Bloody Jack: Being an Account of the Curious Adventures of Mary Jacky Faber, Ship's Boy bj-1

by L. A. Meyer

  I caught on right fast to the dancing and playing because I have this thing in me that loves to show off and be in the center of things. I try to fight it 'cause I know it's dangerous to The Deception, but I don't always succeed.

  A month or so after I made my pants, I wheedled some more cloth out of Deacon Dunne with the promise that I'd learn some Scripture by heart. This time I got a bit of blue cloth as well as the white and a length of white piping, and I made me a shirt. It's white with a drawstring on the bottom and a blue flap on the back, and I stitched the white piping around the outside edge of the blue flap, about an inch in, and then above that, on the bottom edge, I stitched in hms DOLPHIN in white thread.

  The whole outfit looks smart as new paint, and I prance about in it in front of the boys, who hoot and holler and swear they'd never be caught dead in such a rig, and the next time we Beat to Quarters for exercising the great guns, I wear my uniform. The officers dress up for Quarters and battle, I think, so why not me?

  When we first started doing the gunnery drills, we did them without firing the guns. We did them just to see how fast we could all get on station. It was a hopeless mess at first with everyone running into each other, but after a few weeks it all got worked out and everyone got to their spot lightning fast, even when the drill was in the middle of the night and everyone had to pile out of their hammocks in the dark. The Captain was satisfied, and the next drill, we knew we would really be firing the guns. I was all excited, but the first time the Captain yelled "Fire!" and I hit the drum, the tremendous crash of the full broadside sent me tumbling to the deck and my nose ended up between the Captain's black and shiny boots.

  "Looks like the crew still needs a bit a work, Mr. Haywood," says the Captain to the First Mate, both of 'em lookin' down their long noses at me lyin' there in disgrace.

  "Afraid so, Sir," says Mr. Haywood. At least the Captain don't kick me as I get up all red and shamefaced.

  But I'm used to the sound now, and today after we'd had a number of rolling broadsides (each gun fires in turn as the target comes into its range) and gun number twelve (Jaimy's gun, hooray!) blows the target barrel to pieces, the Captain looks satisfied with the performance of his crew, and we secure from Quarters. I go to leave the quarterdeck, but the Captain stops me.

  "What is your name, boy?" he asks, claspin' his hands behind him and rockin' back on his heels and peering at me quiverin' down below.

  "Faber, Sir," I quavers, thinkin' I'm gonna catch it for somethin', I don't know what but..."Jack Faber, ship's boy," I manages to gurgle.

  Please, Sir, no switches, please.

  "Well, Faber. You are well decked out. Where did you get the uniform?"

  "I made it, Sir."

  "Good work, then. It's good to see spirit and initiative in the low ranks. Especially in the lowest of ranks," he says, and then calls, "Mr. Haywood."

  "Sir?" says the First Mate, coming over to also tower over me.

  "The boy has made this uniform for himself. Issue out enough cloth for him to make uniforms for the ship's boys. How many are there?" he asks me.

  Six, Sir.

  "Very well," says the Captain. "Cloth for six uniforms. They will make very presentable sideboys when we make port. Make it so, Mr. Haywood."

  "Begging your pardon, Sir," says Mr. Haywood, looking at me as he would at an annoying kind of bug, "but the midshipmen usually are the..."

  "Make it so, Mr. Haywood," says the Captain evenly. "Our fine midshipmen will have to deal with it."

  So, for my troubles, I have received a commission from Lord Captain himself. Furthermore, I now know how our Captain feels toward our middies, and I tuck that away in a corner of my mind.

  Chapter 13

  "Hold still, Davy, I mean it," says I, crossly. To drive home my point I bring my fist up with the measuring tape in measuring the inside of his leg for the trousers and gives him a whack where he don't want to be whacked. He howls and grabs himself and allows that he always thought I was one of the sods the Professor was talkin' about today, and this was proof in front of God and everybody.

  Mr. Tilden's words for today were buggery, sodomy, and pederasty.

  "I give you these words only to protect you from the sin, the Sin That Dare Not Speak Its Name," he said, his mouth set primly, and then he commenced to tell us, in detail, what the words meant. "Now, you boys don't get caught in any situation like that. A pure mind in a pure body. Stay away from dark places. It's a hanging offense, you know."

  Our mouths are hanging open speechless. Then the boys roar up and say they'd die before some cove did that to them. I am struck dumb. I am completely amazed and disgusted.

  I may yet be hanged, thinks I, but it will not be for that.

  "So watch yerself, sodomite," says Davy, as I again bring my tape to bear, and I, of course, have to follow that with a burst of my best and vilest curses to keep up my standing as a true lad.

  It's funny about Davy and me—we look so much alike, sandy hair and pointy noses and chins, we could be brother and sister. Which is probably why we fight so much. More than once the others have said, "Why don't you two just shut up?" or "Stop with the bickerin' or we'll drop you both over the side."

  We are up in the foretop and I am measuring the boys for their new uniforms and they are fidgeting around more than usual. I think they're a little resentful that I caught the eye of the Captain. Let 'em be jealous, thinks I, there's more than one way to promotion and pay, not just in the brave swinging of swords and in the hacking and hewing of your fellow man.

  The cloth for the uniforms is in a neat pile in our kip, waiting to be measured and cut up. I went and got it this morning with Benjy 'cause he wanted to see what was down there. He stood gawking at all the cloth and ribbons and other fine things on the shelves in the small stores room, while I dealt with the Deacon.

  "So. Eighteen yards of white duck, three yards of blue, fifteen feet of white piping, spool of white thread, spool of blue thread, two needles, one piece chalk. Is that correct, Faber?" Deacon Dunne looks over the top of his spectacles at me.

  "Yes, Sir, it is."

  Deacon Dunne checks a ledger and scrawls some figures on his slate. Then he looks at me with suspicion. "For your last foray into sartorial splendor you needed three yards white duck, one half yard blue, and thirty inches of piping in total. Am I again correct?"

  "Yes, Sir. As I recall."

  "Well, then, according to simple arithmetic, you are trying to swindle His Majesty out of four yards of cloth and thirty inches of piping, because you already have a uniform and we only need cloth for five."

  "The Captain said six, Sir."

  "Cloth for five uniforms," says the Deacon, firmly. He writes in his ledger.

  "It isn't fair, Sir," I says. "I already paid for mine and it isn't fair." I sulks for a moment. "Shall I tell the Captain you've changed his order, then?"

  Instantly, I regrets my cheek.

  "Shall you relieve yourself of your pants and bend across that bench while I give you several dozen, then?" hisses the Deacon, holding aloft his metal yardstick, which would be a very serviceable switch. "Shall I, then, you insolent young pup?"

  "Oh no, Sir!" I bleats, falling to my knees and hanging my head and cursing myself for my stupidity. Out of the corner of my eye I see Benjy lookin' wary and easin' away from the bench I may be stretched across, as he don't want to be included. I clasps me hands 'neath me chin and looks up at the Deacon with me best street-orphan-supplicatin'-teary-eyed look and cries, "Beggin' yer pardon, Sir! I didn't mean it! Please, Sir, no switches. Five uniforms it is, Sir!"

  ***

  "You should have seen our brave Jack down on his knees before the Deacon," crows Benjy when we're back up aloft. He falls to his own knees and mimics my craven performance. "Please, Sir, please don't make me drop me drawers and bend over that horrid bench, Sir!" My so-called mates are all laughing and rolling around holding their sides.

  "Pleadin' for his life over a simple switchin', he
was!" Benjy plows on. "Like he was bein' lashed to the grating for a proper lashin' with the Cat-O'-Nine-Tails like poor Miller last week. And a bloody mess he was, but he didn't cry out, no he didn't, he took it till he passed out, he did."

  Yes, he did, and I had to beat the drum for it, when the call went out for All Hands to Witness Punishment, and I had to watch 'cause I had to know when the flogging was about to start so as to start the drumroll, and when to stop it when it was done, and it was all I could do to keep from throwing up on my drumhead.

  The lads all jeer and hoot at me for my cowardice, but I don't care 'cause I seen Davy and Tink get theirs before and they howled and cried and begged for mercy, just like me. I'd rather beg my way out of a beating than actually take it. If that makes me a coward, then so be it. I never was very brave, anyhow.

  The Deacon let me out of the switching and he credited me back the cost of my uniform, so it all worked out. 'Cept now I got to learn another fifty lines of Scripture. I'll be a bleedin' preacher, I will, before I get off this barky.

  I don't hold it against the boys, though, all their teasing and stuff, 'cause they don't know about The Deception and all.

  Maybe I would be braver if I was an actual boy and wasn't so worried about discovery.

  The Deception

  I've done some thinking on why I've been getting away with The Deception so far.

  In the first place, men and boys are used to thinking of females as all pink and white and powdered up. I, however, am tanned brown as a nut, at least the parts of me that show, which is my face, neck, arms, and legs to my knees. I've been rolling my pants up over my knees 'cause it's hot. My shins are just as scratched and scabbed as any of the boys.

  In the second place, I read a lot. I always have a book in the kip and I have one next to me right now in the foretop, An Account of a Voyage to the South Seas by a Captain Cook, and girls ain't expected to be scholars. They're never sent to school, at least the poor ones ain't, and the rich ones only sometimes. So someone sees a person reading a book, they think boy.

  Third, as I have just shown, I can curse as well as any sailor. The fact that I don't know what most of what I say really means don't seem to matter.

  Fourth, I keep my hair cut as close to my head as I can get it. The lads are all letting their hair grow into the long pigtails like the other swabs, but not me.

  Fifth, I have a thin sharp face. I'm not at all round-faced and girlish, and my lips are thin, not pouty like Polly's and Judy's and Nancy's and Emily's before she died, back in London. They all looked like girls from the day they were born and could never have passed as a boy for a minute, but not me. What that means for how I'll look as a lady, I don't know. Will anyone fancy me? There's a mirror that's hung up at the foot of the foremast, for the men to use for shaving, and I stare at my face in it for a long time. Is there anything in this face for a boy to admire? Davy once pointed me out to another sailor, who was looking for me to assign to a work detail, as "that rat-faced little runt over there." Rat-faced? It's true my nose is more pointed than most, and if I put the palms of my hands to my face it is rather thin, sort of like an axe blade. But rat-faced? Is it because I'm so plain that I'm getting away with The Deception? I don't know. Would Jaimy fancy me if he knew? I hope so, but maybe ... I don't know.

  I like the sewing. Its simple nature, the same thing over and over, soothes my mind. Plus, when I'm finally put off the ship, which must happen some day, I'll have something I can do to pay my way. Maybe playing the whistle, too, with a cup in front of me. I wonder how Arabs feel about girls playing pennywhistles on street corners.

  I've done now with measuring Davy and Tink and Willy, and now I'm doing Benjy. While I'm putting the tape to him, I'm thinking about yesterday and how it was Sunday and we had the singing and dancing in the afternoon. It was going to be my first time playing the whistle in front of the crew, and I'm dreadful scared and nervous, but Liam says to just go out and do it, lad, and Snag says, "Lets have a tune, Jack-o," and so I goes out and begins "The Tenpenny Bit" 'cause it's the easiest. I don't play it good at first, but then I warms up and it starts to sound good and Sanderson gets up and starts dancin' and soon some others and Liam joins in with his concertina, and it's all grand. Then they clap and whistle when we're done with that tune, and I loves the clappin' and we plays the other dance tunes I know and others are playing fifes and whistles and even a fiddle, and I puts down me whistle and starts to dance a jig in the Irish fashion and there's more whistlin' and clappin' and singin' and more songs and more dancin' and when it's over and I heads for the passageway to the kip, all sweaty and flushed and happy, Sloat grabs me by the arm and pulls me aside in the dimness.

  "Ain't you just every man's darlin' now, Jacky?" he whispers, his breath hot on my cheek. "Darlin' Sportin' Jacky, the pretty little sailor boy."

  I tries to jerk my arm away and run, but he holds me fast. His eyes are wild and feverish and they bore into mine.

  "We'll have to set down for a talk some day, won't we, Jacky?" he says. "A nice long talk, just you and me."

  With that, he loosens his grip and I runs off, but not before he gives me a slap on my backside.

  "Soon, Jacky, soon," he promises, laughin' low.

  I gets back to the kip all shaky and breathless and my skin's all crawly and shudders run through me and I wish I could take a bath. I curse myself for all the showin' off. I must be more careful or I will dance my own destruction.

  I'm measuring Benjy's shoulders and the boys are again bragging about how they pities the poor foolish pirate who dares to take up arms against the Brotherhood. They're waving their pretend swords around, cutting and slashing and parrying and thrusting. Just abaft of the mizzenmast is a rack with hundreds of cutlasses in it, but they are locked through their hilts with a long chain and the Master-at-Arms is the only one with a key. A good thing, too, otherwise the idiots would be hacking at each other for real.

  Jaimy's talking about how fine it would be to be an officer on a man-of-war, and the others agree that there's nothin' better in the world than to be a man-of-war's man, officer or seaman, but I speaks up with, "Wouldn't it be far better to have a merchant ship and you could get rich by taking stuff from a place what's got a lot of that stuff and taking it to a place where they ain't got a lot of that stuff and would be grateful for it? In doing it you'd be sailing around the world and you'd get your Bombay Rat and your Cathay Cat and you'd see the Kangaroo and have your adventures, instead of swashbuckling about, trying to blow the head off another poor mother's son.

  "Wouldn't that be just prime?" I sighs.

  They all snort and jeer and tell me I'd just be carrying coals to Newcastle and I say, "If Newcastle wants coals, I'll haul 'em," and they jeer and say, "That's where coals come from, ye twit," and I say, "I don't care if it's fish heads, a cargo is a cargo," and I will increase and prosper, they'll see.

  Now I get to measure Jaimy.

  Chapter 14

  Nothing else matters now, because I am dying. Everything was going along fine. The uniforms are almost done. I've been staying out of Bliffil's way. I've avoided Sloat's evil eye. The music is a joy to me heart. I love the boys of the Brotherhood. I'm learning lots about navigation and science and arithmetic. I am happy with my station in life. All that doesn't matter now because I'm dyin' of some horrible disease and it will soon all be over.

  Two days ago I started to bleed. Down there.

  It's lucky I had me drawers on or I'd been discovered right then for sure, taken to the doctor and found out, and then put off on shore amongst the Arabs, to die without a friend. At least here I'll die among me mates.

  I thought at first that I had snagged myself on something, but no, that warn't it. I took myself down to the hidey-hole where I takes care of necessary things, and I cleans myself up and washes out my drawers. I rips up the smaller of my two old shifts and takes a strip of it and runs it between my legs and takes another strip and ties it around my back and belly holdin' the first
strip in place, and then I pulls the drawers back on wet 'cause I can't have 'em hanging out to dry with the fake cod on it and all. Then I heads back to the light.

  This has set up a powerful worry in my head and I been mopin' around all down in the face. I can't think of nothin' else.

  "C'mon, Jacky, cheer up," says Davy kindly. "Things could be worse."

  Easy for you to say, Mate, when you're not dyin of some awful plague, your insides turnin to mush and runnin' out of ye. But I just say that I'm not feelin' good, so sod off and let me alone.

  I know it's my insides what are turnin' on me 'cause me belly hurts, too. I've gone down to look through the Professor's books but couldn't find nothin' that spoke to my condition. The Doctor's books are all in Latin, so they're no good, neither.

  "Just don't give it to me," says Davy.

  Nor bloody likely, Mate.

  It's the third day of The Problem and I am weary of the worry. I decide what I'll do if it don't stop is wait till I'm weak with the loss of blood and then go see the Doctor and beg to be put off in some decent port 'cause ain't I been good and done my work and all and made the uniforms and never been switched? The Doctor ain't a very warm type and would probably just want to drop me over the side, but it'd be the Captain's call and maybe he'd be kind. It is a plan and I feel better for having a plan.

  The talk among the sailors is that we're low on water as it hasn't rained in months and so we'll have to make port soon. That would be good for me, since we wouldn't be going to an Arab port for the water.