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

'Good-bye, Jaimy.'

'Good-bye, Jacky.'

'Come back and find me, Jaimy, and take me away.'

'I will, Jacky. I will.'

Boston

My sea chest has been taken ashore. It will only be a few minutes now and I wait for my Marine to come fetch me.

I hear from the shouts and bustle and laughter outside that they are going to man the top for me and they'll all be lined up along the spars and in the tops and Jaimy'll be one of the sideboys on the quarterdeck and I'll have to go right by him and the word is that the fightin's started back up with France again and they're leavin' straightaway and they'll be right in the thick of it and oh Lord... And there'll be a coach on the dock and I'll have to get in it and it'll pull away from the dock....

Ah lads, I don' wan' to go.

No. No. Steady on. I've got to put on a good show and not start bawlin' and shame myself 'cause salty sea sailors don't cry and I knows right now from the constrictin' o' me throat that I ain't gonna be able to do it but I got to try.

Jacky. It's time.

Come on, girl. Up the ladder and out now. Head high, flags flyin', that's the way we does it, but I knows it ain't gonna wash 'cause I'm half blubberin' already and I knows that soon's I steps out they'll be hollerin' Hooray, Jacky, and Give 'em Hell, Jackeroe, and yes, Bloody Jack, too, and I'll see Tink and Davy and Willy and Liam, and they'll have to pry me off Jaimy whose face I may never see no more—Dear God, please—and I'll try to be brave but I never was really very brave...

Copyright © 2002 by L. A. Meyer

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Meyer, L. A. (Louis A.), 1942-

Bloody Jack: being an account of the curious adventures

of Mary 'Jacky' Faber, ship's boy/L. A. Meyer

p. cm.

Summary: Reduced to begging and thievery in the streets of London,

a thirteen-year-old orphan disguises herself as a boy and connives her way

onto a British warship set for high sea adventure in search of pirates.

[1. Orphans—Fiction. 2. Seafaring life—Fiction. 3. Sea stories.

4. Pirates—Fiction. 5. Sex role—Fiction.] I. Title.

PZ7.M9795B1 2002

[Fic]—dc21 2002000759

ISBN 0-15-216731-5

Text set in Minion

Display set in Pabst

Designed by Cathy Riggs

G H F

Printed in the United States of America