I understand. We swap harmless tales of former shipmates and then I knock off the rest of my tea and stand. "Till later then, John Harper."
I know every eye in the place is on me, so I lift my chin and loudly say, "Good morning, mates. Thank you for sharing your breakfast with me. Is it not a glorious thing to be serving His Majesty the King on this fine day!"
With that, I turn and stride out of there, bootheels rapping on the deck, leaving a roomful of gaping mouths behind me.
I go back up the foremast and get to the topgallant brace and wait till I see Harper take over from the lookout, and then I take the foregallant brace, a line that goes between the two masts for support of both and is under such tension that it's like the wire a circus performer would walk, and I go over, hand over hand, till I reach the mainmast and the grinning Harper.
"Still at home in the riggin', eh, Jacky?"
We are on a very small platform, high, high on the mainmast. Back on the whaler this would be called the "crow's nest." It is where sharp-eyed men looked out constantly across the waves for the spume of a blowing whale.
"May it ever be so, John, as I am never happier than when I am up here," I say and settle myself against a brace. "So what's the story on this bark?"
His face darkens. "'Tis a Hell Ship, for sure, and I've never been on a worse one and it's all on the Captain's head."
"Careful, John," I say, looking about to make sure we are not heard, "you're getting close to mutiny."
"Mutiny!" he snorts. "The crew has been at the edge of mutiny for months. The officers should have done it long ago, but they are frozen in fear of him, just like anyone on board. He has flogged men half to death for sport and he keelhauled a man last month for merely lifting his hand in protection from a beatin' by the Bo'sun. Poor Spooner was alive after he was hauled back aboard, but he was cut up so bad by bein' scraped against the barnacles on the bottom that he died soon after from the infection."
That sends a shiver up my spine. Keelhauling is a cruel punishment wherein a poor seaman is taken up to the bow and a long rope is tied to each of his legs and he's thrown overboard and the ropes are walked back, one on the port side and one on the starboard side, drawing the man underwater all along the encrusted keel and back to the stern of the ship, where he's hauled back up, half drowned and bloody. I have never seen it done, Captain Locke of the Dolphin being a good and fair man, but I have heard accounts of it.
Harper's normally cheerful face is full of anger as he continues. "... And he gave Teddy Smallwood a hundred lashes, a hundred!—just for havin' a bad shave, for Christ's sake, and Teddy still can't stand up straight or put on his shirt in any comfort. I tell you, Jacky, the only times when this ship breathes easy is those times when the Captain is sick and stays in his cabin." Harper pauses and calms himself and sighs, "But he is sick a lot, and we thank God for it."
"Can nothing be done?" I ask.
"No. It would be up to the officers and they ain't done nothin'."
"And the crew?"
He thinks for a moment, then says, "The crew is split up in different gangs with different loyalties, which ain't surprisin' on a ship like this. A man's gotta know who his friends are."
"Who can be trusted?"
"Drake, the Master-at-Arms. Harkness, a gunner, and Jared, the Captain of the Top, are all good men. They command the loyalty of most of the crew."
"Most?" I ask.
"Aye. That gang of lubbers brought on with you looks to be a real bad lot. They've been put with the Waisters, which wasn't a good bunch to begin with."
Ah, Muck is at it again, sowing suspicion and hatred and discord even in the short time he has been aboard. It ain't surprising that he would end up with the Waisters, them being the worst sailors on board any ship, good only for the most simple and brutish of tasks.
"... and watch out for Bo'sun Morgan—he's the Captain's man, all the way. He's a cruel bastard who enjoys carrying out the Captain's punishments."
"I will, John," I say, glad of the information.
"I'm sorry, Jacky, that you ended up here on this Hell Ship. I knew you for a good kid back on the Dolphin, and as I see it, you're more in danger than anyone else here."
I put my hand on his arm. "Don't worry about me, John. I'll be all right."
He nods and shakes his head like he doesn't believe it. Like he doesn't believe anybody on this ship's gonna be all right. "You do have friends here, though. The men that saw you save Billy Barnes at the expense of your own freedom, well, they ain't forgot, and they have spread the story throughout the ship."
I think on this. "Thanks, John. That is good to know," I say, and swing out to go back down. "Oh, and one other thing. I need a shiv. Can you get me one?"
I start back down toward the deck, but I c*ck my head as I hear voices raised down on the quarterdeck below me. It is the Captain and the First Mate, Mr. Pinkham. I quietly drop down to the maintop and sit down to listen.
"Complications? What complications? A girl shows up on my ship and I bed her. What's complicated about that? I'm the Captain of this bloody ship, and I do what I bloody well want. And I remind you, Pinkham, this is a warship, with rough men on it, not some bloody Asylum for the Protection of Some Poor Bloody Orphans."
"Well, Sir, if you will pardon me, there are several complications here. First, there is that book: Because of it this girl is well known throughout the fleet, throughout all of London, for that matter—and who knows what foolish wife of a commodore or sister of an admiral or even First Lord has read this book and sees this foolish girl as a her**ne or at least a poor victim? And for you to be the one that takes this girl under these circumstances, it would not be seemly, Sir. Your reputation, your career, your future promotions..."
"To hell with all of that and all of them, too." I sense, though I can't see it, that the Captain's tic is pulling his face into another grimace and his eye has gone a-wandering again.
"Secondly, Sir, there is the question of fraternization."
"What? What do you mean?" demands the Captain, his irritation plain.
"If I may be blunt, Sir, a Captain cannot mount a Midshipman. Captain Douglas, you may recall, was executed by firing squad on his own quarterdeck for just that indiscretion."
"Yes, but that Midshipman was a boy."
"I don't think the Court-Martial would make that distinction, Sir. You have entered her on the books as a Midshipman."
"Hmmm. So if she was a Lieutenant..."
"But that's impossible, Sir!"
"Oh, bugger all that! I don't give a good goddamn for any of it! If I didn't have an attack of that cursed gout last night, I'd have strapped her on right then, by God, and to Hell with all of them! And to Hell with you, too! Damn! Accursed gout! Why does God hate me so? Delivers a toothsome wench into my very grasp and then unmans me. Pah!"
"The very fact that she's on board, Sir, is—"
"There's nothing in Regulations about it, Pinkham. A good many of the Captains on this godforsaken blockade have got their wives put up in their cabins and the whole fleet knows it. There's thirty women on the Orion at last report and everyone knows there were three hundred women that had to be taken off the Royal George when she sank in Portsmouth Harbor back in eighty-two! Admiral Durrette's got his goddamn mistress down in his bed right now, for Chris'sakes!"
"The Admiral's mistress is a grown woman, Sir. This girl is scarce fifteen," says the good Mr. Pinkham. "Perhaps..."
"Perhaps, Mr. Pinkham, if you would go to Hell," says the Captain, and I hear his unsteady tread as he takes himself off the quarterdeck. "Send the loblolly boy to my cabin with my medicine and then muster the bloody crew for my inspection!"
The Bo'sun's pipe shrills out and the men are called. I slide down the shroud after the Captain has left the quarterdeck and gone down to his cabin to get his medicine and tend his misery. May he well enjoy his pain.
It seems the Captain never misses an opportunity to shame his men ... or his officers—half the ship must have heard him dress down poor Mr. Pinkham like he was a common seaman. I can imagine what this inspection is gonna be like.
As the men assemble in their divisions, all cleaned up and in their best uniforms, I seek out and find Mr. Pelham, the Second Mate, and present myself in front of him.
"Good morning to you, Sir," I pipes, bringing my hand to the brim of my hat and snapping off a brisk salute. "Would you be so good as to tell me my division?"
Mr. Pelham looks down at me, astounded. "Don't make this any more of a travesty than it already is, girl," he growls, after he has recovered from the shock of my appearance. "Why don't you just take yourself down below and stay out of the way?"
I puff up a bit and say, "While I am here, Sir, I expect to do my duty. And for me to go below and hide till ... You know that it would be the worst thing for me to do, don't you, Sir."
"Hmmph!" he says, and looks me over. I hit a brace under his inspection, thinking that I'm looking right trim and well decked out and that he should notice. I suspect that he's thinking that if the Captain could do something as outrageous as commissioning a girl, then he himself could go along with it and maybe compound the Captain's folly. I guess this is what he figures because he says, "Very well. Gun crew, Division One. The port bow guns. Right over here."
He leads me over to my division and leaves me there. I look them over and a motley bunch they are, from a little boy, who is undoubtedly my powder monkey, to young men who look like they're right off the farm and have yet to shake the manure from their feet, to grizzled old veteran man-of-war men. They are sloppily lined up in front of the guns.
I plant my feet on the deck and I address them. "Good morning, men. I am Midshipman Faber and I am your new division officer." This is met with snorts and grunts of disbelief. I put on the Look and say, "Excuse me, did one of you wish to say something?" I put on my best hooded-eye, haughty upper-class Look. They don't say anything. "I thought not. Now, let's straighten up that line, shall we? Are you in the positions you would be around the guns? Swabbers there, Second Captain there? What? You don't know? Well, we'll have to fix that later, won't we? As for now, line up by height so you look more presentable. No, you here. That's right. Now make sure your toes line up. Good. A little more space between you two. All right."
I go back to the head of the line and say, "I will now inspect you before the Captain gets here. Stand at Attention."
They manage a sorry version of Attention and I take one step, bring my heels together, and execute a smart Left Face and am facing the first man in line. I look him up and down. "Name and rating?"
"Simmons, Miss, Able Seaman."
"You will address me in the future as Miss Faber, or, if it is easier for you, as Midshipman Faber. Is that clear?"
"Yes, Miss Faber," says the miserable Simmons.
"Is that clear to all of you?" I say to my division. They mumble assent.
"Good," I say and resume my inspection of Simmons. I reach up and flick a piece of lint off his jacket. "All right, Seaman Simmons. A better shave next time, if you please."