Will knew something was up but couldn't quite tell what it was. Too many sidewards glances during the first dogwatch, too many whispers and scurrying about. The captain, mate and second mate were all on the poop deck. Mr. Atkinson raised his spyglass to his eye and cried out, "I believe I spy a ship, sir." Will stared out at the empty ocean and saw nothing.
Captain Barker replied, "I do believe that is King Neptune's ship.”
In an instant Will knew what was happening and felt more the fool for not figuring it out. They had reached the equator. They had crossed the line. Just as the realization hit him, he was grabbed from behind by two pair of strong hands and dragged toward number one hatch.
Will suddenly noticed that two bosun's ladders had been hung over the sides, port and starboard. From starboard, a huge creature was coming aboard, apparently climbing out of the sea itself. He was blue, with a beard of green seaweed, and he wore a rough crown made of wood and wire. He carried a large staff with what looked like a starfish at its end. He marched from the rail to midships just before the mainmast. It took Will a second, but he recognized Harry in the outlandish garb—bare-chested and painted blue, but Harry all the same.
The captain bellowed from the poop, "All hail King Neptune." The crew hooted and yelled their approbation.
From the port ladder, a second creature climbed aboard. He wore a huge green mustache and an approximation of an admiral's hat. Will recognized Jensen. Then the strangest creature appeared from around the back of the fo'c'sle house. It appeared to be a woman, as blue as King Neptune but with long flowing rope-yarn hair. Her breasts appeared to be coils of rope and she wore a flowing skirt of painted canvas. Beneath the face paint and rope wig, Will recognized Donnie.
“All Hail Davy Jones and Her Highness Queen Amphitrite," the captain shouted. The crew cheered louder still.
Davy Jones bowed deeply, and then took the Queen's hand and stood beside the king. Neptune glanced at his attendants, scanned the deck and sniffed the air. He pounded his staff on the deck and cried out, "I smell slimy pollywogs. Bring them out. We'll scrub 'em clean and make proper shellbacks of 'em.”
A moment later, two sailors dragged Fred out to stand behind Will. The only two sailors aboard who had never crossed the equator, they were the ship's slimy pollywogs.
“What in hell," Fred mumbled.
“Pollywogs, be silent," Neptune bellowed. "Step forward.”
Will felt someone shove him from behind. Someone shoved Fred as well, who bumped into Will and almost knocked him down.
“What is your name, pollywog?" Neptune demanded, pointing at Will with his scepter.
“Will—”
As soon as he opened his mouth someone stepped up behind him and shoved a paintbrush laden with soap, tallow and tar into his mouth. He choked and spat as the deckhands cheered. His face was lathered with the wretched mix and someone was shaving him with a rusty razor, though he had little enough beard to shave.
Neptune demanded Fred's name as well, but Fred kept his mouth shut until someone behind him grabbed his jaw and shoved a frothy, stinking paintbrush into his mouth as well, sending him gagging to the deck.
Someone tied a gantline from the main yardarm around Will's waist. Suddenly, brutally, he found himself hoisted up off the deck, flying up and outboard until just as suddenly he was dropped into the sea. He flailed in the water for only a moment until the gantline was yanked again and he flew up once more, only to be dunked again and again. Then, like a huge fish at the end of a line, he was hauled back in and dumped on deck. Partially blinded by the soap and slush smeared on his face and by the saltwater stinging his eyes, he could just make out that Fred was receiving the same treatment on the port side of the ship.
What happened next was a blur of dumping water over their heads, and their backs being hit with old rope and stinking mops. And all the while, his ears were filled with wild hooting and chanting from the rest of the crew.
The torment seemed to go on endlessly. When it finally stopped, a very battered Will and Fred were hauled before King Neptune, who tapped their shoulders with his staff and dubbed them "Trusty Shellbacks and the True Sons of Neptune," to the cheering of the crew. The cheering continued when Captain Barker ordered the steward to issue out a tot of rum to the crew, trusty shellbacks all.
“Well, I am an ass," Fred said to Will. "I mentioned to Tony that I had never crossed the line. Should'a kept my mouth shut.”
After the sailors' heaven of the trade winds, the doldrums were a maddening purgatory. The days were insufferably hot. The wind was light and shifting, when it blew at all. The sun baked them as they spent all day hauling the sheets and braces to catch every breeze, every williwaw, every faint breath of wind. The afternoons often brought blinding, warm rain but no wind. When the squalls passed, steam rose from the deck as the sun again baked down on them. The nights seemed almost as hot as the days as they labored watch by watch. By the end of the first week, tempers began to flare. Accidental slights became grave insults. Lindstrom and Tony came to blows over a misplaced step and a dropped knife. Even Harry and Jensen sang the shanties listlessly, if at all, at the endless heaving round of the yards. And when the wind died all together there was nothing to be done but wait. And wait they did for days at a time.
Fred slumped against the deckhouse. He had been on windbound ships before, along the coast, where there was no choice but to anchor and wait for the return of a breeze. The doldrums were different.
It was as if they had sailed off the edge of the earth. The sea was a perfect mirror. The Lady Rebecca's masts soared both skyward and seaward, her image reflecting as crisp and clear looking down as looking up. They could have been as easily floating on the sky as on the sea, the heavens both below and above with the horizon lost in the haze.
The only sound was the soft flapping of the sails and the squeaking of blocks. Conversations seemed to have drifted away on the last of the breeze. Were it not for someone humming softly to himself, Fred might have thought himself entirely alone on the ship. The Ancient Mariner came to mind.
Day after day, day after day,
We stuck, nor breath nor motion;
As idle as a painted ship
Upon a painted ocean.
He whispered the words to himself, not daring disturb the silence. After an hour or so of simply starring out at the vast emptiness, the image before him began to ripple and he felt a hint of a cooling breath wash across his face.
Mr. Rand from the poop deck bellowed, "Square the cro'jack." Fred jumped to his feet, joined by the rest of the watch emerging from their resting places, scrambling to haul the braces to swing the yard around to catch the tiniest hint of a breeze.
Once the sails were trimmed, the breeze that for a few moments seemed so promising died away again as quietly as it had arrived.
A bit less than a fortnight after entering the doldrums, Captain Baker came on deck just as dawn was coloring the western sky, and he knew. The winds were still faint but he could feel it in the swell and see it the bank of clouds off their port quarter. He could almost taste the southeasterly trades. He was sure that the royals and t'gans'ls would be feeling them soon. By noon all sails were full and drawing. The wind was still light but the Lady Rebecca was again gliding off to the southwest.
The winds grew steady. They had reached the southerly trades at last. In a day's time Captain Barker ordered the light-air sails struck and the heavy-weather sails set once again. The crew grumbled and growled but worked with a will. The southeasterly trades renewed their spirits. The petty arguments and feuds fed by the doldrums seemed to have blown away on the fresh and bracing trades.