The Voyage of the Sea Wolf (9 page)

“Leave 'em something,” the captain said. “We have no need for them to starve.”

She addressed Mr. Trimble. “I will not burn yer ship nor sink her, Quartermaster. Ye can limp to the closest island and make repairs. I have spent enough time here and done what I needed to do.”

I saw Red again. His ear was slashed and hanging loose from his head. His hand was capped around it but he still managed to grin at me.

“Ye're alive. Ye fooled them all. Ye always was a bold one.”

“Ye fat little toad.” Hopper lifted his crutch to strike him but I knocked it from his hand.

“Do yez have a doctor?” Captain Moriarity asked.

“No, Captain,” Mr. Trimble answered, tightlipped. I was aware of how he never looked at me. “But we have our carpenter who is skilled in surgery and can set bones and sew.”

“And cut,” yelled one of the crew that I recognized. “He be's great wi' the saw.”

It had been the carpenter who'd sawn off Hopper's leg, I remembered.

“I was not regardful of yer injuries,” Captain Moriarity said coldly. “If ye had a doctor I planned on taking him with us. I will leave yer carpenter. Ye'll have need of him
for yer repairs. Does any other man among ye want to join my crew and sail wi' us on the
Sea Wolf
?”

“Aye,” a voice called and one pirate stepped forward. He was Clegg. I knew him from the time I thought he had drowned when the
Reprisal
was attacking the
Golden Bird.

“What have ye to recommend ye?” Captain Moriarity asked.

“I am a gunner and good wi' all kind of explosives,” Clegg said. “I have had no experience with the grenades ye threw but I am good wi' the cannons and wi' small arms.”

The captain nodded. “We'll take ye wi' us.”

Another shuffled forward. “Flanagan,” he said. “I am of Ireland, like yerself, Cap'n.”

“That's good enough for me,” she answered.

“Red?” William called out. “Would you want to come?” To the captain he said, “Red was friend to the two o' us.”

I waited for the captain to rebuke William for interfering but she only asked, “Which one o' ye be's Red?”

I should know by now that she is not going to rebuke William for anything, I thought. Except for loving me.

Red stepped forward. “They call me Red,” he said.

“You want to sail wi' us?”

Red shook his head and drops of blood from his ear spattered the deck. “I will stay wi' the ship I came on,” he
said. “Ye'll pardon me mawkish sentiments, Cap'n. But I have sailed on the
Reprisal
for the past sixteen years. I have only two things in me life. Me fiddle and this ship. I will keep the both o' them.” He paused and looked at me. “Unless ye needs me with ye, girl?”

“No,” I said. “I have William.” I did not glance at all at the captain.

“I be watchin' out for her, ye can lay to that, Red,” William said and he smiled at me, that dazzle of a smile that made my heart leap.

“Enough.” Captain Moriarity's voice expressed her annoyance.

She nodded toward Red. “Get yer carpenter to sew up that ear. And good luck to ye. The rest of yez, finish off. Take whatever we can use.”

I took one last look at Herc, lying on the deck, Hopper standing over him like a sentry on guard. The injured ship pitched under my feet as I slipped away.

I thought Daisy and Pansy knew me as I came to their pen. I spoke softly to them. “Did you miss me? I miss you.” I bent across the enclosure and kissed the wiry, goat-smelling top of Daisy's head. “I thought perhaps to take you with me on the
Sea Wolf
. But your fate would be the same there as here. And I hope that perchance when this ship is careened for repairs you will be free, for a while. You might get to roam under the coolness of trees and there would be fresh grass for you to eat. Perhaps you could escape, run and be free.”

“Maa,” Daisy butted her wooden enclosure as if trying to get out to me.

“I'm sorry,” I said. “Pansy, the two of you take care of each other. You are my dear little friends.”

As I left I could hear their voices, calling and calling but I could not go back.

I knew the way to my father's quarters.

The door hung open but despite that the cabin was filled with the sickening smell of Herc. Clothes, torn and foul, spilled from a canvas bag on the floor. The bunk where my father had slept was covered by a patchwork quilt that might once have been on an elegant bed on some fancy plundered ship. Now it was stained and torn.

On the dresser was what I had come for, the silver brush that had once been my mother's. How often I had seen her sit by her mirror in our home, brushing her long brown hair, twisting it up with a ribbon. She had given it to my father when he left on one of his long voyages. I swallowed back tears and picked up the brush. Strands of Herc's hair clung to it. He had been using it. I shivered with distaste but stuffed it in my pocket then opened the cupboard door to peer into its blackness. At first I saw nothing. Then, as my eyes grew accustomed to the lack of light I saw clothing that must have been Herc's hanging on pegs. A red shiny coat, elephant size, with buttons missing; a pair of red britches buckled at the knee, soiled
and smelly; stockings that had once been white dangling from the same peg. I slid past them. My father's hat with the feather was still on the shelf. It had been pushed to the back along with a pair of velvet slippers, a vest with silver buttons and a sword in a black scabbard adorned with jewels which by their very size told me they were tawdry and false. My father's velvet coat was crumpled on the floor along with some other clothing. My foot touched something soft and yielding and I immediately knew what it was. My mother's petticoat, the one my father had carried with him on all of his voyages to remind him of her. She had worn it on their honeymoon. I wished I had known of its existence before she died. If I had I would have asked my father to have it buried with her, but he would have been loath to give it up, this dear memory of her. I held it to my face and smelled the faint flower scent that still clung to it after all these years. Then I rolled it small and slid it under my shirt.

Someone was coming.

I froze, uncertain if I should scurry back into the cupboard and stay hidden.

It was William. “I knew you'd be here,” he said.

I took a step toward him and he closed the cabin door. We looked at each other and there was a shyness between us, an air charged with expectation. We had clung together
for a few dangerous moments on the deck of the
Sea Wolf,
but this was different. The cabin door was closed. We were truly alone as we had been on Pox Island.

I tried to speak but when I did the words I spoke were of no importance. “A captain's door must always remain open,” I stammered and William smiled.

“Aye.”

There was no need to speak again.

We clung to each other as if there had been no time between now and the days and nights we'd spent together on the sands of the island. I breathed in the smell of his skin so well remembered.

“I love the softness of ye,” he murmured.

We stood apart, gazing at each other and he lifted one of my hands to his lips, then stopped. “Oh me love, your poor fingers. Is it from the sail needle?”

I nodded.

One by one he kissed them, whispers of kisses that made me weak.

“But what, what is this? Something in your pocket?”

“My mother's silver brush,” I said, half smiling, half weeping.

“And this?” He answered himself. “The flute. Our savior. What else have ye got, tucked into yerself?” He pulled the silken petticoat from beneath my shirt.

“It was my mother's,” I said. “I want to keep it forever and ever.”

“I will keep it for ye, forever and ever,” William said. “Ye will wear it for me when we are wed.”

“My mother would like that, her daughter wedded to the man she loves, wearing what she wore for my father.”

He pushed the petticoat inside his shirt and I thought, Now it will smell of my mother and of him. I was no longer aware of the lingering presence of Herc in the cabin, nor of the grate and slide of the barrels on the deck above, or the raucous shouts of the men, or the slide and lurch of the damaged ship. There was only William.

His lips on mine, his sweet words in my ears. “I love ye so. I loved ye before I knew ye.”

“Wait!” I heard footsteps and slid from his arms. Someone else was coming. I had to hide. Back in the cupboard! I stumbled into its darkness, pulled the door closed.

“William!” Captain Moriarity's voice.

I clenched my fists. If she found me here, with William, it would be a flogging for me, if not for him. Or an island. It could even be an island.

“This is where I come upon ye, William,” she said. “You were not on deck wi' the rest of the men. Are ye discoverin' aught good in his cabin that ye could take for yerself?”

She looked around. “Dog's blood! Is this the cabin of a captain? It is more like the den of a wild boar.”

I found the crack in the cupboard door. I had used this cupboard, this crack, once before to spy on Herc and Hopper when they had been secretly searching for the Burmese Sunrise. Now I could see little for William had placed himself between the captain and my hiding place. She was speaking.

“I had the need to find ye,” she said.

“You have been injured yerself, Cap'n,” William said, easing away from the danger in her words. “Ye must have the carpenter here look at your arm. He's good at sewin' up a gash.”

I listened to the silence outside my cupboard. William's back was still in the way of my seeing. He hadn't moved then. He had not gone to her. I held my breath, as if something of great portent was about to happen. Was the captain going to give voice to her feelings for William? I closed my eyes. Please, no, I thought. I cannot bear to hear her say the words. But hear I will if she speaks. There is no escape.

“I am going to tell you what I have told no person before,” the captain said. “Considering the insinuations that putrid cap'n let fall. God rest him.”

William spoke quickly. “No need to tell me aught,
Cap'n. I pay no mind to what that maggot says.” He stopped and added, “God rest him.”

I knew myself to be listening with my body tensed, my throat dry as bran.

“I was your age once,” the captain said. “Younger, even. I had a love.”

There was another silence. To me, the silences were worse than the words.

“Do ye want to be tellin' me this?” I detected an apprehension in William's tone. He was captive, as I was.

“My love had yellow hair, same as yours, the color o' sunshine, soft as silk.” Her voice was hoarse. She moved a little and now I could see her plainly. The wild red mane blazed. Blood trickled from her arm, dripped from the hand that shaded her eyes. And her face, her face was different. It was twisted out of shape, angry, anguished.

“I was fourteen years of age and full of fire and pride. Oh yes, I had pride. I was sailing on the
Sea Wolf
, my father's ship, and Henry was workin' wi' the carpenter on the brig,
Calliope
. I'd asked my father and he gave me leave to invite him to come sail wi' us instead. We came into port a day early for stores and I went lookin' for my love. To tell him we could be together forever. I found him and I made to run to him, but he was busy. Busy with a wench with hair as black as night that hung like a shawl down
her back. They was kissin' and laughin' and I cursed the two o' them with every evil thought in me mind and I ran back on me father's ship, me heart broken.”

I felt unsteady and I leaned against the wall of the cupboard, against Herc's malodorous coat. The small movement set it to swinging and I tensed. What if she flung open the door and found me cowering here? But she was talking again in that raspy voice.

“We sailed the next day and I had time on that cruise to savor my anger and then my remorse. And devour my wicked pride. I reminded meself that seamen chase women when they gets time to disport theirselves in port. 'Twas me he loved. She was an amusement, nothing more. I remembered moments wi' him.” She stopped. “Even now those moments torment me heart. I tried to find him again. I never did. I have mourned me loss since that cursed day.”

More silence. Above us I could hear the tramp of feet, the thump of boxes thrown around. A loud voice called. “Keep a grip on that cask, ye son of an English billy goat” and an answering yell, “Hold yer water. I'm a holdin' it.”

I saw her move closer to William. “He would be older 'n you now, William. He would be more than twenty, like meself. I did not even take a clipping' o' his hair. It gave me a turn when I first laid eyes on you. I thought I had seen a
ghost. 'Twas me own guilt and heartbreak I saw starin' at me wi' his blue eyes.”

“ 'Tis useless to blame yerself,” William said. “ 'Tis over and done.”

I saw his eyes flicker to the cupboard where I crouched and then flicker away.

“Never over and never done,” she said and I saw her lay her blooded hand on William's arm. “Now I have a second chance. Now there is you. Will ye sail wi' me? Will ye help me atone for the love I lost and willfully tossed away? I know we be's different ages, but ye will grow older and I will stay the same. That is how it works. You will see. I believe I have twenty-six years now, or mayhap twenty-seven. Do not have a care about that. We will live our lives happily together. William?” her voice softened, became a lullaby. “Half of all I have, half of the
Sea Wolf
will be yours.”

I leaned again against Herc's vile coat, even held a sleeve of it to cover my eyes. I could not bear this.

“There is Catherine,” William said. “I will love her forever. That will not change.”