In The Belly Of The Bloodhound (37 page)

The only time I interrupt the Sailing sessions is to give some pointers on rough-water sailing, as I know neither Cathy nor Hyacinth has experienced that:[_ You’ve got to take the seas on either side of your bow, or either side of your stern, but not direct on. If you go direct on to a wave with your bow, it’ll dive down under it and you’ll take on water. If you let_] a[_ high wave take you directly astern, you’ll be swamped. If you are swamped, do not panic, as panic is your most fearsome enemy. First, drop the sails…then everybody get out of the boat and cling to the sides—the boat will still float—and start bailing with the cracker tins we will have in the boat till the gunwales come out of the water. It will be discouraging work and you will despair of success, but it can be done. When the water level is down far enough, one by one you can get back in the boat to help bail. Got it?_] They have it.

So while the pounding of the heels overhead in the Dance class continues, so does Katy’s work with the bows. After today’s hunt, she has taken the battens I got the other day and glued one each inside the five bows already made, and set them aside to dry, making them twice as thick as they were before. Twice as thick and twice as strong. “The others were all right for the rats,” she says to me, “but for killin’ men, we’re gonna need stronger.” I don’t dispute it.

I look back as I leave Katy and her girls at their work, there under the cover of the Stage. Chrissy, Hermione, Minerva, and Rose have bonded into a tight-knit group centered about the solemn Katy. They took my shiv and cut their drawers off short and now roll them up to the tops of their thighs for better ease of movement. They wear headbands of the white cloth, the tied ends of which have been dipped in blood, whether rat’s blood or their own is not known. They have taken to keeping to themselves when not on some duty. They squat in a circle and speak low, if at all. Who knows what vows have been taken and sworn.

I gaze about me at all the instruction and industry that is going on and reflect that we have a full curriculum, and I think Mistress would be proud.

Enough of idle speculation. Back to work, you.

With the help of Sylvie and Judy, I take down the safety boards covering the Powder Hole. Again, I reach into the darkness to feel about. There’re the bottles, and there are a lot of them—probably piled all the way out to the door that’s locked on the other side. That’s good, ‘cause what we take from this end will not be missed, and if it is, it’ll likely be blamed on some hapless sailor. I can’t get in any farther.

“Here,” I say, “let’s take down some of the bags from the top. Maybe I can crawl over them.”

We do it, ever mindful of a[_ Lord, save us!_] from above. When four bags are out and stacked, I again try to crawl over the top of the piled bags in the powder magazine, and I manage to do it. But what my questing fingers find is more bags and more bottles, and nothing more—not what I was looking for, at any rate. I crawl back out and spy Dorothea Baxter.

Sylvie and Judy put back the boards as I take Dorothea aside.

“Go get Ruthie and meet me back down here.” Mystified, she goes and does it. Ruth Alden soon ducks under the Stage with Dorothea by her side.

“There’re no fuses in there. We’ll have to make our own,” I explain. “We’ll keep one bag of powder in the hidey-hole. Ruth, you’re our best with the needle—we’ll need a long, thin tube made of petticoat cloth, tied off at regular intervals, like a long sausage, only instead of meat inside, there will be powder. Dorothea, you’ll need to experiment to see how fast each segment of our fuse will burn—try to get it to one second each. I figure it’ll take one hundred seconds from when the last girl goes through the Rat Hole till we get everyone in the boat and the situation on deck dealt with. Got it?”

Ruth nods, secure in the knowledge of her skill, but Dorothea asks, “What of the smell of the burning powder? What if one of the crew gets a whiff and questions it?”

“That’s why we planted that smell-of-brimstone thing in the Black Ghost story. We can blame it on that if anyone says anything.”

“Ah,” says Dorothea, “we’ll get right on it.”

“Sylvie,” I say to the two at the Powder Hole. “Before you put the top board on, let’s pull out a bag.”

That set in motion, I go and get my seabag from its berth. I reach in and get my last pencil and my dwindling sheaf of paper and sit down on the deck under the Stage and compose a letter.

REWARD

A sum of Fifty (50) dollars American will be Paid to the Person who finds this Bottle and delivers it and its Contents to:
p.
Mister Ezra Pickering Union Street, Boston, Massachusetts, USA

My Dear Ezra:

We of the Lawson Peabody School for Young Girls are not dead of drowning or anything else. We were kidnapped by Bartholomew Simon, known in Boston as
Mr.[_ Harrison, and his Cohorts, for the Purpose of selling us in North Africa as Slaves. Those men should be apprehended and punished as soon as possible so they will be able to do no more evil in the world. We do not wish this sale of our Persons to happen, so we have made plans to gain our freedom._]

Please do not worry about us, as all of us are well and in Good Spirits and most Hopeful. Your prayers, however, would be most welcome.

Personal notes are enclosed.

Sincerely,

The Girls of the Lawson Peabody (Mistress Pimm’s Girls)

I rip up most of my remaining sheets of precious paper into thirty-two small squares. Then I call all who are not on watch down to listen to me read this, and when I am done, I say, “Each of you will be given a scrap of paper to write a note to your families. You have the afternoon to compose your message, but since we have only a few pencils, it’s important that you have your note composed before you get the pencil. Although I have quill and ink, I think it best that we write these in pencil, because moisture could seep into the bottle. We will be sending only this one bottle because of the danger in getting it to the water. I, for one, intend on beating it back to Boston.”

There is a small cheer, and though I know all will set to work with joy at the prospect of communicating with their people back home, I know also that many a tear will trickle from many an eye and drop off many a nose before this particular job is done.

Well, we’ve had our treats today—it’s about time we gave one to the crew. The lookouts have been alerted to let me know when the Captain, Dunphy, and Chubbuck are out of sight.

“Jacky,” comes the call from above and I leap up into the Balcony, accompanied by fellow members of the Royal Bloodhound Theater Company. I look around at the deck and am gratified to see that there are many of the crew about—there’s Keefe and Mick and a few I know to see but not to name.[_ That’s enough,_] I think, and give Caroline Thwackham the nod, and she starts it out, speaking just loud enough to be heard on deck, without being too obvious.

“You know, Jacky, when I was looking out through the bars yesterday, the ship took a big roll and I was able to see the water, itself…”

“So?” I ask. It’s true, we’re usually not able to see the surface of the sea close at hand, because we’re down so low. “So, I saw big clumps of seaweed in it. I know you’ve been to sea before. Don’t you find it strange, us being so far out?” I chose Caroline for this because she did such a good job in Clarissa’s little skit on the day of the Great Riot.

Dorothea takes her cue. “Mr. Sackett says there’s a place out here called the Sargasso Sea. He showed it to us on his globe. Could that be where we are?”

My turn. “Oh, no, dear, we couldn’t be in the Sargasso—no sane Captain would think of bringing his ship and crew through there.”

“Why not?” asks Caroline.

“‘Cause it’s a horrible, haunted place, is why. There’re all sorts of sailors’ tales of ships getting hopelessly becalmed and entangled in mossy seaweed, to become ghastly derelicts, rotting away in the tropic sun, covered in slime, their crews long dead of thirst and disease and far worse than that, even.” I’m noticing out of the corner of my eye that the crew on deck have stopped their work and are listening.

The fourth member of our little cast of players picks it up.

“I don’t know if any of you know it, but my family is in the shipping business in Boston,” says Julia Winslow. “About six years ago one of my father’s captains came back from a voyage with a very strange story. It seems his ship, the[_ Amazon,
] was sailing on the edge of that Sargasso Sea one day, when his lookout spotted a ship on the horizon. As they drew closer, the Captain put his spyglass on the ship and saw that it was one he knew—it was the brig[
Marie Celestine,_] which had recently sailed out of Boston, bound for the Lesser Antilles with a full cargo of trade goods. On board was Captain James Boggs, his wife, and young daughter, and a crew of twenty-five.”

Julia pauses for breath and then goes on.

“Closer and closer the[_ Amazon_] got to the[_ Marie Celestine,
] and the nearer they got, the stranger things became. They saw that the ship’s sails were not trimmed, they were just flapping loose in the breeze. Then they saw something that made their blood[
freeze—there was no man on the wheel!_] The helm just spun around, back and forth, aimlessly.”

Again she pauses—the men on deck draw in closer to us. I make a little sign to Julia that she can lower her voice. She does.

“The Captain of the[_ Amazon,
] suspecting that it might be a plague ship, sends a man over in a rowboat to the derelict, that man having survived smallpox once and therefore being immune to the disease. He boards, goes below, and soon reappears, waving for others to follow. They do and this is what they find: The cargo is intact. There is no sign of struggle. The lifeboats are still in their davits. Tables are set in the crew’s mess, and food is left on the plates. The captain’s table is set for three. The silverware is where it should be. Nothing is awry, but”—now Julia lowers her voice to a harsh whisper—”[
there is no one aboard, not one single soul!”_]

Caroline and Dorothea gasp, and I think I hear some sharp intakes of breath from outside.

“The only thing out of the ordinary found on the[_ Marie Celestine,”_] Julia concludes, “was a string of seaweed at the door to the crew’s berth.”

“Brrrrr…”
Caroline shivers convincingly, despite the heat of the Hold.

“Brrrr
is right,” says I. “It was four years ago when I was on the[_ Dolphin_] and I first heard that story, and I heard lots of others about the Sargasso since, and none of ‘em good. Listen to this…” The others lean in to listen, and I believe I have the full attention of the crew as well. “There was one cove on the[_ Dolphin,_] Snag Thompson being his name, who sailed through the Sargasso one time and he told me things, which he swears are all true. He said that sometimes the seaweed gets so thick, a ship can hardly push through the mess, and the weed is this sick, gray-green color, like the skin of a corpse. He said he heard tales of ships brought to a stop, entangled in the stuff and never to come out, their crews sufferin’ horrible deaths and never seen again. It’s said that the Sargasso weed gets into a man’s very blood and takes him over complete, till he ain’t a man no more, but a monster.”

“Oh my,” breathes Julia. She really is just the gentlest thing and is totally believable in her distress.

“That’s what he said, and I believe ‘im, ‘cause he was a good and honest mate of mine. He said he heard that it started with a man’s feet—the first sign was if a man’s feet started stinkin’ real bad—and then the weed would start to grow between his toes, then over his feet and ankles, and then up through the vein on the inside of his leg and by then it was too late. You could try to rip it off or cut it off or shave it off but it warn’t no use—the weed was in your blood.”

All four of us grab a foot and bring it up to our nose to sniff, and although I have smelled sweeter things, I shake my head in relief, as do the other girls.

“Right, and that ain’t all,” I say, pressing on. “Snag knew a bloke who saw this with his very own eyes. They were becalmed one night in the Sargasso, and it was dreadful hot and steamy with thick fog all around, and late in the mid-watch they heard a scratching at the side of their ship and they got a lantern and held it over the side and the fog blew off for a second and they saw something they knew would stay with them to the end of their days. There, on a wet and soggy seaweed raft, sat this heap of a[_ thing—it_] was no longer a man but plainly had once been one. It was covered, head to toe, with the vile weed, and the only thing left vaguely human about it was its open mouth pleading with the sailors to end its misery. Which act of mercy they could not grant, the fog having enclosed everything once again in its moist and choking embrace.”

“Lord…,” says Caroline.

We are silent for a moment, and then I speak up again. “Julia, do you know whatever happened to the[_ Marie Celestine?_] The ship itself, I mean.”

“My father says it was towed to some southern port and painted black and renamed, for no sailor would set foot on that brig again…and…Good Lord! You don’t think that this ship could…”

We let it go at that, and just then Chubbuck provides for us a curtain to our little play, by roaring up and telling the men to get back to work and being very free with his club.

The Bloodhound Players manage to get down below the Stage before collapsing in fits of muffled laughter.

“Can you imagine,” I chortle, lying on my back and pumping my hands and feet in the air for joy, “them down there tonight smelling each other’s feet!”

After a while we subside, but it’s hard for me, what with visions of Mick and Keefe sitting down in the galley, gravely pulling their toes apart to inspect what might lie between.

“Well played, all,” I finally say, getting up and hugging Caroline and Julia and giving Dorothea’s hand a squeeze. “Now, back to our duties.”

I reflect that someday I may try my hand at playwriting.

The girls are done writing their personal notes now and I gather them up and tightly fold them together in packets and slip them into the bottle. While the eyes of most of the girls are moist as they pass me their notes, Clarissa’s are bone dry as she hands me hers, saying, “If you are thinkin’ I wrote some sentimental twaddle like the rest of you, you are dead wrong. All I did was kindly ask my daddy not to hang that Bartholomew Simon till I got back as I want to be there for the festive occasion. I plan on packing a picnic lunch and enjoyin’ it hugely while watchin’ that scum swing.” I have no doubt that is exactly what she wrote.