In The Belly Of The Bloodhound (42 page)

“Blodgett has come to a new course to see if that ship intends to follow us. We’ll know in a minute if he changes course to match ours.” I ready myself to yell out “Plan B” and set things in motion.

We watch, and the set of the sails of the other ship does not change. I let out my breath and relax. “He’s not going to pursue us.”

“Damn. I could have used a good fight,” says Clarissa.

“Don’t worry, Clarissa, you’ll get that fight soon enough. This has been a good lesson for us—we can’t just plan and plan and not act. Let’s pass the word that we’ll be leaving as soon as the fuse is done and the weather is right, and all should prepare themselves for it.”

I turn back to the others and raise my voice. “False alarm. That ship is not chasing us. Let’s get back to ordinary routine.”

Ordinary routine is work continuing on the fuse while the dancers rattle overhead. The fuse work is tedious and slow—the seams have to be sewn very tightly so that the powder doesn’t leak out—and Ruth has enlisted the services of Frances Wallace to spell her when her hand cramps up.

“I swear I’ll never again touch a needle in this life,” grumbles Ruth, flexing her fingers.

“Oh yes, you will,” I laugh and pat her shoulder to show that we really appreciate what she’s doing. “Soon you’ll be back doin’ those roses and vines and fancy scrollwork for which you are famous throughout the land.”

“Hmmm,”
she says, unconvinced but happy to think of herself back home doing homely things.

Katy and the Dianas are in a line under the Stage, exercising with their new, stronger bows.[_ Pull, hold…hold…relax. Pull, hold…hold…hold…relax. Pull, hold…hold…hold_] till their arms quiver and shake with the effort of holding the string back…[_ relax._]

The Dianas now not only roll up their cutoff drawers, but also the sleeves of their undershirts, and when they are in the “hold” position, I notice up-and-down grooves have appeared in their shoulder muscles. Their legs, too…You can see the separate muscles, just like on me…or on me when I’ve been climbing the rigging for a

“Hey. Something’s up,” comes the call from Annie on starboard quarter lookout. I leap up to see what’s what.

“It looks like the whole crew is out there,” she says, and she is right. There’s Mick and Keefe and Cookie and the rest, and that Carruthers is out in front of all of ‘em with his arms crossed on his chest, his lower lip jutting out, lookin’ seriously surly. He may be a bully and a thug, but he is without a doubt the crew’s leader.

“It looks like they want a meeting with the Captain. That Nettles just went into the cabin to tell him.”

I think Annie’s right—Chubbuck and Dunphy are standing by and lookin’ just as serious as Carruthers.

The cabin door opens and Blodgett comes out, wearing both his sword[_ and_] his pistols, which he doesn’t ordinarily do. He goes up to confront Carruthers.

“What the devil do you men want?” he demands.

Carruthers pulls off his cap and says, “We got some questions, Captain, and we wants ‘em answered.”

“So ask them,” says the Captain.

“First, how come you and the Mate and the Bo’sun is the only ones aboard with weapons? There’s some on board that says you plan to kill the lot of us when we get to Africa, ‘cause of the nature of this cargo, which you think we might talk about sometime and get you and your bosses in trouble. What you got to say to that?”

The Captain breaks out in a big smile. “Now, boys, when have you[_ ever_] been on a ship where the crew is armed, unless you’ve sailed on a pirate? Think back, now, have you?”

The crew thinks on this and mumbles things like,[_ “Well, maybe not,”
] and[
“Come to think of it…”_]

“And as for killing you? Why, you’re the best crew I’ve ever had. I know you each for a good closemouthed lad who ain’t never gonna peach on nobody. Besides, everyone back in the States thinks these girls are dead. Who’s gonna be lookin’ for ‘em? Or news of ‘em? Nay, these girls are a dead issue, count on it.”

Carruthers thinks on this for a moment and then says, “There’s been some strange things happenin’ on this ship lately. Ghostly things, and we don’t like it. There’s talk of a Black Ghost what maybe slipped a noose over Henry Pritchett’s head one night. There’s seaweed poppin’ up where it ain’t supposed to be. There’s big sharks followin’ us. Strange noises…

The Captain continues to smile. “Now, Carruthers, you know what a superstitious lot sailors are. It’s in our very nature. There ain’t no ghost, trust me, and sharks always follow a ship, surely you know that.”

But Carruthers is not yet through. “Has this ship always been the[_ Bloodhound?
] Or did it have another name in the past, like maybe the[
Marie Celestine?”_]

The Captain gives out a short bark of a laugh. “Boys, boys, boys! I saw this ship’s keel laid in Charleston twelve years ago and I’ve sailed in her every year since! And so has Mate Dunphy and the Bo’sun. Ain’t that right?” Dunphy nods and Chubbuck does, too, after the Mate gives him a jab.

“So you see, lads, there’s nothing to worry about. We’ll soon be at our destination and you’ll all be rich,” says the Captain with smug satisfaction writ all over his face. “But I’m glad we had this little talk, I am, to help clear the air, like. I’ll even do this to set your minds at ease—Carruthers is your man, so let’s fit him out with a fine sword, so he’ll be armed, too. All right? Good. Carruthers, come with me into my cabin and we’ll set you up.”

Carruthers, a bit shocked by this turn, shrugs and follows Blodgett into his cabin.

He swaggers out a full minute later, his face flushed and smiling, and wearing a sabre in a scabbard around his waist.

“Let’s have a cheer, lads,” shouts the Captain, “and an extra tot for every man jack of you at dinner tonight!”

There is a cheer, but it ain’t exactly a full-throated one. No, when the men break up and file past our bars, I see that Mick and Keefe are still looking grim.

I rush over to where they are passing, grab the bars, and hiss out at them, “He’s been bought! You know that, boys! He’s been bought!”

They look at me but say nothing. I snatch my hands back as Chubbuck’s club hits the bars where my fingers have just been.

“Shaddap, you.”

Flaps down, Hepzibah’s Chorus, Connie’s Scriptures, then I get up and finish my Cheapside tale.

Charlie’s been real moody lately and I know it’s ‘cause the Polly thing has been weighing heavy on his mind.

Oh, I know he felt bad for Polly herself, like we all did, but it was his loss of face with the other gangs that galled him the most. He was usually full of fun and jokes, but he wasn’t now. Now he had his shiv out a lot, sharpening it against the stones of Blackfriars Bridge. I know he’s gonna try to kill Pigger—but that won’t solve anything, I know it won’t. I try to tell him, they’ll just hang you is all and I don’t want that, Charlie, I don’t—but he don’t listen. His pride is on the line, and I’ve come to know that with males, sometimes there just ain’t no use in talkin’ to ‘em.

It’s been about a week since the Paternoster fight, but Pigger don’t show himself, prolly figurin’ what Charlie’s got in mind. Pigger’s big, but Charlie’s a real hothead, and Pigger knows that and he ain’t taking no chances. We ain’t seen Polly that whole time, neither…

“No, Julia, we couldn’t go to the police and complain. We wouldn’t think of doing that, as the police were not our friends. Besides, it would break the Code of the Streets and we’d be seen as snitches and that would be the end of us. And no, Caroline, we couldn’t just set fire to their filthy sty and flush ‘em out—fire was much feared in London and anyone caught setting one was sure to end up dead very quickly. It’s true they didn’t hang nine-year-old kids—usually no one younger than fourteen got strung up—but a

copper and his club could get the same job done. Once I got caught trying to pinch something or other and a cop grabbed me by the neck, took me into an alley, lifted me up, and started slamming me back against a stone wall, over and over again. My head went back on the first slam, hard against the stone, and my eyesight got a bit foggy around the edges. The second slam about broke my skull and things got real hazy, and by about the fifth one, everything went dark. I woke up back in the kip, sick with the worst headache I’ve ever had, before and since. Charlie and the bunch had found me crumpled up in that alley, out cold, and Hughie carried me back. I counted myself lucky to be alive, and lucky to have been found by my mates before Muck the Corpse Seller found me. No, Sisters, the police were not our friends.”

But Polly or no Polly, we still had to eat, so we headed up to Fleet Street on this day, to try our luck with the reading-of-the-broadsides bit. When we got there, there was a pretty good crowd, it bein’ the day the newspapers came out, and Nancy and Judy slipped right into the people standin’ about to see what might present itself, like perhaps a gentleman’s fancy handkerchief hanging carelessly out of his pocket, or somesuch. Charlie was about to take up his usual post close to Hughie and me, but I saw something that made me grab his arm and hiss, “Charlie! There’s two Shanky Boys over there! Hold back and pretend you don’t see them! Trust me!”

Charlie looks over to see Flick and Scut, the same two lowlifes we’d saved from the coppers before—plainly they was here to see if they could pick a few pockets. Charlie’s hand goes for his shiv, but I plead,

“Please, Charlie!” and he nods and fades back into an alley to watch and see what I’m up to.

“Hughie!” I say. “Up!” and good Hugh the Grand bends down and puts his two hands together, fingers entwined, for me to put my foot in, and then I am lifted up onto his broad shoulders. I feel the reassuring grip of his hands around my ankles as we make our way through the crowd and up to the newly printed broadsides tacked to the printer’s wall. Then I go into my act.

“Ladies and Gents! This here is your own dear Mary Faber reading you the news of the day! Look ye here, we have an account of that nasty Bonaparte kickin’ up sand in Egypt, chasin’ the poor wogs from one end o’ the place to the other and takin’ all their stuff…and ‘ere’s a notice that Miss Tessie Briggs and Mr. Asa Smoggs is gettin’ wed and they’re publishin’ the banns right here before your very eyes, and I knows there’s gonna be a big weddin’ party ‘cause I already got me invitation here tucked in me shift, and how about you?” As usual, my extra patter gets me a little laugh, and then I rock back like I seen somethin’ that shakes me to my very core. “Coo! Look at this!” I say, pointing to a large bill. “It says here that a reward of five-hundred-pounds sterling is offered for the capture, dead or alive, of the no-tor-i-ous criminal Patrick O’Toole, alias Pigger O’Toole, on a charge of kidnappin’ one Polly Von, long-lost granddaughter of Lord Peter Von, peer o’ the realm and all that. It seems the little tyke was misplaced on a royal trip and snatched by the a-fore-men-tioned thug, who is known to inhabit various hells in Cheapside, the chief of which is on Paternoster Lane. Anyone wishin’ to claim the reward must be careful in the app-re-hen-sion of the fiend, as he is known to be armed and dangerous, and must secure the safety of the child. App-li-ca-tion for the reward may be made at the Royal Huff-ing-ton Manor, London.”

Out of the corner of my eye, I see the Shankies lookin’ sharp at each other.

Several hard-lookin’ types surge forward. “Are ye sure o’ that, girl?” says one particularly vile-lookin’ cove.

“That I am, Sir, it says so right here, and if it’s in print, it’s got to be so,” I says, eyes round in wonder. “Coo, five hundred pounds…Wouldn’t that buy ye a right big slice o’ kidney pie?” I see Flick and Scut turn and run down the street toward Paternoster. Ah, yes, two fleet Shanky messengers bearin’ the news.

The man who spoke and two other very tough-looking gents gather, then take off toward Saint Paul’s. I chuckle to myself:[_ You’re real good, Pigger, at kickin’ kids around—let’s see how you handle those three._] All have swords and I think I see pistol bulges under their long black coats.

They ain’t the only ones interested, neither. Other groups of men confer and then take themselves off, intent on some mission.

Now there are also folks standing about who look at me in a curious way—thems must be the ones what can read and are wonderin’ why I’m sayin’ the words I am whilst pointing at a poster advertising an auction of yearling horses. But I put my finger to my lips like it’s all a big joke, and they don’t say nothing, as it ain’t their business, anyway.

Well, the upshot of it was that Pigger had to light out of town, fast. In fact, we never seen him ever again. It’s said that he got nabbed for stealin’ a hog up north and got himself hanged for it. Though how the constables up there could tell him and the pig apart, I don’t know. Maybe they hanged the hog and roasted Pigger…There’s others who say he got a job in a circus as a geek, sittin’ in a cage, bitin’ the heads off live chickens, which seemed to me to be much more likely, that bein’ the vocation I always felt he was born for. I don’t know. All I know is we was deprived of his company from then on and we rejoiced in it. A cove named Natty B. Matt took over the Shanky Boys, and though he wasn’t exactly a stand-up citizen of the streets, he was a practical fellow and we got along with him. Peace returned to the streets of Cheapside.

I, too, had to lay low for a while, ‘cause of bein’ guilty of spreadin’ false rumors and other falsehoods, but it was worth it—Charlie didn’t get hanged for murderin’ Pigger, and Polly come walkin’ back into our kip, thumb in mouth, the next day, as if nothin’ had ever happened.

I lay low by going up to the rooftops again. Some of those blokes who went after Pigger to get the reward was now lookin’ for me, for sendin’ them on a wild-pig chase, so I figured high up was the place for Little Mary Faber to be till they cooled off a bit. I had a special place that I liked, a roof where the tiles came together twixt two gables and made a rain gutter. I could sleep there without worryin’ about fallin’ off, and I could watch the goings-on of the city from that perch high above. Judy or Nancy would come up each night to stay with me and bring me news of the gang’s activities, and maybe a bit of food.