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

boy. That little bit of damning evidence is hidden deep in my lowest hidey-hole, but the memory of that day is locked down deep in my heart. Whatever else happens, I'll always have that.

This new dress, though not having the history of the other, is going to be beautiful with its white piping on the blue and the pleats on the skirt and the tight waist and fitted top. I've made another seabag and put my name on the side of this one so I can't give it away, and I would have made one for Jaimy but that would make the other boys look at me funny again and we can't have that. I stuff the dress inside the bag and only pull out a little of it at a time to work on so I could cover it up if surprised. But hardly anyone ever comes up on the mizzen top 'cept me and Jaimy.

I'm thinking that dresses are funny things, though, now that I've actually worn one. Why would a country like ours, which so prizes the so-called purity of its women so much, have them wear something like a dress? I mean, trousers and drawers give a certain amount of protection, it's got to be admitted. Like if someone has evil on his mind and he's got to work through belts and pant legs and such, it's going to take him a bit of time and effort, during which such time rescue might be on its way or his ardor might flag because of all the bother. While with a dress, why, you just lift it up and there you are, objective in sight. And it ain't just England, it's all of them. I know I'd have been in a much bigger fix when Sloat came at me if I'd been wearing a dress instead of my good sturdy sailor gear. It's a nagging thing and it probably ain't true, but I'd hate to think that a dress's lack of protection is the whole point of it. Don't seem right, somehow.

It's just the four of us in Tilly's class now, what with Willy gone off. I did finally get him to the point where he can scrawl his name, and I believe that is going to be it for Willy's book learning.

Old Tilly has been doing Shakespeare with us lately and the boys like it for all the blood and murders and such and I like it for the romance and the trickery and twists and things, but I don't think Juliet was very bright thinking that plan would work. It was much too complicated and depended on too many other people. Take it from a practiced trickster, they should have just run away and been done with it. 'Course that is not what I said to jaimy in Kingston, so I guess I'm talking out of two sides of my mouth.

'Jaimy found hisself a Juliet of his own in Kingston,' says Davy, still not over it.

'Is that so, James?' says Mr. Tilden, looking at Jaimy closely.

'I just talked to a village girl for a while, that's all,' says Jaimy, all hot under the collar and looking daggers at Davy.

'Right,' says Davy, all nudge-nudge, wink-wink with Tink.

'I hope you haven't done something stupid,' says Tilly, 'something besides getting yourselves up like a parcel of rogues.' We all touch our earrings at that, and I give Jaimy a secret smouldering look.

'She promised to name the baby after him, ain't that right, Jay-mee?' says I, grinning at Jaimy's discomfort. Take that girl out and shoot her.

I am taken out, actually, and I am weighed. Tilly's still caught up in his foolish kite experiment and we hear again of the accursed Bernoulli. Today a board is set across a spar and I'm put on one end. Two-and-a-half bags of flour are put on the other end and I'm lifted up. Under Tilly's direction a seaman takes flour out of the half bag until I am level. I find the whole thing a bit demeaning and I wear my best angry glower.

Satisfied, Tilly puts the two-and-a-half bags in another bag and ties it up and puts it in the kite harness. Jaimy is looking at me with a certain satisfaction now.

I'm looking real stormy, with the direction things seem to be taking, and manage to get across my discomfort, and Tilly says, 'You silly boy, why, this flying machine is as safe as a cradle, and if I weren't a gentleman of some substance, I'd go up in it myself, I would. You're a very lucky boy to be chosen as the first to go aloft.'

Seein' that I still ain't convinced, he goes on.

'Did you know that French scientists sent a man up several hundred feet in a kite last year at the Continental Exposition? And that kite was inferior to this one. Did you know that some people in high places in the government think that's how Bonaparte's going to get his army across the Channel to fight us? Yes, it's true. Kites it is. Kites and balloons. I think they're right, too. It's a brave new scientific world.'

Tilly potters about some more and looks at the clouds scudding by and says, 'But, I'm sorry to say, you shan't get to go up today. Just a test flight, I'm afraid. We must proceed in an orderly manner.'

With all of us and about a dozen men holding on, the kite is lifted aloft. The damned thing works.

Later, in the mizzen top, Jaimy is really steamed with me.

'How could you say that to Mr. Tilden?' he demands.

'Come on, Jaimy, I was only joking,' says I. 'Tilly knows it. It's all right.'

I bat my eyelashes and look up at him all contrite. 'Please forgive me, Jay-mee.'

'I ... I just wish you wouldn't be so ... so ... crude sometimes.'

What?

'Crude! If we're sittin' here talkin' crude, I might just ask you whose crude hands—'

'No, no ... I don't mean that.' He searches for the words. 'It's just the way you talk sometimes. It's ... cheap.'

Oh.

I decide to make light of this. 'Aw, g'wan, Jai-mee. Oi'm jes' teasin' wi' ye. Coom an' gi' yer salty sailor lass a bit o' a kiss.'

'Please don't talk that way,' he says, frowning. He takes off his shirt. He has been working below with some men trying to fix a winch and he fairly glistens with sweat.

'Why not?'

'Because it isn't dignified, is why. If we're to be married, well...'

I sit up straight and fold my hands in my lap and say, 'All right, Jaimy. You tell me what to be and I'll be it.'

'Well, be more ladylike, more befitting an officer's wife...'

Oh, ho, ship's boy. Ain't we getting a bit ahead of ourselves here?

'Very well, how's this?' I put my mouth in a prim little line. 'Oh, Captain Fletcher, it is so good to see you. Did you enjoy your night at the club? The children are ever so anxious to see their papa. Will you receive them now? No? Well, then, perhaps after you've had a bit of dinner. I'll have the cook prepare. A glass of sherry with you then, dear husband?'

Jaimy laughs and flings his shirt at me.

'Perhaps I am a bit of a stuffed shirt.'

'I love you, anyway. Now come here, Captain, and give your ladyship a kiss before she does something really crude.'

He really is the most magnificent boy.

Chapter 33

Hamlet was a good one. I thought the deceptions in that one were pretty well thought up. Shakespeare and I could have come up with a couple of corkers together, I'll wager. Poor Ophelia, though. It's always the girl what gets it, be it song or story. Or play. 'Course they all gets it in the end and it serves that Hamlet right, he who could have had the love of a good girl and been prince and all, but, no...

'The words for today are monologue, dialogue, and soliloquy,' intones Mr. Tilden.

I've also got three words for today, but I don't say them out loud. They are betrothed, bespoke, and forsworn. I like those words. Also, I like the sound of