We are joined by Rose, the farm girl, and by Katy, who crouches down on her haunches in the circle, while the rest of us sit cross-legged. I open the package and the two roasted millers lie glistening and brown in the dim light. There is a crowd of girls standing about us, looking down, fascinated.
"My shiv, please, for a moment." And my knife is passed over from the work site. I take it and cut each miller into six pieces—the two large rear legs, the smaller front ones, the back, and the chest.
Lissette has brought one of her cloth strips with her as a napkin, and this she spreads over her knees. Class always tells, don't it?
I hand a hind leg to Katy and say, "For the Huntress, herself, the first taste"
She takes a bite. "Mmmm," she says. "Yep, a lot like squirrel." Then she polishes off the rest of the leg and tosses the bones down on the parchment.
I give a leg each to Rose and Lissette. I take one of the small legs for myself and waste no time in getting one into my mouth.
"Mmmmmmm...," I moan. I strip the meat off with my teeth, chew slowly so as to savor it, and then swallow. I crunch the end of the bone where it is soft and suck on it. It is wondrous good. I can tell that Cookie had soaked the millers in vinegar overnight to take out the gamey wild taste, and he even put some salt and pepper on them. Good for you, Cookie. I don't forget kindnesses, no matter how small they are or who they come from.
"Like groundhog, too," says Rose, running her tongue over her now-greasy lips.
"Nobody else?" I ask of the crowd. No one says anything. "Very well, maybe next time"
There is a thump of knees and Clarissa is there next to me. She cuts a sharp look at Lissette, I guess for consorting with the likes of me. Lissette doesn't seem to notice. "All right, give me a piece," Clarissa orders. Count on her not to be left out of anything, no matter what. I give her the remaining back leg and she sniffs it, then puts it in her mouth. I watch her eyes and they almost cross in ecstasy.
I take up the knife again and cut the chest and back pieces into four small parts each, so we can better divide the remainder among us.
"Here, Lissette, try the ribs—ain't much meat but they crunch up real good."
"Ummm," she says in appreciation. In the near silence, we can hear her fine, wellborn teeth crushing the ribs.
"I could see this in some nice gravy," says Katy, chewing on her own bones.
"Some gravy yes, Kay-tee, but maybe also a fine Bordeaux, non?" says the French aristocrat to the raw frontier girl crouched next to her. I doubt Katy has ever tasted a fine wine like that, or any wine at all, for that matter, but she nods in reply. I think also that Lissette de Lise has never before eaten a rat, but, hey, I have tasted fine wines, as well as rats, and I, too, nod in agreement.
"We could call it raton au vin, eh, Lissette?" I say, and she laughs, then notices Rebecca crawling into the circle on hands and knees, looking at the remaining pieces. "Here, ma petite, try this," says Lissette, picking up a chunk of back and holding it under the girl's nose. Rebecca inhales deeply and then opens her mouth.
Well, that's six of us, at least, to divide up the three millers coming tomorrow.
Conversation ends and there is heard only the crunching of bones and smacking of lips and grunts of pleasure. Were it not for the fact that we do not growl and snap, we are like any pack of wild wolves around a kill.
***
Late that night, long after Storytime—wherein I told them some more about my wild roving in the Emerald, which got me some hurrahs from my more adventurous sisters and a muttered "Not only a tramp but a thief, as well," from Constance Howell's direction—yes, late that night I found myself back in the storeroom for the sole purpose of trying that damned latch again. I had left word to be awakened at one thirty in the morning, figuring all sailors not on watch would be dead asleep by then. I felt my way down to the Rat Hole and found Hyacinth and Frances carving away. We lit the candle and in I went, my shiv in my hand. I stood and put the candle on the workbench and shielded the flame with a box between it and the door. Wouldn't want someone outside the door seeing a glow of candlelight around the edges.
I slid the knife through the door crack, next to the latch, and lifted up, hoping that maybe it was a simple up-and-down thing, but no ... nothing. I pulled the door inward, and no, nothing. Damn!... All right, calm down, you ... I next put the point of the knife on what I thought might be the metal slug of a cross-latch and tried to pull it sideways, bit by bit. Still nothing. Damn!
What I wouldn't give for a look on the other side!
I give up for now and go back through the Rat Hole. Tomorrow is another day, and I must content myself with that.
I crawl out of the Pit and climb back up into my kip, where I snug up next to Annie and Sylvie and Rebecca and so settle myself to bed.
Good night, Jaimy, I pray that you are well...
Chapter 34
Word of our progress has cheered the girls mightily and it is an eager bunch that gathers for breakfast after we stand down from Sin-Kay's inspection line, but my failure to loosen the latch last night does not cheer me. Ah, well ... begone, dull care, I'll try again tonight. I go up and take my bowl of burgoo from Hughie.
"That's a real good story you're tellin', Mary," says Hughie. "I like it a lot."
"Thanks, Hughie," I say, reaching through and ruffling his hair.
"I think it's stupid," sneers Nettles. "Story about some stupid girlie jumpin' around with a pig sticker, thinkin' she's somethin' hot. But she ain't 'cause she's just a stupid girl and girls ain't good for nothing but one thing, and you know what that thing is, don't you, girly?"
"Sod off, Sammy, you stinking little snot-bag," I snarl back at him. I hand off my bowl to Rebecca and thrust my cup through the bars. "Shut up and give me my water."
"Tell me what that thing is, then I'll give you your water, Smart-mouth." He giggles and does not give me the water.
"Give me the water or I'll yell for Sin-Kay."
"All right, here's your water," he says, smiling at me. He dips my cup and hands it to me. "But now I'll tell you what girls are good for..."
And he proceeds to mouth a string of obscene fantasies starring him and me.
"...and then, after you do that for a while, I'm gonna—"
"You need your mouth washed out, boy!" I shout and dash my cup of water into his face. He rears back shocked, the water dripping down his face and onto his shirt. Then he lunges at the bars, his arms reaching through to grab at me.
"I'll get you, you little bitch!"
I dance just outside his reach. "No, you ain't, Sammy! You ain't gonna get me or anyone like me, ever! You know why? It's 'cause you're a disgustin' little slug what even your mother couldn't love! When did she throw you out? As soon as she saw your ugly face, I bet! And I bet she washed her hands three times when she saw the back of you for good!"
His face is against the bars, twisted with rage, and his fingers strain to get me, but they can't and he knows it. Finally he pulls back his arms and wipes off his face. When he removes his hands, the rage in his face has been replaced with one of low animal cunning.
"Hey, Smart-mouth, you like this here Dummy?" he asks, punching Hughie in the shoulder. He saw me give Hughie that pet before. I shouldn't have done that in his sight, I shouldn't have done it, I realize now with growing dread.
"He's a good boy. Leave him alone," I say, knowin' it ain't gonna do no good. He punches Hughie's shoulder again, hard.
"How do you like it when I hit your Dummy?" This time he balls up his fist and bashes Hughie full in the face. Hughie cries out, and Nettles hits him again. And again.
I rush up to the bars. "Hit him back, Hughie, hit him!" I cry, furious with Nettles and with myself.
But Hughie does nothing; he just rocks back and forth, saying, "Can't. Mister said can't. Can't." And then he starts crying. He doesn't even hold up his hands to protect his face. Blood begins pouring from his nose.
Nettles keeps hitting him and looking over
to watch my anguished, helpless reaction. I know what I have to do.
I turn away and say, "Wilhelmina." I catch her eye and look to the door. She nods and soon all Nettles can see is a wall of girls' backs as they eat their burgoo.
Having no audience, he soon tires of his sport, and with a final taunt of "How's that, Smart-mouth?" he leaves.
I weave my way through the wall of girls to the gateway and reach through and pull Hughie's weeping, bloody head to my chest, as close as I can, what with the bars between us.
"Don't you worry, Hughie. He's gonna get his," I say, and pet his curly hair. "He's really gonna get his, and it's gonna be soon, I promise you that."
Other girls join me in laying on hands and murmuring soothing sounds, and his crying slowly ebbs, then stops.
Later, when Hughie's all calmed down and is, in fact, asleep, I go down to check on the work at the Rat Hole.
All about me, in that space below the Stage, are hanging not only the petticoat strips from before, but now full petticoats and drawers because of the laundry soap I found in the storeroom. I push my way through them, and though dry, mostly, they are stiff as boards from the salt water in which they were washed. Well, better clean than soft, is the general feeling.
"How's it going?" I whisper when I reach the work site.
"Real good," says Annie, handing the shiv to Rose for her turn. "I'm sure everyone could fit through now, and we're squaring it off so it won't be noticeable from either side when we get the boards up."
"Ummm," I say, inspecting the job. "Right, the boards. I can't wait to get them up. We could be discovered so easily. The first blow, we do it"
I stand back up. Katy's over setting up the extra bows. There are girls about her, rounding off arrows with the file, then lashing down arrowheads and feathers. Good.
"Hooks down!" comes the call from above, and I roll out from under the Stage and into the Pit. The hooks come snaking down. I nod to Clarissa and to Rebecca, and they nod back. They are ready. Rebecca comes down with me to the tubs.
"'Ello, Mick and Keefe!" I crow. "'Ow good to see your 'andsome, smiling faces!" We fasten the hooks.
"Never mind that," says Mick, "just get on wit' it."
"Now, now Mickey, it never does no good to rush a girl. You should know that, bein' a well-traveled man o' the world and all. First, the tubs, then the Main Event."
By way of answer, the tubs are jerked out of sight and return streaming with salt water, and clean. Good boys.
I undo the drawstring of my drawers and give them a bit of this ... and maybe a little bit of that ... I like to think that I'm being artistic-like about this whole thing, swirling about and all, and in a kind of dance—I sure would like to have some musical accompaniment, though, as that would really help the act out a lot. Maybe an oud and a bouzouki or two, and a djembe drum, like that time in Morocco when I ... well, never mind. When I'm done and I pull up my drawers and pull down my camisole, I feel that I've given them their money's worth. I have always tried to do that when I am in performance.
That's usually the end of it, but today it ain't. As I'm buttoning up, I follow the gazes of the two men above me and see that they fall on none other than Clarissa Worthington Howe, who has chosen this moment to be sitting on the stairs leading from the Stage down into the Pit, washing her feet and lower legs. She does it very slowly and very carefully. When she gets to washing her upper calves, she rolls her drawers up over her knees ... well up over her knees.
"Coo, look at that," breathes Mick.
"Eh, Jacky," says Keefe, "y'think that blondie there would ever do what you do?"
I look over as if surprised to see Clarissa doing her act on the Stage stairs. The act we had, in fact, rehearsed.
"Wot? Wot's the matter with me bum, then, that you want to look at others? I thought mine was lookin' 'specially pert and sassy today."
"Aye, it's looking right fine, it is. But ... that blondie. Y'think she'd do it?"
"Ah, nay, Mick, she's much too pure and beautiful. If you were to see her bare arse, yer eyes would start out of yer head, and you'd be blind forever by the creamy goodness of it all, you would, and ye'd never be able to speak again. You'll have to make do wi' me scrawny butt," I say, my hands still on my waistband. And then I say, in a musing sort of way, "But y'know, Mick, she has lately been talking about takin' a bath, she has—half out of her mind with it, she is. Y'see, back at her castle—she is a princess, you know—she took a bath every day, twice a day in summer, and once a week in milk, and doing without here on the ship is about to drive her balmy, it is ... So stick around, lads, she might give you a show yet."
Clarissa, pretending not to hear all this, gets up, stretches, and languidly goes up the stairs to the Stage, slowly rotating her hips.
"Ooooh, my...," says Mick and Keefe in wonder.
"Nay, nay, put it out of your heads, lads. Stick with a nice, easy lady like me," says I, looking for an opening.
It comes.
"Yer a loony, you are. Talking like that and showing yer-self to us that way. You ain't no lady at all. Yer a loony," says Mick, disappointed now that Clarissa has taken her exit.
"Oi'm a loony? Here's a tub hauler what's a dead man callin' me a loony," I say, crossing my arms on my chest, apparently miffed by this exchange.
"What do y'mean by that?"
"I don't mind you seein' me bum. And me legs and all the rest. After all, you're dead men and dead men don't tell tales, so me rep-u-ta-tion will be spotless."
"And what do you mean by that?"
"Mick, Mick, Mick," I say, sadly shaking my head. "You poor, dumb bloke, you."
I pause, as if genuinely sorry over his impending fate, and then I press on.
"Y'know, Mick, I'm a Cockney, too, and I've always found that us Cheapside types was, by and large, pretty crafty and cunnin'-like. But you, Mick, you're bein' real dumb, you are. Do you really think you're going to be allowed to go back to America where you might snitch on Colonel Bart Simon about the kidnapping of thirty or so girls from the finest families in the United States? You see this little girl here?" Rebecca is by my side and has a big-eyed woebegone look on her face and her hands are raised as if in prayerful supplication. "She's Rebecca Adams, President Adams's granddaughter, for Chris'sake. Pres-i-dent, like, of the U-ni-ted States. Oh, you might have promised not to tell, all solemnlike, but Simon can't trust you not to get drunk sometime and spill the beans and put his neck in a noose, can he now? Nay, after we're all sold and settled and the Captain's got the money, you'll get your pay, you will, and it will be either a bullet in your head or a sword in your belly. And over the side you'll go. Think about what 'appened to Dobbs, now, hey? Aye, the Captain, Mate, Sin-Kay, and Chubbuck will be the only ones livin' through this voyage, that's for sure. And us girls in our harems, of course, eatin' grapes and pomegranates and sweetmeats, and lyin' about in hot, steamin' baths and havin' eunuchs towel us off after our swims."
"That's a load o' malarky," says Mick, sounding a bit worried, nonetheless.
"Malarky? How 'bout this for malarky? You'll notice that only them four coves I just mentioned got weapons? Swords and pistols and such? What've you got? Your little riggin' knives? Ha! It's pathetic, it is. You'll be gathered together and killed like sheep, count on it."
"Huh?"
"And think on this, Mick. The Captain's nasty little fancy boy Sammy'll still be mincin' about up here, whilst poor ol' Mick will be lying dead down below with the crabs snippin' off his willie. Keefe, too." "Snippin' off me wot?"
"Yer willie. You know what I'm talking about ... yer privates, like."
"I told you not to talk to them bitches!" roars Bo'sun Chubbuck, coming up from behind and giving Mick one behind the ear with his club and then delivering another blow to Keefe. There are howls of pain and the hatch comes slamming shut.
Gotta pay for your pleasures, mates. And I know you'll be thinkin of what I said.
Back under the Stage, I meet with Dolley and Clarissa to plo
t and plan. We all fear discovery now that we've come this far, and we cannot wait to get the cover boards cut and in place. At the same time we do the boards, we'll make a hidey-hole out of the niche where my seabag is stowed, so we'll be able to hide the bows and arrows there, too. We'd be in deep trouble if Sin-Kay or the Captain ever decided to do a real thorough inspection. I guess that sometimes it's best to be thought of as just a bunch of helpless, unresourceful girls.
Right now we've got enough laundry hanging down here to keep anybody who glances under the Stage from seeing anything, but if he looked real close...
"Bag down," comes the call from above. Hooray! Let's eat!
This time we have two more girls join us in the feast. After we're done and are licking fingers, Katy picks up her bow and goes hunting again. This time she has several girls with her, with bows of their own.
A while later, we have gathered six more millers, with hopes for more.
This evening, after a rousing "Laudate Dominum," I resume my story. I'm getting near the end. I'm at the part where Jaimy and I almost come together as man and wife, there on the Wolverine after my capture. Without benefit of clergy, like. I know what's coming, but I tell it, anyway.
"I reached out an arm and pulled in Lieutenant James Emerson Fletcher by his collar and closed the door and threw the latch. Jaimy looked at me and I threw my arms around him and we both fell toward the bed and then we were in it and then..."
And then, sure enough, Constance Howell's enraged voice comes at me.
"She's going to do it again! No, no, no! I will not have it, and I will not have one such as her as the leader!"
I sigh and say, "I'm not the leader, Connie, you know that. There are three of us. I'm—"