"What I still don't get is why we should listen to anything you say, Little Miss Pushy!" says Clarissa. She comes up in front of me, her eyes drilling into mine. "Come on, Boss Lady, you tell me why."
"I ain't the boss, Clarissa," I say, my own eyes narrowing as I gaze back into hers. "That's why we are setting up this three-way thing. We share the power ... and the responsibility."
"Power?" She snorts, and I feel her breath on my face but I don't pull back. "What power? Power over some thirty-odd helpless girls? Some power."
"They are what we have to work with and work with them we will. They are all we have in the way of an army, and I think they may well surprise you, Miss Clarissa Crappington Howe."
Dolley pushes between us and says, "All right, stop it. Let's go down and speak to them. I'm ... I'm starting to not feel so ... good." Dolley then swallows hard.
We go back down to the Stage, where all the girls have regathered—and into their divisions, I'm pleased to see. Nothing like a few rats skittering around your skirts to speed things up down at the tubs.
Dolley and Clarissa make their announcements as planned, and then I speak up:
"I think it best we take off our dresses at night to keep them fresh. Things are filthy here, as you can see, but soon we'll get things shaped up. We'll want to look our best when we hit the slave markets. The more they pay for us, the better we'll be treated, I figure." I say this for the benefit of anyone who might be outside listening, so they'll think we're getting resigned to our fate. "Stockings, too. If you leave them on, your feet will start to stink in a few days. Doff your petticoats, too. It's going to be hot where we're going. Roll them up with your stockings and stuff them inside your dresses and fold the dress into a pad for a pillow at night. I suspect none of you has ever before slept on hard planking and you will welcome the small comfort of the pillow, believe me."
With that I unbutton my dress and slide it off. I hop up on the edge of the Balcony, kick off my shoes and roll down my stockings, and put both stockings and shoes inside my dress and roll it up. I know that three-quarters of the girls will be deathly ill within the hour. Some are already turning a bit green about the gills.
"How ... how can you be so cold and matter-of-fact about this?" asks Martha Hawthorne, standing below on the Stage and looking up to me in wonder.
"Because what is, is, and what is not, is not. Believe it or not, I've been in worse fixes than this. We will talk and plan tomorrow when we know more about the way of things around here. It's plain they ain't gonna feed us tonight, so I suggest we all get some sleep, even though it is early. Or some rest, at least. Night will fall shortly. Be sure to say your prayers."
And I am sure many, many heartfelt prayers are said, as the Bloodhound takes a slow, deep, and stomach-churning roll. The hanging chains on the port side swing out from the bulkhead, while those on the starboard side crash against the ship's inner hull. The rattling of the chains sets up a hellish symphony, one composed by soulless men without pity or remorse, and one that I know we will hear again and again before this is over.
With that, I turn and walk a little ways along the length of the Balcony, lie down, put my bundle 'neath my head, and close my eyes. Rebecca and Elspeth are up in an instant, and I gather them to me. Annie and Sylvie settle not far away and I reach out my hand to them and their touch gives me comfort and I hope the touch of my hand gives them the same.
Chapter 19
But that was not the end of our first day on the Bloodhound. Not for me, anyway. Yesterday, before dark but after the girls had gotten into sleeping position and had settled down somewhat, I got Rebecca and Elspeth to cling to each other rather than to me, then I crawled to the edge of the Balcony and lay there with my head over, looking down into the Pit for a long time. After a while I heard a rustle beside me and turned and saw that it was Clarissa.
"What are you looking at?" she demands as she lies down next to me.
"The rats," I say. "I'm watching the rats."
"Friends of yours, no doubt, and certainly on your social level." She sniffs. "But why are you watching them?"
"To see how they get in and out of the Hold. Look, there..." I point to a particularly large rascal who comes out of a hole in the deck. "See how that one runs across the open space and then ducks around that hull support there? Now we see him, now we don't, so he must have gotten through there, somewhere. See, they live in the bilges, the space below that bottom deck, but there ain't no food down there—it's all forward, up in the galley and storerooms—so they've got to find their way to it. And they do, count on it, they always do."
"Why do you want to know that?"
"Because maybe they can show us the way out of here. I'm pretty sure we can't escape through the hatchway where we were brought in. You noticed the lock on the outer door of the hatch when we were put down here? And the lock on the barred inner gate there? Now, maybe I could pick that lock, if I had the tools, but I can't open the lock on the upper one 'cause it's on the outside of the door. No, if we're to get out of here, we'll have to find our way out down there in the Pit somewhere."
"But what will we do if we do get out, what...?"
"First things first. There's lots we can do if we get out, but we'll plan for that later. For now I'm going down to see what's there." Saying that, I get up and head for the stairs. I'm surprised to hear her following me.
We go down the stairs from the Balcony, onto the Stage level, and then down more steps and into the Pit. The light filtering in from the barred windows is a lot dimmer here, but there is enough of it for us to see our way along the forward bulkhead to the spot where we saw the rat go through.
"Here it is," I say. There was a split in one of the bulkhead boards and the rats, with their teeth, had widened it out at the bottom, where it met the Pit decking, to a hole about four inches across. I get down on my knees and look in, and on my face I feel a draft coming through—it smells of cooking fires and food. Good.
"What do you see?" asks Clarissa, crouched beside me.
"Nothing yet, but maybe ... I think I see a dim glow up ahead and I do smell food." I sit back up and put my hand carefully into the hole—I don't want to get bit—and I judge the thickness of the board. It is about two inches thick and the wood seems pretty soft. "We'll have to widen this out."
"But how?"
"Maybe with our teeth, like the rats," I say. "I recall you being pretty good with yours."
Actually, though, I'm thinking of my shiv tucked safely away in my seabag. I consider telling Clarissa, but, no, not yet.
"Listen, you—"
"Good night, ladies!" shouts someone from high above, and the shutters come slamming down over the bars to be battened down tight for the night. Damn! In an instant we are in pitch darkness.
"Well, this certainly complicates things," I growl. "If they're going to do that every evening, then our operating time down here just got cut by half. We'll have to—"
"God help me!" gasps Clarissa, and I hear her frantically groping in the dark for me. She does find me and I feel her arms tight around my waist. Well, well, that's the first time I've ever heard Clarissa call on anyone for help, let alone God himself.
"Could it be that Lady Miss Clarissa Worthington Howe is afraid of the dark?" purr I, enjoying the moment in spite of everything.
Just then, the rat horde, having been denied access to the rat hole by us being there in the light, chooses that moment to swarm over our feet and into the hole.
"Oh, pleeeeease," whimpers Clarissa, and I relent and find her hand and hold it. I had lived in close quarters with rats before, when I lived with Charlie and Hughie and the gang under Blackfriars Bridge, so they don't scare me like they scare Clarissa, but still, I can't say as I like 'em.
"It's all right, Clarissa. Come, take my hand. We'll just go thisaway till we find the stairs. We'll feel our way along the bulkhead. Ah, here they are. Up we go."
When we gain the Stage, enough dim rays of light come in aroun
d the edges of the shutters, so that we can make out the stairs up to the Balcony. Then, and only then, does Clarissa release my hand from the death grip in which she had held it, flinging my hand down and stalking off to return to her place on the Balcony.
There being nothing else to do, I follow her and lie down between Elspeth and Rebecca and try not to again give in to dark despair, but it is hard. To be so close to being reunited with Jaimy and then to have this happen ... Well, at least I'm not being taken back to England to be hanged. There's that, but it is small comfort. All right, that's enough of that—we'll see what tomorrow brings. I pull out my ring, which hangs from a ribbon and rests on my breast, and I clutch it in my fist and close my eyes.
Good night, Jaimy. I hope you are safe and well. Know that you are in my heart and in my thoughts always. Know, too, that your girl's back at sea again, and with a new crew—and all girls, this time.
Yo, ho, ho...
Chapter 20
A new day is announced to the girls in the belly of the Bloodhound by the flaps being lifted off the bars at eight bells in the Morning Watch, letting light flood into the Hold. Blinking girls rise up to sitting positions and groan—some of the moaning comes from aching bodies unaccustomed to sleeping on hard wood, some from seasickness, but most, I know, from waking up and realizing that it wasn't all just a bad dream, that we are still here. Many awaken moaning and crying.
There are not so many sounds of retching now, the seasick ones having already lost the contents of their bellies—the vomit draining down through the open wooden slatting of the Balcony to the Pit below. There would ordinarily be a sour smell from it, but it goes unnoticed in the overall stench of the Hold.
I, myself, feel pretty achy, too. You've gotten soft, girl, from all that easy living. I get myself in a sitting position and rub the sleep out of my eyes. Then I stumble to my feet and step over girl after girl, all dressed as I am dressed, in white chemise and drawers, and bare of calf, ankle, and foot, till I reach the stairs and go down onto the Stage. In a moment Clarissa comes down, followed by some of the others.
"Dolley's too sick to move. A lot of them are. I don't think we'll muster Divisions this morning," I say to her. "Are you all right?"
"Of course I am," Clarissa snaps. "And I'm hungry, too. When am I gonna get something to eat?"
"I expect we'll get a visit from somebody real soon. Then we'll find out about a lot of things"
Clarissa just grunts in reply to that, crossing her arms over her chest and looking grumpy. We wait. The tubs are visited. The girls who can, put on their dresses. I do the same.
Then something above catches my eye. It is the face of the scurvy-looking boy I had seen scampering about the deck yesterday when we were taken. His face is pressed against the bars, looking down at us.
"Hey, you! Boy!" I shout up at him. "Didn't you hear what your captain said? He said we weren't to be bothered! So sod off, you!"
"Captain's my friend," says the boy, in a thin whispery voice, but nevertheless one that carries throughout the Hold. "Captain's my good friend, he's—"
"Nettles! Get away from there!" This is from somebody out on the deck. The boy Nettles takes one last gawk at the bare lower legs stretched out below him and reluctantly disappears from sight. I am quite sure he'll be back.
"That one seems to be quite the specimen," says Dorothea, ever the scientist. It seems she's another one who is neither seasick nor completely cowed by this situation. She's probably already thought of the wondrous birds and other beasts she might see in North Africa, however ravished by sheiks she might be. And the crew of this ship might yet regret taking her new long glass from her. She did not give it up easily.
"Right," I agree. "Clarissa, we're going to have to set up a watch rotation—four girls, one in each corner of the Balcony—to report on what's happening on the deck. We have to know what they are doing and how they go about things. The more we know about them and the less they know about us, the better. Do you agree?"
I don't give a tinker's damn whether she agrees or not—it's going to be done. It's good that the girls around us see us, well, as officers, discussing these things, but it's also good that they come to know who's really the boss among us three.
Clarissa knows what's going on, but she doesn't protest. She nods and we both notice that Dolley has somehow found the strength to dress and join us. The motion of the ship has calmed somewhat—more of a gentle up-and-down now, rather than the rolling and yawing of last night—but Dolley is still pale and it must have taken an enormous strength of will for her to get up. Good Dolley, you always were the best of us.
There is a clatter from the hatchway behind us. We turn to see that the upper door has been opened and someone is coming down. Through the bars of the inner door we see that it is—
"Jerome!" says Constance Howell, who is standing closest to the doorway. "Oh, thanks be to God, you've come to help us!"
Jerome takes a key and opens the lock and swings the door in and enters the Hold. "Yes, my dear, I've come to help you. I've come to help you adjust to your new life. But..."
Jerome no longer wears the ill-fitting wig, nor the clownish general's red coat and breeches, and he is no longer smiling. He wears a finely cut suit of the deepest purple and he looks us over with a benign, almost fatherly expression. He has a notebook under one arm.
"But I must tell you my name is not Jerome. It is Sin-Kay. Mister Sin-Kay to you. I am not Mr. Simon's slave; I am his business partner, and I am here to inspect my cargo. You will all line up here now." He opens his notebook and takes out a pencil.
The girls are shocked beyond words, but I'm not. "You're a goddamned dirty slaver!" I blurt out, unable to stop myself.
"Tsk, tsk. Such language from such a sweet little schoolgirl," he says, bringing his gaze upon me. "Damned by your god, maybe. Dirty, no. But a slaver? Yes, it is true that I am a slaver, and, I might add, a very valuable member of Mr. Simon's company, as well. You see, the white men do not go ashore in Africa, as they are afraid of diseases, like the malaria, the dengue fever, the sleeping sickness, and well they should be afraid, for they are susceptible while I am not. I go to the barracoons and gather the cargo while this ship lies safely offshore, and then I bring the cargo aboard in small boats and then we are off, for yet another profitable voyage." His eyes no longer roll about but have become hooded, secretive, sly.
"How could you sell your own people?" I ask with deep and evident disgust. I know I should hang back, be quiet, and watch, but I can't help it.
"My own people? My dear, I am not Bantu. I am not Mali. Nor am I Watusi." He lifts the pink palms of his hands upward as if asking for understanding. "Do I look Dahomey? Do I look—"
"You look like nothin' but a jumped-up nigra to me, for all your fine and fancy clothes!" snarls Clarissa. "And Ah won't have it, yuh heah? Now you get the hell out of heah! There are ladies present!"
It seems that Clarissa lapses back into a more countrified way of speaking when she gets angry or excited, just as I go back to my Cheapside way of talking sometimes in similar circumstances. It is also becoming plain to me that our Clarissa did not learn a large part of her vocabulary at the Lawson Peabody School for Young Girls, but rather in a barnyard.
Sin-Kay's eyes narrow to slits as he goes over to Clarissa, draws up to his full height so that he towers over her, and snarls back, "It will be a great pleasure seeing you up on the block, Miss Howe. A great pleasure."
Clarissa's face is white with fury. "Get away from me, nigra!"
Sin-Kay turns slowly from her and faces the rest of us. "I told you to line up! Do it!" Some of the girls on the Stage begin to form a line.
"Many are too seasick to stand," I say to him. "You can't..."
He turns on me. "You again. Let me tell you what I can do and what I can't. I can as easily sell you to a brothel as to a rich Arab, Missy, so you had best watch your mouth. The whorehouses pay well, too, and I know of several especially low and nasty ones. I may yet do
that with your scrawny self in particular, as the sultans prefer their harems stocked with items a bit more fleshy than you." He pauses to let that sink in and then continues, "What I can't do is put up with any more of this back talk. Dummy! Come here!"
There is a noise up the hatchway and someone, or some thing, lumbers down the stairs and lurches into the room. It is a huge man, hunched over, with great arms that swing by his side. He has a large scar that runs from his forehead and down one cheek, and he looks around at us, confused and fearful. He is obviously simple. The girls near him recoil in horror.
Sin-Kay smiles. "This is my Dummy. Aside from me, and sometimes the boy Nettles, he will be your sole contact with the outside world until we reach our destination." He notes with satisfaction that we are suitably impressed. "Dummy, go up on the shelf and bring down any girls up there."
The Dummy shuffles off to do it, saying, with a deep rumbling in his barrel chest, "Bring ... down ... girls."
"No, wait," I say. "No, we'll do it. Rose, Constance, help me."
Sin-Kay smiles and recalls his Dummy, who stands weaving behind his master.
We go up on the Balcony and rouse the others. Rebecca has to be carried down, she is so weak and sick. I pull Elspeth to her feet and she manages to make it down by herself. Constance and Rose get the rest down and we assemble everyone in some sort of line.
"Very well," says Sin-Kay, with satisfaction. "I will now call the roll. You will answer when your name is pronounced." He opens his book. "Rebecca Adams."
"She's here. At my feet. Too sick to stand," I say. "She's just a little girl."
"Well, she won't be one for very long," says Sin-Kay, and he writes something in his book.
You dirty bastard...
"Ruth Alden."
"H-here," stammers Ruth, a slight girl, in Clarissa's Division One. Sin-Kay looks her up and down and makes another note.
"Sally Anderson"