Under the Jolly Roger

by L. A. Meyer

  More nods.

  "Good. One other thing. When we are here in the berth, we are Robin, Jacky, Tom, Ned, and Georgie, as we are all fellow midshipmen. But when we are on deck, we are Mister and Miss, for that is how we want the men to address us. Clear? All right then, lads, let's eat."

  Just then the door is kicked open and our food arrives, borne by the same surly cook's helper who had delivered our rations before. He is a miserable looking creature, slump shouldered and chinless and not very clean. He drops the tray upon the table and goes to leave.

  As he does so, I stick out my boot between his feet and trip him, such that he pitches forth, facedown on the deck.

  "Wot? Wot, the hell!" he says, scrambling to his feet, full of indignation.

  "Belay that," I say. He looks at me in openmouthed wonder. I put on the Lawson Peabody Look and gaze down my nose at him. "Pick up the tray and go back out and ask permission to enter." He now looks confused. "Do it, or you shall feel the Nine-Tailed Cat scratch your worthless back!" I hiss, and he jumps to his feet, takes the tray, and scurries back out.

  Soon there is a scratching at the hatchway door.

  "Yes," I say, as icily as I can.

  "Dinner, Miss."

  "You may enter."

  He comes back in.

  "What is your name?" I demand.

  "Weisling, Miss."

  "Very well, Weisling, you may serve us our dinner."

  The now thoroughly cowed man enters and goes to put the tray on the table.

  "No," I say. "Serve each of us our plates. From the right, if you please. Thank you."

  He does it and puts a pitcher of hot tea on the table and a pint of rum in front of Robin and another in front of me. Hmmm. At least I'm to get a full ration. I pick it up and hand it back to him.

  "I do not drink spirits. Take it back, please. If there is wine, I will have some. If not, I will content myself with tea. And," I say, "make sure that pint finds its way back to the Bo'sun. I will check, count on it."

  He leaves, and we fall to, talking easily among ourselves of the day's events. Presently, our reluctant servant comes back in bearing a bottle of red wine. He uncorks it and pours me a glass. It is not a great vintage, but it is drinkable.

  "Thank you," I say. He leaves the bottle on the table and goes out, no doubt to spread tales of my vicious nature.

  "A glass of wine with you, Robin," I say, tipping the bottle over his still empty glass. "It would be better for you to help me with this, rather than to drink that, for you will have to get up for the Four to Eight."

  Later, the gentle roll of the ship lulls me as I lie curled in my bed. I think: It has been two days since I got here and at least half the crew knows my name and who I am. I think I can count some as my friends, and that is good. Tomorrow I shall acquit myself in the same way. If enough are on my side, then maybe I will be all right.

  Little mutinies it will have to be, if I am to be saved.

  I wish I had my pennywhistle and was allowed to play it. I wish I had Amy here by my side. Or Judy. I wish I had my seabag and my paints and brushes and disks of ivory—I would do a portrait of Joshua Langley for his Rose. I would like to do that.

  I know I have one portrait I will erase so I can use the ivory disk again ... no, no ... I won't do that at all. What I'll do is wrap that one in a cloth and put it away and maybe someday I'll be able to take it out and look at it again.

  A line from a song comes unbidden into my mind. I wish that my love were in my arms and I lie in my bed once again.

  It doesn't matter what you wish, girl. Just go to sleep. The Midwatch is a scant three hours away.

  Chapter 7

  James Emerson Fletcher

  9 Brattle Lane

  London, England

  September 9, 1804

  My Dear Lost Girl,

  My hopes that you were merely off pouting somewhere and soon would turn up all dewy eyed and sorrowful were cruelly dashed this morning when what proved to be your servant, a Judy Miller, appeared in tears on our doorstep with your seabag under her arm.

  Poor, red-nosed thing, snuffling about her mistress and how she warned her not to go off dressed like that and how she was supposed to wait till her mistress got back:

  "But she never come back, Sir, no, she didn't and I fears that somethin' awful has happened to Mistress Mary, I do, Sir. And she told me to come here if she didn't come back; and she didn't come back, so here I am, Sir. Is she here, Sir?"

  My heart sank for I knew that you would never leave your precious seabag, much less leave this poor girl to her own devices if you were not in some serious trouble. I told your Judy that you were, alas, not here, but I assured her we would find you and she would stay with us until we did. I eagerly questioned her about you and was thunderstruck to be told that you, yourself, had been here at my house the day before yesterday and had been turned away by my mother. Most cruelly turned away, it seems. I will give you an account of what passed that day, as scratching away with my quill keeps my mind off what you might be going through right now.

  "Surely your mistress was mistaken," I said, standing there astounded.

  "Oh no, Sir, yer mum throwed her right out in the street! It was your girl Hattie what told me mistress you'd be at the races the next day, which was why she dressed up that way 'cause she thought that would be the only way into the track and I said, 'No, Mistress, don't do it. We'll get in—ain't we the last of the Rooster Charlie Gang what can get into any place in Cheapside,' but she wouldn't listen. No, Sir, she wouldn't. She thought it'd be such a lark and that you'd like to see her in that old carefree way. But it didn't work out like I knowed it wouldn't work out, and now what have we got?"

  We have got nothing. Nothing but a growing, seething anger born of a sudden parting of the clouds of doubt and suspicion in my mind, that and a low, animal growl of rage working its way out of my throat ... Motherrrrrrr...

  I took Judy by the wrist and we went upstairs to my mother's room.

  "What is this, James?" asked Mother. "We do not knock outside a lady's chamber?" Hattie was standing next to her, combing out her hair. She looked up but continued to comb the hair.

  "Listen to this, Mother, then you will speak to me," said I, pulling poor Judy forward. Judy blubbered out her tale again.

  A look of coldness came over my mother's face. Affecting calmness, she took the hairbrush from unsuspecting Hattie's hand and quick as a snake, whipped it across the astounded girl's face. "Get out! You are no longer in my service, Hattie!" Mother hissed, no longer calm.

  Hattie, shocked by the pain of the blow, put her hand to her reddening face and tears came from her eyes. Then anger overtook her urge to cry and her voice hardened and she said, "I have served you for eight years, Mistress, ever since I was a girl of twelve. I considered your family to be my family, and this is the thanks I get for my years of faithful service—a kick out into the streets."

  She paused and seemed to come to a decision. "All right," she said, "I'll go. But first..."

  Hattie turned and looked at me. "Third drawer, right side," she then said, pointing down at my mother's desk. "I should have done that long ago and for that, Master James, I am heartily sorry. I thought I owed my loyalty to your mother. I was wrong."

  With that she covered her face with her hands and ran from the room. I went for the drawer, got there before my mother's staying hand, and I pulled it open. There lay a pile of letters that I could plainly see had both your name and your handwriting upon them. I picked them up and looked at my mother in shock and disbelief.

  "How could you do such a thing?" I asked, hardly above a whisper.

  Mother rose to her full height, her eyes furious. "That girl is as common as dirt! I have seen her and I know! She is not for one such as you!"

  "Mother, I love that girl to the depths of my being and I know she loves me the same and yet you felt compelled to turn her out? How could you do that when you knew how I felt about her?" I was breathing hard, consumed
with hurt and outrage. "Or loved me, that is. She could well be dead now, lying in some gutter, because of your unkindness. How could you have watched my face every time I asked about letters, the crushing disappointment writ there each time, when all the while you had those precious letters hidden in that drawer? How could you do that to me?" I was close to tears of rage over such treachery. "I am your son. I thought you loved me."

  "I do love you, James, I love you with all my heart and every fiber of my being. I was merely protecting you, my beloved son!"

  "Protecting me? From her? From that girl who bestowed her affections upon me wholeheartedly and without reservation and without guile, with open eyes and open heart? From the trusting and brave girl who saved my very life at least twice?"

  "Just because thy mare gives thee good service does not mean that thee will dine with her," hissed my mother.

  That was the end of it. I knew I could stay no longer in that place. I stood and looked at my mother for what I believe will be the last time.

  "Good-bye, Mother. I will send for my things. Judy, come along."

  And so I left my beloved childhood home.

  James Fletcher

  Bartleby Inn

  September 28, 1804

  Dear Jacky,

  The only possible clue to your whereabouts that we have found so far is the fact that, on that day, there was a press-gang roaming the neighborhood where you disappeared. It is possible that they scooped you up, thinking you to be male because of your clothing. If that was the case, you would have been taken to a ship, discovered, and then released; and you shall turn up shortly. That is what is to be hoped for. Until then, I have the bittersweet joy of reading your letters, over and over.

  I hope you will not consider it a violation, but I went through your seabag for a possible clue to your whereabouts, an address where you might have gone or somesuch, but it yielded nothing, nothing but the scent of you on your clothing that I confess I pressed to my face and kept there for a long time. I also found the miniature painting of me that you had done and that you reported in your letters that you kept next to your heart. To think that you had kept up your affection for me during all that time with no letters, no word of mutual affection from my unworthy self. That your mistress Pimm and my mother could have caused such a thing makes my very blood boil, and I cannot bear to think of it.

  I have left my mother's house, of course, and have taken rooms at the Bartleby, which I can ill afford, having taken both Hattie and your Judy with me. My mother sacked Hattie on the spot, and she certainly was not going to fill her position with your Judy. I am going to try to find good places for the two of them before I return to sea, and I will be glad when I do it as they fuss over me and drive me to distraction.

  All this would not have happened if you hadn't been so foolish as to dress up as a jockey. What did you hope to gain? And then running off like that—Jacky, we were so close, so close to being reunited. ... If you had not run away, we would be planning a wedding right now, not desperately searching for you. Why do you act the way you do? Why can't you ever think? Why, oh why can't you ... There. I have kicked over a chair and broken a glass. Judy and Hattie are looking worried.

  Jacky, where the hell are you?

  I hope for the best but fear the worst.

  Jaimy

  Chapter 8

  It seems like I had just put my head down on my pillow and gone off to sleep when someone is outside my cabin tapping on the door and saying, Miss! Miss! You must get up! And I do, flinging back my wonderfully warm and comforting blanket and planting my bare feet on the cold deck. "All right," I say, all groggy, "I am up."

  I sit there and shiver a moment. I can see by the sliver of light under my door that the Messenger of the Watch has left the small lantern outside my door, so I get up and reach out and bring it in.

  I splash water on my face and visit the chamber pot, knowing I ain't gonna see it for another four hours. I dress and then douse the lantern and, in the pitch darkness, head up on deck to assume the midnight-to-four watch as Junior Officer of the Deck.

  When I get there, my eyes have adjusted enough to the darkness for me to see that Mr. Harvey, the Sailing Master, is passing the watch to Mr. Smythe, the gunnery officer.

  "Sailing on the port tack, course zero-zero-nine, main, royals, and gallants set, Mr. Smythe," says Mr. Harvey.

  "No sign of enemy activity, Mr. Harvey?"

  "None, Mr. Smythe," replies Mr. Harvey, I think a bit drily, as if there has never been any enemy activity on this post. "Due to turn to course one hundred eighty-seven degrees Two Bells in the Morning Watch."

  I have the feeling the exact same thing is said every night.

  "Very well, Mr. Harvey, I have the con."

  "This is Mr. Harvey," the Sailing Master calls out to no one in particular, "Mr. Smythe has the con."

  "This is Mr. Smythe. I have the con," says the gunnery officer in a similar voice, and so the watch is officially passed. Mr. Harvey leaves the deck.

  I go up and present myself. I salute and say, "Midshipman Faber, Junior Officer of the Watch, reporting for duty, Sir."

  He looks down at me incredulously. He does not return the salute. "What the hell is this then?" he asks. It seems that Mr. Pelham has not seen fit to tell his fellow officers that this was going to happen. Probably his idea of a good joke on them. Well, this ship could use a few jokes, so I don't mind.

  "The midshipmen have been added to the Watch list, Sir. As part of our training."

  "And who ordered this?"

  "Mr. Pelham, Sir." It's sort of true.

  "Christ," he says, without emphasis. "Well, stand over there out of the way."

  I go over and stand behind the helmsman at the great wheel so I can keep an eye on the course and the set of the sails. I assume the Parade Rest posture, feet about a foot apart, hands clasped behind back, and wait.

  And wait. And wait.

  There is a Bo'sun's Mate of the Watch in front of the quarterdeck, as well as a Messenger of the Watch, both of them trying not to snicker at me. Just you wait. We'll see about that.

  I'm standing next to a brass tube, which I know to be the speaking tube that runs down into the Captain's cabin, which is right under us. The tube ends just above the Captain's bed, and through this device he can both send orders and receive messages from his watch. Through it, I can hear him down there wheezing and grunting, and I move a little bit away.

  It is a clear, starlit night, with the moon just coming up, and I can see the loom of the land faintly off to starboard. There are no lights there, and there are no lights shining on us, either. There's only the sound of the water rushing by our side and the creaking of the rigging, that sound that never ceases on a ship under way.

  Mr. Smythe lets me stand there a full half hour, I assume to show me my place, till the First Bell is gently rung and then he says with acid contempt, "Very well, Junior Officer of the Watch, let us throw the log."

  Gratefully, I leave my spot, reflecting on just how long a half hour can be, and go to the Bo'sun's Mate of the Watch and say, "Give me the log."

  With a smirk, he leans down and opens a cabinet built into the edge of the quarterdeck and hands me the log with its knotted line wrapped around it. It is actually not a log but a piece of board cut in the shape of a triangle with a hole drilled in each point and a knotted rope run through each of the holes and then braided up and attached to the main line—so that when it is thrown out, it will catch the water and act as a sea anchor and not just skip about on the surface. I take it back on the deck and go up next to Mr. Smythe and unravel it. When I have the log in my right hand and the coiled-up line in my left, I say, "Ready, Sir."

  "All right," he says, and I know he's surprised I got this far. "Give me the glass." The Bo'sun's Mate hands him a small sandglass and he squints at it in the moonlight. "Let it go."

  I lean out over the rail and I toss the log a little bit forward. I hear it hit the water and the line starts to play
out through my fingers. There's fifty feet of clear line and then there's a knot tied every seven fathoms—every forty-two feet, a fathom being six feet—and when the first knot hits my hand I call out, "Turn!" and start counting the knots that slip through my fingers, knowing that Mr. Smythe has turned the glass, which will measure out thirty seconds. ... One, two, three ... and so on till I hit five and then Mr. Smythe says, "Mark," and I clench my fist around the line and bring it up. I see that my hand is halfway between two of the knots and I sing out, "Five and a half knots, Sir!" Not bad, for light winds, I'll own. The Wolverine is not a bad sailor.

  I rewrap the rope around the log and hand it back to the Bo'sun, who hands it to the Messenger, who puts it away. I think all are disappointed that I didn't mess up and run away crying.

  I reassume my position and resume looking up the sails, to make sure all are drawing well. Could take a bit of a tuck on the main royal and ... there's a light on the shore.

  "Sir!" I say. "There's a light! One point on our port quarter! On the beach, and it's blinking!"

  Mr. Smythe slowly turns to look at the light. He seems unimpresssed. "Yes," he says, "it occurs every week or so. Seems to have no connection with anything. It makes no sense, spells out nothing in either English or French. If it is a code, then we do not know what it is, and we do not know for whom it is meant. I think they do it just to make us wonder. That is so very much like them," he sighs. "We must, however, report them to the Captain in the morning. He insists upon it."