L. Meyer - Bloody Jack - Being an Account of the Curious Adventures of Mary Jacky Faber, Ship's Boy

"Don't you raise your hand to me!" he hisses, and I puts me hands down to me side.

"I ... I'm sorry, Sir," I whispers. "I just sounds 'em out. I don't know what they means. It's a trick, like."

"What does this mean?" he says, pointing to another passage.

"I don't know, Sir."

The inside of my lip is cut and I can taste the blood.

"And this?"

"I don't know, Sir."

"You insolent little snot," he hisses, and he leans out to hit me again. I closes my eyes and waits for it with me arms held down tight to my sides.

His next blow catches me on my ear and it knocks me down.

"Get up," he orders. I get up, me ear ringin' and the room spinnin' around.

"What does this mean?"

"I don't know, Sir."

"Going to cry, snot?"

"No, Sir," even though I already am.

"We'll see about that." His hand cocks back again. I squeezes me eyes shut and cringes.

"Ma ... ma ... maybe the boy has had enough, Mr. Bliffil."

I pops open a cautious eyelid. It was Mr. Jenkins what spoke.

Bliffil slowly turns to face Mr. Jenkins, the look on his face that of total amazement. "Wot!" cries Bliffil. Mr. Jenkins has now gone white in the face and stares down at his tablet. "The Jellyfish opens its noise hole and tells me when enough is enough! Bloody cheek I call it and I won't have it, by God!"

Bliffil grabs Mr. Jenkins by the neck and forces his head down to the tablet and rubs his face on it. When he lets go and Mr. Jenkins raises his head, his face is splotched with the white of the chalk and the red of the shame. There is no fight in his eyes, nothing but humiliation. He looks to be fighting back tears.

Then Tilly finally comes roaring in with, "Gentlemen, gentlemen, compose yourselves! We continue today with..." And I am able to fall back into the shadows and nurse my lip.

I decides then and there to never go into the midshipmen class again without Tilly being there.

Chapter 12

We have long since gone through the Strait of Gibraltar, which was the most amazing thing with the great rock itself and the salutes from the port and the gay dolphins playing at our bows. I wish we could have gone into the port to look about, but, no, we are off to the coast of North Africa, where we will search for pirates. It's getting really hot. We have been having nearly daily drills with the big guns, and the boys get worked right hard as they run the sacks of powder to the gun crews. They doff their shirts, and their chests fairly gleam with sweat. I doff my shirt and pound my drum and sweat with the rest of them.

My shirt, however, is not my problem as you could still play a tune on my ribs had you the proper hammers and musical training. No, the problem is with my pants. They are getting tight across the rear. When first I put on poor Charlie's pants, there was room enough to spare and I had to roll up the cuffs several times to keep them from flopping around my feet. What with the three full meals a day that I've been getting and what we've been cajoling out of the cook, my haunches have filled out and are getting right round, which is not good in the furthering of The Deception. I've got a little taller, too. I only roll up the cuffs once now.

But I am some skilled in the sewing now and I resolve to make new pants. Baggy ones. I go to see Liam and he tells me I'm to go see the clerk, Deacon Dunne, down in ship's stores, and draw some cloth and thread against my wages, and off I go.

Deacon Dunne casts a wary eye on me. "Jack Faber, is it?"

"Aye, Sir."

"Two yards of white duck?"

"Aye, Sir."

"This essentially uses up your pay so far. What with the mess kit you were issued when you came on board lacking one. That's charged against your name, too."

"I know, Sir," says I, still marveling that I get paid at all.

Deacon Dunne nods to his assistant clerk who goes to get the cloth and thread. "Have you been reading your Bible, Jack?" he asks, drilling me with his gaze.

"Oh yes, Sir," say I, and put on a face of all honest innocence, "and I find it a great consolation and solace. A balm, even."

He looks at me doubtfully, but he delivers the goods.

I am good at the sewing and I am prideful about it. I can sew a straight seam and I can cut the shapes out of the whole cloth and see how it's all going to come together and and how it's going to fit and hang. The boys are not good at the sewing. Willy is too clumsy with the needle and Davy and Tink and Benjy lack the patience and Jaimy considers it beneath him. We'll see when his clothes turn to rags on him just how far beneath him it is, the snob.

Within a day and a half I have a new pair of trousers. They have a drawstring at the waist, lots of room in the butt, and wide cuffs so I can roll the legs up above my knees for the deck washing and such.

I also have some cloth left over, so I make myself a pair of underdrawers, the first I've had since That Dark Day. Then an idea comes to me, an idea so wonderful in its cunning and boldness that I am grinning and giggling as I carry it out. I take a piece of the remaining scraps of cloth and roll it up into a sort of soft tube. Then I fold another piece up to make a soft round pad. I sew the tube onto the pad and then take the two of them together and sew them in the front of my drawers, so that if anyone is ever checking out the front of my pants for evidence of male equipment, I won't be found lacking.

I am well rigged out.

The north coast of Africa is all dull, barren brown rock broken up by patches of sandy desert with dunes that come all the way down to the edge of the sea. The sand whips up into clouds that reach all the way out to us sometimes and we can taste the grit in our mouths. We chase what we think to be pirates, but they always slip away from us, dodging into tiny harbors or running into waters too shallow for us to go. It makes the crew mad, 'cause they're hungry for plunder and prizes. But not me. I don't care if we ever catch a pirate.

The seas roll by and the months do, too, and I do my duties and loll about in the foretop under the sun with the boys, and I practice my pennywhistle and do my sewing and study my lessons and grow lazy and sleek. I have seen Morocco and I have seen Tripoli. Egypt, too. All from five miles out. I marvel at how far I have come since the days in the streets and I dream of how far I might yet go.

So sail on, Dolphin, I say, weave your way in this watery world and keep on sheltering this poor orphan girl as long as you can.

I have four tunes by heart now: "The Tenpenny Bit," which was the easiest one, the one Liam showed me first, and "Dicey Riley," and "The Pigtown Jig," all of which are good for the dancing, which I can now do a bit of. Liam showed me the heel-and-toe action of the feet and I caught on right fast. The Scots on board say I should dance with my arms folded in front of me, and the English say one hand on the belly and the other on the small of the back, and the Irish say it must be done with the hands held rigidly to the sides, but it's all one—it's the feet what do the work, anyway.

I know a slow and sad song, too, and it's my favorite, called "Down by the Sally Gardens." Like most of the slow tunes, it's about a poor and trusting girl who is led astray by her false true lover, who asks her to go riding with him and she goes with the scoundrel only to have a knife thrust in her dear and lovin' and trustin' heart and her heart's blood does flow and she's tossed in a lonesome grave with only the wild birds to mourn. But it's a lovely tune, anyway, and the whistle has a way of sounding sad and far away on the slow songs, even when it's right up against your lips.

I caught on right fast to the dancing and playing because I have this thing in me that loves to show off and be in the center of things. I try to fight it 'cause I know it's dangerous to The Deception, but I don't always succeed.