Cast Off (10 page)

“Hey, Bram, how'd you sleep last night?” Tixfor asked.

The weather was foul and I was cleaning paintbrushes in the carpenter's cabin. From the smug look on his pretty-boy face, Tixfor'd stopped by to torture me.

“I slept fine, thanks.”

“That so? Slept all night here with your pa? Never even got up for a piss?”

“Why're you so concerned with how and when I piss, Tix?”

“No reason. It's just that five lines were freshly whipped this morning with a wrap stitch the bosun didn't know, and the sailmaker woke up with his royal cobbled. Now everyone's wondering who did it.” Tixfor cleaned under his nails with the corner of a chisel. My chisel. “Some are saying it was you. Nobody can figure how you've been doing the work of two men, especially when your pa says you've been sleeping next to him all night. It's a rare cove who can be in two places at once, if you ask me.”

“I wasn't asking.” I straightened up. “And it wasn't me who whipped the lines or fixed the royal.” But I knew who it had to be.

“Wasn't anybody else, either. Half the men think we've got a selkie woman aboard who's shed her skin, and the other half think we've got a sea devil and maybe he's you.”

“What do you think?”

“Whoever it is has got a way with a needle. I say he's a sew sew boy with a sense of humor.”

Sew sew boy was the name Petra'd earned me with her rows of tight stitches no man aboard could match.

The punishment for fighting was flogging. If it was anything less—

“Let me know when you find your man, Tix. Thanks for coming by.”

Soon as he swagged off, I bolted for the hold.

Petra was cutting bandages out of linen for the surgeon's rag box. I swiped the whole lot onto the floor. “What do you think you're doing!”

Her mouth hung open like a hooked fish before she answered. “Er, what you asked me to do. Making bandages.” She picked up a handful and brushed at 'em. “They're dirty now.”

“That's not what I meant.” It hurt my throat not to yell. “I meant last night. When you went up on deck after you promised you wouldn't.”

“I didn't promise I wouldn't go up on deck—”

“You did!”

“I promised I wouldn't try to climb the mast,” she said, smoothing out the linen. “And I didn't.”

“But you did plenty of other things, didn't you? The lines, the royal . . .”

“I was trying to be useful! I don't understand why you're angry.”

“I'm angry 'cause everyone thinks 'twas me who did it!” I said.

“But you should be glad, then,” Petra said, looking up at me from her seat on a beer cask. “Aren't you always looking for more work to do?”

“I'm not glad, because the whole ship knows I was in my hammock all night with my pa. So now they figure I must be some kind of sea devil working magic in my sleep.”

“Oh,” Petra said. “I see. Well, that is a problem.” She fingered the linen for a minute, thinking. “You'll just have to tell them it wasn't you.”

“You don't know many sailors, do you? They're a superstitious lot. They won't believe me 'til they see the real devil in the flesh, which, in this case, happens to be you. So we're stuck.”

'Twas starting to sink in for her, the mess she'd made. “I'm sorry,” she said. “I'm trying to find ways of paying for my passage—and of proving my worth, should I be found out. And, I admit, I wanted a bit of air.”

“You wanted air? If you'd wanted air, you should have stayed in Amsterdam!”

“If I'd done that,” she said, her voice tight as a winched line, “I'd be dead. If I'd had anyplace else to go, I'd have gone there. I'm sorry to burden you, Bram, but you've no idea what it's like, being trapped.”

Petra had that scared dog look she had the night she boarded. I knew where the look came from—she told me the night I found her in Grof's locker. All this time, I'd kept my problems to myself, and she'd done everything I asked her, no questions asked. I owed her more than that.

“I might know what it's like,” I said. “Didn't you wonder why I was aboard that first night when the rest of the crew'd gone ashore?”

I told her then. About the certificate and why I needed to work so hard for De Ridder.

“If you can't go to Amsterdam, why don't you go back to Java?” she asked.

“For what? My ma's dead and my granny too. In the East Indies, mixed-race boys aren't much better off than slaves. In the West Indies, mixed-race boys
are
slaves. In the American colonies too.”

Petra had nothing to say to that.

“What'll you do when we get to Batavia?” I asked her.

“I've thought it through,” she said. “Now that I'm a boy, I can land there and find a ship to take me somewhere else as crew.”

So she was going to live like me. Sail from port to port with no place to call home.

“And when you can't be a boy anymore?”

She'd nothing to say to that, either. We both knew what happened to girls on their own. If they got lucky, they'd find some kind of honest work, maybe in a laundry, where they'd stir pots of hot lye 'til their eyes gave out and then die poor in the almshouse. And if they didn't get lucky, they'd find worse work in a brothel and die before they had a chance to grow old. Or they'd find a cove to marry, and depending on the cove, that could be worst of all.

'Twas the end of our second month at sea and the weather was fine, so the crew was dancing the Pickleherring in the waist. On dry nights, the captain let everyone jig after supper. Wood shoes on a wood deck made fair drums, and Piet Pietersen was more than a fair pipe player.

Lobo the gunner was spinning like a top in the middle of the crowd, gold earrings catching the lantern light. That cove may have been Portuguese, but he could jump like a boglander. Me, I usually stood off to the side and clapped along. Not tonight, though. Even in the shadows, I could see the looks I got from the crew, wondering was I man or monster. Tixfor was monkeying around with a couple of other coves. When he stuck his thumbs in his ears and waved his fingers like horns, I took off for the bow, where no one would bother me.

I could just make out the lion keeping watch over the sea.

“Three million florins. Gold, silver, and copper.”

I knew that voice even at a half whisper. Jaya. He was up on the fo'c'sle deck with a giant who could only be Kosnik the smith. Kosnik stood more than a head taller than Jaya on legs like tree trunks. I ducked under the bowsprit so they wouldn't see me.

“It should be ours, my brother. We earned it.” Jaya had to be talking about the VOC payroll. “Van Swalme, the officers, even Dutch housemaids have shares of VOC. Every florin the VOC makes, they get a piece. But we are too poor to buy stock. Our little wages come only when we get to Batavia—
if
we do not die from fever or flux or get shot or fall overboard—and only after purser steals his share.”

“Tak,”
said Kosnik. “We be working all day all night in rain, wind, snow, sun and eating old food not good enough for dead dog. No wife, no kids, no going home for months, years. Most of us not getting back home alive.”

“And they make all the money,” Jaya said.

“Tak,”
Kosnik said. “What you be wanting me to do?”

“Not much. Not at first,” Jaya said. “We go slow slow now. But later, when we get near Indies, we need your help.”

“What help?”

“You do what you do so well, my brother. When time comes for us to get away, you help load trunks. They heavy heavy. And when we come to Indies, you build forge. The coins and bars, they have VOC stamp on them. Like this, we cannot use them. But after you melt and make new bars . . .”

“We being rich men.”

Jaya squeezed one of Kosnik's barrel arms. “You understand.”

“Is good idea,” said the giant. “But we be going back now. They be missing us.”

They headed aft to the dancing. I leaned against the rail and stared at the lion's ears, which was winking gold on and off in the starlight.

They're aiming to steal the VOC payroll.

The next morning, Pa and me was in our cabin tying on our belts, getting ready for breakfast.

“Pa, I need to tell you something.”

“What's that, Brammetje?”

Nothing's private on a ship with three hundred men. I waved him close so I could whisper in his ear. “There's a plan to steal the Dutch East India Company payroll.”

“I know.”

“You know?”

He clapped a hand over my mouth. “Shhhh! Aye. Stay out of it. You're trying to get on the captain's good side, remember?”

I knew what he was getting at. To steal the payroll, the men would have to throw over the captain, which was mutiny. I'd get hanged if I had any part in it. But what if Jaya and his mates mutinied and De Ridder couldn't write the letter? Then I was back to where I was now—a penniless no-name cove, stuck at sea.

“There's just a few coves in on it so far and they can't go it alone,” Pa said. “Nothing will come of it. And even if they try, I'm no turncoat and neither are you.”

No, I wasn't a cat-in-pan, and I wasn't a thief, either. But if I didn't get that letter, I was nothing.

Louis Cheval came running in, all out of breath. “Come quick,
monsieur
,” he said to Pa. “The surgeon needs you!”

“What's amiss, Louis?”

“Barometer Piet Pietersen,
monsieur
. Please! Come quick!”

Pa ran through the orlop with me following after. Seemed like half the crew was outside the sick bay pushing to get in. Against the wall O'Brian was on his knees, crying and tearing at his hair. “I didn't . . . I didn't mean to do it!” Me and Pa shoved
our way
inside.

“You asked for me, Master Clockert?” Pa said.

The surgeon pushed his hair off his face and looked up from Barometer Piet, who was tied to the table, shaking in a pool of his own blood with an iron spike sticking out of his belly.

Zounds.

“I did,” Clockert yelled so's to be heard over the hubbub. “That drunken, slavering specimen of seamanship outside my infirmary fell from the foremast and had the good fortune of landing on Mister Pietersen. Alas, Mister Pietersen had the ill fortune of landing on this handspike.” Clockert touched the spike with a finger and Piet howled like a banshee.

Pa's face went pale under his freckles, but he didn't flinch. “How can I help, master?”

“I'd like you to hold Mister Pietersen's legs, if you would be so kind, while I remove the object. Mister Jaya here has offered to steady his shoulders.”

Jaya spit betel juice through red teeth into his cup.

Clockert lined up a store of knives, saws, and other medicinal contraptions. “Krause!” he called.

Krause was leaning on the wall with his eyes shut, looking about as stoved up as Barometer Piet. At his master's order, Krause hauled himself up and wove his way to the table. I'd lay five florins he'd been at Clockert's brandy stores again and was deep cut.

“Mister Pietersen, can you hear me?” Clockert shouted while he tied on a stained apron.

“Aye, m-master,” panted Barometer Piet.

“I'm going to remove the spike. It will hurt a great deal, but you must not move, do you understand?” Piet groaned. Clockert stuffed a wood dowel in his mouth. “Bite.”

Piet's mates crowded in closer to the table.

“Gentlemen! Some leeway, if you please!” ordered Clockert. “And I must have quiet.”

The men shut up and shuffled back. Jaya leaned on Barometer Piet's shoulders, and Pa took hold of his ankles. Piet had a tattoo of a rooster on top of one foot, a pig on top of the other, and crosses on both soles. If he ever fell overboard, the bird and the swine would keep him from drowning; the crosses would keep away sharks.

“Be over in a minute, Piet,” one of his mates called out.

“Hey, Piet, any storms coming up today?” said another.

Barometer Piet groaned again.

“Now then, Krause. After I remove the spike, you take this cloth and clear away the new blood. I warn you, there will be a lot of it. I shall want you to hold the wound open with these forceps whilst I repair the internal damage.”

“Yes, sir,” Krause wheezed.

With one fast yank, Clockert slid out the spike. Barometer Piet squealed like a pig around the dowel. Blood poured out of the hole and spilled down his sides. Krause dabbed at it like a fancy lady with tea in her saucer. Can't say I blamed him. I was only too glad 'twas him doing the dabbing, not me.

“Krause!” Clockert spread the hole with his pliers and held out the handles. Krause stuck out a shaky arm for 'em, swayed, and passed out.

“Get this useless drunkard off my floor!” shouted Clockert.

Two sailors dragged Krause away.

“Is there someone who can assist me without unmanning himself?”

Everybody shifted their feet and looked away. Piet would likely die if he stayed with his belly open much longer. All kinds of bad humors could get in there. He'd always been decent to me. I knew I should help him.

“A volunteer?”

More shuffling and sideways looks. Barometer Piet stuck his neck out, begging us with his eyes. I wanted to step up, but I couldn't take my own eyes off the blood on the floor.

“In that case, I shall be my own assistant.”

Piet's life was leaking out of his belly, but our bellies was too yellow to do anything about it. I looked anywhere but at Pa—at Piet, turning gray on the table, at the blood—

At Petra climbing over the storeroom wall.

She crashed to the floor, and there was shouts
from every
which way while she pushed her way to Clockert. Paying no mind to the hubbub, he tilted the handles of the pliers at her. Without a word, Petra took 'em and stood by his side, cool as ice, holding open the hole and mopping up blood while Clockert rooted around inside Barometer Piet with a pair of long pincers.

“Mister Pietersen, I see you were making oakum,” he muttered, pulling out a clump and dropping it on the floor. He dug some more. “You were very lucky
with the
angle of the fall. A man can live with half a rib, but not without his liver.
Unus
,
duo
,
tres,
and . . . out it comes.”

Barometer Piet's eyes rolled back in his head and he fainted. Clockert held up a piece of bone and scrutinized it in the light. The men flinched. 'Cept me. I was staring at Petra.
What were you thinking?
She shrugged:
I have no idea.
I shook my head:
You ruined us
. She bit her lip:
I know.

“I'm glad to see there is one man aboard who isn't squeamish at the sight of a little blood. I shudder to imagine our odds should we engage in combat,” Clockert said to Petra while he stitched Barometer Piet's belly.

“Yes, sir,” she said. And then, because she was Petra, she added, “Perhaps just one more stitch there at the end, master?”

Clockert paused with his needle in the air and looked down his nose at her. “As you wish.” He added the extra stitch and tied off the end. “And now that this matter is successfully concluded, perhaps you'd care to explain what you were doing in my private storeroom?”