Quintspinner (6 page)

“You’ll start at mid evenin’ shift, so’s the breakfast is ready by dawn.” Smith pointed ahead of them deeper into the gloom. “Down there’s the slings.”

The ‘slings’ proved to be narrow strips of stained canvas strung in the fashion of hammocks that were hooked from the rafters of the deck flooring above their heads. Row after row of the grimy sheets swung from the ropes, in rhythm with the ship’s sway. Most rows had two layers of the makeshift beds strung one above the other. A few were occupied, the sailors’ arms and legs hanging over the edges, with the width of a sling being roughly only the space between a man’s shoulder blades. Thinner sailors obviously slept more securely and comfortably in these contraptions.

“When you’re off shift, grab an empty one,” Smith instructed. “Best to choose one what’s highest up, but give her a shake just the same.”

“A shake?”

“Fer dumpin’ cooties and such off ‘afore lyin’ yer own noggin down amongst them.” Smith saw William’s face cloud in confusion. “It’s to rid yer sling of the little buggers and chiggers what’s fallen off from the lad who slept there ‘afore ya;–do ya’ not know even a single thing?” Smith asked exasperatedly.

“I’ve never sailed,” William replied. “Never been on a stinkin’ boat of any kind. I’m not a sailor. I’m–”

“You’ll learn, and for yer sake, you’d best be a quick study. You’re a lander fer now, but you’ll be a sailor too. And probably will be for the rest of yer life.” With an upward shrug of his eyebrows Smith added, “However short that may be.”

William followed Smith through the innards of the ship, its unfamiliarity closing in on him like a poisonous fog. The two of them reached a ladder, which rose through an apparent hatch in the roof, up to the next level of the ship. “This here’s the com-panionway to the main deck, so stay close,” Smith instructed William.

The daylight was nearly blinding after coming from the darkened midlevel. The fresh sea air, however, was as sweet a thing as William could ever remember inhaling. Each breath was warm and clear, filling William’s lungs with an unexpected sense of pleasure, washing the stew of below-deck stench from his nostrils and lungs.

He squinted into the sunlight, his eyes tearing up in response to the brightness of it all. Overhead, an airborne maze of riggings supported the white canvases of huge sails which boomed and snapped in response to the wind’s prodding. The riggings were alive with sailors, all scurrying up, down, and sideways, as gracefully as hungry spiders inspecting a web. Beyond the sails, the vast blueness of the sky stretched to the horizon in all directions. Days with such a clear sky were precious few back on the coastline of Britain. William stared in amazement.

With his eyes having fully adjusted to the light of day, he looked around at his strange new world. The open deck was bustling with young men.

“Them right here are doin’ drills,” Smith pointed out, “and it’s just such drills what’s supposed to make our Brits such a formidable fightin’ force.” He nodded towards the other end of the open deck. “And them there are doin’ the endless chores what keeps the Navy’s fleet afloat.”

Twenty or so crew members, some not much older than William himself, marched in unison along the back lines of the deck, handling their weapons in a perfectly choreographed routine, all moving as one body in a synchronized fashion. “Them boys there be the marines,” Smith explained. “They’ll be runnin’ their drills every day and when they be done with that, it’ll be a wee bit of trainin’ fer the rest of us. Backups, sorta. Ever used a gun?”

William shook his head.

“No matter,” Smith continued good-naturedly, “’cause they’d not be lettin’ us landers have such a thing anyways. How’s about a hanger?” he asked nodding towards a wicked looking blade gripped by one of the sailors. Again William shook his head, never taking his eyes from the marines’ precise movements. “Ya’ had any weapon use at all?”

“A skinning knife,” William replied. “I had my own knife back home.”

“Didcha’ now?” Smith grinned as though he’d unearthed a secret. “A big one, was it?”

William shrugged his shoulders. “Big enough.”

“But not a hanger. Could ya’ do more with one than pick yer ear wax?”

William thought back to his chores at home. For a few moments he imagined himself back in the shed with his father and brother. Slaughtering a pig or goat had been easy enough but a cow or a wild deer had always required much more strength in wielding the blade. And then there was the memory of the smell of the heme, and the warmth of the slippery organs and entrails. William and John had usually managed to turn a day in the slaughter shed into a contest of skills between them. Skinning the carcass as quickly as possible yet carefully enough that the hide was removed intact was William’s specialty. Such a hide could be sold to the tanners for far more than one that had any skinner lacerations through it.

John had always bested William in the carving up of the carcass, being older and stronger. However, the end of each day in the shed had seen the boys finishing up their brotherly competitions with several rounds of knife throwing. At this, they had been evenly matched. The main difference had been that John was right handed, and William had preferred to use his left.

His left hand however, bore a congenital peculiarity. His fourth and fifth fingers were webbed together from the middle knuckles to his hand, resulting in his remaining three fingers having developed the strength of a much more powerful grip.

“
Me granddad had a couplin’ with a mermaid what he found washed up on the rocks along the shore, an’ she infused him an’ his future kin with her essence forevermore,”
his Da’ had bragged in the pubs. The eloquence of his descriptive words and the outlandish story never failed to earn him a free drink from someone in the crowd. William’s mother had different ideas.

A left hander was the sign of the Devil,
his mother had declared, and she had determinedly insisted from the time he was small, that William learn to use his right hand. He had obligingly done so with a great deal of success but had also continued to use his left in most things, his coordination in both hands therefore becoming equally honed. His keen eyesight had allowed him to hit the target pole at the end of the shed nearly every time.

“Well do ya’? Eh?” Smith broke into William’s thoughts with his question. “Do ya’ know how to defend yerself?”

“I don’t know,” William answered truthfully. “Never had to.”

Smith’s eyes narrowed into dark dangerous slits and he hissed through his lopsided grin,
“That
opportunity will come about ‘afore ya’ even see it comin’, I ‘spect.”

The marines were now repeating their drills and William’s attention shifted to the other sailors around him. Several were on their hands and knees, wetting down and scrubbing the wooden planking with stiff brushes made of boar’s bristle; some busied themselves with mops and rags, wetting and polishing. Still others hoisted and adjusted the huge sails, hollering back and forth to their airborne mates overhead, all the while pulling on the riggings strung intricately from each of the ship’s two masts.

The sailors wore knee length breeches and most were deeply tanned and shirtless; those who sported upper garments wore nearly identical linen shirts, bleached in various shades of white, grime, and sweat. All of the men on deck were shoeless.

It was only then that William realized his own feet were bare. His footwear had been removed while he had lain unconscious. He glanced down at himself. Although the trousers were his own, he was embarrassed to see that he still wore his nightshirt which hung lopsidedly over the front of his pants. Attempting to tuck it in, William discovered that the large pocket sewn into the front of his trousers still contained something. The only thing in the world that was truly his. It was so trivial, yet here, having been wrenched away from anything familiar in his life, it was a desperate talisman, connecting him with his memories of home. His hand carved flute.

Where are my shoes? They left me my tunic?
In the middle of his thoughts, William spied a young boy polishing the glass on the ship’s cabin windows. The child appeared to be about seven or eight years old and was painfully thin. Smith noticed William staring and explained.

“That’s young Tommy. He was brought on board only two sails ago. He be the powder monkey.”

“The what? Whose son is he?” William was appalled that any father would let so young a son on board.

“He be the monkey. The one what delivers the powder to the gunners when we be in battle. An’ he’s no one’s boy. Picked him off the street, they did.”

“Stolen?”

“Nah. Rescued.” Smith saw William’s questioning look. “He’d a’ died anyways, left on his own, he would. Starved or beaten dead by someone, just fer fun maybe. On board, he gets fed and beaten no more than he deserves.”

“But his parents–”

“Probably don’t have none. None what he knows of anyway. He don’t even know his last name no more.” Smith grinned and continued, “So’s he just goes by Jones. Tommy Jones. That’s ‘cause one day he’ll go back to Davy Jones, which is the only thing what’ll take him back. Ya’ see,” he said thoughtfully, “Davy Jones’s is likely to take us all to the depths sooner or later.”

Their appearance on deck gave cause to the men to pause in their chores as they stared at the two arrivals. Some openly leered and shouted obscenities about what they would do with the boys’ mothers. William had never been the centre of attention for anything. The only person who had ever stared at him for more than a few seconds at a time had been Maggie–dear, sweet Maggie–and William wished with all of his heart that he was back at his family’s hut, back with his dull and repetitive daily tasks. He felt the eyes of the sailors boring into him.

I feel like a sow taken to town and put in the sale pen. You got your eyeful, you friggin’ fish eaters, now go to hell!

As if reading his thoughts, Smith placed a hand on William’s shoulder and yelled, “Ahoy! Listen up you slimy bastards! This be Cook’s help and a lander, Mr. Taylor!” As if in response to this news, William heard low grumblings and words of acknowledgment coming from the crew members nearest to him. He glared back at them in defiance, his fingers curled into tight fists at his sides–a reflexive action in self defense, but it also hid the nervous shaking he felt.

“Back to work, ya’ farkin’ toads!” a voice louder than all the others bellowed, and the command was punctuated by the sharp crack of a whip on the wet decking. The voice belonged to a huge man, a man who towered over the rest and whose massive biceps rippled as he slowly and deliberately coiled up the strands of his whip.

“That’s First Mate Rogers!” Smith gasped, his voice quivering, as the giant of a man advanced upon them. “Fer God’s sake!” he pleaded in a whisper, “Taylor! Don’t be lookin’ him in the eye!”

Smith’s warning came too late.