As Edward took in the surroundings of the ship and how small it was, it felt as though the Queen Anne's Revenge were a castle in comparison. The economy of space in the Black Blood seemed to be taken to an extreme, and the best way to describe it would be with one word: cramped.
Edward felt cramped in the small quarters and the mass of controlled clutter around the ship. Each deck, and each section of each deck, was more compact and efficiently used. Even on Bartholomew Roberts' small ship, it felt more open, as though he could move and breathe freely. Here, the confined spaces boxed him in, the weight on his chest bending him inward like wood bowed from stress. Edward was trapped in a tinderbox with over one hundred enemies in the middle of the sea, and he was on the edge of sparking.
But not all was dire. As Edward had been taking stock of the scene before him, he noticed John, the same John with the cup of water, walking towards Edward and Herbert with three bowls cradled precariously in the crook of his arms. John carried the food, as important as a child in this exhausting work aboard a ship, with the same delicacy and mannerism of carrying his own baby.
Edward stepped forward and took two of the bowls from John's arms and handed one to Herbert. Before Edward or Herbert could give their thanks, John spoke up.
"If you men would enjoy a bit of privacy, I happen to know just such a location," he said with a genial smile bordering on a youth's naïveté.
Edward glanced at Herbert for a moment. "Lead the way."
John took them away from the crew's quarters and towards the bow of the ship. They passed by some other men late in getting below deck for their share of food, drawing long, covetous stares at the bowls in the three men's hands.
Midships Edward noticed the surgeon's room, slightly off-centre with the rest of the ship, thick walls of hard timber on all sides save for the open doorway with no door running down the middle on both ends. It looked hardly big enough for two men to lie out on a table, and as they approached, Edward could see just that: two cots side by side with two men lying in them and a third empty one happening to be poking out on the starboard side, while on the port side, Edward could just make out closed shelves and storage for a surgeon's instruments.
On the starboard side there was a small space just barely wide enough to walk through that John was leading Edward and Herbert towards. It had evidently been a design flaw in the construction of the ship, as the surgeon's room could have been centred to allow ample room on both sides for any and all types of cargo to head towards the hold. As it stood, the port side was open enough for three to walk shoulder to shoulder, but the starboard could barely fit Herbert's chair, if that.
For that reason, it seemed, the walkway had been blocked with a barrel and a makeshift curtain. John placed his bowl on top of the barrel and gently slid the wooden keg over, allowing access to the alcove beside the surgeon's room. He moved the curtain aside and motioned Edward and Herbert inside.
"I don't think I'm going to fit," Herbert said, with a slight frown quickly forced into a smile when John looked over at him. Before John was able to respond, Herbert spoke again. "I'll manage, you two go on."
Edward took the lead and entered the alcove without another word on the subject. He didn't want John to dwell and mutter useless platitudes on the subject, as he knew Herbert wouldn't want that either.
Edward and John entered the alcove and sat down, Edward on top of a barrel at the other end of the cramped space, and John leaning into the bowed shape of the ship's starboard planks. Herbert positioned himself where the barrel had been previously, side-faced to the opening with his legs touching the corner of the surgeon's room. Herbert locked himself into place and then turned in his chair to better see the other men.
"There," Herbert said, a small smile on his face, "this should do."
John handed out two cloth sacks to Edward and Herbert, holding biscuits, four each, for the day's rations. The ship's biscuits were hard as rocks and would break the teeth if eaten as they were, but they were necessary after the hard day's work.
As though on some stage cue, the three men took a biscuit each from their bags, knocked them on a plank of the ship once, and dropped them into their stew. The ritual was so common amongst sailors, none typically gave it a second thought as the biscuit soaked and softened in the thick broth.
Edward did give it a second thought, as the memory of where and when he'd learned of the ritual came to mind. It was his father who had taught him, as it was his father who had taught him most everything he knew about ships.
He was brought back to his younger years, brought on by a now tainted nostalgia, to a time when his father had brought him on a short fishing trip with his friends. The small boat had had only one sail, and a single deck to store provisions and their haul.
"Salt pork again, is it?" Edward's father said with a wry smile.
Edward remembered looking up at his father; so enormous and imposing was his frame in those days he could think of nothing but awe at the form he wished he could attain someday.
"Er'y day is salt pork," one of the shipmates said. Edward couldn't remember his face or name, but he remembered those
