Under the Jolly Roger: Being an Account of the Further Nautical Adventures of Jacky Faber (41 page)

Putting the last stitches in around the teeth of the skull, I reflect that Mistress Pimm, she who tried to teach me embroidery, among other things, might be proud of my effort here. Maybe.

I put up my needle and look out over the water again. We've had a good breeze and the
Emerald
is fairly tearing along. We'll be down in Da—down in Spanish territory before too long and perhaps we'll find something choice, maybe we'll ...
what?

There is a commotion down below and I throw the flag aside to go see what is the matter. When my feet hit the deck, I see Sheehan, one of the older hands in the Port Watch Section, coming out of the forward hatch, dragging someone by the neck.

"Here!" I cry, and hop down on the main deck, "I'll have no fighting on my ship, Jack Sheehan!"

Sheehan, a big man, grins from ear to ear and says, "No fightin', Miss! I just caught me a big rat! A stowaway!"

What? Who would...

The rat in question has its head down 'cause of the way its neck is being held by Sheehan's mighty paw. Looks like it might be a boy—barefoot with white trousers and shirt and a large floppy cap.

"Bring him here!" I order and Sheehan pushes the stowaway forward and stands him up in front of me and I look into green eyes and ...
Oh. My...

"What's going on here, then?" says Liam, coming up next to me. The stowaway's large floppy hat chooses this time to fall off her head and the red curls tumble out. The entire crew is up on deck now and there is a common gasp.

Liam cannot say anything for a moment—he can only stand and stare, openmouthed and goggle-eyed, then...

"Mairead!" he roars, loud enough to wake up half of Spain, if not China, too.

I've seen Liam Delaney truly, truly crazy mad only twice—once when that Sloat come at me with wicked intent back on the
Dolphin,
and right now, when he glares into the green and defiant eyes of his eldest girl.

Sheehan, who has just realized he is holding his Captain's daughter by the throat, jerks his hand away as if he suddenly found he was holding a snake. Mairead falls to the deck, gasping for breath—that Sheehan does have hands like a vise.

"I'll not go back! I'll not marry that awful Loomis Malloy! If you send me back, I will run away again!" she cries, tears running down her face as she gets to her feet. Liam starts rolling up his sleeves. "I don't care!" she blubbers. "Beat me to death if you want, but I won't go back! I'll run away again and again!"

"You are going to get the thrashing of your life, you are..."

I go and put myself between Liam and Mairead, and I see Ian McConnaughey coming forward, too.
No, Ian, not now...

"Please, Liam, do not beat her," I say, putting her behind me. "Let's go down in my cabin and talk this over." I feel Mairead's hands on my waist, keeping me between her and her completely maddened father.

"Who put you up to this? Was it a man? A member of my crew?" he shouts at her, ignoring me. "McBride! Get up here!"

Arthur McBride, who I've got to agree would be the one most likely to hatch such a prank, steps forward, a barely suppressed grin on his foolish face. "Sir?" he says, plainly getting in a good look at Mairead in her less than modest outfit.

"Did you have anything to do with this?" asks Liam through his bared and clenched teeth.

"Nay," says Arthur McBride, who
never,
it seems, knows when to keep his lip buttoned. "She's Ian's piece, anyway."

"Ian's
piece,
is she," growls Liam. "McConnaughey!" I hope Arthur realizes just how close he came to being thrown overboard and drowned. Probably the fool doesn't, 'cause he merely stands there grinning.

Ian presents himself, a bit shakily. He looks over at Mairead with big moonstruck calf eyes and she back at him in the same sort of way.

"Did you know of this?" again comes the question from Liam.

"No, but I wish I did," says Ian, who must be taking lessons in foolishness from his boon companion, Arthur McBride. "But, no, I did not know and would not have allowed her to do it if I did." Well, there's some sense being spoken here at last.

The lad crosses himself when he says this, whether as proof of the truth of what he's saying, or in anticipation of his coming death, I can't tell, but Liam sure ain't convinced. "You and your friends've been sniffin' around her like dogs in rut and don't think I don't know it, you miserable sneaking little cur!"

Ian's face goes white with anger. He's scared of Liam, true, but he's Irish, too, and he won't take that from anyone, and he spits out, "'Tis true I love Mairead with all my heart and soul, and I respect you as her father and as my Captain, but call me a dog again, man, and I will..."

"Take her down and put her in the leg irons. Clamp her to the bulkhead in the foulest part of the bilge. Do it NOW!" roars Liam.

I stay in front of Mairead. "She'll slip out of the leg iron, she will. It's too big for her ankle and too small for her neck, and we don't have a brig for a cell. Please, Liam, let her stay with me. For company, like. It gets a bit lonely for me sometimes when we're under way and I would welcome her company. We'll look for one more prize, then take her and everybody else back to Waterford for the winter. It'll be fine, you'll see. She'll get this seafarin' stuff out of her system and settle down—not with Loomis, maybe, but with some good man—you'll see ... now calmness, Liam. Please, Father, do this."

I make hand signals behind Liam's back for Arthur and Ian to make themselves scarce. Arthur makes sure he gets in a last look at Mairead's rump in her trousers and then goes down the hatch. But Ian doesn't, he just stands there looking at Mairead.

"Please, Liam, down in my cabin, now. Please, Father, down in my cabin, now please, both of you!"

Peace has been restored twixt the warring Delaneys. Somewhat restored. Mairead is allowed to stay with me in my cabin, but on deck she is forbidden to go forward of the aftermast and all of the men, save Reilly, Liam, and Higgins, are not to go aft of that same mast, else they will face the wrath of Liam Delaney.

I fit her out with one of my skirts, as Liam will
not
allow her to be seen on deck in the trousers she wore when she snuck aboard in the middle of the night and dived down into the hatch, where she had stashed a bag I had seen her bringing aboard on that day, a bag I stupidly thought was laundry for Padraic. That bag had held food and a blanket and other things for her to get by on till she was ready to show herself. I found out later that she had gotten on board that night by tossing a can full of pebbles on the fo'c'sle, and when it rattled around up there, the man on watch went forward to investigate. While he was checking for the source of the noise, she scampered up the gangway and down the hatch to hide. I took down that watchman's name to make sure he would never again be on watch in a tight situation.

Liam fully intends to lock her up and throw away the key when he gets her home. For her part, Mairead remains stubborn and holds to her promise to run away again first chance she gets, but we'll see. I'll work on Liam a bit, maybe point up Ian McConnaughey's more admirable qualities.

Both Liam's plans for her and her own ideas as to her future depend, of course, on Moira not murdering her outright on our return. Funny thing to remember now, but on the morning we left Waterford, I was on the fantail and happened to look back at the dock we had just left. There stood a figure that I knew to be that of a woman, frantically waving a handkerchief over her head. I couldn't make out who it was but figured it was just some tearful sweetheart waving a last good-bye to her brave sailor boy, out to make his fortune. But it wasn't, I know now—it was Moira, trying desperately to signal that her daughter had fled the coop and was, without doubt, on board with us.

The weather turns warm as we make our way south, and Mairead and I loll about in the maintop and talk and sing and dance and play our whistles, and I'm really glad she came along, if only for this one trip. It ain't very military, the way we act, but what the hell, I am the owner of this bark, and with that comes some privileges.

The maintop is a small platform that goes all the way around the mainmast, the mast that Mairead is supposed to stay behind, about thirty feet up. I have her go up the ratlines and through the lubber's hole—no sense teaching her the real sailor way since it involves being upside down for a moment, and she being with a skirt on, it would present quite a show to any who might be looking on, and many are looking on, make no mistake about it.

At times, when we have been up in the top, I have seen her wave off to someone up forward and it is not too hard for me to figure out that Ian McConnaughey is up in the foretop waving back at her—out of Liam's sight, of course. Actually, she does just that, right now, smiling and dimpling up and dancing on her tiptoes. I forgive her, for I know that one does not hear a proclamation of love from a proud young man delivered in front of his friends and all, like Ian did on that day, without it having some effect on a young girl's heart.

"Jacky," she says, still looking off at the foretop, while I, like any cat or kitten, lie down below warmed by a patch of sun. "If
that
part of this maintop is in front of the mast, then would not Ian be allowed to stand right
there?
" She points at the decking in front of her.

"Maybe," I say, shading my eyes and turning my head to watch her, "by the very letter of the agreement, but I wouldn't push it if I were you. Let your father get used to things as they are. After all, it's only been three days since you were found out. If he catches you and Ian spooning up here, there'll be hell to pay, count on it."

She takes a deep breath and puffs out her chest, puts on a pout, and shakes her hair, all wavy and red so that it flows out and floats on the wind.
Poor Ian,
I think to myself,
you are one done-for lad.

"...and besides," I say, a little stuffily, as owner of the
Emerald,
"Ian has work to do and playing 'Chase the Colleen Through the Rigging' ain't part of it."

After Higgins is done with dinner and fussing over us, we spend our evenings doing the same singing and talking and fiddle playing and such, but also I read to her and we work on her studies. I have assigned her some work—I cannot help myself—whenever I discover someone in need of schooling, out come the ABC's and let's get down to it. It seems I have a need to do this. It also seems that Mairead has had some schooling and can read enough to get along. I am impressed and I tell her so.

When I ask how she came by this learning, she being out on the farm and all, she says, "Well, they had what was called Hedge Schools and what they'd do is set up benches in a field next to high hedges so we could hide and classes would be held and we'd take what we could from the lessons and go back home and study and show the little ones. On slates, or roofin' tiles, like."

"But why ever did you have to hide?" I ask.

"Why, it's against British law to educate Irish kids, surely you know that?" she says, amazed at my stupidity.

"I cannot believe what you say," I say, firmly convinced that my country would not do such a horrid thing. "England would not do that." I had heard from Amy back in the States that it was forbidden to teach slave children to read, but
here?

"Believe what you want to believe, Miss," she says, puffing up, "but I was the one there with me butt on the bench and Padraic was the one standing at the back peerin' over the top of the hedge, him both listenin' to the teacher and keepin' an eye peeled for the magistrates. The teacher was dressed as a hog butcher in case anyone should come upon us. Bloodstained apron and all. And him a university man, too. That was the way of it, Miss Faber."

I am astounded.

***

Later, when I am in my nightgown and Mairead is wearing an extra one of mine, we climb up on my bed, turn off the lamp, rutch around, and settle in.

After a while, she sniffs and says, "I ain't goin' back to that, I ain't."

"Even if it's with Ian?" I ask back quietly in the dark.

She doesn't answer for a long time. I can hear only her breathing. "On a farm? I don't know," she finally says.

I find her shoulder and pat it. "Don't worry. Just go to sleep. I'm working out a plan and maybe you can be a part of it. We'll see. Sleep now. I've got the Four-to-Eight watch, you know. They'll wake me by calling down through that tube there," I say, tapping the shiny brass tube that snakes down over me, "but you can sleep through it. So good night, now."

I am working out a plan. I just need some more money before I can act on it.

Liam stands with crossed arms on the fo'c'sle, just forward of the bowsprit, staring resolutely aft. He has a mighty scowl on his face 'cause he doesn't approve of this at all, but I had insisted and won out in the end.

The weather was warm and so was the water, and the netting under the bowsprit had been rigged and made secure. Some of the young ones had stripped down and gone into the netting to splash about in the water just as young men—and boys—always have done when on board ships with understanding captains. On the
Dolphin,
me and the other ship's boys—Davy, Tink, Willy, and ...
him
—used to do it every chance we could. Course I could only do it till I started to change into a woman, and then I couldn't do it anymore 'cause I'd have been found out as a girl and put off the ship.

So, figuring I'd be damned if the boys were going to have all the fun—listening to Ian and Padraic and Arthur and some others whooping and hollering up there was too much for me—I got Liam to clear the fo'c'sle and stand guard when the boys were done so's Mairead and I could have a turn at it without having our modesty compromised, like. Fair's fair, after all.

"And tell 'em to stay out of the Head, too. We don't want to be lookin' up at any nasty hairy butts hanging overhead," I order, as we go past Liam, wrapped in our cloaks, under which we have on our drawers and light undershirts.