Curse of the Blue Tattoo: Being an Account of the Misadventures of Jacky Faber, Midshipman and Fine Lady

by L. A. Meyer

  I calls down: "Captain! Stop your men. Call them back down. I have my shiv on the main topgallant stay. I can cut through it in a flash. In front of me are the fore royal braces and aft of me are the main royal braces and the main topgallant braces. I can reach them all and cut through them before your men reach me, and you will be a week fixing the damage and I know you're supposed to leave today. What will the Admiralty say when you come in a week late? Is it worth one pressed seaman?"

  The two men stop about fifteen feet below me and look back down at the Captain, who's lookin' up at me with pure hatred writ all over his crimson face. I move the knife to another line and say, "But let's watch the main royal sail fall to the deck first, shall we?" and I pretend to saw away.

  "Stop!" roars the Captain, and I stop.

  "Look at the pilings on the pier, Captain, and you'll see the tide is ebbing. The same tide you're supposed to be sailing on, Sir," says I. "You must hurry or you will miss it. What will the First Lord say?"

  "All right. Let him go," says the Captain, not taking his furious eyes off me.

  They take their hands off Gully and he jumps to his feet and runs all gangly down the gangway and across the pier and disappears around a building. Gully is saved. Our act is saved. But now, who will save poor Jacky?

  "Tell your men to go back down," I says. I've still got my knife poised on the stay. The Captain nods and the feet of the two men quickly thump on the deck. Why bother chasing me, they're figurin'—I got to come down sometime. I put my shiv securely back in my vest and tighten down the vest's laces, and I start down.

  They make a circle about the deck in the place where I must come down so that I won't be able to make a dash for it. The men are hugely enjoying this, of course—what a story it will make, and who cares about one more seaman on board, more or less? Ah, but the Captain, he is not so amused. He mutters something to a sailor next to him and the sailor leaves and comes back with the Cat. He slaps the Cat's nine tails against his palm and grins up at me. The Bo'sun, for certain.

  When I get down to the topsail yard, I wails, "Surely that Cat's not meant for me, Sir!" They don't say nothin'. They just waits.

  I put my foot in the ratlines that lead down to the maintop, the ratlines on the pier side, to throw them off. I climbs down to the maintop platform, blubberin' and cryin' like I'm afraid I'm about to be whipped, but when my foot touches the main yard, I yelps, "Ha, ha!" and runs the length of it toward the seaward side of the Excalibur, and now they're startin' to shout in alarm, but it's too late, Mates, you can't catch me now.

  I'm at the end of the yard, hangin' out over the water. I turns and grins and dives off.

  I tries to make the dive as graceful as possible, havin' an audience and all, and I hits the water right neatly, just like I practiced back in my lagoon down in the Caribbean. Just like the Caribbean. Except for the cold.

  The day's warmth had charmed me into thinkin' that the water would be as warm as the air. It ain't. The water grabs my chest like an iron fist of cold that means to squeeze all the air out of me forever. I fights the panic that wells up in me and opens me eyes and looks about. It ain't near as clear as the water in my lagoon, but I can make out the looming hull of the Excalibur in the murk and I makes myself swim toward her, underwater.

  I comes up gasping next to the rudder and I moves next to the pintle where I know they won't be able to see me and hangs there, tryin' to make my chest stop shudderin' and shakin'. While I collects myself, I listens to them shoutin' up above.

  "Stupid girl! Drowned for sure!"

  And...

  "'Twarn't our fault. God knows, it 'twarn't our fault!"

  And...

  "Oh, the poor thing! She'll haunt us for sure!"

  And...

  "We've got the wind and the tide! Let's get the hell out of here! We can't hang about for a Goddamed inquest! Damn that girl!"

  That from the Captain.

  "All hands aloft to make sail! Cast off lines One, Two, and Four!"

  I take a breath and go back under and swim over under the pier. My feet touch the muddy bottom and I stand and wrap my arms about myself. Teeth chattering, I hear the swoosh of the sails dropping and filling and the bow of the ship begins to swing out from the dock.

  "Cast off Three and Five! Take a strain on Six!"

  The Captain is in a hurry, taking his ship out without using small boats full of rowers to carefully warp her out of the harbor.

  "Take in Six! Shift Colors!"

  The Excalibur is under way, free of the land. I swim over to where the water comes up under the dock. I had hoped to find one of those ladders that go down in the water for the loading of small boats, but no such luck and I have to slog through the muck to the shore. There's over a hundred years of harbor filth in that mud, but I got to crawl through it. I am lucky that there ain't no sharp stuff buried there and so I don't get cut. I stay away from the barnacles on the pilings themselves, 'cause I know they'll cut me deep if I so much as brush up against them.

  I'm about to gain the shore when I slip and go down, up to my elbows in the slop and my hair flops down in it and I have to kneel in the glop to free my hands but I do, and I figure it's all better than a whipping.

  I get to the head of the dock and see that the Excalibur is about twenty-five yards from the pier, too far out in the channel to come back to get me, so I strolls out to the end of the dock. I can't let them think that I'm dead, as it would ruin their voyage. I'm sure the most superstitious of the sailors have already seen my ghost, and great portents of bad luck and disaster have already been cast 'cause of the death of poor me. I can't let them sail out under the shadow of something like that.

  I put my fists on my hips and bellows out, "Good sailing, Mates!" I waves and they are not so far out that I can't see the heads snap around and the smiles of relief on their faces when they see me standing here filthy but alive and waving and grinning from ear to ear. I hear whistles and cheers and I see some thumbs held up.

  I can see the Captain, too, as he rushes to the rail to glare at me, mouth open in curses I can barely hear. The legend of this day will not go easy on him and I think he knows it. He snaps his jaw shut and gives me a gesture with his finger that I take to mean something nasty. I resists the temptation to turn about and drop my drawers and give him a good look at my bare and muddy backside, but I quells the urge. After all, I am a lady. Sort of.

  I have to put my skirt back on over my muddy drawers cause I'll be arrested if I don't, so I do it. Then I go and fetch the faithful Gretchen, who is waiting for me at the end of the dock and whose nostrils quiver as she gets a whiff of me, but she is good and forgives me and lets me lead her to the Pig, where I find Gully stuffing a bag with his things and I ask him what he's doing.

  "Och. I'm leavin' this town, Moneymaker. Too hot for old Gully, the Hero o' Culloden Moor. There's more o' King George's ships due in and one of 'em '11 get me, soon enough!"

  "Leaving!" I says, standin' there stinkin' and drippin' on the floor and not believin' any of this. "But what about our act? We was doin' so well! You can't break up the act!"

  "I got to go, Missy. Don't ask me to take you with me 'cause I can't—got to travel light to keep ahead of the King's minions."

  "But I wouldn't have saved you if I'd knowed you was gonna cut and run!"

  "Saved me?" he snorts. "Ah, nay, I was just about to bust loose from them blaggards when you come up. All you did was prevent me from hurtin' some o' them."

  Gully slings the Lady Lenore around his shoulder and heads for the door. "I'd kiss ye good-bye, Moneymaker, but ye stinks too bad."

  And he is gone.

  I get up on Gretchen and ride slowly back to the school. I'm lucky there ain't many people about to wonder at my condition and I get into the Common where it don't matter, so I pokes along, thinkin' about things.

  I know I've been fooling myself about a lot of things. I'd made enough money by last week to buy a cheap passage back to England and Jaimy. So w
hy didn't I go? Is it 'cause I'd lose my money that Mistress is holding? No, I don't care about that. Is it 'cause I'm afraid that Jaimy's found another girl, one better and finer than me? No, that ain't it. That would hurt me deep, but that ain't it.

  I know it's because I got all these other things pullin' at me. Amy losing Dovecote. Randall marrying that awful Clarissa. And most of all, poor Janey Porter lying unquiet in her grave because of the terrible evil done to her. Ephraim Fyffe walks the earth without joy and he and Betsey can never come together in happiness till that pall is lifted from them. That pall on which is stitched the name Reverend Richard Mather.

  I'd left friends once before, that night back in London, when I put on Charlie's clothes and lit out, and I ain't been easy with myself about that ever since. Oh, I know, what could I have done for 'em, me bein' a mere girl and all, but the thing was, I was clever and cunning and they were not. That's the thing that gets me up some nights and robs me of sleep.

  I bring Gretchen to a stop and look out across the town and down to the sea.

  That's it, then. I will stay till things are resolved, one way or the other, for good or ill.

  Peg has her hand around the back of my neck and she pushes my head back under the sudsy water and she keeps me down there longer than I think she really has to.

  "Why can't you ever be good?" she scolds when she brings me back up. I had hoped to sneak in and clean up on my own, but Peg caught me and stripped off my clothes and threw me in a laundry tub and poured in the hot water, all the while yelling at me.

  Rachel and Abby are over at the side basins trying to save my clothes. My secret tattoo is now common knowledge to all.

  "But Peggy, I had to—" But then my head is plunged underwater again and Peg gets her scrub brush workin' the harbor grit out of the roots of my hair.

  "'Had to,' nothin'," says Peg, "Had to get in trouble, that's you all over. Why a nice girl like you has to carry a knife like that ... and tattooed?"

  "You're the fastest girl we know, Jacky, and we're proud to know you, ain't we, Abby?" chortles Rachel. Abby nods in delighted agreement.

  "But a sailor always has a kni—"

  Back down under. "But you ain't a sailor. You're supposed to be a good girl is what you're supposed to be, and you ain't even close."

  Then the door opens and Amy comes in to join the throng pointing out my faults and is quickly brought up to date on my latest crimes against ladyhood. "Why don't you ever think before you act?" is her addition to the conversation. That, and a worried look and a hopeless shaking of the head.

  Once again my head is pushed down between my knees. It occurs to me that bein' the only naked one in a room when all about you are clothed and yellin' at you ain't the most comfortable of situations. The warm water does feel good, though, after the chill of the harbor.

  This time when I come up, however, I hear neither scolding nor banter.

  I open my eyes and see, through the blear of the water and the strands of my hair hanging down, the disapproving face of Mistress Pimm. I put my arms across my chest and I am glad that my tattoo is underwater. My mouth drops open but I don't know what to say, and I rummage frantically about in my head for a saving lie.

  "The foolish thing was sent down to the market to buy fish and fell off the pier," lies dear Peg for me.

  Mistress says nothing to this. Instead she says, "Dobbs has discovered a ladder leaning against the outside wall under your window. We have investigated and discovered that your room has been ransacked. I trust you had nothing of value in there. You will be well advised to keep your window latched from now on."

  Mistress turns and leaves.

  The first thing I check for is the money and, of course, it's gone, every penny, the poor little bag lying flat on the floor. The rest of my things are scattered about, where he emptied my seabag and overturned my chest in his search for other things that might be worth selling. Did I even tell him that I kept my money in my seabag when he expressed concern that I might lose it and must be careful? I might have. Did I really think it was a kindness when he walked me back home the other night, when all he really wanted to do was case the job?

  How could I be so stupid?

  I look over the mess and then flop down on my bed, facedown.

  Chapter 28

  James Emerson Fletcher

  9 Brattle Lane

  London

  October 24, 1803

  Miss Jacky Faber

  The Lawson Peabody School for Young Girls

  Beacon Street

  Boston, Massachusetts, USA

  Dearest Jacky,

  I hope this letter finds you safe, well, and happy and that you are continuing to profit from your schooling and that you are enjoying the companionship of your new friends. I am sure that you are most popular with the others, considering your wealth of charm and your infectious high spirits.

  I am sorry to tell you that the crew of the Dolphin has been broken up. Upon our arrival in Britain, an inspection of the repairs needed to get her back shipshape showed that they were much more extensive than we had previously thought, and she would have to go into dry dock for a long time. The Brotherhood is scattered, I'm afraid—Davy to the Raleigh, Tink to the Endeavor, and Willy to Temeraire. I am posted to the frigate Essex, along with George Elliot, whom you will remember as being a fellow midshipman on the Dolphin. He is a very decent sort and we have become quite good friends. It is a very good posting, the Essex, and we have Captain Locke to thank for it, for it was his recommendation that secured it for us. We will soon set sail to join Lord Nelson's fleet, which has bottled up the French fleet at Toulon. It is important work, for Napoleon intended to use his fleet to invade our country, and he has been thwarted in that attempt. May Britannia always rule the seas!

  It is rumored that we might even meet the great man himself, can you believe it?

  Perhaps it is well that I have left the dear Dolphin because in my time on her after your departure, when on watch or in the performance of my regular duties, I would see you in all our old nooks and crannies and it would both delight me and sorely oppress my mind. The day before we left her, I climbed to the foretop and carved our initials there—JF + JF—I wonder what future generations of ships boys will make o/that? At least in leaving the Dolphin, I will no longer be subjected to the looks of envy directed toward the scoundrel who wormed his unworthy self into the affections of the redoubtable Jacky Faber, Girl Sailor, Midshipman, and the Scourge of the Seven Seas.

  Well might they be envious, for I am a very lucky man to have been loved by such as you. I hope that I continue to be lucky by remaining uppermost in your heart, but I fear that I may be mistaken and unlucky after all—I have received no letters from you, Jacky, and the Shannon has returned from Boston, as well as the Sprite and the Plymouth. I check with my mother each time I am home, but she informs me, to my infinite sorrow, that there is nothing from you. I am cruelly disappointed and I am beginning to be worried.

  My mother further implores me to seek out alliances of those "within our own set," but I will not allow her to continue in this vein. I inform her that there is none for me but my brown-eyed sailor.

  We leave on the tide tomorrow. There are many rumors flying about, but it seems certain we are about to blockade the French fleet at Toulon, and will be on station for many months. I shall continue writing, but I fear the delivery of my letters will be chancy, at best.

  Please be careful. I worry about you, given your propensity for plunging into trouble. And please write to me.

  Your most devoted servant,

  Jaimy

  Chapter 29

  I mope around for a bit, but then, like always, I get over it.

  In a few days I take tea with Maudie and we both grumble over our losses.

  "Never trust a drunk," says Maudie, again.

  "Older and wiser now," says I. "How much did he get you for?"

  "Some lodging, some board," sighs she, who warned me in the first place bu
t who I guess didn't take her own advice. "But what I hate most is losin' the business his fiddle and you brought in."

  What I hate most is being taken for a fool. I just found out that the Battle of Culloden Moor was fifty some years ago and Gully couldn't possibly have been there, Jacky Faber, Cheapside scammer, was scammed again, scammed royally. And all my money gone. I had noticed that my concertina was gone. I find out later that Gully had sold it at the pawnshop and it's gonna cost me two dollars to get it back.

  "Aye," I says. I could do a solo act, but we both know that without Gully's fiddle and without his wild craziness, it wouldn't work. Just some afternoon shows with me makin' a few sailors cry in their beers with my sad songs—not the thing that fills the coffers. I mean, I'll do it, 'cause I really need the money now, but it ain't gonna be the same.

  I bid Maudie good day and go out and climb aboard Gretchie, her saddlebags bulging with the stuff from the greengrocer's that I was sent to buy. I bring her up to a brisk trot 'cause I want to get back quick to show Mr. Peet my latest poor attempts at miniature portrait painting and to get his kind advice, and I got a math problem I can't figure out that I want to see Mr. Sackett about.

  And then, after I'm done with the work of the day, I must make my preparations for tonight.

  I put the last strand of the mop to the top of my watch cap and sew it in tightly. Then I patiently unravel the mop strand as I have done to all the other strands I have sewn on to the cap.

  I have long since sent Amy down to her own bed, complaining of sickness that I do not want to pass on to her.