Quintspinner (15 page)

He’s distressed too. At least we have that in common.

“Tess, your mother is ailing. Tend to your brother. Clean him and make sure he gets fed and is kept quiet.”
Administer some laudanum in sweetened water to Charley
was her father’s unspoken instruction. She shot a look of annoyance at him, but he continued to stand at the railing and had already engaged another well dressed gentleman in conversation. He expended no further attention towards her.

You’re the one who wanted him,
she fumed.
You’re the one who should be looking after him.
She stripped off her long white gloves in the expectation of finding Charley’s nappy dirty and wringing wet. Seeing the ring upon her finger, she stopped and spun it around in its track, admiring the brilliant blue stones as they glittered and shone in the sun’s rays.

Quintspinner indeed.
She’d gotten caught up in the drama of a dangerous situation and, unaccustomed to such excitement, she’d let her imagination get the best of her. A diaper full of poop from a squalling baby was just the thing to pull her back to reality. She scratched with absentminded annoyance at the tickle deep within her ear canals, and headed back to the cabins, stumbling along as the ship’s flooring dropped and heaved beneath her feet as the ship continued to rock from side to side in the yet unfamiliar rhythm of the open water.

Rather than being seen as the cause of their misfortune, as William had expected to be, his entire lashing episode was treated as top notch entertainment by the crew of the
Argus,
and the sailors continued to hilariously replay the fight between the one legged Cook and the Gimp, enjoying the retelling with many a guffaw. The loss of the bucket overboard was not spoken of, however, except in hushed tones, as though the men thought that the mere mention of it would awaken the wraith of impending bad luck.

With each passing day, however, the seas grew rougher, and tension grew among the sailors as their chores became more difficult and dangerous, with progressively fiercer waves and winds tossing the ship about. Two crew members had been swept overboard in the course of trying to loosen some tangled rigging. The remaining crew became more irritable and tempers frequently flared as the crowded living conditions meant an absolute lack of personal privacy. Accusations of perceived wrongdoings flooded the Captain’s ears and the resulting number of floggings seemed to surpass even Mr. Rogers’s taste for blood.

William frequently overheard quiet grumblings of dissatisfaction and unease among the crew members as they gathered in turn for meals with their messmates. The rougher seas frayed everyone’s nerves as all hands were ever on the ready for possible disaster to strike them. The tossing seas were the hardest on the top hands–so named for their duties as lookouts stationed on the very top yard arms of the fore and main masts–as they clung tightly from their bird’s eye perches far above the main deck.

“They be our eye in the sky,” Smith informed William. “They keep the watch fer any other ships other than our charge, the
Mary Jane–see,
ya’ can just see her top sail over on the horizon there, when we sit on the crest of the wave–an’ they’ll be on storm watch, too.”

Because of sailing shorthanded, chores for all were doubled up and shifts were longer than normal. William had already been assigned to assist in the galley as well as to carpenter duty, but the day came when the captain, upon learning of another of William’s skills, assigned him an additional, more pleasant chore.

On a particularly cool but calm night, William and several other sailors sat on the main deck, wrapped in their tunics, preferring to relax and even sleep in the cool, fresh ocean breeze, rather than breathe in the rank air of the lower decks. A full moon shone down upon them, bathing the entire deck in a silvery wash. The sailors brought out their pipes and pouches of tobacco, as well as their daily tots of rum, and one of the men began to play an English reel on his fiddle. It was a lively tune and was soon accompanied by the rhythmical stomp of feet.

It was a tune that William recognized; he had sung it many times while working the fields in a time that seemed so long ago now. Memories of his former life flooded back, and he tucked his chin down and jammed his fists deep into the pockets of his tunic, determined to not let his misery show. His knuckles butted up against an object in the deep recesses.

His flute. His fingertips outlined its familiar hand-carved edges. He put it to his lips and blew. The clear notes melded with the fiddle and gave sweet harmony to the tune. Several of the crew looked on in amazement, smiling their approval. Soon voices rose up and men jumped to their feet, dancing with sheer abandonment, the voyage’s tension melting away in them with each verse. Song after song was played, William keeping up as best he could with the impromptu recital.

Overhead, the full moon slowly traversed the sky, and by the time the men were done with the dance and the rum, the white orb had lost her nighttime beauty, diluted by the approaching sun’s pink glow on the opposite horizon. William sunk gratefully into his hammock and for once fell immediately into a deep dreamless sleep. He was wakened a short time later by a vigorous shaking of his shoulder.

“Mr. Taylor! Captain Crowell wishes to speak with ya’ in his quarters.” William did not know the sailor speaking to him but the young sailor obviously knew William. William swung down from his hammock and blearily made his way to the captain’s office.

“Mr. Taylor. We meet again. This time under much more favorable circumstances, which I’m sure pleases you as much as it does me.” Captain Crowell motioned to William to have a seat in the chair across the table from where he sat. “Mr. Rogers has informed me that you are in the possession of a musical instrument and that you play it very capably.”

“Yes, Sir,” William replied cautiously, not knowing where this line of questioning was leading.

“Do you have any other traits that I should know about?” the captain asked casually.

“No, Sir.” William thought his left handed abilities and accuracy with a knife were best kept to himself for now. And so far, no one had identified him with his father.

The captain’s eyebrows shot up as though he had been expecting a confession of some kind. “Very well, young sir, I am hereby assigning you to participate in regular musical interludes for the crew. Saturday evenings and also once midweek, I think, should work out best. You will receive an extra portion of rum for your troubles. Is this to your satisfaction?”

“Yes, Sir.” William lowered his eyes and nodded. An uncomfortable silence filled the room.

“Mr. Taylor, are you a god-fearing man?” William looked up but said nothing. Captain Crowell continued. “You might look upon such an assignment to be to your advantage.” He waited to see William’s reaction. William held the captain’s gaze. “God provides the birds with food but He does not drop it into their nests, Mr. Taylor. Make what you can of your given opportunities.”

William left the captain’s room, pondering the meaning behind the cryptic words. He returned to his hammock and fell asleep once more, still mulling over the strange advice.

HMS Argus
was one of the smaller British Navy ships. Usually employed as a scout rather than one sent to engage in battle, she was presently sailing as an armed escort to the merchant ship, the
Mary Jane.
William learned of their intended destination as he sat alongside Mr. Lancaster, the ship’s carpenter.

“Eh, Mr. Taylor, there’ll be plenty of maintenance of her bottom side once we reach warmer waters of the West Indies. There’s worms in the seas there–telodos they call ‘em–what bore right through if the wood’s not coated up proper like. We’ll be careenin’ her soon’s we find a decent beach out of harm’s way on which we’ll run her aground an’ keel her over. Ever done a careenin’? ‘Course you’ve not.”

“Careening?” William had come to know that Mr. Lancaster not only didn’t mind his questions, he seemed to welcome them as a chance to show off his extensive knowledge of the ship and all things associated with a sailor’s life.

“There’s all kinds of crusties and seaweed what attach themselves to the waterside of her hull. Slows her down, it does, so every three months or so, we’ll run her up on a beach an’ at low tide, tip her over by winching with some rigging ‘round trees an’ the like. Then we’ll set about scrapin’ an’ fixin’ an’ pluggin’ holes till she’s clear of all of that. She’s doubled planked, she is–pine, fer a sacrifice like to the sea worms, on the outside, and good white oak on her innards–but we don’ want them slimy bastard worms to be drillin’ through em’ both, do we? No sir, we don’t,” he replied in answer to his own question. “We’ll coat her up good with a thick coat of grease an’ brimstone to repel the damn beasties, especially the worms, then tip her over on the other side an’ do it all again.”

Ships were never watertight, William discovered. In the deepest bowels of the
HMS Argus,
sea water constantly seeped in from small seams between the boards of the hull, or splashed in through the gun portals and down hatches, finally collecting on the lowest level of the ship, where sailors regularly manned the pumps in a mostly futile attempt to keep the ship’s innards dry. The brackish bilge water had a horrid smell to it, and William was glad that manning the pumps was one task that was not his. Plugging the leaks, however, was.

“Mr. Taylor, it’s time, ain’t it?” Mr. Lancaster queried. By now William also knew that the carpenter did not expect nor want, any reply to his questions from those around him, intending to always answer his own. “Yessir, it is. An’ time fer what, ya’ may ask. Well I’ll tell ya’. We must plug off as many of the leaks as we can find with oakum.”

“Oakum?” William wondered out loud.

“Oakum, boy. Bits of frayed hemp, the old riggings like, soaked in hot pitch and stuffed in her seams, inside an’ out.”

“How do we get the seams on her outside done?”

Mr. Lancaster had anticipated William’s question and took obvious pleasure in answering. “Why, one of us hangs overboard in some Spanish riggin’, doin’ the pluggin’–uh, that’d be you–whilst the other stays along the railing up top, lowerin’ down the hot oakum–an’ that’d be me.” He grinned at William.

“Over the side–” William felt faint at the thought of dangling over the side, fathoms of the dark cold sea sucking and tugging at his legs as the ship coursed onwards through the frothing waves.

“Ya’ don’ want to be a lander forever, now do ya’?” Mr. Lancaster reasoned. “’Course ya’ don’t! Pluggin’ her up will earn ya’ much gratitude from the others, too,” he winked, “if it means less time fer them needed on the pumps below with the stinkin’ bilge. C’mon, now, I’ve already put an order in with Cook to be givin’ us a couple of hot pots of pitch, an’ I’ve sent Mr. Smith to round up the frayed riggings.” He squinted and swiveled his head from side to side. “Ya’ don’t see him anywheres, do ya’? ‘Course ya’ do!” He pointed straight ahead. “‘Here he comes now with our–”

An anguished scream ripped through the air interrupting Mr. Lancaster in midsentence.