by L. A. Meyer
"Here are my silks," I say. "You will wash them and you will dry them and you will carefully iron them. You will not put them on and prance around. You will not wear the pants over your face or anything like that or I will have you lashed to the grating and given twenty. Remember that I have friends in the crew and they will be keeping an eye on you. I know several who would cheerfully slip a knife twixt your ribs. Do you understand? Good. Now, get out and get us some food and drink or I will get us another steward and put you in with the Waisters and the rest of the trash."
The Weasel slinks out, limping.
Men, I swear.
Soon he is back, seeming all contrite, bearing steaming plates of food, and we fall to. I give Ned and Tom some watered rum to make them sleep better. I send them off to bed, saying Tom will have the Four-to-Eight. I will take the Mid and Robin will shortly go up and take the Evening Watch. He is very quiet.
"Robin," I say, "it is rough, but it is war. They were trying to kill us." I put my hand on his arm.
He doesn't say anything for a while. Then he takes another sip of wine and sighs and puts his hand on mine. "I know, but still. All those young men. Singing and all..."
"That was a lucky shot, your first time aiming a gun."
He snorts. "Aiming? I didn't aim. I just pulled the cord."
"So you see, it was just Providence. God called those Froggies to Him."
He smiles in spite of his gloom. "I suppose..."
"I suppose you should go up on watch, now. I'll see you when I relieve you for the Mid."
We rise and face each other ... closely face each other. He is dressed for his watch and I am still in my nightshirt since I'm going right to bed anyway.
"Jacky. I ... I ..." he stammers.
"I know, Robin, I know," I say and take his hand and squeeze it in both of mine. I go on my tiptoes and give him a light kiss on the cheek. "I know, too, that you did very well out there today. Now go on watch, knowing that I am very, very proud of you."
Chapter 12
We have the funeral for the fallen sailor the next morning. I was hoping he would turn out to be one of the worthless Waisters, one of Muck's bunch, but no such luck. He was Simon Baldwin, a good man and a good seaman. All, except for the Captain, who is either too sick or too uncaring to come up, turn out for the words to be said over poor Baldwin, and then the plank is lifted and the canvas-covered body slips off into the sea.
After the ceremony, Baldwin's things are auctioned off at the foremast, the money taken in to be kept for any family he might have. I bought his oilskins.
The sailmakers do make the skirts for the unfortunate starboard gun crews, and they put them on. The rest of their friends look about—daring anyone to make a comment. After some snickers and guffaws from Muck and his crew, when it looks like it might come to blows, Mr. Pinkham lets out the word, very quietly, that those men should take off the skirts but keep them tucked in their belts, should the Captain come back on deck and they have to get them back on right quick. I'm coming to have more and more regard for Mr. Pinkham every day—how he could have put up with the Captain's cruelty for so long, and still kept on, I don't know....
The ship returns to its ordinary routine, day after day, watch after watch. I continue to drill the gun crews, being Assistant Gunnery Officer now, all of the gun crews, not just the now overly proud Division One. I have put Robin in charge of the four forward starboard guns and he is bringing them, and himself, along nicely. He drills his crew relentlessly and his men are coming to respect him. He really is growing into a man before my very eyes.
We are discovering that there are experienced gunners amongst the crew. I have put Harkness in charge of the four port quarter guns and Shaughnessy, the starboard four. We all drill over and over, every day, but it is back to dry runs—no powder to be used. I am left to do what I want—Mr. Smythe, the Gunnery Officer, has turned to the bottle.
The entire ship's company now calls themselves the Werewolves.
I continue the boys' schooling—it is good for them, as it gets their minds off the past battle. Ned and Tom have bounced back all right, but Georgie still mopes about. If he just had someone his own age to help him through this time in his life.
The boys' schooling is sometimes not exactly what I had laid out for them in the way of worthy study. One day, I came silently into the midshipmen's berth where Tom and Ned were bent over what I assumed was their navigation book when I heard both of them stifle giggles.
What? Navigation is good, useful, and interesting, but it is seldom funny, I'm thinking.
"So what are you two buggers going on about?" I ask and march up to them. I look down, and there, nestled in the book of navigation, is a copy of The Book. I feel my face turning red.
Ned, his pug-nosed face suffused in glee, squeals out, "You and Jaaaaaaaymmeeee in the haaaaaammock!"
Tom, his head down and keening, rocking back and forth in joy, has both his arms thrust down hard between his thighs. "Jacky and Jaaaymeee sittin' in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G ... " he squeals in delight.
I grab The Book and fling it into my cabin. "You little rotters! You are supposed to be studying! Where's my switch? You'll get it now, by God!"
But they flee the room in time to escape my wrath. "And don't believe everything you read!"
Christ! That book will be the end of me!
I have found that the Master-at-Arms, Peter Drake, is a skilled swordsman, so I have arranged for him to give the lads lessons in swordsmanship, a skill no young gentleman can do without. Me, too.
So, each day all the middies and I line up on Three Hatch, which is right in front of the quarterdeck and is open and free of gear, and we are taught. I have told Drake that he is allowed to yell at us during instruction.
We are all equipped with fencing foils—sort of practice swords made only for poking at your opponent, no slashing. That's for sabers, later.
Drake barks out the commands.
En garde! We get down in a crouching position, with our foils held in our right hands about breast level. Our left hands are in fists and on our hips.
Advance! We whip out our front foot to take a step and bring up the back one to maintain the crouch. Advance! We do it again. The foil begins to feel heavy in the hand. Retreat! We reverse the steps and go back. Advance! Advance! Lunge! On the last command, we extend our back legs and lunge forward and we extend our sword arms as if we were plunging our weapons into the belly of our opponent. Recover! We pull back to the original en garde position just in case we didn't finish him off and he's about to plunge his sword into our own dear bellies.
Lunge! Recover forward! Lunge! That is the one that finally gets us. We have to extend, lunge, and then bring our back leg up and lunge again.
We are pathetic. Robin manages to complete the thing without falling over. The younger boys don't. I have ridden spars in storms and I have ridden Thoroughbred horses to victory in hotly contested races, but my legs just ain't up to this. I barely manage to pull up after the final lunge.
Drake says, with great contempt in his voice, "You know those moves. Practice them. I will be back tomorrow at the same time." With that, he leaves the deck.
We are up there again the next day. And the next. We practice constantly, on deck or in the berth. We get better at it.
Sometimes, when neither Robin nor I have the Evening Watch, we go up into the maintop to just ... well, just sit and talk.
Will you sit with me here, Robin? Can I put my head on your shoulder for a bit? Could you put your arm around me and hold my hand and give me some comfort, without expecting too much from me? I don't know what I want or what I'm going to do or what's going to happen to me, but I do get so scared sometimes, Robin, oh yes, so scared, even though I may never show it, but yes, I do. You know, Robin, even though I have decided to live single all of my life, you could still learn a lot from me about girls and how to love them if you will be my friend. You could...
He puts his arm around my shoulder and I put my head ag
ainst his neck and we look up and watch the stars.
Then, one day, I meet the rest of the ship's boys. I am on the Morning Watch and Tucker comes up to me, prodding two young boys along with him.
"Good day, Miss Faber," says the grinning Tucker, putting his knuckle to his brow by way of salute. "I thought that, since you was once a ship's boy yourself, you might like to make the acquaintance of the other boys. This 'ere's Eli Chase..."
Eli Chase is a curly headed blond boy with a shy smile who looks most anxious to get away from my awful majesty. I am dressed like a dreaded officer, after all.
"Good day to you, Eli," I say, nodding. "I hope you are a good boy and are attending to your duties?"
"Yes, Mum," he says, and he retreats gratefully to the safety of the fo'c'sle.
"... and this 'ere," says Tucker, proudly, as if he's introducing King George, himself, "is our own Tremendous McKenzie, Hero of the Glorious First, and a true Son-of-a-Gun!"
There steps forward a very small and very skinny boy who is wearing the remains of ragged trousers that do not quite reach his knees and a tattered shirt. On that shirt, right in the middle of his thin chest, hangs a once-bright ribbon and from that a brass medal. He salutes and says, "McKenzie, here."
"Well, McKenzie," I say, "that is a most impressive medal. Would you like to tell me how you got it?" smirks I, thinking he had found it in a gutter somewhere.
"Yes, Ma'am, I would," says Tremendous, not at all cowed by my high station. "I was born on His Majesty's Ship Tremendous during the Great and Glorious Battle of the First of June in seventeen hundred and ninety-four wherein we kicked the crap out of Boney's Navy, we did."
He says this in a sonorous tone, which shows me that he has delivered this speech many times before.
"That was indeed a glorious victory," I say, doing the math. "That makes you all of ... ten years old now, right, McKenzie?"
"Right, Miss," says McKenzie, and, not to be interrupted in his speech, goes on. "Me mum, havin' gone on board secretlike with me dad, was havin' trouble birthin' me, so they picked her up and spread her out between two of the great guns and they fired 'em off and out I popped, clean as a whistle, and a true Son-of-a-Gun!"
I had heard of that practice and that term before, and here, standing right in front of me, is the issue of such a birth.
"That is quite a story, Tremendous," I say, duly impressed. "Now, how came you by the medal?"
He puffs out his chest and says, "Them in power decided to give the Naval General Service Medal, which this is, to all the men aboard the ships on that great day, and as I was aboard, I got one. Here it is."
"Indeed it is. Tell me, what was your rating on that ship? What was your job ... was it shipfitter, sailmaker, able seaman, carpenter?"
"I was entered in as 'Baby,' Miss, that was me rating, and that was the job I did," says the boy, with great pride.
Ah, just like the Royal Navy, to be ever so precise, even when it makes itself look ridiculous.
"And your mother, Tremendous ... Did she get a medal, too?" I ask, knowing full well the answer.
"No, Miss," he says, "she didn't. For one thing she wasn't supposed to be there, and for another the Admiralty said the country would run out of brass if they give a medal to every woman aboard those ships on that day."
And I used to think I was the only female what had ever snuck aboard a Man-o'-War...
There was another incident about the skirts. Seaman Elias Hart, a slight young man of about seventeen and a member of Gun Crew Number Ten, had his shameful skirt tucked in his belt and was coming back from the mess deck when several of Muck's bunch paraded in front of him with their hands held up but with their wrists limp, prancing and mincing with their eyelids flapping. The young man, slight as he was, flew at them with curses and fists flailing, but they were ready for him and clubbed him down to the deck and were about to do some real damage when Jared and Harper and some others floated down from the rigging and put a stop to it right quick. Jared had one Waister by the throat and was about to pound him into the deck when I came up and got myself between them all and yelled, "Stop it! You know the penalty for fighting! Back off! Now! Get back to your quarters!"
They do it, but looks are exchanged that say, Things ain't over yet, you rotten bastard....
They disperse, sullenly, and I catch Jared's furious eye and pointedly look up to the foretop. After a few moments, I go up there, and a few minutes later, he joins me.
"So what is the way of things, Jared?" I lean against the mast so I can't be seen from below. Jared comes up and stands beside me.
"That Horner has been trouble since the day he got here, him and his gang of worthless sods!" says Jared with uncharacteristic venom. Horner, Asa Horner, is the name that Muck has been using since the day he got here. Each day he grows ever more bold.
"I had heard, Jared, that you command the loyalty of a certain part of the crew, and Harkness, some of the others."
He looks at me, amused now in the way a parent might look at a child who had unexpectedly discovered something that the parent felt was beyond the child's reach.
"Yes," he says. "Harkness has his mates and I have mine. Peter Drake has a following, too. Considering the state of this ship, a man's got to know who his friends are and who ain't in order to survive if worse comes to worse."
If it comes to mutiny, you mean, and chaos rules?
I nod in agreement. "And this Horner. What has he got?"
Jared snorts. "He's got nothing but meanness and guile, but that he has in great store. He tries constantly to stir up trouble between the men ... diggin' a little here, insinuatin' a little there, you know..."
Well I know. "Well, Jared, we must keep an eye on him then, mustn't we? Good order is important on a ship. Even on a Hell Ship like this."
"Aye, Miss, that we must."
There is silence between us for a bit and then he moves in such a way that our shoulders touch as we stand against the mast. When he speaks again, I can hear the cockiness back in his voice.
"You do know what the men call you, don't you? Behind your back, I mean, when you can't hear?"
What? I had thought that they called me Miss Faber, but...
"What do they call me then?" I say, suddenly wary and resentful.
"You won't take offense, Lieutenant?" he says, his eyes sparring with mine.
"No. Out with it."
He crosses his arms and looks steadily at me. "They call you 'Puss-in-Boots.'"
"Oh ...," I say, and sag against the mast. "So I have gained no respect at all since I have been here. None at all."
"I wouldn't say that, Miss," says Jared, serious now, without his usual bantering tone. "I think they mean it kindly, and with great affection. Which could be a good thing for you."
I think about that for a while, and then I cut my eyes over to him. "It is not too much of a stretch, Joseph Jared, to figure out who came up with such a name."
He lifts his hands, palms up in a gesture of innocence, but the cocky grin is back and does not leave his face.
Puss-in-Boots, indeed, I think with indignation as I slide back down to the deck.
The smugglers continue to get through our blockade, as the Captain's orders remain in effect as long as he is alive, and he does hang on. Though he has not come back on deck since that day when we fought the gunboat, he makes his presence felt—we can hear him groaning and beating the wall of his cabin with his fist, and, when on the quarterdeck, we can hear his mutterings and curses and labored breathing come up through the speaking tube.
We see the flashing lights at night, again, and yet again.
Chapter 13
We are at swordsmanship when the Captain comes back on the quarterdeck. It appears he has gotten over his sickness and looks to be making up for lost time in the way of vileness.
He looks at us standing there. We're suddenly feeling foolish in our fencing poses. I say, "Attention on deck," and we straighten up and our swords are put to our sides.
"Such nonsense," he mutters. His skin is a dead white, except for a band of red that stretches across his cheekbones and nose. His hand still shakes, but his eyes glitter with the old malice. Behind him, I see some of the men hurriedly putting on skirts.
"Looks like things have got right soft around here in my absence. Right soft. What is this, then?" He looks at us, and his gaze lingers on me.
Mr. Pelham has the watch, along with Georgie. The rest of us put our foils aside and stand there waiting. Mr. Pelham, to his credit, says, "Your young gentlemen are being exercised in swordsmanship."
"My young gentlemen, eh?" sneers Captain Scroggs, still looking at me. "But this is stupid stuff. Let's have some real exercise." I glance at Mr. Pelham and see dread in his eyes. Mr. Pinkham has come on deck, too.
"Good day, Captain. It is good to see that you are feeling better, Sir," says Mr. Pinkham.
"It is good to see that you are still an ass-kissing sycophant, Mr. Pinkham," says the Captain. Poor Mr. Pinkham bows his head and steps back.
"Yes," says the Captain. "Let's see some real exercise." He looks up into the sails. "You men aloft! Last one to reach the deck gets ten for sloth! Go!"
Men pour out of the top, their feet thudding on the deck as they reach it, each one relieved that he will not be the one suffering under the lash. The last several risk broken bones by letting go of the rigging and dropping down from risky heights.
The last man hits the deck hard and limps off to the side, terror writ large on his face. It is Yonkers, of my Division One. It is plain that he has sprained his ankle.
"Lash him up!" roars the Captain. Muck and a few of his crew take up the hatch grating and lash it upright to the mast. Then they seize Yonkers and drag him to the grating. They rip off his shirt and haul him up and tie his wrists and stand back, letting him hang there, spread-eagled. Muck looks to the Captain for approval. He gets an approving nod and looks most satisfied.
