Bloody Jack: Being an Account of the Curious Adventures of Mary 'Jacky' Faber, Ship's Boy

Chapter 13

'Hold still, Davy, I mean it,' says I, crossly. To drive home my point I bring my fist up with the measuring tape in measuring the inside of his leg for the trousers and gives him a whack where he don't want to be whacked. He howls and grabs himself and allows that he always thought I was one of the sods the Professor was talkin' about today, and this was proof in front of God and everybody.

Mr. Tilden's words for today were buggery, sodomy, and pederasty.

'I give you these words only to protect you from the sin, the Sin That Dare Not Speak Its Name,' he said, his mouth set primly, and then he commenced to tell us, in detail, what the words meant. 'Now, you boys don't get caught in any situation like that. A pure mind in a pure body. Stay away from dark places. It's a hanging offense, you know.'

Our mouths are hanging open speechless. Then the boys roar up and say they'd die before some cove did that to them. I am struck dumb. I am completely amazed and disgusted.

I may yet be hanged, thinks I, but it will not be for that.

'So watch yerself, sodomite,' says Davy, as I again bring my tape to bear, and I, of course, have to follow that with a burst of my best and vilest curses to keep up my standing as a true lad.

It's funny about Davy and me—we look so much alike, sandy hair and pointy noses and chins, we could be brother and sister. Which is probably why we fight so much. More than once the others have said, 'Why don't you two just shut up?' or 'Stop with the bickerin' or we'll drop you both over the side.'

We are up in the foretop and I am measuring the boys for their new uniforms and they are fidgeting around more than usual. I think they're a little resentful that I caught the eye of the Captain. Let 'em be jealous, thinks I, there's more than one way to promotion and pay, not just in the brave swinging of swords and in the hacking and hewing of your fellow man.

The cloth for the uniforms is in a neat pile in our kip, waiting to be measured and cut up. I went and got it this morning with Benjy 'cause he wanted to see what was down there. He stood gawking at all the cloth and ribbons and other fine things on the shelves in the small stores room, while I dealt with the Deacon.

'So. Eighteen yards of white duck, three yards of blue, fifteen feet of white piping, spool of white thread, spool of blue thread, two needles, one piece chalk. Is that correct, Faber?' Deacon Dunne looks over the top of his spectacles at me.

'Yes, Sir, it is.'

Deacon Dunne checks a ledger and scrawls some figures on his slate. Then he looks at me with suspicion. 'For your last foray into sartorial splendor you needed three yards white duck, one half yard blue, and thirty inches of piping in total. Am I again correct?'

'Yes, Sir. As I recall.'

'Well, then, according to simple arithmetic, you are trying to swindle His Majesty out of four yards of cloth and thirty inches of piping, because you already have a uniform and we only need cloth for five.'

'The Captain said six, Sir.'

'Cloth for five uniforms,' says the Deacon, firmly. He writes in his ledger.

'It isn't fair, Sir,' I says. 'I already paid for mine and it isn't fair.' I sulks for a moment. 'Shall I tell the Captain you've changed his order, then?'

Instantly, I regrets my cheek.

'Shall you relieve yourself of your pants and bend across that bench while I give you several dozen, then?' hisses the Deacon, holding aloft his metal yardstick, which would be a very serviceable switch. 'Shall I, then, you insolent young pup?'

'Oh no, Sir!' I bleats, falling to my knees and hanging my head and cursing myself for my stupidity. Out of the corner of my eye I see Benjy lookin' wary and easin' away from the bench I may be stretched across, as he don't want to be included. I clasps me hands 'neath me chin and looks up at the Deacon with me best street-orphan- supplicatin'-teary-eyed look and cries, 'Beggin' yer pardon, Sir! I didn't mean it! Please, Sir, no switches. Five uniforms it is, Sir!'

***

'You should have seen our brave Jack down on his knees before the Deacon,' crows Benjy when we're back up aloft. He falls to his own knees and mimics my craven performance. 'Please, Sir, please don't make me drop me drawers and bend over that horrid bench, Sir!' My so-called mates are all laughing and rolling around holding their sides.

'Pleadin' for his life over a simple switchin', he was!' Benjy plows on. 'Like he was bein' lashed to the grating for a proper lashin' with the Cat-O'-Nine-Tails like poor Miller last week. And a bloody mess he was, but he didn't cry out, no he didn't, he took it till he passed out, he did.'

Yes, he did, and I had to beat the drum for it, when the call went out for All Hands to Witness Punishment, and I had to watch 'cause I had to know when the flogging was about to start so as to start the drumroll, and when to stop it when it was done, and it was all I could do to keep from throwing up on my drumhead.

The lads all jeer and hoot at me for my cowardice, but I don't care 'cause I seen Davy and Tink get theirs before and they howled and cried and begged for mercy, just like me. I'd rather beg my way out of a beating than actually take it. If that makes me a coward, then so be it. I never was very brave, anyhow.

The Deacon let me out of the switching and he credited me back the cost of my uniform, so it all worked out. 'Cept now I got to learn another fifty lines of Scripture. I'll be a bleedin' preacher, I will, before I get off this barky.

I don't hold it against the boys, though, all their teasing and stuff, 'cause they don't know about The Deception and all.

Maybe I would be braver if I was an actual boy and wasn't so worried about discovery.

The Deception

I've done some thinking on why I've been getting away with The Deception so far.

In the first place, men and boys are used to thinking of females as all pink and white and powdered up. I, however, am tanned brown as a nut, at least the parts of me that show, which is my face, neck, arms, and legs to my knees. I've been rolling my pants up over my knees 'cause it's hot. My shins are just as scratched and scabbed as any of the boys.

In the second place, I read a lot. I always have a book in the kip and I have one next to me right now in the foretop, An Account of a Voyage to the South Seas by a Captain Cook, and girls ain't expected to be scholars. They're never sent to school, at least the poor ones ain't, and the rich ones only sometimes. So someone sees a person reading a book, they think boy.

Third, as I have just shown, I can curse as well as any sailor. The fact that I don't know what most of what I say really means don't seem to matter.

Fourth, I keep my hair cut as close to my head as I can get it. The lads are all letting their hair grow into the long pigtails like the other swabs, but not me.

Fifth, I have a thin sharp face. I'm not at all round-faced and girlish, and my lips are thin, not pouty like Polly's and Judy's and Nancy's and Emily's before she died, back in London. They all looked like girls from the day they were born and could never have passed as a boy for a minute, but not me. What that means for how I'll look as a lady, I don't know. Will anyone fancy me? There's a mirror that's hung up at the foot of the foremast, for the men to use for shaving, and I stare at my face in it for a long time. Is there anything in this face for a boy to admire? Davy once pointed me out to another sailor, who was looking for me to assign to a work detail, as 'that rat-faced little runt over there.' Rat-faced? It's true my nose is more pointed than most, and if I put the palms of my hands to my face it is rather thin, sort of like an axe blade. But rat-faced? Is it because I'm so plain that I'm getting away with The Deception? I don't know. Would Jaimy fancy me if he knew? I hope so, but maybe ... I don't know.