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

ship, could he?

We have chased down some suspicious boats but have turned up nothing. Once we chased a ship and were running her down when the pirate crew began tossing their captives overboard. We put the boats in the water when the first people were thrown over and kept up the pursuit, but the pirates kept throwing more captives over, one at a time so they got strung out in a line that was too much for the boats, and so we had to stop, so ending the chase, and then the pirates stopped pitching captives. The Captain was fuming, and I know he's trying to think of a way around this caper for the next time it happens. We took the lucky hostages—the ones that didn't drown or weren't still on the pirate ship—back to their town and at least gained the good will of the people. Can't spend that, though.

Whenever a boat is sent out on errands away from the ship, several of us ship's boys are always included in the boat's crew so we can learn to sail and handle small boats. We learn about booms and mainsheets and downhauls and the parts of the sail and how to hold the tiller and tuck the sail in just so, which I think is just fine till one day Tink and I are out in a boat with about ten seamen, which is going into a small deserted cay to look for fresh water. Tink is trimming the sail and I'm on the tiller, keeping the course true for the little dot of an island bobbing up ahead, when I says to the coxswain how grand it is that he's teaching us all this useful knowledge, but he shakes his head and says all ruefully, 'Ah, Jacky, I'm afraid that's not what you're here for.'

I find this a good deal strange and ask, 'What are we here for, then?'

The coxswain, who's in charge of all the small boats on the ship and whose name is Hardy, looks away all shy. 'It's a delicate thing, boy,' he says, 'and not spoke of much.' There are grunts of agreement from some of the men. Some of them shake their heads and look off, somber.

'All right,' says I, not to be put off, 'let's have it. Just why are we here, then, if not to be taught our seamanship?'

After some silence, Hardy sees that I'm startin' to get really steamed at all this, and he says, 'Well, Jack, it's this way, and it's nothin' personal, but when a boat goes off out of sight of the mother ship it always carries a couple of boys 'cause...' He hesitates.

'Oh, for Chris'sakes,' booms out a seaman named Javerts, 'I'll tell the boy. It's 'cause the ship's boys is the first ones eaten if the boat gets lost and can't find its way back.'

I look for signs that they're jokin' with Tink and me, but their faces don't betray it.

'You've got to see the wisdom of it, lads,' says Hardy. 'We wouldn't want to be eatin' a sailor what could pull a decent oar, now, would we?'

Javerts, who's a really disagreeable-lookin' cove with a red gash of a scar that goes clear across one cheek, over his grisly lump of a nose, and onto the other cheek, reaches over and grabs me leg and squeezes it, as if checkin' it for tenderness. His fingers go completely around my thigh. 'I wants little Jacky in any boat I'm ever sent out in, for sure. I'll take one of the hams.'

I jerk my leg away. 'You sods are just havin' us on,' I say, but still their faces stay stony and grim. 'Ain't you?'

Snag is in the boat and he chimes in with, 'It ain't just for our own nourishment and enjoyment, oh no,' he says. 'Say some nasty sharks happen to circle around the boat, lookin' to make trouble for poor honest seamen, well, we just toss em a spare ship's boy and behold—them sharks turns just as nice as any gentlemen and they tips their fins to ye as they leave.'

This cuts it, and roars of laughter at my red and gullible face go out across the water.

The sods.

It is good that the weather has turned cooler. I would be stifling otherwise because now I have to wear Charlie's old vest on the inside, under my white shirt, to squash down my chest, which is suddenly and traitorously growing and threatening to give me away. It works, but I fear that soon I won't be able to breathe. Maybe I won't grow very big.

Yesterday, Tilly's words were billowing, burgeoning, and blossoming. I could have swatted him.

'All I really want is a small ship,' says I, 'that could carry a respectable cargo and be able to be handled with just a few—'

'We know what you want, Jacky,' says Davy. 'Just put a sock in it.'

'Piss off, Davy,' snarls I, steamed up at being interrupted. 'Someday, you vile little scab, someday when the wars are all over and you're stranded on shore, you'll come to the fine offices of Faber Shipping Company Worldwide and say, 'Will ye be givin' me a post now, Jacky?' and I will not.'

Davy laughs. 'You'll have to, Jack, because of the Oath of the Brotherhood.'

'Well then, Davy, I'll give you a post as ship's boy and I'll keep you as ship's boy till you go all bald and stooped in the back, and won't you scrub the head till it shines, by God!'

They all roll around and hoot and snort at the very idea of Faber Shipping. I'll show you, you sods. Just you wait.

I go back to fingering my pennywhistle, which I find I can play very softly up here in the top when the wind's blowing and not get in trouble. I've added a few more jigs, 'Haste to the Wedding' and 'The Hare in the Corn,' and another mournful one, 'My Bonnie Light Horseman,' which is powerful sad and beautiful, but the girl don't get killed and thrown in a lonesome grave in this one, for a change. It's the boy who dies. In war.

The lads are back to predicting what noble sailors they're going to grow up to be and how brave they were in the last fight, but Jaimy don't join in and is quiet, and I know it's because he don't think much of the way he acted in the fight on the pirate ship. And maybe it's something else.

A few nights ago Jaimy and I were on the midwatch and it was calm and peaceful on the ocean, just a gentle breeze, and after we got coffee for the men on watch we got some for ourselves and sat sipping it and watched the constellations wheel about the night sky.

Jaimy starts talking about his family, how there's three sisters at home and one older brother what got sent off to school, but there wasn't enough money for Jaimy, so he got sent off to sea but couldn't go as a midshipman 'cause his dad couldn't buy him a place and he had no influence with the Navy, so ship's boy was the best he could do. It purely mortified his father to send him off, and his mother like to died with grief, but what else was there to do, what with the family wine business having just about perished because of the blockades of the French ports. His father had inherited some money and his mother came from a good family, but everything was gone now. His brother, George, was in school to become a solicitor, but it would be years before he could practice law and make any money.

'So I guess it's up to me,' says Jaimy, all glum. 'And I haven't made a very good show of it so far.'

'Sure you have,' says I. 'You're sure to be made midshipman soon. You're quick at the studies and Tilly's sure to recommend you, and I know the Captain's noticed your bravery.'

'My bravery,' he snorts, hanging his head.

'Jaimy, you were the first one over. Everyone saw that. You could not have been braver.'

'But when I got over, I just stood there like a fool. I didn't know what to do.'

Aye, Jaimy, I thinks. It's one thing to dream of glory in battle and quite another to actually stick a sword into another person's soft parts. Or a bullet.

'You were right behind me and you actually did something. You acted like ... like an officer. You should be the one picked for midshipman. You and Mr. Lawrence took that ship. You saved my very life.'

'I shot a man in the back, that's all I did, and I'll probably have to answer for that someday. There was no bravery in it.

'No, you conducted yourself with honor. You should be proud.'

'Honor?' I hisses in the dark. 'Honor? Honor to me is