Under the Jolly Roger: Being an Account of the Further Nautical Adventures of Jacky Faber (20 page)

On our way aft to the Captain's cabin, me between the two Marines, I notice no one is on watch. It's just the helmsman at his wheel, steering the course. It's a calm night, with scarcely a breeze and just a little roll to the ship, so I guess the Captain felt the helmsman could handle things by himself. This leaves him to the business at hand, that business being me.

Halfway there, one of the Marines reaches around me and takes my knife from my side. "Sorry, Miss. Orders."

I enter the cabin.

Captain Scroggs is seated at his table with a bottle and two glasses in front of him. It is plain he has already been into the bottle as his face is even more puffed and florid than it was before. His steward is putting plates of food on the table in front of him.

The Captain swats him away, catching him across the face with the back of his hand. "There's man's work to be done here, pansy. Get out." The poor man seems to be used to such treatment. He bows and leaves.

That shows me what I can expect here, too.

"Come in, girl," he says, "and sit down." I am not even to have the honor of my rank, it seems.
Just girl,
I think sadly.
After all is said and done, just girl, and nothing more.

"You there!" he says to the Marine guards who were about to take up their stations next to his door. "Go away!" The Marines look at me with sympathy in their eyes, but they go away. The Captain closes the door himself and turns back to me.

"Sit down, I said," says the Captain. I pull out a chair, the farthest one from where he is sitting, and sit down. The Captain does not have his jacket on and his shirt is not laced up and it shows the grizzled hair thick on his chest. I look away from him so as not to be sick. I see that the windows are open. People will be listening.

"Sir, I really don't ...," I say in a small voice.

"Here. Have a drink." He grabs the bottle and pours a brown liquid into a glass and hands it to me.

"I don't drink spirits, Sir. I took a vow."

"A vow?" He laughs. "What nonsense. Do what I tell you and have a drink. That is the finest of whisky." There is menace in his voice.

I lift the glass to my lips and pretend to drink, and then set it back down again. My hand trembles and he notices.

"Have another drink. It will calm you. You may take off your jacket."

"That's all right, Sir, I am quite comfortable..."

"Take off your jacket!" he orders, and puts out his hand and undoes my top button.

I put my fingers to my jacket, undo the rest of the buttons, and I take it off. Then I start crying. I did not think this would happen. I had thought that I would be strong, that I would be able to take my mind away from what is going to happen to my body, but I can't. I can't.
It shoulda been Jaimy, it coulda been Randall, it mighta been Robin, but no, it's gonna be this.
I look into his face with its tic-torn mouth and wandering eye and I turn from him in revulsion.

"Please, Captain, send me away maiden as I came!" I wail, tears gushing from my eyes. "The very angels in Heaven would sing your praises!"

He puts his hand on my knee and I clap my legs together. He leers into my face. "Tears, is it now? That's fine. And maiden, too? Though I doubt it, I like it that way. I..."

What ... What's that?

There is a rumbling noise overhead.

He looks up at the sound. We both realize what it is: It is a cannonball placed on the Captain's roof, right behind the quarterdeck, and left there to roll around with the motion of the ship. It is another of the traditional signs of impending mutiny.

Thanks, Mates, but I don't think it's gonna do any good.

The sound stops and the Captain frowns, but then turns his attention back to me. He kneels next to me and picks up the glass of whisky and puts it to my lips himself. "I told you to have a drink, girl. Open your mouth."

With that he forces the glass between my teeth and pours it back. The spirits hit me in the back of my mouth and I choke and gag and it spews out over my chin and down my shirtfront. He looks at the whisky staining my shirt and says, "You want it rougher, then?" and he reaches over with both hands and rips my shirt open to the waist. I cry out and try to cover myself and...

... and it's another cannonball, rolling overhead.

"Damn them!" roars the Captain, getting to his feet and charging out the door. "Who did that?" I hear him demanding of the helmsman.

"I couldn't see, Sir," says the helmsman, "as I've got to keep my eyes on the course, Sir!" Through my terror, I recognize the helmsman's voice. It is Jared. He must have relieved the other man at the helm after I was taken in the cabin.
You saw, Jared. You did.

"Blast you! Keep your eye out then, or you'll pay for it with your back!"

"Aye, Sir!"

The Captain plunges back into the cabin, where I am now on my knees, prayin', with my hands up, palm to palm, in front of my ruined shirt, my eyes cast up to Heaven and sendin' out gallons of tears. He glares at me, his chest heaving, his face even redder than it was before.

"What?" he snarls. "Praying for your deliverance? It'll do you no good. Get in that bed."

"No, Sir, I ain't praying for myself 'cause I know I'm a good girl who never harmed anyone who didn't have it comin' and always tried to do right in everything the best I could. No, Sir, I ain't prayin' for me 'cause I know I'm goin' to Heaven when I die. No, Sir, I'm praying for you and your immortal soul and asking God not to cast you down to the lowest pit of Hell for the ravishin' of poor me, like you know He's gonna do if you do it, even if I ask Him not to, Sir!"

He grabs my arm and pulls me to my feet. He puts his face in mine and I feel the rasp of his cheek. "Do you
ever
shut up? I don't care for any of that crap! Now get in that bed!" He flings me over onto the bed. "Get those clothes off!"

"Oh, please, God!" I cry, sittin' up and putting my face in my hands and bawlin' away, my chest buckin', snorts and gasps and...

There it is again. Two cannonballs this time, maybe three.

Again he charges out. "Helmsman! What did you see?"

"He scurried off 'fore I could see his face, Sir!" I hear Jared say.

"Marines!" the Captain bellows into the night. I hear the pounding of booted feet.

"Aye, Sir," says one of them, probably buttoning his coat.

"You will station yourselves on the fantail and club into insensibility anybody you find there rolling cannonballs! Do you understand?"

"Yes, Sir!" say the Marines as one. I hear them tread to their stations. Then I hear something else. I jump out of the bed and go to the door. It is the
Hmmmmmmmmm
sound coming from unseen men in the rigging. The Captain screams. "Mutinous dogs! I will see about you in the morning! Some shall swing! Count on it!"

He comes back in. Any trace of humanity is now gone from his face.

"I told you to undress yourself, girl. Do it now!" He pulls back his arm and backhands me across the face and I go down to the deck. I curl up in a ball, sobbing. I can taste the blood from a cut on the inside of my lip.

Again the cannonballs rumble across and...

... and then there is the sound of muffled shouts and a scuffle. Then the Marines appear at the open door.

"We've got 'im, Sir! It's that Midshipman Raeburne!"

Oh, Robin, no!

I look out and see poor Robin slumped between them. They are holding him up by his arms, but his head hangs down loosely from his shoulders.

"Have you killed him?" asks the Captain, lurching back to the hatchway.

"No, I don't think so, Sir. Just clubbed him up behind the head, Sir."

"Too bad. Well, throw him in the brig, then. We'll see how he likes the feel of hemp around his neck tomorrow."

Hmmmmmmmm ...
The sound comes down from the rigging.

"That's right, you hounds! Hum, hum away! First he will
swing, then half of you!" I can see him shaking his fist at the unseen sailors in the night. The sound dies out, and he lumbers back into the room. I get to my feet, my heart in my throat.

Maybe, if I can get him drunk and he sleeps long in the morning, the officers will be back and prevent him from harming Robin, maybe....

"Come, Sir, have a drink with me," I say, and get up and go to the table. I try to smile. With shaking hand I pick up the bottle and pour a large portion into his glass. "Here, Sir! Let us be friends! Let us be merry!" I say, but I am sure I sound anything but that.

He comes over to me. He is breathing hard now and must put his hands on tables and railings for support. "To Hell with all this!" He shouts and sweeps everything off the table with his arm. Plates break, glasses shatter. He knocks the drink out of my hand and it spills over me and the glass goes flying off into the shadows. "Come here!"

He lunges toward me and grabs me by my hair and drags me to the bed. "Merry? By all means, let us be merry! Let's have a bit of a kiss, shall we?" He brings my face up to his and he slobbers his lips on my face and then throws me down on the bed again. Then he puts his hand on my chest and pushes me down flat on the bed.

He stands over me, weaving, his eyes unfocused, and he whips off his shirt and comes down upon me, his sour smell reaching me before he does, and I gag and twist and turn and try to get away, but it doesn't do any good. He's on me and he's heavy and the sodden mat of his chest hair is on my face.
Oh, God!
He's got me pinned good. His fingers pull down my trousers and then, when those are down around my knees, his thumbs hook into the waistband of my drawers, and, in spite of all my wriggling, they start their downward journey.
No! Please...

WHAM!

It is a tremendous sound. He jerks his head up, shocked beyond fury. It sounds like we are being fired upon!

WHAM!
Again. He raises his upper body on his arms.

It becomes plain to me, in spite of my situation, that someone is dropping cannonballs down on the Captain's roof from a great height in the rigging. It's a wonder they don't come crashin' through.

There are shouts and curses from outside and then there is silence.

I look up at the Captain's face, expecting to see fury, but I don't see that at all. What I see is shock, pure and simple. The red has gone from his cheeks and his face is dead white. He looks off at something and then makes a choking sound. And then his arms give way and his chest comes down on my face again and I can hear his heart beat
Thump ... Thump ... Thump ...
then ...
Burrrrp ...
then nothing.

Everything is quiet. I wait, turning my head to the side to get my nose out of his chest hair.

"Captain?" I whisper. No answer. I listen real good for a heartbeat, but I can hear none. I wait for a while longer, 'cause if he's just asleep, I don't want him to wake up.

There's no more commotion topside, so I guess my friends are resigned to the fact that their Puss-in-Boots has already been done, there being no further sounds of struggle from in here, and there ain't no more use in tryin' to help her.

I can hear no heartbeat and there's no sound of breathing and there's no rise and fall of his chest and I'd know that, I would, bein' right under him as I am. I start to try to wriggle out.

The Captain's bed is up against the starboard bulkhead and I try to roll him over in that direction so he doesn't fall out of the bed, but I can't. He's too heavy. I get my legs free and then squirm the rest of me out from under him and stand up and take some deep breaths. Then I pull up my pants and go back over to him.

His eyes are open and so's his mouth. I put my hand in front of his face, but can feel no breath. I put my hand on his wrist, but I can feel no pulse.

Captain Abraham Scroggs is dead.

I force myself to
think, dammit!
I know I have friends on this ship, but not everyone is my friend. I remember that talk I had with Jared up there in the foretop that day, when he as much as said he didn't know what would happen if discipline on the
Wolverine
fell apart completely. I think of Muck and his crew in this regard. If I tell the crew the Captain is dead, there's no telling what they would do to me, there being no officers aboard to stop them. It would be a cruel joke to have escaped the Captain's vile embrace, only to end up under half the crew. I'm strong, but I don't think I'd survive that. Jared would try to help, as would Harkness and Drake and many others, but I just don't know...

Ah. Here's what I will do.

I will let the crew think the Captain has had his way with me this night and is now sleeping in total, satisfied bliss. Maybe he is in heavenly bliss, but I doubt it. The officers will be back in the morning and Mr. Pinkham will be in command and everything will be straightened out. And I'll wager it'll be a happier ship, for all that.

That's what I will do. I feel better now. I always feel better with a plan.

Unpleasant stuff first. I close the windows and pull the little curtains that cover them, and then I turn the Captain over on his back and a hard job I have of it, him being so heavy and all, but I get it done. I slide the sheets and cover out from under him. I take off his shoes and put them next to the bed as if he intended to put them on again in the morning. I'm about to pull up the covers when I see there is a key on a short chain dangling from his belt. I take the key off and put it in my pocket.
You won't be needin' that down there in the seventh circle of Hell, Captain.

I see that he has soiled himself a bit in dying, but it ain't too bad—he always smelled like he'd pissed himself, anyway. I grab his hair and lift his head and stick his pillow under it. Then I pull the covers up to his chin and cross his arms on his chest. Then I close his eyes with my fingertips.

There, Captain. Sleep tight.

Then I clean up the mess from the table and the whisky spills as best I can. I put a plate of the food and a bottle of wine aside. There's a tray on a side shelf and I pile the rest of the plates and glasses and food on it and take it to the door. I think about putting my jacket back on to cover my torn and whisky-stained shirt, but no—let them think the worst. That way I'll be able to keep this all secret tonight.