Miss Whittier Makes a List

by Carla Kelly

  Her eyes opened wide. “Thee does not think they are contaminated?”

  He chuckled. “No! You may find the smallclothes a bit perplexing, but then, not many slop chests have clothes for the female form on His Majesty’s warships.”

  She blushed and accepted the garments. The surgeon smiled and returned to the door.

  “When you’re dressed, come into the companionway, and I’ll escort you to your new quarters,” he said.

  Hannah climbed out of the berth and tugged on the smallclothes, refusing to be embarrassed by them. The shirt, heavy cotton worn soft from many washings, was a loose fit, which pleased her enormously. As she buttoned the shirt, she was grateful for once for her own slim form. Wearing that loose shirt, there would be nothing remotely enticing about her figure. As small as they were, the trousers were a little long, but fitted her nicely across the hips. She pulled them up, tied the drawstring at the waist, and tucked the shirt into the pants. It was a simple matter to roll up the trouser legs.

  She stood barefoot on the deck, enjoying the feel of wood under her bare feet, and relishing the relief of no stockings. A person could be almost comfortable in this rigout, she thought. A glance in the small shaving mirror attached to the bulkhead only confirmed Captain Spark’s pithy observation about her skin, but revealed nothing about her clothes. Somehow they would have to do.

  As she left the cabin, the sentry outside the door clicked his heels together smartly, presented arms, and then relaxed again. Eyes wide, she admired his red coat, which was stretched across his chest without a wrinkle, and then turned away in confusion when he winked at her.

  “Oh, dear,” she murmured under her breath, and looked up to see the surgeon leaning against a cannon, watching her obvious embarrassment.

  They stood in the waist of the ship, with rows of guns made secure with a system of ropes and pulleys. The gunports were closed, but it was not dark, because the gun deck was open to the main deck above, like a skylight cut into a roof.

  “This is a frigate,” the surgeon explained, “with forty guns, eighteen to a side, and two carronades on the main deck and two bow chasers. We are not a ship of the line, but a commerce raider.”

  He led her down a companionway aft from the silent guns, and opened a door just beyond the last gun. She peered inside, taking in the gun there, too, the hammock slung above it, the gunport secured. She looked back at the surgeon for explanation.

  “When we clear the decks for action, the gun crews knock down these bulkheads, and your cabin becomes another part of the gun deck. So does the captain’s great cabin, and most of the other quarters.” He patted the gun under the hammock. “Miss Whittier, you are now residing on a killing machine. The Dissuade is a shark in international waters.”

  Hannah shuddered and eyed the hammock dubiously. “Suppose I should fall out of this thing?”

  “Then you have the cannon underneath to break your fall,” the surgeon replied, smiling at her wary expression. “Come, come, Miss Whittier! Have a little confidence in yourself!”

  “Very well, sir,” she said.

  She looked around the tiny cabin and saw only a small sea chest. The surgeon opened it. “There are some more clothes in here, and whatever else that little beggar owned. This was not his cabin, of course. He slept on the floor in the galley. You have merely dispossessed two midshipmen.”

  “I am sorry for that,” she said, noticing the ring bolts where the second hammock must have been secured and wondering how on earth there was room for two in a space for less than one. She looked in the sea chest, noting the extra shirt and canvas trousers, folding knife, and wooden flute. It was so little by which to remember a life. “How old was he?” she asked as the surgeon squeezed past the cannon and stood in the doorway again.

  “He was ten,” Lease said. His face was devoid of emotion, as though he steeled himself against a greater pain.

  “So young,” she murmured as she touched the flute and then closed the chest gently, wondering what was camouflaged by the surgeon’s toneless voice.

  He nodded. “That’s the way of it. Captain Spark went to sea at ten. He has been more than twenty years in the navy, and all of them during the wartime.”

  “Thee cannot be serious,” she said, startled. “What kind of life is that?”

  The surgeon merely managed a small bow in the narrow opening of the door. “Who said it was a life? We live to serve the guns, and that is war, my dear.” He looked beyond her to the great hulk of the gun. “Perhaps we would all fare worse on land. Good day, my dear. Go on deck, if you wish.”

  She nodded and he closed the door. Hannah sat down on the little chest and looked around her. She would only be able to stand upright because she was short. The gun was secured to the deck by a series of pulleys and tackle, necessitating that she watch her step to avoid stubbing her toes.

  Hannah eyed the hammock for another minute, then rose. She stared at the gun, then climbed onto it and then into the hammock. Holding her breath, she lay back carefully and expected to be dumped out by the ship’s movements.

  Nothing of the sort happened. The hammock swayed gently from side to side and enfolded her in its generous cloth embrace. She relaxed and closed her eyes, perfectly at peace with herself as she listened to the shipboard sounds around her, the creak of the wood, the rhythmical scrape as the men holystoned the deck above. Every now and then, someone laughed, and voices murmured. Above this she heard the steady tread of someone on the quarterdeck, and then the humming of the wind in the riggings. It was a pleasant, low-pitched sound that seemed to harmonize with the slap of the water as the Dissuade cut through the sea.

  When Hannah woke, she was still in the enveloping grasp of the hammock, swaying with the rhythm of the frigate cutting through the water. There was only the faint light of afternoon coming through the tiny porthole to indicate the passage of time. It was well that people kept watches aboard a ship, she thought as she lay there, or we would lose all sense of time at sea.

  She lay there a moment longer as an enormous feeling of well-being washed over her. Her shoulders and knees still pained her, but she was alive and whole, and that was more than enough. I really should thank the captain for his kindness to me, she thought.

  The idea took hold as she swung one bare foot idly outside the hammock. I should just march boldly on deck and express my appreciation, she thought, and then climbed carefully out of the hammock, onto the gun, and to the deck. Someone—it must have been the ship’s surgeon—had placed another jar of ointment on top of the sea chest, and a hairbrush. She smiled at such a simple pleasure and untwined her braid. Humming to herself, she brushed her hair gingerly at first, and then more forcefully, when she discovered that her sunburned scalp was on a rapid mend. She replaited her hair, pleased with its chestnut color and thickness and imagining that her exposure to the relentless sun had given it those lighter hues that twinkled through it in the last light of the afternoon.

  She tucked in her shirt again, wished briefly for shoes, and left the cabin. The Marine clicked to attention outside her door, bringing his long musket to port arms, and then stamping it again by his side.

  “Thee really doesn’t need to do that,” she said, embarrassed that a Quaker would elicit such military attention.

  “Regulations require it, miss,” he said, his eyes straight ahead.

  “Well, if thee must ....” she said, and hurried up the gangway to the main deck above.

  The sky was so incredibly blue that she could only stare in frank admiration as it contrasted with the white of the sails and the great tarred mast that seemed to go up and up, prepared to puncture the lazy clouds overhead. As she stared upward, shading her eyes with her hand, she saw the topmen balanced on the foot ropes that ran along each yardarm, reefing the mainsail and topsails above, and then on command through the speaking trumpet from the lieutenant on deck, unfurling them. They dropped with a bang and snap that made her jump.

  They did it once, then twice, a
nd then Captain Spark, who paced the quarterdeck, held his watch on them. When the last sail was reefed, they waited.

  “By damn, that was slow as my fat Aunt Mabel,” he roared, snapping his watch shut “Try it again, you sons of the guns, and put some back into it!”

  The exercise was repeated four more times, Spark’s eyes on his watch. Finally he clicked it shut and tucked it in his pocket. “Better,” he hollered. “Your lives may depend on your speed, lads, mark you.” He glanced at the lieutenant on the main deck with the speaking trumpet. “Tell them to stand down, Mr. Futtrell, lively now.”

  “Aye, sir.” The lieutenant barked an order through the trumpet and topmen scurried down the ratlines to the deck one hundred and fifty feet below.

  “My,” Hannah whispered out loud as she watched them descend. She looked at the captain on the quarterdeck, expecting to see some show of appreciation. He stood, hands clasped behind his back, telescope tucked between his arm and his side, his expression sour. As she watched, he peered beyond her into the waist of the gun deck.

  “Mr. Lansing, tomorrow we will run out the guns for target practice. I trust you will be more efficient than Mr. Futtrell and his nervous Nellies.”

  “Aye, sir!” came a voice from the gun deck.

  Hannah sighed. My, but thee is difficult to please, she thought. Hosea would call thee a grouch. She turned away to look out across the water, but her view was obscured by the hammocks rolled into the netting that lined the railing. What an odd place to store one’s bedding, she thought. It quite ruins the view.

  She looked up the companionway to the quarterdeck, where the captain stood, telescope to his eye, gazing across the empty sea. I did promise to thank him, she remembered. And the view is better there. She crossed the deck to climb the ladder to the quarterdeck.

  Her foot was on the first tread when she heard the helmsman at the wheel suck in his breath. She looked at him in surprise.

  “Miss, I wouldn’t ....” he began. “Not there.”

  She shook her head. Couldn’t he see that was where the view was? And she did have a word of thanks to express to Captain Sir Daniel Spark. She skipped up the narrow treads, looking over her shoulder in surprise as Lieutenant Futtrell bolted from his post by the mainmast and ran toward her, his hand raised.

  “How odd these people are,” she muttered under her breath as she stood on the quarterdeck. Mr. Futtrell had stopped now and was watching her, his mouth open.

  The view was better. She strolled to the railing and stood beside the captain, who still had the telescope to his eye, his concentration intense on nothing that she could see. Hannah admired the play of the sinking sun slanting across the water, suddenly mindful that everyone on the main deck was watching her now. Even the seamen hung suspended in the ratlines.

  “How peculiar,” she said out loud, raising her face to the wind that ruffled her hair from the back. She cleared her throat, in case Captain Spark had not heard her remark.

  The telescope came down slowly. How formidable he looks with that monstrous hat on, she thought as she watched him slam the telescope together with a cracking sound that could be heard all over the ship. I wonder why he stares that way.

  “Captain, I wanted to thank you for—”

  What she was going to say, she could not have remembered, not even one second later, not in the glare of Captain Spark’s expression, which hardened into granite.

  “What in God’s name are you doing on the weather side of this quarterdeck?” he roared, his voice as loud as though he were addressing the topmen who still hung in the ratlines.

  She stepped back in surprise, her hands to her ears in fright.

  “You don’t need to shout,” she said. “I just wanted to thank—”

  “You are a monstrous lot of trouble, Miss Whittier,” he rasped, as though speaking over firing guns. His voice seemed to echo, as though the sails caught words as well as winds, and flung them back at her. Tears started into her eyes as she looked about for an avenue of escape. Everyone on the Dissuade was absolutely still, as though turned to stone in a fairy tale. She slowly backed toward the ladder. “I’m sorry,” she begas her knees began to smote together.

  He was at her side in two strides. She shrieked in terror as he picked her up and held her suspended in his arms over the railing onto the main deck.

  “Mr. Futtrell! Do something with this!” he shouted and let her drop.

  Mr. Futtrell caught her handily. She gasped with pain as his arms came in contact with her sunburned back, and burst into loud tears.

  “I’m sorry, miss,” he apologized as he quickly stood her upright on the deck. “You never stand between a captain and the wind. It just isn’t done.”

  “I didn’t know,” she sobbed as she dabbed at her eyes with her sleeve and wished the sea would swallow her. Her face burned with shame as she looked around her, but the men had returned to their tasks. The topmen continued down the ratlines, and the helmsman, his feet wide apart on the slanting deck, steadied the wheel, his eyes on the sails.

  “Are you all right, Miss Whittier?” the lieutenant asked, his eyes kind.

  She nodded, too ashamed to give him more than a glance. “I just wanted to ... to thank him for pulling me from the water.” She tried to take a deep breath, but she only hiccupped.

  “Take it below, Miss Whittier,” came the captain’s voice from the quarterdeck above her. “I cannot conduct a poll here, but I suspect at least half of us go to sea to get away from women’s tears!”

  Without a word, or a glance in his direction, she hurried down the ladder, grateful for the darkness settling below deck. Her eyes filling with tears, she stumbled into her cabin and closed the door quietly behind her. She tucked herself into a little ball in the middle of the hammock andcried until her eyes hurt, her hands over her mouth so no one would hear. Exhausted finally, her eyes burning, she stared into the gathering gloom. Soon the smell of bilge that filled every cranny below deck was superseded by the odor of boiling coffee. It was time for dinner.

  “I shall never eat again,” she said and clasped her hands across her stomach.

  Her eyes were closing again when she heard the sentry outside click to attention. “Miss Whittier,” came that voice, softer this time, but still ripe with command, “eat with me tonight. We have to discuss your presence on this ship.”

  She waited a long moment. “I would rather swallow burning coals than take a bite with thee, Captain Spark,” she said, her voice firm.

  Her mouth grew dry at her own temerity, and she waited for him to slam open the door. The passageway was silent.

  “Very well then,” he said, and walked away.

  She sighed in relief, overlooking the growling of her stomach.

  A few moments later, the sentry clicked to attention again and she sucked in her breath and held it.

  “Miss Whittier? It’s Lieutenant Futtrell, ma’am. Would you ... could you ... take mutton with us in the wardroom?”

  She let out her breath, sat up, and felt for the cannon with her foot. “I would be delighted, Lieutenant Futtrell,” she said.

  Chapter Five

  Hannah dined in the junior officers’ wardroom that night, washing down salty mutton with boiled coffee. She watched Captain Spark’s lieutenants and the three midshipmen tap their sea biscuits on the table to drive out the weevils, and wondered why she ever complained about Mama’/font>s cooking. While the others looked on in amusement, she rapped her biscuit on the table, and gave a little shriek when two well-fed worms rolled out, and in the glare of publicity, huddled themselves into tight balls.

  “Some prefer them in the biscuit,” Lieutenant Futtrell observed. “They claim it gives the food more crunch.”

  Hannah shuddered at his words and gave a more vigorous tap to the biscuit. Another worm tumbled out. “When in Rome,” she murmured, and took a bite, dreading the thought of any crunching.

  “Bravo!” said the lieutenant named Lansing. The three midshipmen, none of
them a day over twelve, looked at each other and giggled, then turned red.

  “Don’t mind them,” Lieutenant Futtrell said generously. “They’ve been at sea since they were ten, and don’t know much about ladies.”

  Hannah sighed. “No one does. See here, sirs. I do not wish to continually be running afoul of Captain Spark. Tell me what I must do to prevent further disaster.”

  Futtrell pushed away his plate. “Stay off the quarterdeck unless invited. And that will never happen. But if it ever does, stand on the lee side with us, and not the weather side with him.”

  Lansing laughed. “I think coming between a captain and his wind must be like getting between a mother bear and her cubs.”

  She nodded. “And?”

  Lieutenant Lansing stared thoughtfully into the mutton fat congealing on his plate. “Do not—I repeat—do not come above deck before eight bells. The captain likes a shower under the wash pump about then. God knows how he can tolerate it, but he washes in seawater, no matter the weather.”

  “Cleanliness is next to godliness,” she reminded them, amused at the thought of the dignified captain capering about naked in cold weather. I wonder if he removes his hat, she thought.

  “The captain inspects the ship on Sundays,” offered one of the midshipmen, who blushed beet red and ducked his head when she looked in his direction.

  Hannah smiled and crossed her heart. “I promise to keep my bed made and all my numerous possessions put away.” She glanced at Lieutenant Futtrell, who was eyeing her, a smile on his own well-weathered face. “Surely he would not inspect my cabin?”

  Futtrell shrugged. “He runs a taut ship, Miss Whittier.” He nodded to the orderly hovering in the shadow of the bulkhead, who hurried forward to remove the plates. “He likes everyone on board to be useful, Miss Whittier. You might study in your mind how you can do this. We’ll be another six weeks at sea.”

  “Six weeks!” she exclaimed in dismay. Six weeks to England, and at least another six weeks home. It would be months before her parents knew she was alive. “Six weeks,” she repeated, her voice softer. “I could become most amazingly bored.”