Little Jane Silver

by Adira Rotstein

  Of all the people who should have most minded the imposition of Villienne as magistrate, Long John, the unofficial president of the island, should have been foremost. Yet Long John actually felt a certain fondness for Villienne. He wondered if he was the only one who noticed how much the poor man looked the little boy lost.

  Sometimes, from his perch up on the porch of the Spyglass, Long John watched Villienne wandering the streets of town as if searching for some recognizable London landmark, a man nearly as skinny as his own shadow, with straw-coloured hair and a furtive pink face, cautiously trying to suggest an improvement here, a possible adjustment there. He seemed genuinely shamed by the stony silence that invariably met his hopeful suggestions that the people pay one or two taxes, if they maybe felt like it, not today, say, but perhaps tomorrow, or maybe next week. Idly, Long John wondered how much longer Villienne would soldier on. He couldn’t help but pity a fellow who appeared so out of his natural element.

  Of course, pity was the last thing a man in Villienne’s position wanted. Obedience? Yes. Respect? Certainly. Fear? Acceptable. But this demented politeness depressed him. At least if the people were angry with me, Villienne reasoned, it would mean my existence was of some consequence to their lives. But the rogues at the Spyglass just ignored him, which was ever so much worse.

  Sometimes he fantasized about kicking all the pirates out and repopulating the island afresh with some solid, law-abiding stock, Puritans perhaps, or some other group with an inordinate fondness for monochromatic clothing and silly hats.

  Realistically, though, he couldn’t banish the pirates. He had no army at his disposal — only his disapproving servants and Dovecoat’s former mistress and her two daughters. Besides, in one way or another, every job on Smuggler’s Bay was connected to piracy. To make war on the buccaneers would be to incite revolt and destroy the tiny island’s even tinier economy.

  And as much as he hated to admit it, he’d miss the stories at the Spyglass.

  So things stayed as they were. The islanders grumbled to Long John and Bonnie Mary about Villienne, and Villienne complained to his superiors in his letters, but nothing much changed.

  That night, Little Jane sat through another of her parents’ meandering discussions concerning the Villienne question, until her patience finally wore thin. “Stuff this Villienne person! What about letting me in on a boarding party!”

  “That’s the final straw!” said Bonnie Mary. “Go to bed!”

  Resentfully, Little Jane skulked away from the dinner table. But she did not retire to bed. Instead, she doubled back and headed to the small room off the kitchen that housed Ishiro, the ship’s cook. Other than Jonesy, Little Jane, and her parents, Ishiro was the only one with a permanent room at the inn. Jonesy called the room “Ishiro’s Cave,” and it did look something like one. Its dimensions were odd — a tiny square of a floor, only slightly bigger than Ishiro’s bedroll, high walls, and a ceiling on level with the ceiling of the Silvers’ own second-floor bedroom.

  Little Jane understood why Ishiro liked this place. Sitting on the bedroll, she felt like she was in a cozy cocoon. On all sides of her, in towering stacks, were Ishiro’s drawing books, paintings, and boxes of exotic objects. Souvenirs of nearly six decades of travel and adventure rose all the way up from the floor to the ceiling.

  Within those carefully stacked volumes, Ishiro had captured a portrait of every sailor who’d ever crewed on the Pieces of Eight, as well as the Newton, the Jeong Se-min, the Golden Fleece, and the Flying Squid.

  Pages fragile with age told of a youth spent in the fishing villages of Korea and Japan and the bustling ports of Hong Kong. Others showed Jane’s parents as young newlyweds and Little Jane herself as a drooling toddler.

  As far as she knew, there was no order to a book’s placement in the stacks. Even within the sketchbooks themselves, drawings were not strictly chronological. Taking care not to topple the stack, Little Jane extracted one and began paging through it.

  “Ahoy there, Little Jane,” Ishiro said as he entered the room. “What have you found today?”

  Little Jane held up a sketchbook for his inspection. “Aaah,” he said, and thumbed through the pages for her. People with black silken hair and dark eyes gazed back at her across the ages, while ships with curiously shaped sails plowed the waves of inky seas.

  “How do you make it all look so real?” Little Jane marvelled.

  “Observation,” said Ishiro, in his lightly accented English.

  “What?”

  “Study and practice, of course, but always I observe,” he replied. “I look closely at what I am drawing. I look at how others draw, too. And then … then I am learning.”

  “Oh.” That didn’t sound particularly difficult. Little Jane wondered if there was some other trick to it that Ishiro was keeping to himself.

  Suddenly, he stopped flipping through the drawings, his gaze arrested by a particular picture near the middle of the book.

  Little Jane got up, thinking it impolite to sit and watch his private reverie —although not, as you may have noticed, to enter his room without knocking or touch his personal possessions.

  “Where are you going?” asked Ishiro.

  “Sorry, you just looked like you were wanting a bit of a think to yourself.”

  “No, it’s all right. Here, take it,” he said, handing her the book. “I am thinking you may find this one interesting.”

  “Thank you,” she said and bowed to him politely, as he had taught her one did in Korea.

  The wind and rain rattling on the tin roof of the Spyglass hid the sound of her movements as she made her way back up to room she shared with her parents.

  As she ascended the narrow stairwell, sketchbook in hand, she pondered what Ishiro had said.

  Observation … that was the key. It was that simple.

  Upstairs in the bedroom she cleared her parents’ desk of all the assorted maps, compasses, and star charts. This task accomplished, Little Jane rummaged through her own belongings until she unearthed a small volume with the title “Exercise Book” printed untidily on the cover. Inside were her spelling exercises and a few illegible sums written in smudged ink. One by one she tore all the marked up pages out. At last, with nothing left but unmarked pages, she sat down to write.

  Pausing for a moment to collect her thoughts, she concocted a plan of action. She vowed to herself that when the sunny season came around again, she would scrutinize every action of her parents and the other crewmembers with the keenest observation ever attempted and thus decipher the secret of what it took to become a truly superior pirate. It was only a matter of time before the elusive secret of perfect piracy would be hers!

  Feeling suitably impressed with herself, she dipped her pen into the inkwell and with a bold hand gave an inspiring title to her prospective endeavours: “How To Be a Good Pirate.”

  Then she signed her name, Little Jane Silver, feeling most pleased with her penmanship. Only later did she realize she had left the “Little” in by force of habit.

  Less than a week later, with this book firmly in hand, Little Jane went off to sea with her parents aboard the Pieces of Eight, secure in her confidence that she would soon be counted among the best of the crew.

  Chapter 4

  “How to Be

  a Good Pirate”

  Bonnie Mary sat in the captains’ cabin staring at the star chart on the table in frustration. She’d tried every subtle trick in the book to get rid of the new magistrate, short of actually chasing him off with a loaded musket, but with no success. Without her husband’s silver tongue on her side, it was hopeless. The problem as she saw it was that Villienne seemed genuinely oblivious to almost everything she did. Threats went unnoticed, no matter how thinly veiled, and hints of bribery fell on ears more preoccupied with listening to the whales mating in the bay than to the clink of gold coins.

  Even her most recent scheme of posting handbills around the island luring all chemists in the area to gather in far
away Bermuda for a phony “International Conference on Sodium,” had failed. It was really quite exasperating. At long last they had been forced to sail, leaving the hapless magistrate still in possession of his position, much to her disappointment.

  While Bonnie Mary surveyed the ship’s star charts at her desk, Little Jane worked on “How to Be a Good Pirate.” Though she had intended to use the time to write up more observations, all she could think about that day was Ned Ronk, the ship’s boatswain. Quite by accident, she had acquired her first real enemy and now he threatened to derail all her best-laid plans.

  It was the boatswain’s job onboard to make sure the crew did what the captains asked of them. Thus positioned, Ned Ronk would have been the perfect person to teach Little Jane the elusive secret of superior piracy, but to her immense frustration, he would tell her nothing of the running of the ship, disregarding even her most basic inquiries. Then, when it became apparent that ignoring her would not stop her from asking him further questions, he barred her from the deck during all his shifts. Little Jane was furious.

  Ned Ronk had been with the Pieces of Eight for about four years. Under his rule the crew worked together like a well-oiled machine. Though his style may have been rougher than that of the previous boatswain, it was unquestionable that Ned Ronk got results. Crew discipline was at an all-time high, targets were being met, and the captains couldn’t be more pleased with the crew’s performance.

  For her part, however, Little Jane was not impressed. Even prior to her banishment from the deck, she had never liked the boatswain. The reasons for her contempt of him were difficult for her to articulate, but being small and unobtrusive, she saw things the captains did not. For instance, Ned Ronk would always smile and bow politely to the captains when they were present, but as soon as they were out of sight, he acted differently.

  Though Ned didn’t rely too heavily on the whip, he had other means at his disposal, equally cruel and cutting, for controlling the men. He delighted in tormenting anyone he considered beneath him, picking up on and exaggerating for the benefit of other crewmembers any imagined defect he noticed among them, mocking and embarrassing them into submission.

  Little Jane swore she couldn’t hear the lookout, Sharpova, cry “Land-ho” without hearing the echo of Ned mimicking the Russian’s accent, or watch Rufus, the cabin boy, swab the deck without recalling Ned laughing as he revealed to all how Rufus still slept with a photograph of his mother under his pillow.

  It had got to the point where every man was afraid to call the least bit of attention to himself for fear of drawing Ned’s mirth and being made to look ridiculous before his shipmates. Only the rougher, more bullying men of the crew, like Lobster and Cabrillo, truly enjoyed Ned’s company. The rest merely followed his orders with the resignation common to all those who live in fear.

  What could create such a canker of cynicism and negativity inside a person, and yet leave its host’s life unconsumed, Little Jane did not know. But what she did know, just as surely as she knew the sun rose in the east and set in the west, was that Ned did not like children.

  Actually, Ned Ronk detested children even more than Little Jane suspected. To his mind children were excitable, overly-enthusiastic little beasts, who wept if they scratched their knees and expected you to go into raptures if they picked a daisy. Children to him were like insect larva — necessary for the continuation of the species, but inherently weak, soft, and useless until they grew to a proper size. The affection otherwise reasonable adults had for things they deemed cute made no sense to him. The very words cute and childish set his teeth on edge. The best thing a child could do in his opinion was to keep quiet and stay out of an adult’s way. And yet, much to Ned’s exasperation, certain children (meaning Little Jane), failed to understand how a child ought to behave. These disgusting brats seemed to think their mere existence was a fact to be applauded. Any child who insisted on being not only seen, but heard as well, and heard often, annoyed him beyond all measure.

  Though his attitude was plain to Little Jane, it was infuriatingly unapparent to most adults. And so Ned Ronk continued on in her parents’ employ unhindered.

  However, some slights cannot be tolerated, even in the world of adults, even when disguised by polite manners and a proper outward appearance. And so it was that Ned Ronk’s reign of humiliation came to a rather sticky end fifteen days after the Pieces set sail.

  At first it did nothing but please Little Jane that she should be the instrument through which all those unfairly denigrated by Ned Ronk should observe his comeuppance. Later, though, she would come to seriously regret her involvement in the matter.

  It was a cloudy Tuesday when, lounging amid the coils of rope on the quarterdeck, Little Jane noticed two sailors playing dice. They were Lobster and Tonqui, who, along with Cabrillo the caulker, happened to be Ned’s closest mates onboard. Sometimes they would take to bullying crewmembers in Ned’s stead. This did not bother Ned. In fact, it seemed to amuse him, and he often turned a blind eye to their transgressions.

  After a few minutes, Ned and Cabrillo arrived to join the game, cups of grog in hand. At first Ned only listened. Lobster talked, as he often did, of lobsters. With great patience he tried to explain to Cabrillo and Tonqui the difference between shedders and hard-shell lobsters, but seeing they had no interest in this stimulating topic, conversation gradually turned to other things. Lobster, Tonqui, and Cabrillo soon fell to talking less and less, leaving Ned to dominate the discussion, as usual.

  “Whoever heard of a respectable ship with two captains!” scoffed Ned Ronk. “And while we’re at it, whoever heard tell of a female captain at all! I tells you, mates — I tells you ’cause I truly care about the dignity of this here crew — that we’re the laughingstock of every port from Tortugua to Tokyo, we are!”

  Little Jane’s ears perked at these words, insolent as they were. She listened as they talked of Captains Silver and Bright — although that was not what Ned called them, dismissively referring to his superiors as “that feeble old cripple” and “his harpy cow.” Cabrillo had only just muttered a faint protest at this comment when Ned Ronk spotted Little Jane hiding in the rope pile. Ned started to say something to her, but she was too frightened of him to stay and listen. She leapt up like a shot and was in the hold quicker than Ned or his mates could get to her.

  There was little question how word of Ned’s speech reached the ears of the captains that night.

  Bonnie Mary and Long John were never great proponents of flogging compared to other pirate captains. Even the most experienced sailor made a mistake or ran a little lazy now and again they figured, with no ill feeling toward captain or disrespect for ship intended.

  But Ned’s talk was malicious, pure and simple, and they had seen the bloody results of such idle chatter when left unchecked on other vessels. There were reasons sailors were superstitious about speaking the word mutiny out loud on a ship, even in jest. Although he might be the gentlest of God’s creatures by nature, a ship’s captain could ill afford to show weakness, a fact that went double for a captain who happened to be a woman or one suspected of any sort of fragility of person.

  Usually it was the boatswain who did the flogging aboard ship, but in this case the dubious honour fell to Bonnie Mary and Long John themselves.

  In a well-calculated display for the crew, Ned Ronk was tied up with his face to the mizzen-mast and the charge of “mutinous speech” read. If any crewman still dared to think of Captain Silver as a “feeble cripple,” or Bonnie Mary as a “harpy cow,” the ability to stand in sweltering heat engaged in the exhausting business of thoroughly whipping the tar out of a man, certainly put those theories to rest.

  Little Jane had thought that it would please her to see Ned Ronk brought low and shamed before his mates. She had not truly believed such a despicable person could have feelings like other people. Certainly, she had not expected him to cry. But cry he did, and in such a piteous manner that Little Jane had to keep herself from yel
ling out “Stop!” as the whipping continued. She did not know how her parents could take it.

  It seemed to take forever, but eventually the flogging was over. Lancashire and Sharpova took the boatswain down below to tend to his wounds. Tonqui, Cabrillo, and Lobster were forbidden to associate with him until they arrived in Habana.

  Even with Ned out of sight, Little Jane still felt squeamish. There was even more for her to worry about now. How would she ever protect herself from the boatswain’s revenge?

  The day after the flogging, Little Jane spent a fruitful morning following Long John around, taking notes for “How to Be a Good Pirate.” By this time Little Jane had already filled a quarter of the exercise book and was still going strong.

  As she walked, she listened to commands like “Raise the mizzen-mast! Tighten the topsail! Schooner off the port bow!” and “Look lively!” delivered by Long John in a booming voice like the crack of thunder.

  She noted “cuss and shout a lot” as a tip to her future self.

  Dutifully she practised yelling out various nautical phrases in the privacy of her parents’ cabin, pleased to hear how naturally they tripped off her tongue with the booming pitch necessary for an aspiring young captain. Brimming with confidence, she now awaited the perfect moment to demonstrate her newfound ability.

  One morning, while Bonnie Mary was off studying the star charts, Little Jane noticed her father slip away to the ship’s head. The coast was clear.

  Throwing caution to the wind, Little Jane shouted at the pilot: “North to starboard! Starboard to the wedgeward side! Hoist the te’gallant scuppers! Loosen up the rear admiral sheets! Dolphin catcher spars at ready! Look lively now!”

  Much to her surprise, though, outside the four walls of the captains’ cabin, out on the wide deck, with the sounds of the open sea, her voice was far from booming. Instead, it sounded thin and piping, and whatever little sense there was in what she said was whipped away by the strength of the wind.