the hold, nor set foot there, for the whole journey! This was the place that held all the goods that the captain and crew would sell or deliver o
nce we reached land: the sixty huge rolls of cotton cloth, newly woven, thirty more of cloth with fine small stripes, and one hundred of chintz, a patterned fabric. The rolls were long—each of them took up at least twenty feet across the bottom of the hold—and were either wrapped around a wooden pole or rolled so that a hollow tunnel ran through the entire length—a tunnel that was just big enough for me to fit inside.
I poked my nose and whiskers into the opening at the end of a roll, just to be sure I could fit myself in, and one sniff told me that I was not the only creature who had found this tunnel. A rat had been here before me—and might still be inside! I jerked my head out and leapt up on top of the fabric—no easy feat, as the cloth was very large around, but I’d found that my haunches were growing stronger every day, and I could now jump quite high when I had a mind to.
The cloth felt lovely under my paws, and I longed to sink my claws into it! Nothing on board the Melissa Rae was soft, save for the chairs in the captain’s quarters and the lovely piece of calico that Melissa had given us, which I still slept on every night. But tempting as it was to dig my claws into these soft fabrics, I knew that they needed to be kept clean for delivery to New York and sale, so I resisted the urge. I remembered overhearing a conversation the captain had had with Moses one night, worrying over the cargo we were carrying:
“Without Mrs. Tibbs aboard, we’ll be lucky to get those cottons to the States in one piece. Those rats below will tear through and make their nests in no time,” the captain said, shaking his head.
“Not if young Jacob has a go at ’em,” Moses said optimistically, and looked up from where he was at work changing the captain’s bandages. “I think he’ll make a fine mouser—you’ll see.” The captain gave me a sad look, and I could tell he wished that Moses’s words would make it true.
Looking at the huge bolts of cloth, I understood now the captain’s worries. The cotton would make a lovely home for any animal—cat or rat—and it was my job to keep it safe and whole. I climbed up a roll, front paws latching into the cotton but gently, as to not leave tears, and made my way to the top roll of fabric on the pile.
I walked its length and made a quick inspection—the cloth still looked whole and unsullied. But the smell I had picked up along the bottom rolls left me worried. Were rats nesting there, tearing into the fabric and making it their own? I decided that this was where I must stand vigil and wait for the vermin to make their mistake.
I got my wits about me and leapt down to one of the large wooden crates placed tight up against the bolts of cloth. I landed, front paws first, and sniffed the crate’s strange, metallic smell. These crates were positioned to hold the large bolts of cloth in place (for otherwise they would roll about the boat), but they also contained goods that we were bringing to America—muskets with black barrels and large pistols, along with the gunpowder to work them. The muskets were packed ten and twenty to a crate, and we had almost three hundred aboard.
Other crates were carrying mail and packages that people from Liverpool and surrounding towns wanted sent to the Americas. I had heard the sailors talking about the Melissa Rae as a “packet” ship, meaning that she was hired to carry packages across the Atlantic. And she did. In fact, until the captain sold his boat to Archer’s Shipping Company, he had set his own sailing schedule. He’d been free to leave port when he wanted to, when his ship was full, to make as much or as little as he desired on each trip. But as part of the Archer line, he would leave when the company scheduled a departure, whether the hold was full or not. From the looks of things below, the ship would make quite a profit on this trip—and that would be increased depending on how quickly we made the crossing. Being a dependable and fast ship meant more money for the company and a bonus for the captain, which he would share with his sailors. In essence, the captain was racing against himself and the Melissa Rae’s best time across—always striving for faster, and to arrive with unsullied goods.
We were also carrying lead and iron, things that were made in England and were needed in America. There were two tons of lead in small bars and thousands of copper rods on board. The crates containing these were heavy, and once they were loaded to, they would not move again—no matter how strong a storm or gale we weathered—until we reached the shore.
At dinner one night I had heard Chippy complaining that this type of shipment weighed the Melissa Rae down—that we would not make our time and the bonus was out of reach. After Chippy left the galley that night, Archer called him a “packet rat”—a not-very-nice name for a sailor who usually hires out to work on packets. From what I’d heard, packet rats were rough and dirty men who cared for little aside from making a profit—they showed no loyalty. I knew Chippy to be a harsh fellow, but he was no packet rat. The only rats on this ship were right here in the hold with me.
I hunkered down atop the crate and kept my eyes wide, to take in what little light made its way down to the hold. As I waited, my mind began to drift to odd things, and I found myself wondering about rats’ eyes—could the hideous creatures see in the dark as well? They must, if they chose to live in the hold, I reasoned. This was what I was mulling when I spied a dark creature moving on the wooden planks near the bottom of the pile of cloth rolls. He would walk a few steps, then stop and sniff the air, walk a bit more, then do the same, putting his pointed nose up, his whiskers twitching. Had he picked up my scent as I had his?
I backed away from the edge of the crate so that he could not see me, but kept him in my own vision. As he neared the roll of cloth, I crouched down; my body seemed to know instinctively what to do. I readied myself to leap, the muscles in my haunches twitching. Then my back legs launched me, and all at once I was in the air, then atop the rat himself! I jumped back, perhaps as surprised and frightened as the rat was—now what would come of this?
The rat retreated, easing toward the tunnel in the cloth as I stalked forward. If he went into the hole, I would not follow him, for I was too afraid of the dark, confined space and the rat’s horrible teeth, which he showed me now with a wet hiss as his thin, furless tail slashed the air behind him like a whip. Could this be, I wondered, the same rat from the galley? If so, this gray monster looked even bigger now than he had before, and perhaps I, too, looked larger to him, as the soup Moses had been sneaking to me had helped me to fill out a bit.
I stealthily put one paw in front of the other, slowly making my way toward the rat; our eyes were locked in a hatred that made the hair on my back stand up straight. As I crept forward, keeping my belly low to the ground, I heard a low, deep growl escape my throat that I had never heard myself make before—it scared even me! But for every step I took, he took another one, moving backward toward his escape.
I readied myself again, coiling up all my energy into my haunches, then pounced—I had him! His head was beneath my paw, and his fat belly rolled upright, exposed for my teeth to sink into. Before I could even think what to do next, I felt a tug at my leg—he was snapping at me with his horrible teeth, trying to bite. He opened his mouth wide to bite down, and I saw a patch of yellow and white fur—my own!—trapped in his giant teeth. I jerked away my paw, instinctively, before he could get hold of my leg, and bounded back. The rat jumped to his feet, now freed, and stared at me with his runny yellow eyes.
I stood stock-still and glared at my hated foe, and he returned my stare. He moved to circle around me, slowly sidestepping, and I did the same. Then he stopped and reversed direction, and so I followed, each of us mirroring the other, back and forth. Then something sounded behind me—a metal clink—and I turned to glance over my shoulder. A serious mistake. When I looked back round, I had missed my chance—the gray rat spun fast and disappeared into the roll of cotton cloth before I could move. It was over, my first fight: a draw.
I made my way to the top of the roll of fabric as soon as I knew he was gone, and counted my blessings. I licked the spot on my leg where he had torn a tuft of fur and found that it didn’t hurt much, though he’d left me with a round b
ald patch. My pride was far more wounded than my leg.
It took me a few moments to catch my breath and try to reason out what had happened. I should have leapt on him differently, holding his jaws closed as I made my attack. I should have used both paws. And if I had not been distracted by that sound—nothing more than the sailors putting down something metal on the deck overhead—perhaps I could have done him in. Next time, I told myself, I would know better, and things would be different.
I kept watch from the top of the roll of cloth for an hour, perhaps more, but no other rats came. Maybe they had heard or seen the fight with the Gray One and were staying away? I continued to run the fight over and over in my head as I lay there waiting, thinking about how I would do it differently if given the chance, until my tired body fell into a light nap and I rested.
When I awoke, it took a moment or two to remember where I was: sleeping atop a roll of cloth in the hold. I moved to stretch my legs out long, careful not to dig too deeply into the fabric with my claws, and to arch my back. I was at work straightening out my fur and whiskers before heading back up to deck when a quick shadow caught my eye—a rat below me! I crouched; my mind felt barely awake, but my body was ready to attack. This rat was not the same one—he was a bit smaller, quicker, and black instead of gray. But he, too, had that funny way of walking, then stopping to sniff the air. Maybe it was just when they got close to me that they sniffed about like this? The rat stopped just below where I perched and sniffed the air this way and that. Then he came up on his hind legs, his front legs raised, paws hanging down, and turned his head up, his whiskers and nose twitching. He turned to the right, and that’s when he laid his beady eyes upon me.
As his eyes locked on mine, I only had a moment to see fear in his little face before I leapt and was all at once atop him! I brought his body to the floor with a hard thump as I landed, his hindquarters held with my left paw and his face under my right. Without even thinking what to do, I brought my teeth down and bit into his belly. He let out a high-pitched sound, and I tasted something in my mouth—warm and salty. Blood. I lifted my head, standing over him as he squirmed under my paws, crying in pain. What now? He was still alive, and in terrible pain. How could I actually kill the beast? I didn’t want him to suffer as he was, but I was uncertain how to end it as he twisted this way and that.
