He'd better be.
I go through the whole thing again and then put the glass back together to look seaward to where I think the island is.
Nothing.
I'll take a swim and then try again.
Again the puffs go up and again nothing. The tide comes in and puts the fire out. Tomorrow is another day. I pick up my things and head back to the kip.
There's a tall and wide tree that sits on the edge of my clearing, with its branches hanging out over the lagoon. Its trunk and branches are smooth and pink and have patches on them like peeling skin and there ain't many little branches and the leaves are mainly on the top canopy so it's real easy to climb. The branches are so wide and level that I can walk right along them, no hands.
There's a place right up top that looks out over the sea, where four branches come together, and so I get some rope and weave it back and forth, round and round the four branches, and make myself a little platform. I take another long length of rope and run it from there down to the ground where I pull it taut and tie it around a stout root that curls up from out of the ground. So I've got myself a foretop, like, and I can run up and down that rope just like it was a shroud on the ship. Keep myself ready for sea. I shall call it The Foretop.
I keep watch the rest of the afternoon and evening.
Nothing.
Dinner, and so to bed.
Chapter 40
It rained again last night, so all hope of another signal fire is gone for several days, at least. If I had not been so lazy I would have collected more wood and put it under the Hope, but no, I didn't. Conduct Unbecoming a Midshipman in His Majesty's Navy. I put myself on report.
I deny myself breakfast as punishment for my dereliction of duty and go right down to the beach to gather another stack of wood. I will regretfully put the Hope on top again tonight. I regret it 'cause I got drenched last night and didn't like it much. Even when it's as warm as this, sleeping wet ain't fun, and I really want to use the Hope as shelter again soon.
Oh, well, as Liam says, offer it up. I'll stretch out in the sun later just like my turtles and catch up on ...
There.
Out on the sea, very low on the horizon. I'd have missed it if I hadn't been down here on the beach. A wisp of smoke. In puffs of three. Oh, my joy. My shipmates have answered and they will come for me. I figure it will take at least another week to finish the boat. Now all I have to do is wait.
***
The Good (and it has been good except for its initial treachery) Ship Hope is now suspended in the tree, securely lashed such that it gives shelter to the branches right below it. Between those branches I have made a rope hammock, more a bed, really, 'cause it's flatter than a hammock. It's a little coarse, but it's much better than sleeping on the ground. And, it's more secure from prowling beasts. And snakes.
With the help of several large rocks, I've managed to get into a ripe coconut and it's all white and delicious, both raw or cooked in my chowder. My chowder, which I keep warm by the fire all day and add to as I collect things for it and eat it as I need it, changes constantly depending on the day's catch. I noticed that schools of a certain flat-headed goggle-eyed fish swim in and out of the lagoon at times, and the next time they came in, I was ready for them with a spear, and two fell prey to my skill. After I cleaned them, I put one in the pot and I put one on a palm leaf and carefully roasted it, sprinkling it with sea salt. It is very good. I inform the turtles that I will not be eating them after all, as I have an ample supply of fish and will not be needing their services.
If this keeps up I shall grow quite fat.
My swimming is becoming acceptable, if not elegant, which the Navy would not like to hear, 'cause it doesn't like for its sailors to know how to swim, for fear they'll leave a sinking ship and swim for their lives rather than trying to save the ship. Or so I've heard.
I've got a real good game and that is to ride the rip out of the lagoon when it's really raging. I've taken another length of that dear rope and tied it to the end of a big branch of my tree that hangs out over the water. Now I can take the other end and go up on the bank and then swing out over the lagoon and drop in with a great whoop and splash and then be churned about and carried out by the ripping tide to the gentle sea. It's an awfully good game.
I haul myself out and stretch out on my rocks. I like to lie here and dream up little scenes about how it might have been with the lads back on the island after the loss of me and what they thought when they saw my signal later on. I picture Jaimy all white and wan with heaving great sighs and pining away over the death of his poor dear girl. He curses himself over and over for being a coward and untrue lover by not hanging on to the rope to the bitter end and joining me in my doom. He is praying that I'm happy up in heaven with all the other angels or maybe he's talking with Liam about taking holy orders and Liam's patting him on the shoulder in consolation when Davy runs up and says, "Hey, Jaimy! Remember that girl you used to like who is now lyin' dead and drownded at the bottom of the sea with sea slugs lickin' at her bare bones?" and before Jaimy can square around and belt him one, Davy points out to sea at my signal. Tears of joy pour from Jaimy's eyes as he clasps his hands together and falls to his knees in gratitude for my deliverance.
I have other versions of it, but I like that one the best. I think I'll run it by again.
And so, her brown legs hanging over the sides of her hammock, an opened coconut by her side, her spear within easy reach, Tonda-lay-o, Queen of the Jungle, plays her pennywhistle and dreams crazy dreams and awaits her Bold Rescuer.
And she wishes he would hurry.
Chapter 41
The water is wide, I cannot cross o'er,
Nor have I wings, nor can I fly,
But give me a boat that can carry two,
And both shall row,
My true love and I
I put down my whistle and look out over the sea. I certainly can't cross over, and it's going to take them at least another week to get the boat ready. If I'm right in my figuring of the distance being about thirty miles, they could make it across in around six hours, doing four knots in a moderate breeze. Less, with a good following wind. The waiting is hard, though, doubly so 'cause I don't know what's going to happen to me when they do come over. Did Jaimy, in his grief, tell about me? Has Davy let it all out? Does it matter?
The funny thing about this song, I thinks, putting the pennywhistle back up to my lips and breathing out the slow sad melody, is that it starts out like that with the two lovers all tight and true and then it goes to:
Love is gentle and love is kind,
The sweetest flower when first it's new,
But love grows old,
And waxes cold,
And fades away, like the morning dew
Pretty harsh, that. But is that what's really going to happen to me and Jaimy? Will he grow cold and fade away? He's in love with me now, I think, but then I'm the only girl on the ship, the only port in the storm, the only girl he's ever known. What's going to happen when he meets other girls, maybe girls prettier than me? I don't even know if I am even a little bit pretty at all. I look at my reflection in the pond when it's like glass, but I can't tell. I look down at myself and all I see is Small Girl with White Eyebrow and Tattoo, skin and bones, nothing more. I know the boys thought I was fetching when I was being a girl back in Kingston, but what do they know? If I was a female orangutan in a dress, I'd still have to watch myself with that randy Davy. I just don't know.
There is a ship, and she sails the sea,
She's loaded deep, as deep can be,
But not as deep as the love I'm in,
I know not whether I sink or swim
And whether he loves me or not, what's going to happen to me, anyway? The Deception is becoming a joke. Where will I be put off? When? What will I do? The Captain, in his rage over being made a fool of in commissioning a girl, could leave me right here, marooned, if he wanted to.
I know they won't let Jaimy go now, wherever I'm dumped. But will he ever come back for me later, after he sails off and becomes an officer and meets proper fine ladies? Will he then find me common and cheap, as he said that time? Am I common? I suppose. I know I'm easy in my ways, but am I cheap? I've always tried to be good as I could be, even when I was a beggar and a thief, but is that good enough? Jaimy has talked about his family, how upright they are. What would they think of me? Good afternoon, Ma'am, I am very pleased to meet you. Yes, I am the renowned Bloody Miss Mary "Jacky" Faber, Scourge of the High Seas, and I'm in love with your son James and he with me and we want to be married, and yes, I feel I know him quite well as we have been living together for the past two years... Right.
I shake that song and all those thoughts out of my head. I'll take what comes. I look down at my little pond shimmering down below.
Ah, Jaimy, we could have had such a time here in my little paradise. I think you would like my camp and I think you would like your jungle girl in her new and golden tan. I would make some of my chowder for you. We would swim and I would show you the games and I would make up for all the times I could not go in the bowsprit netting with you when I wanted to so much. I hope you're feeling better now that you've seen my signal and I hope you didn't throw yourself in some volcano in sadness over the death o' my own sweet self, and wouldn't that he a proper Romeo-and-Juliet ending to my little story now? I'm always reaching up and touching my earring, which to me is my wedding ring forever and ever, and I think of you whenever I touch it.
Chapter 42
When I wake this morning, on the nineteenth day of my exile, it is very quiet. The birds are not singing. Something is wrong.
I hang the glass around my neck and go hand over hand up the line to the foretop. I scan up and down the beach but can see nothing. Maybe it's just the weather, like the calm before a storm when everything seems strange and still. I train the glass on the horizon and...
There! A sail! They've come!
I almost shriek with joy. They've got the wind behind them and they're roarin' in and prolly only a mile out, and I can see figures now and I've got to go down and put the vest and drawers on and...
Something to the south catches my eye and chills my joy. The leaves on the tops of the small trees at the edge of the beach shake every now and again, like someone or something is running into the trunks below. I see a flash of color and metal. I catch me breath.
Clothing! Men! Guns!
I go out on a long branch that stretches out in that direction and look down.
It's the pirates. They've come out into a clearing below and I slink back out of sight. They, too, must have seen the signal fires from wherever they were camped. They've brought along kegs and casks and chests, I guess, 'cause LeFievre didn't trust leavin' 'em, and he's there in his silks and he's placing his men with rifles along the embankment at the top of the tide line. All their eyes are on the incoming boat. I look out at the boat and see without even lifting the glass that they'll beach in a few minutes and there's the Captain and Jaimy and...
They are like ducks on a pond. It will be a massacre. I've got to warn them. They'll never see me up here, and if they did they'd think I mean for them to come in right there which, oh God, I don't.
I slides down my line and hits the bank running. I grabs me swing line and swings out over the lagoon and drops. The tide is out, which is good 'cause that'll give me some room on the beach, and so the water in the lagoon is only up to me knees and I splashes through it out to the beach and I runs out to the surf and waves me arms over me head and screams, "No, no! The pirates!" and I points south to where the pirates are and then points north and say, "Over there! Hard right! Over there! Hard right! Follow me!" and I runs in that direction and I keeps pointin' and yellin' and the boat starts to turn and there's the poppin' o' musket fire behind me and there's puffs in the sand around me feet and the Dolphins in the boat hear the gunfire and duck down and pull up guns of their own.