Little Jane Silver

by Adira Rotstein

  Then, with Melvin clutched tightly in her arms Little Jane stood trembling before the railing.

  It’s now or never.

  She closed her eyes and jumped from the top of the railing, plummeting with breathtaking speed toward the plane of grey water below, Melvin pressed to her chest.

  Little Jane hit the ocean hard. As quickly as she could, she popped her head out of the drink, stinging all over her body, struggling and spluttering seawater from her nose and mouth. Her head swam with confusion as she tried to tread water and keep her grip on Melvin at the same time.

  Where was the boat? Where was Ishiro?

  The waves slapped her nonchalantly in the face, uncaring whether she sank or swam. The water churned below her, the burning ship loomed above, streaking the sky with fire. She tried to get away from it, but only managed to swallow more foul-tasting seawater. Much as she might struggle, she was slowly being sucked under.

  Suddenly a pair of strong hands grasped her under the arms and hauled her up. She made it over the gunwales and flopped like a half-dead fish in the bottom of the boat. Coughing up sea water and dripping wet, she turned to look at Ishiro. His face was as grey as the sea below and stamped with pain.

  “Are you all right?” he asked her.

  She nodded. Funny, she had been about to ask him the same thing.

  But now all their remaining energy was bent on getting the cutter away safely. Already, Little Jane noticed a pool of seawater collecting at her feet, despite Ishiro’s attempts to plug the hole with part of their tarp and a broken oar.

  Luckily, the cutter’s small sails were undamaged. As they caught the wind, the tiny boat bobbed away, the clouds of smoke from the burning ship helping to render the craft invisible to the great guns of the Panacea.

  A steady breeze rose up to bear them along and a gentle fog closed in. But before the fog could obscure the view completely, Little Jane glanced back to see the ship that had been her home, one last time. It glowed, a tiny light in the distance, like a faraway match aflame.

  Chapter 13

  The Pieces of Eight Aflame

  At first St. George, the elderly gunner of the Panacea, had been hesitant to try out the new-fangled exploding cannonballs, but in the end, the desire to see a ship spontaneously combust before his eyes won out over caution.

  Much to his delight, the new shells proved their weight in gold, setting the entire ship aflame in record time.

  Desperate crewmembers jumped off the Pieces onto the Panacea wherever the decks of the two ships came close to touching. It was hard to do, because the Panacea was trying to stay clear of the burning ship. Luckily, most of the Pieces’s crew had already been taken.

  Most … but not all.

  Bonnie Mary dodged a mast as it struck the deck of the Pieces, causing a new series of flames to leap up. She hurled a bucket of water at them, but the Pieces of Eight continued to crackle and burn all around her in shapes of orange and red. Still, she could find neither Little Jane nor Jim.

  “Jim!” Bonnie Mary screamed out for her husband, and the black smoke flew into her nostrils and down her throat. “Jane!” she screamed but the smoke stole her voice from out of her chest and her tears evaporated in the hot air.

  With rapidly blurring sight she saw everything around her catch fire — the boards beneath her, the sails above her, the air and the sky. Her lungs and her eyes felt like they were burning.

  “Mary!” she heard the distant voice of Jim somewhere far away, although she couldn’t be sure where he was or what he was saying.

  Long John stood hidden by the thick smoke on the deck of the Panacea, shouting, “MARY! My wife, you fools! Get the hoses on her! You blasted imbeciles! Unhand me! I have to help her!”

  “Ahoy! Put the fire out there!” a voice finally shouted from the Panacea. “It’s their other captain, that Bright woman!”

  “Get the Bright woman! Get the woman!”

  “Watch it!”

  Suddenly, Bonnie Mary was hit by a fist of water, a massive blast knocking her clear off her feet. She choked on more smoke, a byproduct of the quenched fire, and sank, weak-kneed to the deck. For a second she flirted with the edge of blissful unconsciousness, floating dots dancing in the corners of her vision, and then—

  Her senses slammed back into her as a rough hand grabbed her by the arm.

  Salt water rose up hot in her throat, violently spewing forth upon her captor, who let loose a string of oaths at the defacement of his favourite pair of boots.

  Where were Jim and Jane?

  She writhed in the enemy sailor’s hands, trying to get back, trying to save Jane, save Jim, save the ship.

  Two sailors pinned down her arms and Captain Bonnie Mary Bright was dragged from the Pieces of Eight in disgrace, raging in blind havoc upon the poor souls unfortunate enough to convey her to the Panacea.

  She heard the ominous clank of chains the moment her feet hit the deck of the ship, and old memories surfaced in her mind of the slave market in New Orleans. People sold like cattle at auction, clank clank clank, shuffling up to the podium — Do I have a hundred dollars? A hundred fifty?

  “That would’ve been you n’ me,” her father once told her, “had I remained here.”

  And now it really would be her.

  She tried to fight, but she was too ill, her eyes too poor, and soon her wrists and ankles were shackled like the others. There were blurry shapes all around her, but none distinct enough to pick out. Much of the crew of the Pieces had been similarly rendered half-blind, singed and coughing from the incineration of their ship.

  Bonnie Mary’s entire body felt like one big weary bruise. Still, she could not help shouting, “Jane! Jim! Where are—?”

  “Mary!” came the hoarse cry in that blessedly familiar cracked tenor. Her precious Silver, Jim!

  “Jim! Jim! Where’s Little Jane? Ji—” but her voice was soon lost, struggling to make herself heard amongst the cries of the other sailors, everyone shouting the name of their favourite shipmate, checking to make sure of his or her survival.

  Though still blinded by the smoke, she recognized each sailor’s voice after so long living elbow to elbow. They all might just as well’ve been incinerated in the conflagration for how little she cared at that moment.

  “Little Jane! Jim!” she cried out through the grey haze and groped forward, starving for the touch her husband’s calloused palm, for Little Jane’s small, warm hand.

  “Ishiro!” Rufus the cabin boy screamed out against the breeze and with a stab of pain in her heart Bonnie Mary realized she had not heard her old friend’s voice among the captives either.

  An image flashed across her mind of Ishiro and her father checking the te’gallant sails together, Ishiro’s long black hair blowing out behind him like an ebony pennant in the breeze.

  “Ishiro?” she croaked.

  Incensed by the sudden commotion, an enormous sentry struck Bonnie Mary across the face.

  “Shuddup, cow!” he bellowed.

  Her ears rung. She stumbled, but did not fall, and a fight broke out as several of the crew took issue with the sentry’s treatment of their captain.

  She took a small step forward, trying to get a breath of smokeless air, but the pocket of her coat seemed to snag on something. She turned and was greeted by the pinkish shape of a face. An odd sort of face — it seemed to have captured the sun within, for toward its lower half, where the teeth should have been, the wobbly countenance was split by a line of fine golden yellow light. Not golden yellow light, she realized, but light yellow gold!

  “Sharpova!” she whispered hoarsely and was greeted by Sharpeye Sharpova’s famous golden grin.

  She felt his breath close to her ear and caught the scent of the sweet Jewish wine the lookout took instead of the customary beer. “She is all right—” he said, his voice comforting despite its gravelly tone. “She stays on the Pieces, then is going—”

  “On the Pieces…” muttered Bonnie Mary through dry, swollen lips.
“Safe? How can that be?”

  “They’re escaping in the cutter.”

  “Ishiro? Shiro and Jane?”

  “Jane and Ishiro get to safety, aye. I am seeing them jumping, when ship she is sinking. Into water. Ishiro too. Getting away, I see them. They get away safe.”

  “Safe?”

  “Aye, safe.”

  “You think any of these devils here saw it?”

  “No, I don’t think,” said Sharpeye, and Bonnie Mary wept in thanks. The tears cut clean trails through the black soot on her face. Her sight was beginning to clear a little at last.

  Of course, that hardly meant that Little Jane was truly safe. Bonnie Mary peppered him with anxious questions, but Sharpeye, despite the accuracy of his nickname, had seen no more of them and so could answer few. Still, Little Jane was alive!

  A sound close at hand told her they were separating her chains. She turned to face the moving shapes of enemy sailors as they worked and felt the jab of sharp metal at her back. A bayonet, she guessed, and not the only one around, either. Somewhere she heard a desperate chicken squawk its last.

  “March!” shouted a harsh voice and Bonnie Mary moved her feet, unaware of what direction the man wished her to move in.

  Then she heard Jim’s voice somewhere up ahead and the step-scrape of wood treading on wood. “That’s it, Mary” he said gently, coaxing her on. She reached forward to grasp the pinkish blob she supposed was his hand.

  Heart thumping in her ears, she whispered to him, “Jane lives.”

  Instantly, Long John stifled a sound of mingled joy, relief, and fear. He clutched her hand in thanks, calloused palm to calloused palm, and although she knew they couldn’t possibly be headed anywhere good, she let him lead her.

  At the point of a bayonet they walked on together, deep down into the black-beamed heart of the Panacea.

  Chapter 14

  Out of the Frying Pan

  “Out of the frying pan and into the fire,” was an expression Little Jane often heard her mother use. It meant going from a spot of trouble only to land in something even worse. Although by this time Little Jane and Ishiro had escaped from a fire, and a non-metaphorical one at that, Little Jane now found herself wishing for the warmth of a frying pan — or at least a steaming hot cup of soup — anything to relieve the numbing cold of the ocean and incessant rainfall she and Ishiro found themselves in.

  They had long since lost all pretense of trying to steer the cutter. Even bailing the rising water was too much trouble now. It was up to their waists and every wave that swamped them seemed like it would be the last. They’d kept the poor little cutter afloat for longer than either of them would’ve wagered, but its floating days were nearing an end, and with them, they suspected, their own time on Earth.

  Little Jane huddled under the canvas with Ishiro, trying to absorb as much of the warmth of his old body as she could. She wasn’t entirely sure when Ishiro passed out. The first few times she’d tried to wake him, but now it seemed too much trouble to bother. His breath whistled in and out in a wheezy kind of snore. A nap was starting to seem like a good idea to Little Jane, too.

  She supposed she should have been terribly saddened or perhaps infuriated by this tragic turn of events in her young life, but she was so tired, all she had energy for was a little mild irritation. She wasn’t sure if she was crying or if it was just the rain on her face. It would’ve been nice to see the Spyglass one last time, she thought wistfully.

  Finally, her eyes closed and she let the cold and fatigue take her. She fancied she heard Jonesy’s voice now, wafting ethereally over the howling wind, singing that silly old tune she used to fancy so much:

  Mr. Frog went a-courting and he did ride, ah ha

  Mr. Frog went a-courting and he did ride, ah ha

  Froggy went a-courting and he did ride,

  A sword and pistol by his side …

  If she was to go, at least it would be to the comforting strains of Jonesy’s old tune.

  Or was it? The longer she listened to this strange phantom singing Jonesy, the less East London-ish his vocal stylings seemed. In fact, by the time Phantom Jonesy got to the verse about Uncle Rat giving his consent, Little Jane could’ve sworn the ghostly songster was Jamaican or Trinidadian or … but then Jonesy had been living in the islands a long time, long enough for his accent to start wearing off. Though it did seem a shame. She quite liked the way he talked …

  No, no, wait a minute! Her sluggish, freeze-dried brain struggled to put the simple pieces together. If Phantom Jonesy doesn’t sound like he’s from London, it might mean …

  The singer continued:

  The next to come in was the Flying Moth, ah ha

  The next to come in was the Flying Moth,

  And she laid out the table cloth …

  Then through the fog and cold, Little Jane realized that the singer wasn’t Jonesy at all! Which meant …

  Little Jane leapt to her feet. The boat rocked from side to side, but she no longer cared.

  “AHOOOYYYYYY! HEEEEEEEEEEEYYYYYYY!” She waved her freezing arms. “Ahooooy theeeeerrrreeeee!”

  SPLAAAAAAAAAASH!

  The cutter, which had miraculously resisted all the mighty ocean’s attempts to swamp it up, at last succumbed to Little Jane’s sudden outburst, dumping her and Ishiro unceremoniously in the drink.

  If that high-pitched “Ahoy there” didn’t attract the fishermen’s attention, the giant splash certainly did.

  How exactly Little Jane and Ishiro managed to stay afloat for the few minutes it took the fishermen’s rickety little rowboat to reach them, Little Jane couldn’t remember, but somehow the sudden immersion in freezing water acted like a shot of Dutch courage in her. Holding up Ishiro as best she could, assisted by the natural buoyancy of stout wooden Melvin, she managed to keep them both from drowning.

  Finally, just as she thought her lungs would burst from struggling under his weight, under the water half the time, Little Jane felt Ishiro lifted off her. She rose to the surface, unhindered. No breath of air ever tasted so sweet!

  Then she was hit by a fishing net thrown by a pair of burly arms. She grabbed it, and, clinging to the woven hemp like a codfish, allowed herself to be reeled in. With Little Jane and Ishiro onboard, the fishermen rowed the small craft back to their fishing boat.

  Soon, Little Jane sat on deck shivering through layers of blankets, nearly biting her tongue off, her teeth were chattering so hard, staring up at the faces of a group of curious fishermen. Her cold-numbed brain groped for the image she had held onto through all the cold and rain.

  “S-s-s-s-spy g-g-g-glass” she gasped, through chattering teeth. “Take us to Jo-Jo-Jonesy, t-t-tell Jonesy at the Spy-Spy-Spyglass. Smug-Smug-Smuggler’s Bay. Take us to the Spyglass in Smuggler’s Bay, p-p-p-please.”

  The utterance of that simple phrase exhausted the tiny bit of strength left in her.

  “Drink this,” said a warm, deep voice.

  Obediently, she took a sip of the rum one of the fishermen offered her. A bloom of heat spread quickly through her belly. Then reality blended smoothly into dream, and Little Jane slept.

  In her unsettled dreams, Little Jane was a tree. By the banks of a stream, she faced a thin man with dark eyes and hollow cheeks. In his hand was a sword. With a wicked grin he held it out in front of him, letting the tip just graze the bark of her trunk. Then with a mighty cry, he shoved the sword straight into the wood of her heart. She screamed as her trunk split painfully asunder and the thin man laughed.

  Little Jane woke up tearing frantically at the top of her nightshirt to get it undone. She rubbed her chest, surprised to find it unblemished. It took a moment for her to realize it had all just been a nightmare. She fumbled to refasten the buttons and sort it all through. Which horrible, previously unimaginable things that had happened were only dreams and which were real? In the half-light of the tiny cabin aboard the strange fishing boat, it was hard to tell. Being a tree that got split in two or having the Pieces of
Eight go up in flames — both seemed equally implausible to her.

  Yet the Pieces of Eight really was gone, wasn’t it? And Ishiro? Where was he?

  She turned over and saw Ishiro sleeping in a hammock not a foot away. With a sigh of relief she reached out and touched his arm, gently stroking his forearm’s thin coating of fine silver hair. Her eyes closed and without wanting to, she slid back into sleep.

  Chapter 15

  In the Brig

  The captain of the Panacea left Captains Bright and Silver to his first mate, Mr. Jesper. There was other business for him to attend to. Sailors formerly of the Pieces, now pressed into service on the Panacea, were to be suitably chained, fed, found berths, and put to work. Newly acquired livestock and other spoils were to be counted and recorded. Directing the reorganization of the Panacea kept the captain’s mind off other matters. Despite the obsessive thirst to capture the two pirate captains that had propelled him on this voyage, he no longer felt any urgency to clap eyes on his captives.

  A terrible sense of apprehension welled up in his chest, along with a large gob of phlegm.

  I will see the traitors tonight, he vowed to himself, once I’ve let them time to stew in their own juices, the time’ll be right. Tonight I’ll see them. Tonight!

  Even to two professional sailors who saw avoidance of bathing as a point of honour, the brig of the Panacea stank to high heaven. The hot, stuffy air reeked of rot and waste. Bonnie Mary and Long John sat, hands bound behind them, one ankle each chained to a metal hoop in the floor, and tried not to choke. They quickly realized the brig upon the Panacea was cruelly situated alongside the head, where the sound of sailors performing their private bathroom business was to provide a most indelicate accompaniment to their thoughts for the remainder of the voyage.

  Bonnie Mary still could not see much more than coloured shapes, but Long John told her a grate above the guard’s head in the hall let in patches of light. Though she did not doubt this was true, she could feel very little fresh breeze from above.