by L. A. Meyer
The Bo'sun sprays us off one last time to get rid of the soap and warns us to stay clean or next time he'll tie a line around our ankles and keelhaul us and won't that scrub our nasty little hides clean, bouncin' along the barnacle-covered bottom of the ship till we're pulled up on the other side, maybe drownded, maybe dead, maybe not, but bloody and clean for certain.
I grabs me bundle of clothes, holds it in front of me as if for warmth, and runs to a rope locker and gets on me pants. Then I walks back out and, more slowly, put on my shirt and vest.
I am not yet undone.
***
Then we have Church. They set up this box thing all covered with fancy rope work on the front edge of the quarterdeck, which is a raised deck at the rear end of the ship. The quarterdeck is where the Officer of the Watch stands, lookin' up at the set of the sails and givin' orders to the sailor at the huge wheel that steers the ship. That's also where the Captain and Master and wheelman are found during a fight. Me, too, I finds out later.
We all stand down below on the main deck. The weedy little clerk what was on the dock the first day turns out to be a preacher, too, and after a few songs and some prayers, he gets up behind the box and tells us what rascals we all are, and how Jesus wants us to turn to the right path, and I think as how I always turn to the path that will most likely get me out of a scrape and I hopes that's the path he means.
Then we have some more prayers, which are powerful deep and solemn, and then some more songs. I finds I knows some of the words from when my mother used to sing 'em, like "Praise God from Whom All Blessings Flow," so I sings them.
Then after the preacher steps down, the Captain steps up and reads the Articles of War, which lays out all the crimes we could be up to and how they're all punishable by death. Grim stuff, and I 'specially don't like the sound of some of them 'cause I think I could be guilty of them, and then I thinks of poor Mary Townsend and the hangman on her shoulders and I thinks it'd be the Bo'sun on my shoulders and then I tries not to think of that no more.
Chapter 9
The Dolphin
Sir, HMS Dolphin is a forty-four-gun frigate and a man-of-war in His Britannic Majesty's Royal Navy! She is two hundred and four feet in length and is forty-three feet wide at the beam. She carries twenty twenty-four-pound guns on either side and two nine-pound guns forward and two aft! She can carry provisions for four hundred and seventy-five men for one full year, and her present complement is four hundred and five officers and men! HMS Dolphin is commanded by Captain Stephen Locke, Sir! God Save the Ship, God Save the Service, and God Save the King!"
I have been told to memorize this.
My Duties
I am ready to do my duty, but I finds out it ain't just one duty, it's a lot of 'em, each accordin' to the situation. What the ship is doin', like.
If it's just regular sailin', I helps out Mr. Tilden, the Professor, whose job it is to teach the midshipmen—which are apprentice officers—like, in readin' and arithmetic and science and the classics, whatever they are. In helpin' Professor Tilly, as everyone is soon callin' him, but not to his face, I sets up the table in the morning with the writin' slabs and chalks and gets the midshipmen somefhin' when they wants it durin' class, like water and such, and I cleans up after they leaves, and they generally leaves a mess, the pigs.
The Professor tells me another of my jobs is to clean up me ... my way of speaking. He says a lad what can ... who can read as well as me shouldn't talk like a guttersnipe, so I resolve to clean up my mouth. I find it's almost easy to talk in the right way, as that's the way we did it in our rooms before That Dark Day, and I only picked up the other way of talking later with the gang, who I hope are all right, guttersnipes or not. I notice, though, that I fall back into the street way of talkin' and thinkin' if I'm excited or fearful, which is a lot of the time. Which way will win out when I grow to be a lady—if I grow to be a lady—I don't know.
I also have other chores, like helpin' with the morning scrubbin' of the decks, which is almost fun, all of us grindin' down the decks with the holystones and sand and makin' them gleam all white and new, and cleanin' the head, which ain't fun at all. Then, too, Benjy and I, being smallest, got to crawl down in the big cooking cauldrons after the feedings to clean them out with scrapers and it's powerful suffocatin' work, since we're headin' south and it gets warmer every day. But we manage to pick up a bit of extra grub from the cook for our trouble, so it ain't so bad.
If we Beat to Quarters, which means we're gettin' ready to fight or practice at it, then I've got to do the beatin'. On the drum, that is, which I keep in the kip, and which I must run to as fast as I can when I hear the alarm. The other boys are all powder monkeys, which means they run back and forth durin' a battle carrying heavy sacks of gunpowder to the guns. Being the smallest, I get the drum, which is fine with me. I put on the drum with leather straps what go 'round my shoulders so that the drum hangs at my waist and then beat upon it with these two sticks, which sets up a fine rum-tum-tum and tells all the men to get to their battle stations. The Bo'sun Mate's pipin' and his club help get them there, too. Whilst I'm doin' all this whackin' at the drum, I'm headin' for the quarterdeck where the Captain and First Mate and Master stand bellowin' out orders. Then I'm to stand in front of the Captain and, though I dread bein' so close to such awful majesty, I've got to look up at his face, and if he says, "Fire!" I've got to beat on the drum again as loud as I can so's the gunners'll know. Dreadful scary stuff, but I like it, in a way. There's a show-off part of my nature that comes out when I'm in the center of things, and I know I must try to control it for the sake of The Deception, but sometimes it runs away with me.
In all the other special happenin's, like pullin' up the anchor and gettin' the ship under way, I stay on the bridge, but when the call, "Away, the Boarding Party!" goes out, I'm to drop the drum and with every other man on the ship, 'cept for the Captain, wheelman, and Master, grab a cutlass from the rack and get ready to jump across to the enemy ship that we're pullin' up next to and take her by force of arms.
I'm hopin' we meets a timid sort of enemy.
The Watches
In addition to everyone's daily duties, we stand watches, one in three, which means that one third of the entire crew—officers and men and boys—is up on deck throughout the day and night, ready to fight or handle what else might come along till the rest of the crew is rousted out of their hammocks or from their daily work to help 'em. I don't mean people like Tilly or the doctor or the deacon, no, they get to sleep through the night, the sods, I mean the regular officers and seamen. And ship's boys.
The Captain don't stand watches, neither, but his cabin's right below the quarterdeck and there's a shiny brass speakin' tube right next to the wheel that goes down to above his sleepin' head, and if the Officer of the Watch calls down to him with somethin' on his mind, the Captain is up on the deck in a moment, his nightgown and nightcap blowin' in the wind. The Officer of the Watch had better have a good reason to call him, though, as the Captain's mood don't improve with bein' awakened out of a sound sleep, I've noticed.
The watches rotate, like one night I'll have the Evenin' Watch, which is eight o'clock in the evenin' to midnight, and the next night I'll have the Midwatch, which is midnight to four in the mornin', and the next night it'll be the Four to Eight in the mornin'. I stand my watches back by the quarterdeck and my job is usually fetchin' coffee and food for the Officer of the Watch and wakin' up people and runnin' any errands that need to be run.
Jaimy and I are in the same watch section, I made sure of that with a little cajolin' of the Master-at-Arms who's in charge of who's in what watches, and sometimes we meet and talk and sometimes we just sit there and watch the stars wheeling about the heavens. I like that a lot, I do.
The Midshipmen
The midshipmen are a sorry lot. There are ten of them and they are some of them the sons of Royal Navy officers that the Captain has taken on as a favor to teach them the ways of the Service and the sea
, and they are some of them the sons of rich men who have bought their sons a place aboard. One such is Midshipman Bliffil, and he is the reason they are a sorry lot, as from the first day out he has bullied them without mercy, and their spirits suffer. He is the oldest of them and he's big and not bad to look upon, handsome even, if not for the cruelty in his eyes and the sneer that's always on his lips except when he's toadyin' up to the officers. He is brutal as a sledgehammer, and I'm afraid of him and I try to steer clear of him. Bliffil rides them all, but he 'specially torments Mr. Jenkins, the one next senior to him. Poor Mr. Jenkins seems helpless before him.
To us, though—ship's boy or Able-bodied Seaman—the midshipmen are officers and they command divisions throughout the ship, and we must knuckle our brows to them and obey their every command, even though some of them are not yet twelve. If they hit us, we must take it, and not even raise a hand in our own defense.
My Sea Dad
All the ship's boys and all the midshipmen get with an experienced sailor to teach them the things they need to know, like how to splice a line (Davy didn't know, the liar) and how to tie the knots and how to sew and mend and row and sail the small boats we have aboard. These sailors ain't exactly told to do this teachin', it's more chancy than that. Like if a man is the sort that likes to teach what he knows, well, us young ones can sense that and we drift together. The Royal Navy smiles on this way of teachin' 'cause it figures that if we're around long enough we might grow up into Able-bodied Seamen and be able to replace the poor sod what's just had his head blown off and ain't able bodied no more.
In my usual connivin' way, I seeks out Liam, the sailor from Ireland who was nice to me that first day, and he seems willin'.
"Liam Delaney, a name that won't shame me," he sings as he guides my clumsy fingers over the rough rope—"Line, Jacky, line. It's line when it's runnin' loose, it's rope when it's coiled up and put away. Makes perfect sense"—showin' me how to separate the strands with a marlinespike and how to weave them together in a splice or a bight. I get it, but I'm better with the needle and thread.
Liam is tall and strong and he has a lilty way of talkin'. His hair is as black as the coal. He plays the pennywhistle and has given me one and is teachin' me to play it, but I'll never be able to play it as good as him.
"Black Irish, I am," he says proudly. "My ancestor was some poor Spanish sailor, one of the many what washed ashore after the Armada was beat and wrecked and our Irish girls took them to their hearts and their beds, bless 'em, and here I am today." Some of the sailors hangin' about smirk, like they'd like to offer a comment on Irish girls and their beds, but a look from Liam warns them off. He's known as a willin' and fearsome fighter.
"Ah, yes," he says wistfully, "we Irish have always been kind to strangers, we have, and not always for the better for us."
The Officers and Men
The Captain is Captain Locke and the First Mate is Lieutenant Haywood and the Second Mate is Lieutenant Lawrence. The Sailing Master is Mr. Greenshaw and the Gunner's Mate is Mr. Stanford. Beyond that I don't know right now as there are many more officers and mates but I can't even name them as they have very little to do with me. We've even got Marines with their grand bright red uniforms, who stand about stiffly guardin' things and sweatin' in the heat in their high collars.
There are four hundred and five seamen and boys aboard and they are a mixed bunch. Most are English, of course, with a lot of Scots and Irish and Welsh and Americans thrown in, but there are also some Italians and Portuguese and even some black men, the first I'd ever seen. They don't look at all like the cartoons of 'em in the newspapers back in London. I suppose I must have been starin' at the one with the fierce tattoos all over his chest and arms and face, tattoos that were raised like bumps, and he caught me at it and so he growls and bares his teeth at me, teeth which I'm shocked to see are sharpened to points, and I yelps and runs away, but I hear him laughin' as I leaves:
"Be careful when you stare at the lion, boy. He may charm you and eat you."
Most of the men aboard are good-natured, some silent, some solemn, and some free and easy. But some are scary, too, of course, there being so many men aboard and some are bound to be bad ones. One man 'specially gives me pause and makes me nervous. He's named Sloat, Bill Sloat, and I noticed him early on 'cause he always seemed to be lookin' hard at me, which seemed to me strange, as being a ship's boy I'm certainly of no account and not worth noticin'. But I'd be walkin' along and I'd turn a corner and there he'd be, smirkin' at me and sayin' things like, "Well, and if it's not our little Jacky," and, "Ain't you a fine little sailor boy then, Jacky." I thought at first that he was just bein' friendly, but no, I don't think that's it at all.
Sloat has long greasy black hair and a black beard with red in it and dead white skin, and you can be sure he was there at our hosin' down. I don't like him and neither do the other boys. He stares at them, too, but he keeps his evil eye 'specially on me, and when I find it fallin' on me, it takes all of the joy out of whatever I'm doin' and I slink away and hide. I think he knows that I'm in fear of him, and I think he likes it.
I tell Liam about him and Liam scowls and says that I'm to keep away from the likes of him and to stay out of dark corners and out-of-the-way places.
"Up in the riggin' in the sunlight is the safe place for a ship's boy, not crawlin' around down in the dark hold. You listen to your old sea dad, now."
Liam don't know it but I've already done some crawlin' around belowdecks, and I've found a few secret places where I can practice my whistle as it's not allowed above decks except on Sunday and how can I learn otherwise? And I got to have a place to wash up and do other stuff out of sight. I've got a right-little chamber pot rigged up so I don't have to use the head, but I still go to the head sometimes when I know there's no one in there and go up to the trough as if I'm properly rigged out to use it, and I wait till I hear someone trompin' in and then do the shake-and-wiggle action the boys do and cinch my pants and leave, havin' furthered The Deception.
I find I like bein' clean, and I keep after the others to hold up their end so we won't have a repeat of the hose-down humiliation. I don't miss the lice, either, even though I never ate 'em, like some did. Almost never.
***
It's not all work-and-learnin' on the ship. Us boys spend a lot of time climbing in the riggin', daring each other to go higher and higher and swingin' out over the abyss, the ship's deck so small down below. I think we're not yelled at 'cause they want us to get used to the scary heights for when it's our turn in later years to man the top. And if we fall to the deck or go over the side, well, what's one ship's boy, more or less?
There's singin' and dancin', too, on Sundays after Church and Inspection, with the great louts stompin' about and roar/in' out songs. Liam plays the squeeze box, too, and is much admired for his skill.
It's official now. We're off to the coast of North Africa to fight the Barbary pirates and protect fair England's merchant fleet, which sounds grand to me, but I am somewhat fearful of being there off the coast of the Barbary lands, 'cause if I'm discovered and put off into one of their ports, wouldn't I be made a slave right off?
Chapter 10
We ship's boys are all tight pals now. We lay about in the foretop together as much as we can, when our jobs are done and we're not on watch and we're not racin' around the rigging like demented monkeys. The foretop is a platform built high in the foremast, which is the mast in front, where the foretopmen climb up to when they got to change the sails. There is a little platform built on the mainmast, which on the Dolphin is the highest mast, and that's called the main top and then high above that is another, smaller platform called the crow's nest, and that's where the lookout stands, gazing out over the sea, looking for pirates and such.
Not for us, though, we stick to the foretop, which is big enough for the six of us and is our second kip, a club, like, where we're generally not bothered, being hidden by the sails billowing all around us. The officers and mi
dshipmen usually stick to the rear of the ship, so we're out of their sight and hearing, which is good, 'cause if they saw us lazing about they'd sure find something for us to do.
We sprawl about in the sun and talk. The boys talk about how brave they're going to be when we come upon some luckless pirate. Jaimy especially talks fierce about how he'll be the first across, and he waves a pretend sword and allows as how he'll be made an officer 'cause of his bravery, and Davy stands up with his pretend sword and they joyfully hack at each other. I reserve judgement on how brave I'll be in a fight, 'cause I don't think I'll be brave at all and I'm just hoping I don't disgrace myself.
Today after our duties, I'm sitting down with me shiv in my lap and I'm carving a rooster's head on the hilt of it in remembrance of Charlie whose shiv it was original. I borrowed the carving gouge from Liam, and I'm making the outline. I figure I'll rub some colors in later when I get 'em. We start talking about our old gangs and I'm tellin' 'em about Charlie and Hughie and the girls, when Tink pipes up with, "Me and me gang had a run in wi' Charlie Rooster's crew once ... I recalls a really big bloke and a bunch of girls throwin' rocks and red-haired Charlie, of course, but I don't recall you. Funny, that." Tink peers at me, curiouslike.
"That's 'cause I was up on Blackfriar's Bridge with a big rock ready to drop on your stupid head if you got any closer to our kip," says I, "and it would've been good riddance to the likes of you—and I wish I had done it."
