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

I take the cloth and wipe the back of my arm, too. He laughs.

'I know I've got a lot to learn,' I say, 'like, what is this?' I hold up the third eating thing at my place.

'It's called a fork,' says Jaimy. 'You use it to spear things and scoop things, too. Like this. Careful you don't poke your tongue with it, now.'

I let my mind wander back to our little walk down here and how wonderful it felt to walk natural like a girl with my hips swaying a bit and not having to walk all clenched up like I do the rest of the time to look like a boy. It was grand just to walk along swinging our clasped hands between us and, just for a moment, forget about the ship and all that and think only of the moment and each other. That and stopping every few steps for a bit of a nuzzle and pet.

Jaimy asks if I want another glass of wine or anything else to eat, and I say, 'No, let's go back outside in the world, you and me under the sun,' and so we get up and pay and thank the woman for her hospitality and step back out into the bright sunlight and head back up the street.

We come to a low wall in the curve of the road, and the view of the city opens up. The streets are like steps up the hillside, and one street level is above the rooftops of the street below. We pause there and turn toward each other and come together and...

'Hey, jaimy!'

We both jerk our heads around, and there, three streets below, are Davy and Tink, and Davy is shouting, 'It's Jaimy, and he's got a girl!'

I think fast.

I grab Jaimy by the shirtfront and hiss, 'Do what I say. Step up on the wall. Point to them and smile real broad and pretend you're telling me they're your mates!'

He does it. He gets up on the wall. He gives me his hand and I get up on the wall. He points. He smiles. He mouths to me, 'Those are my mates.'

I take it from there.

I turn to them and smile and wave, with my dress blowing about me in the breeze, and I call out, 'Allo, freens of Jay-meee! 'E ees most wonderful boy, yes, I theenk I lof heem!'

The boys stand down there thunderstruck.

'I em mos' sor-ree I cannot stay to meet you var-ree preety boys but I mus' go. My papa weel keel me eef 'e see me here with Jay-meee!'

I turn to Jaimy and say, 'I'm about to make you a legend, my dear.' And I take his face in my hands and kiss him long and slow up there on that little wall with my lovely, lovely dress blowing about me.

Jumping down from the wall I say, 'Now, you walk down toward them and I'll go back and change and catch up with you. All right? There's plenty of time.'

I give him a peck on the cheek and head on up the road. I know he's watching me, so the evil in me makes me sway my bottom a little bit more than natural as I walk along. A breeze whips up and lifts my skirt some and I feel a coolness on my backside and I put my hand behind me to smooth down my dress.

I point on down the road and say, 'Down, Jay-meee.'

'You dog. You hound. You lucky bastard. It's not fair. It's not fair. It's not bleedin' fair!'

Davy is having a hard time dealing with Jaimy's seeming success with the local women.

'Who is she, what...'

'She's just a local girl, that's all. A simple girl, really,' says Jaimy, all offhanded and cool, 'but a gem in the rough, you might say.'

'But what did you...'

'Now, now, Davy. You know a gentleman never talks about things like that,' says Jaimy, shaking his head and looking off all dreamy.

Davy utters a long and low whimper of pure envy from deep down in his soul.

I had changed and caught up with Jaimy well before we met up with Davy and Tink. The changing went all right except that I was surprised by a donkey right in the middle of it and I near died of fright. I need a rest from fright, I'm thinkin'.

Anyway, I'm back in my sailor gear, all harnessed back in and not liking it much.

'And where was you durin' all this?' demands Davy of me.

'I had to sit and wait in a bloody tavern while he was off wi' the tart,' says I, looking out all angrylike from under my cap.

'And she was a real girl, too,' wails Tink, 'not one you have to pay for. A real girl.'

'She is certainly real,' allows Jaimy. 'Every lovely inch of her.'

Davy's fairly squealing in frustration.

'And how did your little plan go, Davy?' I says, all snide and insinuating, to change the subject. 'Are you now a man?'

'Stuff it, Jacky,' he says resentfully, and kicks the dirt beneath his feet. 'They wouldn't let us in. They said we was too young.'

'Aye, they laughed at us, they did, the sods,' says Tink mournfully.

'Anyway, all's not lost,' says Davy, brightening. 'We've found a place for the earrings.'

Chapter 32

We are back on the prowl and exercising the big guns. We are so good at this now that even I, Jacky Faber, Ship's Coward, am looking forward to an encounter with the pirate LeFievre. We drill, we practice, we blow barrels and rafts and floats to kingdom come, but still we catch no pirates. From some of the ships just come from England we hear rumblings of war with France and Spain, and if that happens we'll be called off station and sent back to England to join in the fray. We'd certainly like to see some more prize money before that happens.

I, of course, did not have myself put off in Kingston as planned. I'll stay with Jaimy to the end, and whatever happens, happens.

On that day, Davy led us down to the goldsmith's shop he had found in the middle of the market square. We went in and picked out the gold hoops that were not closed on one end and paid for them and waited to have them clamped in our poor ears. The shop was dark and there was a small forge glowing in the corner. While Davy and Tink were having their hoops put in, and not being very brave or quiet about it, Jaimy nudges me back to the forge and we stand in the glow of it. I can't figure out what he's up to and I look at him all quizzical, but then he takes my hand in his and takes his hoop and puts it on my finger and lifts up my hand and kisses it. I look up at him in the fireglow and I can feel the tears startin' but I can't let them come, and I take my ring and put it on his finger and lift it to my lips and then we turn and go back. The goldsmith shoves a needle through our earlobes and we take the rings off from our fingers and he shoves them through, then takes a hot iron and welds the ring shut, and I swear I didn't feel a thing.

I also swear to myself an oath right then that I will never, ever, take off that ring.

Compared to my filmy little dress from Kingston, this dress is a ship in full sail, and it is nearing completion. 'Course I ain't never yet tried it on 'cause wouldn't that be something to try to explain away if I got caught?

My Kingston dress and the girl what was in it has taken on the force of a legend in the minds of all the boys, including Jaimy, who says he wants me to wear it on our wedding night, just the way I wore it on that day. Naughty