The Stolen Heart (12 page)

 

 

“Pretty bad. But this stuff usually makes it so there isn’t even any
scarring.”

 

 

“Very good then, Cook. Thank you.”

 

 

“Yes, Cook. Thanks for the help," Al said with a meaning look. "I’ll
see you later.”

 

 

She stepped out of the cabin and onto the violently heaving deck
without so much as a stumble, a fact that was not lost on Jared. He
took her arm gently and led her to the wheelhouse.

 

 

“I’m fine, I can manage.”

 

 

“I can see that. You have excellent sea legs, better than most of
the greenhands. So tell me what
really
happened down below.”

 

 

“I’ll go now and clean everything up.”

 

 

“I told the men to scoop up what they could and eat it. We can’t
afford to let anything go to waste down there, and Perkins my second
mate has had worse. So I want to know who tripped you.”

 

 

“I was clumsy, sir. It won’t happen again.”

 

 

“Why are you lying to me, boy? If it's Mate, I can help--”

 

 

She shook her head. “No, you can’t. They already think we are too
fond of each other as it is without adding fuel to their evil-minded
gossip.”

 

 

“I don’t care about that! That is only Mate’s nasty mind at work.”

 

 

“But I care, sir! You’ve done enough for me as it is without your
command being undermined by you seeming to play favorites. I have to
take the rough with the smooth. If you jump to my defense all the
time, Mate will just keep picking on me.”

 

 

“Ah, hah, so it was him.”

 

 

She blushed. “I didn’t say-”

 

 

“I guessed, then. I shall speak to him in no uncertain terms about
being too hard on the sick crewmen. I won’t even mention your name.”

 

 

She shook her head emphatically. “It won’t do any good. He’ll just
keep at it, and be even more resentful than he is now. Please,
Captain, just leave it.”

 

 

He looked at her doubtfully.

 

 

“Please,” she begged once more, putting her small hand on his vast
muscular forearm. She loved that he wanted to be her hero, but Cook
was right. It was about time she faced facts and toughened up. She
was indeed in a man's world until she found her father, was found
out, or got back safely to Nantucket.

 

 

“All right, but you come with me now back to the cabin, and let me
get you something to eat and put you to bed.”

 

 

“I’m fine. I’ll clean up and turn in.”

 

 

“I miss our game and navigation sessions,” he said in a low voice.

 

 

“I do too,” she admitted reluctantly. “But I need some rest.”

 

 

She stood tall, trying to not reveal how much pain she was really
in, and went down the companionway to their quarters without another
word.

 

 

Jared made some veiled references to Mate’s behavior toward Al over
the next few of days, but the officer pretended he did not know what
the Captain was talking about.

 

 

The Mate's persecution of Almira continued throughout the next
trying period, when the ship managed to secure another three sperm
whales, and bobbed up and down rendering the blubber into oil out
for a week in some fairly heavy seas.

 

 

Though Almira was feeling a lot better, she still had limited
movement, but Mate had her wrestling with the large heavy slippery
blanket pieces in the blubber room as soon as the Captain went out
to try to get another whale.

 

 

It would have been a difficult task for her even if she had been
able bodied, and in ideal weather conditions. But was almost
impossible given her injuries, the constant rolling of the ship, and
the fact that she was nearly up to her knees in whale oil.

 

 

Every time the Captain was busy with something else, he would give
Al the worst jobs to do, with no sleep because he kept turning her
out to stand watch, until she felt utterly exhausted.

 

 

Mate did not even give her a chance to get cleaned up before he put
her on relief watch, and she had to look longingly as everyone else
showered, while her stinking clothes stiffened on her.

 

 

Eight hours in a row on watch in the damp, stinking oily clothes in
the windy conditions as they neared the Horn was bad enough, but the
next day was even worse.

 

 

Mate sent her into the rigging without any breakfast or water and
kept her on lookout the entire day.

 

 

Every time someone came up she thought she would get relief, but the
message was the same each time: “Mate says you're to stay up.”

 

 

Though the wind made it feel a bit cooler on her parched skin, the
sun continued to beat down. No food, nothing to drink and no chance
to relieve herself without wetting her trousers or tinkling on any
hapless passersby below was the last straw.

 

 

Finally, after two full watches back to back, she could stand his
cruel treatment no longer. Orders or no orders, she had to get some
water.

 

 

Her skin was dry and hot. She could feel blisters forming on the
back of her neck and arms and feet. At least she had remembered to
bring the hat Cook had suggested she wear up there.

 

 

She felt weak and clammy, and as she stood in the rings during the
seventh hour of her torture, she felt nauseous, even though the sea
was calm.

 

 

She knew it was not seasickness-she had never been ill. She hadn’t
eaten, so it could not be food poisoning. Perhaps it was just her
getting faint from hunger.

 

 

She muttered to her companion, “I have to get down now.”

 

 

But she could barely get out the words.

 

 

Bill just stared at her with a puzzled expression on his face.

 

 

She began to climb down slowly, wondering why the deck seemed to be
heaving below her even though it was a calm sea.

 

 

She got to within thirty feet of the deck, when there suddenly
seemed to be far more ropes than there had been before. Her head
swam, and she tried to grab at what she thought was a line. Instead
she fell through the hole in the ratlines, and hung suspended above
the focsle hatch by one leg.

 

 

Jared came striding along the deck, wondering why he had not seen Al
all day, and why he seem to be avoiding him after the incident with
the spilled food.

 

 

In fact, he had begun to grow worried that the boy was much more
distant with him. That their friendship had not been restored after
their conversation about the rude thing that the mate had said. The
lad seemed to have been avoiding him, and never even let him help
with his injuries.

 

 

Jared also had to admit he was concerned about the young boy's
growing and dubious friendship with Cook which he had observed over
the past few days. He seemed nice enough, but he had seen the two of
them wrestling and fighting, though they said it was all in fun.

 

 

Moreover, Al’s sudden penchants for swearing, grog, chewing tobacco
and guns were not changes for the better either so far as he was
concerned.

 

 

He had already been to see Cook to ask if he knew where Al was, and
was now determined to find him and make sure that all was well.

 

 

“I saw Al going aloft this morning, but that was at six. It’s two
now,” Cook said.

 

 

He was just passing the main mast when George gasped and pointed.
“My God, it’s, it’s Al!”

 

 

Jared’s heart jumped into his throat.

 

 

He yanked off his boots, hurled them on the deck, and jumped up to
start climbing into the rigging. “Come on, help me!”

 

 

But to add to the confusion, Bill above yelled, “Thar she blows! She
blows!” at that precise moment.

 

 

The Mate began to urge all the crews into the boats.

 

 

Jared was left to climb up by himself, as George was thrust out of
the way and ordered into the boat by the Mate.

 

 

“But, sir! Sir, Al needs our help.”

 

 

“There are whales out there! Didn’t you hear me, you lug ears! Get
you ass in the boat.”

 

 

“Captain, Captain!”

 

 

Jared’s own boat crew were shouting for him.

 

 

Then his boatsteerer Wright spotted him and jumped back out of the
boat.

 

 

“Oh my God. Man in trouble in the rigging!”

 

 

Jared had to climb above Al and then try to work out how to get the
prone body down to safety. He pulled hard on the shirt, getting Al
into a sitting position on the rat lines, and moved down to throw
him over one shoulder.

 

 

Al groaned and vomited weakly, and began to rave about pirates and
birds and how much her ribs hurt.

 

 

Most of her speech was slurred, and her breath was coming in short
gasps. Jared concentrated on moving carefully down amid the swaying
ropes, thanking the weather gods that the sea was calm and the other
men had put down the anchor at the first sign of a whale.

 

 

“Captain, we’re here. Hand him down to us,” the boatsteerer urged.

 

 

“It’s all right, I’ve got him. Take Smith and get into the boat and
go after a whale. You’re in charge, Wright.”

 

 

“Are you sure, Captain?”

 

 

“Aye, I am. Go on without me. You all know what to do.”

 

 

He got Al down on the deck, where she vomited again and begged for
water. He picked her up and ran for the galley, where he tried to
get her to drink.

 

 

But the water flowed right back out of her mouth, so he rubbed her
mouth and tongue with a clean cloth dipped in fresh water, and then
carried Al down the companionway as fast as he could.

 

 

The body he held was burning up with fever, and Al was drifting in
and out of consciousness.

 

 

An odd suspicion had begun to form in the back of his mind as he had
picked up Al and put the child over his shoulder.

 

 

Now he was forced to confront the literal naked truth as he began to
peel off Al’s shirt, and saw the sleeveless shirt and strapping.

 

 

Sore ribs, of course, he recalled, seizing the first explanation for
the bumps he had felt. But as he cut off the shirt and the
strapping, the truth could be avoided no longer.

 

 

“Good God!”

 

 

He stared, and stared. He stretched out a hand to open the rest of
their shirt, and felt a constriction in his chest, and even lower.

 

 

For there had been no mistake. This was no trick of the light. His
eyes and senses were not deceiving him. Al, his cabin boy, was a
woman
.
A fully-curved, ripe-breasted woman.

 

 

 

CHAPTER TWELVE

 

 

A woman.
Al was a woman!
How could she have deceived him so?
And how had he been so easily duped? A woman!

 

 

He knew he should be more concerned about the illness she had and
its cause, but the shock was so great, he just stared and stared at
her pale clammy face.

 

 

But her arms, legs and neck were sunburnt, he noticed as he flung
off her hat and soothed her fevered brow. She had been badly burned
by the sun, and was blistered and delirious.

 

 

A woman!
He didn’t know whether to feel angry or relieved.
He had never felt so close to anyone in his life before, not even
his own cousin, but he had thought it was a fatherly attachment.
A
woman!

 

 

He had shamelessly teased Dare about not being able to spot a woman
on board his ship. Well, that had been different. Samantha had been
his own wife, not some complete stranger.

 

 

He had met Al when she had run into him at the wharf. Of course he
would have had to accept Al at face value as a boy. She had told him
a plausible story; the details had all sounded truthful. Was she who
she had said she was, and simply Jed’s
daughter
, not his
son? Or was she an accomplished liar with a different agenda all of
her own?

 

 

"But no, she had been genuinely caring with regard to the welfare of
her two sisters. There had been a strong family resemblance.

 

 

He had to give her credit too for undertaking to go to sea for the
sake of her family. Unlike Dare’s wife Sam, Al was a whaler
captain’s daughter. He tried to recall what he know about the Hussey
family. What was the lovely young woman's real name? Alice, Alma,
Althea….?

 

 

He shook his head, unable to come up with anything that sounded
right for the beauty who lay bare-breasted in front of him, bruised
and burned. Damn it, why had she not told him before, when she had
been so badly hurt.

 

 

He was certainly angry over having been duped, but as he bathed her
fevered brow with brandy and water, he had to admit his admiration
for her had shot up by leaps and bounds. His achievements were
impressive for a young man. They were even more so for a young
woman.

 

 

And her family loyalty was especially commendable. Al had known
better than anyone the hardships she was going to have to face on
this trip. She had gone ahead with her plan anyway. All she had
wanted was to work hard, and earn a decent living to help her
sisters get the best life possible for themselves.