I returned the dirk to my dress pocket but resolved to fling it into the ocean at the first opportunity.
Captain Jaggery laughed pleasantly, and then asked me questions about family and school that quickly helped me regain a sense of ease and comfort. I was speaking of Miss Weed when five bells struck. The captain stood.
“Forgive me,” he said. “I must return to the deck. Let me find someone to go with you to your trunk. Do you know exactly where it was stowed?”
I shook my head. “A Mr. Barlow had charge of it,” I explained.
“Come then,” he said. “I’ll get him to accompany you.”
At the open door he paused, and with a flourish, extended his arm. Glowing with pleasure, I took it and the two of us swept out of his cabin.
Chapter Six
Never mind that my dress having been worn for four days was creased and misshapen, my white gloves a sodden gray. Never mind that my fine hair must have been hanging like a horse’s tail, in almost complete disarray. With all eyes upon us as we crossed the ship’s waist to the bowsprit and figurehead, I felt like a princess being led to her throne.
Not even the same lowering mist I’d observed when I first came from my cabin could dampen my soaring spirits. Captain Jaggery was a brilliant sun and I, a Juno moon, basked in reflected glory.
“Captain Jaggery, sir,” I said, “this ship seems to be moving very slowly.”
“You observe correctly,” he replied, ever the perfect gentleman. “But if you look up there,” he pointed beyond the mainmast, “you’ll notice some movement. The cloud cover should be breaking soon and then we’ll gain. There, you see,” he exclaimed, “the sun is struggling to shine through.”
As if by command a thin yellow disk began to appear where he pointed, though it soon faded again behind clotted clouds.
From the forecastle deck we crossed to the quarterdeck and then to the helm. Foley, a lean, bearded man, was at the wheel. Mr. Keetch, as unsmiling as ever, stood by his side. The wheel itself was massive, with hand spikes for easier gripping.
When the captain and I approached, the two men stole fleeting glances in our direction but said nothing.
Captain Jaggery released my arm and gazed up at the sails. At length he said, “Mr. Keetch.”
The second mate turned to him. “Yes, sir.”
“I believe,” the captain said, “we shall soon have a blow.”
Mr. Keetch seemed surprised. “Do you think so, sir?”
“I hardly would have said so otherwise, now would I, Mr. Keetch?”
The man darted a glance at me as if I held the answer. All he said however was, “I suppose not, sir.”
“Thank you, Mr. Keetch. Now, I want to take advantage of it. Tighten all braces, and be ready with the jigger gaff.”
“Aye, aye, sir.”
“And bring the studding sails to hand. We may want them to make up for lost time.”
“Aye, aye, sir.” After another glance at me, Mr. Keetch marched quickly across the quarterdeck and at the rail bellowed, “All hands! All hands!”
Within moments the entire crew assembled on deck.
“Topgallant and royal yardmen in the tops!” he cried.
The next moment the crew scrambled into the shrouds and standing rigging, high amidst the masts and spars. Even as they ascended Mr. Keetch began to sing out a litany of commands—«Man topgallant mast ropes! Haul taut! Sway and unfid!”—that had men hauling on running lines and tackle until the desired sails were shifted and set. It was a grand show, but if the ship moved any faster for it, I didn’t sense a change.
The captain now turned to Foley. “One point south,” he said.
“One point south,” Foley echoed and shifted the wheel counterclockwise with both hands.
“Steady on,” the captain said.
“Steady on,” Foley repeated.
Now it was Mr. Hollybrass who approached the helm. The moment he did so Captain Jaggery hailed him.
“Mr. Hollybrass!”
“Sir!”
“As convenient, Mr. Hollybrass, send Mr. Barlow to Miss Doyle. She needs to learn where her trunk was stowed.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Miss Doyle,” the captain said to me, “please be so good as to follow Mr. Hollybrass. I have enjoyed our conversation and look forward to many more.”
Then and there—beneath the eyes of all the crew—he took up my hand, bowed over it, and touched his lips to my fingers. I fairly glowed with pride. Finally I followed—perhaps floated is a better word—after Mr. Hollybrass. Barely concealing a look of disdain for the captain’s farewell to me, he made his way across the quarterdeck and stood at the rail overlooking the ship’s waist. There he studied the men while they continued to adjust the rigging, now and again barking a command to work one rope or another.
“Mr. Barlow,” he called out at last.
“Here, sir!” came a response from on high.
Some sixty feet above I saw the man.
“Get you down!” Mr. Hollybrass cried.
Despite his decrepit appearance, Barlow was as dexterous as a monkey. He clambered across the foreyard upon which he had been perched, reached the mast, then the rigging, and on this narrow thread of rope he seemed to actually run until he dropped upon the deck with little or no sound.
“Aye, aye, sir,” he said, no more out of breath than I—or rather less than I, for to see him at such heights moving at such speeds had taken my breath away.
“Mr. Barlow,” Hollybrass said. “Miss Doyle needs her trunk. I understand you know where it is.”
“I put it in top steerage, sir.”
“Be so good as to lead her to it.”
“Yes, sir.” Barlow had not yet looked my way. Now, with a shy nod, and a touch to his forelock, he did so. I understood I was to follow.
The normal entry to the cargo areas is through the hatchway located in the center of the ship’s waist. Since that was lashed down for the voyage, Barlow led me another way, to a ladder beneath the mates’ mess table—in steerage—just opposite my cabin door.
After setting aside the candle he’d brought along, he scrambled under the mess table, then pulled open a winged hatch door that was built flush into the floor. Once he had his candle lit, I saw him twist about and drop partway down the hole.
“If you please, miss,” he beckoned.
Distasteful though it was, I had little choice in the matter. I crawled on hands and knees, backed into the hole, and climbed down twelve rungs—a distance of about eight or nine feet.
“Here, miss,” Barlow said at my side, next to the ladder. “You don’t want to go down to the hold.”
I looked beneath me and saw that the ladder continued into what appeared to be a black pit.
“More cargo,” he explained laconically. “Rats and roaches too. And a foul bilge. That’s where the brig is.”
“Brig?”
“The ship’s jail.”
“A jail on a ship?”
“Captain Jaggery wouldn’t sail without, miss.”
I shuddered in disgust.
Barlow held out one of his hard, gnarled hands. Reluctantly I took it and did a little jump to the top cargo deck. Only then did I look about.
It was a great, wood-ribbed cavern I had come to, which—because Barlow’s candlelight reached only so far—melted into blackness fore and aft. I recall being struck by the notion that I was—Jonah-like—in the belly of a whale. The air was heavy, with the pervasive stench of rot that made me gag.
“What’s that?” I asked, pointing to a cylinder from which pipes ran, and to which handles were attached.
“The pump,” he said. “In case we take on sea.”
In all directions I saw the kinds of bales, barrels, and boxes I had seen upon the Liverpool docks. The sight was not romantic now. These goods were piled higgledy-piggledy one atop the other, braced and restrained here and there by ropes and wedges, but mostly held in place by their own bulk. The whole reminded me of a great tumble of toy blocks jammed into a box.