Anna's Crossing

by Suzanne Woods Fisher

  Particularly intriguing to him were the large cannons that were placed at portals around the lower deck. He tried to lift one of the heavy cannon balls set near the base of the cannon in a small triangle but nearly dropped it on his bare toes. He wished he could ask someone how a cannon worked. He considered asking Christian about it, but then he saw him stretched out in his bunk, head lolled back, snoring at the top of his lungs.

  The passengers had been sternly warned to stay in the lower deck and not come to the upper deck, dangerous with all the ropes and activity of the sailors. Felix explored the entire lower deck; he was shooed away by a dour-looking Mennonite grandmother in the stern, so he mostly poked around the bow where the pig stayed, and four chickens in a cage made of twigs and twine. The windlass, a type of winch used for raising the anchor, was in the bow. It was all interesting and new and exciting, for about five minutes.

  Then he came across the crew’s sleeping quarters in the bow of the ship. The room was dark and Felix poked around until he was startled by a loud snore. First one, then another. Sailors were sleeping in hammocks, hung from the beams by large hooks, and he had practically walked right into one. He might be curious, but he wasn’t stupid. He backed up slowly and hurried out.

  Felix peered up the hatch to the bright sunshine on the upper deck. Briefly, he considered the warning that they were not to venture onto the deck without permission. He decided that the warning applied to those who didn’t understand the ways of a ship—someone like Catrina, who would get in the way and be a nuisance. He, on the other hand, was keenly interested in the sea. Hadn’t he and Johann studied books about ship faring? Well, Johann might have done the actual studying part, but he told Felix all kinds of things he had read.

  Thinking about Johann made Felix sad, so he fixed his mind on one bright spot: because everyone had grown seasick, he was able to escape all adult constraints. No mother to flutter around him like a finch in a field of grain, no Anna fussing at him to sit still for English lessons. He was eight years old and he’d had enough schooling to last his lifetime. He was free to explore the ship at will and that meant above deck. He was particularly eager to get away from the eye-watering stink of the lower deck. Even the sailors covered their noses with a cloth when they walked through the lower deck to their sleeping quarters. He crept up the companionway stairs, felt the warmth of the sun hit the top of his head. He peered around and found another world entirely.

  Suddenly, his underarms were grabbed and he was held upside down over the hatch, as someone gave him a vicious shake. He couldn’t understand what the sailor was saying, but he figured he was about to get tossed down the hatch, headfirst. A small dog appeared in his line of vision, upside down, and peered at him curiously.

  “Decker!”

  A pair of black boots appeared in Felix’s field of vision. The owner of the boots shouted in English to the sailor, who held Felix upside down by the ankles. The sailor tossed Felix on the deck like he was a bag of flour, right by the black boots. Slowly, Felix opened his eyes to face the owner of the black boots, and wondered what kind of trouble he was in. Instead of a stern look, the man’s eyes held amusement, though he motioned to Felix to go below. As Felix slowly got to his feet, he decided that man might be the tallest man he had ever seen. Taller even than his father.

  Waiting for him by the top of the companionway stairs was the sailor who held Felix by the ankles. Felix groaned. He had seen this squinty-eyed sailor before, as ugly as he was mean.

  Squinty-Eye was hard not to notice. A large scar ran down one side of his face, causing one eye to pinch together. When he walked, his knees made a click-clack sound. He would click-clack through the lower deck on his way to his sleeping quarters, laughing and mocking and scolding the passengers who were sick. Last night, he even kicked the bucket out from underneath Maria Müller, so that she vomited all over her sleeping shelf. Then he pushed Felix out of the way, as if he was nothing but a buzzing fly, and click-clacked on by.

  Carefully, Felix descended down the companionway ladder, keeping as far away from the sailor as he could. Squinty-Eye’s face grew tight and narrow, with his eyeballs shooting around from side to side. It was almost too scary to watch. About three steps down, Squinty-Eye reached down and popped him square in the ear. Hard!

  Getting hit when you’re not expecting it can really shake you up. Felix’s legs started wobbling like they were made out of his mother’s chilled lamb stock, his eyes started leaking water, his nose started running. All he could do was sit on the next-to-the-last step and hold his sore ear as tears jumped out of his eyes. His throat wouldn’t quit jerking up and down and making weird noises.

  Suddenly Catrina was right in front of him. “What’s going on? What’d you do?”

  Scowling at her, he blew past her and went to sit near his mother. For now, he would stay in the lower deck, but he’d had a taste of another world—and he was going back to it.

  By the second day of crossing the channel, Felix had become adept at keeping out of sight. He had slipped up onto the upper deck and hid behind the capstan. He looked up, squinting against the glare of the sun. The sky was so wide and empty and blue it hurt to look at it. Up here, the wind was blowing strong, and he had to anchor down his hat by jamming it hard over his ears. Unfortunately, a sailor spotted him from the rigging and shouted down at him. Felix barely made it down the companionway before Squinty-Eye could make a grab for him and toss him down the open hatch. He knew he had to be more careful . . . and that was when he started to become aware of the stroking of the ship’s bells.

  By paying attention to the bells, Felix learned the rhythm of the ship. One seaman had the duty of watching the hourglass and turning it when the sand had run out. When the seaman turned the glass, he struck the bell as a signal: Once at the end of the first half hour of a four-hour watch, twice after the first hour, three times after an hour and a half, four times after two hours had passed, until eight bells marked the end of the four-hour watch. The process was repeated for each succeeding watch. Whenever the bells sounded, all sailors stopped in their tracks and strained to listen.

  Felix learned when to stay out of sight as lookouts were being relieved, and he discovered when he could safely prowl around because the seamen were distracted with their duties. He grew fascinated by the tangle of ropes that raised and lowered the sails. The lines attached to the triangle sheets reminded him of intricate spiderwebs that he used to find back in his barn in Ixheim. Once or twice, he ventured from his hiding places to peer over the railing. The channel water swept flat and blue to the far edge of the world. England.

  If Felix could remember to leave his telltale black felt hat down below, and if he stayed in the shadows up above, making himself as small as possible, crouching low, quiet as a mouse, he was almost invisible and could stay hidden for hours. He was captivated by the goings-on above deck. He could tell the difference between the officers and the seamen. The seamen dressed in sloppy, loose clothing. Most were barefoot. There were two officers—the tall young one who wore long black boots and a short old man with gray hair and droopy eyes. Still no sign of the captain. Johann had said the captain would be wearing a tricornered hat. Felix had seen a lot of kerchiefs and plenty of wool skull caps, but no tricornered hats.

  On the third day of the channel crossing, Felix was determined to explore the Great Cabin, so he looked up and down the deck, spotted no one, and made a mad dash for the stern. He nearly had his hand on the door handle of the Great Cabin when he heard voices inside.

  Felix took off full speed for the lower deck. He didn’t see the three sailors until he’d nearly run right into them. He slowed to a stop, his knees loose, his belly quaking, his heart thumping wildly in his chest. One sailor uttered a soft curse. Felix lifted his eyes and saw a young seaman he’d heard called Johnny Reed, not much older than Peter Mast. He had a hawklike face, gaunt and high nosed. And thin. So thin he looked put together out of sticks. He wore a stocking cap over his straggly hair
. The other sailor had droopy eyes and a jiggly Adam’s apple—first mate Mr. Pocock. And the third sailor was . . . Squinty-Eye. Next to him was his awful dog with its tongue hanging out.

  Felix watched now, his eyes wide and dry, his breath scraping through his throat. He gave himself up for dead, sure he was doomed. He’d been seen, and you dared never be.

  “Well, now, what do we ’ave ’ere,” Squinty-Eye said. He spewed a thick glob of spit onto Felix’s bare toes. “Could be we need to give this little Peculiar a swimming lesson. Drop ’im overboard and see if ’e can outswim the sharks.”

  Felix whirled and broke into an all-out run, just ahead of Squinty-Eye’s slap. He scrambled down the deck, his feet moving faster than his thoughts. He ran awkwardly, with his coat flapping and his thin arms splayed out from his sides, not stopping until he reached the top of the companionway. He took the stairs two at a time, blowing past Catrina, who stood at the bottom with a chicken in her arms. She stared at him as he flew by. At least one eye did.

  He dove into the pallet where his mother sat, idly mending, and pulled the blanket over his head. He was sure he could hear Squinty-Eye’s mocking laughter through the cracks in the deck planks.

  July 2nd, 1737

  Anna’s stomach seized up like a fist. She had no idea that seasickness could lay a person so low, day after day. The entire lower deck, save the noisy Mennonite toddlers, were laid low, prostrate on bunks and floor pallets. But how could they have known? None of them had sailed before.

  She’d eaten little since the ship had left Rotterdam and now, tossed about the channel, her stomach had gone from queasy to rebellious to violently ill. Not eating made it worse. She knew that. She must eat.

  “I need air,” she said to no one in particular. She knelt by the cannon portal and leaned out as far as she could, grateful that Maria had inadvertently appointed them to a place with something like a window. Sea spray slapped her face and she gulped in the cold, fresh air. Her throat burned, but she was done retching for now.

  She hoped.

  “Anna.”

  Anna spun around to find Lizzie Mast standing in front of her, clutching her middle. Lizzie was a tiny slip of a girl, barely sixteen. She had married Peter Mast, also sixteen. “Is something wrong?”

  “Is this normal?” She took Anna’s hand in hers and held it over her abdomen.

  Anna nodded. “It’s a tightening. It’s normal. They’re practice for the real thing. You’ll feel these many times in the next few months.” She stepped back as though struck. “Lizzie, my grandmother said you told her the baby would be due in late autumn, yes?”

  Lizzie kept her eyes down. “Sometime in fall. An autumn baby.” She crossed the deck to return to her sleeping shelf and curled up like an overcooked shrimp.

  Anna’s mind was moving slow from the seasickness . . . but she started to count out the months. If Lizzie was due in late fall, then she shouldn’t be experiencing those tightenings for a while longer.

  She started across the deck to go question Lizzie, but the ship lurched and she went flying onto the cannon. Her knees sagged and she felt ill again—twisted stomach, spinning head, a brain that had lost its ability to string two thoughts together.

  July 3rd, 1737

  Four days at sea and Felix had yet to lay eyes on the captain. He’d heard his voice up above, yelling orders in what Anna said was a thick Scottish burr. Wouldn’t Anna’s grandfather love to hear the way he rolled his r’s? He could mimic any accent, her grandfather.

  This morning, when Felix was hiding on the upper deck, he finally caught a glimpse of the captain and he wasn’t at all what Felix expected. He was a small man, with enormous muttonchop whiskers, dressed up in fancy clothes. He looked more like the Baron of Ixheim heading off to a party than a sea captain.

  But then Felix saw him pick up a speaking trumpet and gaze out over the seamen for a moment, saying nothing, letting his attitude silence them. It reminded Felix of the way his father would begin a Sunday sermon—in silence, until all eyes were focused and minds were quieted. Felix had overheard Josef Gerber say that his father could control the church with one glance. That’s what it seemed as if the captain was doing right now—controlling the entire ship with his glance.

  Through the speaking trumpet, the captain barked out orders in a deep baritone voice that was surprising in a man so short, and he used it to good effect, bellowing out commands with absolute authority. He shouted quite a lot, that captain, and sailors quivered at his command. Felix would like to have that kind of respect from others one day.

  When he saw the captain head toward the forecastle deck, Felix scurried down to the opposite end of the ship to the Great Cabin and waited until the helmsman was distracted before he slipped inside.

  The captain’s quarters was a small bowed room, with a built-in bunk on one side and a table fastened to one wall. It was the only private space Felix had found on this ship. He peered out through the small windows at the channel. It was a different view from the stern and Felix squinted, the way he’d seen seamen squint against the sun or at the churned-up frothy water left in the ship’s wake, as if it was telling them something. He was thinking that maybe he was becoming as savvy about a seaman’s life as any sailor ever was.

  Felix turned from the window and noticed a shelf of books built into the bulkhead and held in place by a wooden bar. One book caught his attention and he opened it to see if there were illustrations. He wondered if the captain would notice if he borrowed a book for Anna now and then. She liked to read, like Johann did, though that got him into trouble in the end. Terrible trouble.

  If Felix did borrow a book from the captain, and if Anna asked him where he’d found it, he would have to make his lie short and simple, to keep her from worrying. Johann often pointed out that Felix always got caught in lies when he tried to spin too much straw on them.

  Suddenly, the ship’s bell sounded and he realized he’d lost track of time and the Great Cabin was no place to tarry. He hadn’t thought this through. He hadn’t thought at all. Heavy footsteps drew near and he whirled around, desperate for a place to hide in this tiny room. He threw himself onto the captain’s tiny bunk and pulled the curtain, letting out a shaky breath. Pure panic, and not a good place to be. He held no illusions that the captain wouldn’t accept a boy from the lower deck in his private space, or let him borrow a book without asking permission. Just like the Baron of Ixheim.

  The door to the Great Cabin opened and footsteps crossed the coaming. Then Felix heard the scrape of a wooden chair against the floor and a squeak of a hinge. Through a crack in the curtain, he peeked through and let out a shaky breath, relieved to see that the man who was in the Great Cabin wasn’t the captain but that tall officer. He wasn’t dressed sloppy like the other seamen, and he wasn’t barefoot like they were. He wore long, shiny black boots, up to his knees. The officer opened the wooden box that sat on the captain’s table and pulled out some funny-looking tools. He started working with the tools, then, absorbed, he sat down on the chair.

  Felix wondered what those tools were used for. His father had all kinds of tools but nothing like those.

  Thinking of his father caused his thoughts to drift back to his brother Johann and a sweeping sadness rushed over him. Anna said that Johann was in a better place and they shouldn’t wish him back, but Felix was fairly sure that Johann would rather be here, with them right now, than be taken away from them. He wondered what his father would have to say when he heard about Johann, once they reached Port Philadelphia.

  Would his father hate the baron as much as Felix hated him? The baron was the reason his father left for the colonies so abruptly last year. The baron was the reason Johann was dead. He remembered the conversations his parents had that night before his father left for the New World, in quiet voices he probably wasn’t supposed to be hearing. His father had said that if he didn’t go now, the baron would find a way to kill him and make it seem legal. He was that evil, his father said, and F
elix knew now that he was right. The baron couldn’t catch Jacob Bauer so he had caught Johann. And it was all legal, just like Papa had predicted.

  All Felix had to do was think about what the baron did to Johann and the sadness would rise up in his throat to choke him. He looked through the crack in the curtain again, his eyes suddenly blurring. Anna had told him that grief and sorrow had a way of piling up inside a person until there was nothing but to cry them all back out again. But Anna was a girl, and it was all right for her to cry. Men, like his father—they didn’t cry. Sometimes if he just held his breath and concentrated hard, he could almost see Johann. Almost see him waving to Felix in the hills, beckoning him to join him.

  Felix tried to swallow down the wad of tears that was building in his throat. It just hurt so much to think about his brother being gone forever. He squeezed his eyes shut. Don’t you cry, Felix Bauer. Don’t you dare cry.

  He heard the rustle of paper and looked again through the crack of the curtain, blinking hard against the tears. Felix was so close to the officer that he could smell the scent of his clothes, wood spice and tar and smoke. The unusual smells helped to push thoughts of Johann to the back of his mind and bring Felix back to the present.

  He stared at the officer, fascinated, wondering what he was doing. Felix was already learning the proper term for each part of the ship. He could barely hold back from climbing the tangle of ropes like the barefooted sailors did. He imagined himself like a bird, scanning the great vista of water from high above, watching America grow closer and closer over the curve of the earth. From down near the cook’s kitchen, he could hear the ship’s bells strike another afternoon half hour away. He nestled further in the captain’s down-filled mattress and watched the officer turn pages in a book. Felix thought he could stay here for hours, days even, happy as a clam.