The Stolen Heart (11 page)

 

 

“Well you sure as heck can’t lift anything heavy, Al! Not if you
want to heal properly.”

 

 

“I can use the hand if I keep my arm tucked in.”

 

 

“You'll stiffen up, though, and be walking around off balance. God
forbid we should get into a storm at the minute. You could end up in
even worse shape," he warned.

 

 

Almira blew a blond curl out of her eyes in exasperation. "At the
moment, I find that hard to believe."

 

 

"It can happen, believe me." He continued applying the salve for a
few moments longer in silence.

 

 

Then he looked at her and said, "You want my advice, child, don't
try to be brave. It would be better to just tell him the truth, you
hurt a couple of ribs, and they will be sore for a couple of days.”

 

 

“We’ll say my back,” she decided. “It hurts there anyway. If anyone
insists on seeing the injury, I can just pull up the back of my
shirt and show them the strapping.”

 

 

He turned her around and did so himself. “Aye, you are pretty purple
there too. Just don’t keep clutching your, you know, like that.”

 

 

“Am I?” she asked with a blush.

 

 

“I expect it’s pretty sore.”

 

 

She rolled her eyes. “You have no idea.”

 

 

“I think I do. The fork between a man’s legs is pretty tender. You
ever get into trouble with a man, knee him in the nuts and run like
mad.”

 

 

“Thanks for the advice. I find a fist works just as well,” she said
dryly.

 

 

His brows shot up in surprise.

 

 

As he worked, she told him of her last serious altercation with the
first mate, when he had tried to stop her from calling all hands
during the storm.

 

 

“That man is a bastard, there's no denying it,” Cook said, shaking
his head.

 

 

Al told him about her first run in as well, over the case oil and
her refusing to strip naked.

 

 

"Well, what else could you do, given your position. All the same, it
was pretty brave of you to stand up to him. Even the boatsteerers
stay well away from him. Thank God he doesn't drink or we’d really
all be for it."

 

 

When he had finished putting on the ointment, she said, “Listen, I
want to thank you for your help, and for not giving me away. And I’m
sorry I lied, and that you were embarrassed.”

 

 

He shrugged. “If I have to be totally honest, I guess I sort of
wondered.”

 

 

“Oh no. What do I do that gives me away?”

 

 

“The way you walk. Like this.” He wiggled his hands. “And you threw
something to someone the other day underhanded, not overhanded like
this,” he said, demonstrating with an apple.

 

 

Her eyes lit up with understanding. “You’re right. My brother always
used to tease me about that. I forgot.”

 

 

“And you’re pretty, I mean, no beard, delicate skin. You're
roughening up with the sun and salt, but still, you're not as
rough-looking as most of us. And you don’t drink or cuss or
anything. I mean, some of the other men are religious, but they sort
of join in. It wouldn’t do you any harm to have a sip of grog now
and then, let out a damn, or at least try the chawing tobacco.”

 

 

“Ugh.”

 

 

“Sorry, lass, I was just trying to help.”

 

 

“No, you’re right. I need to get into my role a bit better if I'm
going to keep up this masquerade until I catch up with my brother or
find my father.”

 

 

“Just so long as the Captain doesn’t tell us off for corrupting
you.” He winked.

 

 

She shrugged. “I won’t overdo it, I promise. I’ll not be going to
the brothels at any rate.”

 

 

He laughed. “Oh, I don’t know. They have pretty nice private baths
and rooms there. I mean, you can’t go into the public men’s baths,
now can you?”

 

 

“That’s a point.” She pulled herself up short. “Good Lord, my father
and brother would kill me if they knew-”

 

 

Cook's eyes took on a merry twinkle. “I won’t tell, I promise.”

 

 

She grinned and shook her head. “Never mind. There's no chance of
that at the minute, now is there? I doubt the Captain will put into
port until we get to the coast of Chile.”

 

 

“Not unless something big happens that forces him to, no,” Cook
agreed.

 

 

“Can you help me with the strapping again?”

 

 

“Oh, sure. Sorry. And here, take a dry shirt at least."

 

 

“Thank you, Cook. You’re the best.”

 

 

"Can you manage the breeches, do you think?"

 

 

She went through the motions, and winced. "It hurts like the devil
when I bend, but I'll figure out something when I get below,
thanks."

 

 

“Any time you want to chat, or get me to change the dressing, well,
you know where to find me.”

 

 

“Aye, I do at that. See you.”

 

 

She unlocked the door, looked out to make sure the coast was clear,
then waved and left.

 

 

Cook sighed and shook his head. It wasn’t his secret, and so it was
none of his business.

 

 

Still, he would do his best to keep an eye on her from now on, and
hope that none of the more rough and roistering men found out Al was
a girl, or there could be hell to pay.

 

 

 

CHAPTER ELEVEN

 

 

There was hell to pay when Al’s true identity was finally
discovered, but not in the way that Cook ever anticipated.

 

 

After the boat accident, the Captain and Mate came back with a whale
apiece, and the cutting in and trying out process began anew.

 

 

Almira knew she was not really fit for duty, but she did her best to
help. After all, there were other men injured as well, and it was
supposed to be a team effort.

 

 

The crew labored hard putting down the oil, but the Mate picked on
Al unmercifully whenever Jared’s back was turned.

 

 

Mate was convinced the young effeminate lad was slacking. Even when
he was confronted by a livid purple back, when Jared pulled up Al’s
shirt to see for himself how badly injured his cabin boy was, the
Mate insisted that it was nothing and he should be put back on
regular duties.

 

 

Fortunately, Jared kept Almira busy and under his eye for some time,
so that Mate was not able to carry out the full extent of his
persecution until she had had a few full days to heal.

 

 

Early one morning as they were nearing the Horn, Mate declared,
“Captain thinks you're good at spotting whales, so we can send you
aloft. And you can stay up there and practice your rigging skills,
since you're no bloody use in a whaleboat.”

 

 

Jared caught her up there a couple of times, struggling with one
arm, and insisted she come down.

 

 

“Mate told me to look out,” was her only comment.

 

 

“You stay down here until you're healed, do you hear? I have no
intention of cleaning your brains off the damned deck. Losing Tom
was bad enough. Those are my orders, and I shall tell Mate so now.
No rigging until those bruises are gone, Al, do you hear me? End of
story.”

 

 

The following day, a storm blew up and made it even more difficult
for Al to manage her duties. She was ungainly enough without the
deck rolling and sliding away out from under her.

 

 

She was mashed, twisted and crunched again the bulkheads as she
tried to go about her chores. Trying to serve a decent meal in the
officer’s mess was like skating on a turbulent frozen pond.

 

 

At one point when the rolling was particularly bad and she was
trying to serve some stew at dinner, Mate stuck his leg out on
purpose and sent her flying.

 

 

She landed on her sore side, and the tears immediately sprang to her
eyes. Worse still, she had scalded herself with the stew, which was
clinging to the front of her shirt and burning right through it.
Jared came in and saw her writhing and screaming, and began to try
to strip the shirt off her.

 

 

“Leave me alone!” she shrieked and ran for the galley, where she
fell sobbing into Cook’s arms.

 

 

“Jesus, Al, what the hell!”

 

 

“That bastard tripped me. Lord, my side, my shoulder… And I am burnt
all over my front from the stew.”

 

 

“I have plenty of cream for those burns, never fear. It's a hazard
of my job, don’t you know. Come on, let’s get you to my bunk and
changed.”

 

 

They ran back out into the storm and found the steward in his bunk,
but he took one look at the state Al was in, heard a brief summary
of what had happened, and decided to leave Cook to deal with it
himself.

 

 

“I’ll look after the pots in the galley. Get the poor bugger fixed
up. And remind me to trip Mate some time when he's very near the
edge of the deck. ”

 

 

As soon as he was safely gone, Cook said in a low voice, “You are
going to have to toughen up, lass. Any tears, they'll pounce on you
and tear you to shreds, you mark my words. I’ve seen it often
enough. Any ill luck on the ship, the scapegoat is blamed, and his
life becomes a living hell.”

 

 

She nodded, and lifted her chin bravely. "You're right. I need to
toughen up. I'm doing my best and he's not going to get the better
of me."

 

 

Throwing all concerns for modesty aside in his haste to get at the
burns before they became any worse, he stripped her bare, put burn
cream on her rapidly forming blisters, and then tended to her new
and old bruises.

 

 

“You need better sea legs too.”

 

 

“I would have been fine if I wasn't stuck using only one arm and
that bastard hadn’t stuck his foot out!”

 

 

“Well, you can wait your chance and do it to him some time on the
companionway in a storm. With any luck, he will have a nice little
accident and break his bloody neck.”

 

 

“Don’t do anything foolish on my account,” she pleaded.

 

 

“I won’t. But I want to teach you about fighting back, a bit of
wrestling, a bit of boxing.”

 

 

Almira's eyes widened. “Cook, are you out of you mind? I’m a woman,
for pity’s sake. Any one of you could snap me in two.”

 

 

Cook shook his head mildly. “I wouldn’t be so sure. You have brains.
If you fight with your head, then sometimes you don’t always need
your fists. And anyone can point a pistol and fire, if they are
taught. Or a rifle, if you prefer. I would say both, just to be on
the safe side.”

 

 

“Guns?" she gasped. "Cook, really, I-”

 

 

He finished strapping her up and then gave her one of his
short-sleeved cotton shirts that was tight on him but bagged over
her strapping. Then he gave her another long-sleeved shirt.

 

 

He sat on his bunk and sighed as he watched her get dressed once
more. “Listen, lass, I don’t want to be a wet blanket, but you need
to face facts. You have no idea what the future holds for you. You
could be lucky and find your brother and father. But what if you
don’t? You’re going to have to make your way in the world without a
protector.

 

 

"The Captain is a good man, but if he finds out you’re a woman,
he'll put you down in the next port. I’ve been around a good few of
them, and they're not nice places for the most part. Not for a woman
with no money, connections or clothes, unescorted. They will take
you for a whore for sure. An American whore, which for some means
they can do whatever they like.

 

 

“And it’s not much better for a whaleman, believe me. We have the
reputation of being the scum of the earth, nasty, brutish,
uneducated alcoholics, willing to roger anything in sight.

 

 

"Now you and I know the Captain isn't like that, but there are
plenty of men in this business who are. I’m going to hope you get
everything your young heart wishes for. But to be on the safe side
I’m also going to teach you to wrestle, box and stop thinking like a
woman. This is a man’s world, like it or not, and for the moment
you’re in it.

 

 

"You’ll get home to your sisters one day, put on a pretty frock, and
go back to your old world. But for as long as you’re part of a
whaler crew, you’ll have to deal with people like Mate. You’d better
be ready to swim with the sharks, or they’ll eat you alive.”

 

 

“But I have to follow orders, even from a bastard like Mate,” she
protested.

 

 

“I know. But you also need to have the confidence to say no and
defend yourself.”

 

 

Suddenly they heard a rattling at the door.

 

 

“Cook, are you in there?”

 

 

He looked at Al. “Quick, fix your shirt,” he whispered.

 

 

“Aye, Captain,” he replied.

 

 

“Is Al in there with you? He had an accident.

 

 

“Aye, Captain, just finished fixing him up.”

 

 

She finished with her shirt, nodded and they unlocked the door.

 

 

Cook waved the pot of unguent in the air. “Some of my miracle
ointment ought to do the trick. He will be right as rain soon.”

 

 

“Are the burns bad?” Jared asked worriedly.