She divided the crew into two camps: the ones who hassled her and the ones who didn’t. In the former camp were some of the men from that first day, the ones who harassed her as soon as she came on board—Jenks, John, Martin, and a hulking man the others called Mule, who did much of the heavy lifting. Some of the crew in the second camp ran interference for her: putting themselves between her and the others, butting in before teasing got serious with jokes and laughter of their own. Jill had started to trust some of them—Henry and Abe, and Bessie and Jane, two of the other women on board.
Shrouds were the lines that anchored the masts to the ship. Part of the constant sound of creaking and straining were the tall masts pulling and flexing against the lines. The masts were like the tall trees they’d been made from, always groaning and moving, however slightly, in the constant wind.
The ship had eight cannons on the main deck, locked down and silent for now. Slots in the side of the ship would open and the cannon would be shoved forward if the ship went into battle. Jill wasn’t sure she wanted to see a real battle—as opposed to the one-sided raid on the slave ship—but she was curious. She imagined seeing the whole rank of cannons firing would be exciting—as long as she was someplace far away, watching safely through a telescope.
“Have you been in many battles?” she asked Henry at supper, the usual stew of dried meat and potatoes, along with the usual serving of rum. She’d learned to drink it slowly, with plenty of water.
“Of course I have.”
“I mean real ones,” she said. “Not ones where you run up the black flag and scream and the other ship surrenders without firing a shot. I mean have you ever been shot at.”
“Oh, real battles,” he said, chuckling. “I suppose next you’ll be wanting us to fight with honor, all lined up like redcoats.”
“I just wondered what it was like,” she said.
“It’s a lot of fire and a lot of smoke. It’s nothing,” he said. His smile was bright as ever, but he looked away, hiding a troubled gaze.
They didn’t have any battles over the next few days, and they avoided any other encounters. Once or twice the crew on watch shouted out, identifying another ship within view. Usually the other ship was far distant, hard to see, little more than an incongruous shape against the waves. Captain Cooper or Abe would look through the spyglass and call out colors, the patterns of the flags—English or Dutch, sometimes Spanish or French. The captain would order them to sail on, turning to avoid the ship if need be. They sailed fast to their destination.
Jill learned to climb the tall mainmast, hauling herself up on the jungle of lines, and to keep a lookout, tying herself in so she wouldn’t fall, eyes squinting against the wind and sun, and to recognize the smudges on the horizon that meant land. They passed islands, small, uncharted, nameless. Captain Cooper seemed to know which ones they were without consulting any maps, which ones had food and water, which provided good harbor, and which were off-limits because other pirates—or worse, some nation’s navy—anchored there.
One day, catching sight of the rapier slung on Captain Cooper’s belt, Jill realized she hadn’t thought about that qualifying tournament, her last bout, and the lost half second in days. She was too busy working, and too tired at night to do anything but sleep in her swaying hammock. She had stopped planning, stopped worrying about what happened next.
It had been far too easy to fall into this life—she was becoming one of them. Someone looking at her from the outside wouldn’t be able to tell the difference.
She wondered when she’d finally wake up.
On her second watch, Jill spotted a shape far distant on the water. She thought her eyes were playing tricks, that the light on the water was making her see things. The object seemed to be moving along with the waves, flashing in the sun—light reflecting off sails?
She didn’t want to call a warning and be wrong about it—what sort of nickname would that earn her? They didn’t think much about learning curves around here; they expected her to just know things she couldn’t possibly know. But she watched that spot in the distance for five minutes, rested her eyes by looking around to the horizon and the open water surrounding them, and when she came back to it, the object was still there. It had to be a ship.
“Ahoy!” she called down, as those on watch had done when they saw something. Far below, the captain, Jenks, and others looked up at her—they probably didn’t think she knew what she was talking about. “Ship to larboard!” she called, and pointed.
Captain Cooper, identifiable by her coat and fall of auburn hair around her shoulders, went to the port side of the Diana and looked through her spyglass. Jill expected her to look a moment, then shout up the mast that she was crazy and seeing things. But Cooper kept staring through the glass.
She put it away with a sense of urgency.
“It’s Royal Navy,” Cooper said. “Let’s get out of their way before they can follow us.”
Jill was right, and felt oddly satisfied by it.
Cooper shouted commands for sails to be trimmed, and the ship turned and their speed increased. The movements were subtle. The ship Jill had been watching had come close enough that she could discern the wide hull, three masts, sails, and colored pennants flying from the top of one mast. It might have seen them and started to follow, but the Diana skipped away and sped out of view, and the other ship must have decided it was too much trouble to give chase.
When Jill’s shift at watch was over and she climbed down the mast, Captain Cooper was waiting for her on deck.
“Good eyes, Tadpole,” she said. “The navy patrols are common this close to Port Royal, and it’s best we stay out of their way.”
Jill didn’t want to feel pride, didn’t want to feel like she’d just won a touch against a difficult opponent. She wanted to be angry at Cooper for keeping secrets about the rapier shard—and for showing absolutely no interest in getting Jill home. She definitely didn’t want to get used to being here. But she did feel pride, and she was getting used to it.
The sun set on another day.
“We’ll careen her once we pull into the cove,” the captain announced the next morning. “It’ll take time to get everyone sorted, might as well take advantage.”
Land had come into view, a looming shape of island larger than many others they’d encountered, but not as large as Hispaniola or Cuba, which they’d slid past without approaching. This was Jamaica, their destination.
Jenks shouted orders, and the Diana changed direction, veering away before they’d drawn close enough to even make out trees and hills on the landmass.
“We want to stay out of the way,” Henry said, noting Jill’s confusion. “Port Royal’s south, and more trouble than we want just now.”
While they never left sight of the island, they didn’t draw any closer until late in the afternoon. They’d furled sails and tacked slowly into a western wind, making little progress. But Cooper stood on the foredeck, brass spyglass to her eye, searching for something. Once, she handed it to Abe, who called out and pointed.
Their port was deceptive. Jill would have sworn they sailed toward a solid piece of land, but as they drew closer, she saw that it was a separate island, long and thin, with beaches and palm trees, but no more than thirty feet wide. They rounded it, sailing into an inlet, calm and narrow, between the slender island and a corner of the Jamaican coast.
Jill’s heart sank. When they reached land, she’d assumed there’d be a town, some kind of civilization. Then she could escape—and do what? She still didn’t know. She’d still be stuck a long way from home.
“Where’s the port?” Jill said. She stood at the side with Henry to watch the ship’s approach to land.
The captain overheard. “And have us all caught and hanged? The big ships can’t get in here, and the spit of land’ll hide us. We can stay here long as we like.”
Jill said, “But I was hoping…I thought—”
“Thought what?” Cooper said.
?
??If we’re in a city, I’d have a better chance of finding my way home.”
“You signed articles, you’re crew now. This is your home.”
“But—”
“That’s enough of that.” Cooper walked off, and Jill had to leave the argument there.
The empty beach drew closer and closer, until a shudder passed through the hull, and the ship listed, then didn’t move at all. Jill grabbed a rope to keep from falling over. They’d run the Diana aground.
Then the work began. Dozens of sailors moved cannons on their wooden frames, securing them all to the port side of the ship, which, with all the weight on one side, began leaning sharply. Abe gathered the African passengers together and handed them ropes, gesturing them over the side. Emory, the doctor—surgeon, rather, though Jill hadn’t quite figured out the difference—was brought up on deck, squinting in the bright sun and beach, looking bedraggled in an untucked shirt, trousers, and scuffed shoes. One of the men tried to hand him a crate to carry to shore. Emory sneered and crossed his arms. After that, people ignored him. Even though he was a prisoner, no one bothered locking him up. But it wasn’t like he had anywhere to go. Just like Jill.
While she was watching, listening to the ominous creaks and groans the ship was making, Jenks came at her with a load of rope and pulleys. He was struggling to stay upright on the now steeply leaning deck—Jill herself didn’t dare let go of her handhold.
“You! Tadpole!”
Jill wished that name hadn’t stuck.
Jenks stumbled up beside her and leaned on the mast. “Take these to the beach.” He started transferring coils of ropes from his shoulder to hers; she scrambled to grab hold of them without letting them drop into a tangled mess. Square wooden pulleys, block and tackle, banged against her. The gear looked heavy when he’d been handling it. She thought she was going to fall over under the load.
“What’s happening?” she asked.
“Don’t you know anything?” He marched off, shaking his head.
They were wrecking the ship—but she had to trust the pirates wouldn’t do such a thing. No one else seemed to be panicking. And as usual, they were happy to give her jobs to do without explaining how to do them. She heaved her load more firmly onto her shoulder, looked around, and aimed for Abe, who had one foot propped on the side of the ship, keeping balance as he helped the last of the Africans off the ship.
Then she let go. Leaning back against the slope, she let gravity pull her along, half trotting toward the side. She concentrated on standing upright; she could see herself falling, pulleys knocking into her, rope tangling her up as she rolled along. Then the crew would come up with a better name than Tadpole for her.
Abe saw her and paused to cross his arms and grin as she slammed into the side.
“Where you going with all that?” he said.
“Jenks said take it to the beach.”
“Here.” He took hold of the coils and lifted them off her. Gratefully, she extricated her arms from the tangle.
With more strength and ability than she would have managed, he swung the gear, putting his whole body, broad shoulders and muscular arms, into the move, and threw them over. They fell on a clear spot on the beach.
“That makes it easier, yes?” Abe said, his smile teasing. “Go on, you’re next.”
Leave it to Jenks not to tell her the easy way to do a job.
Everyone was disembarking. Abe handed her a line—and she went for it. Holding on to the rope dangling from the mast, she jumped over the side and looked down to see frothing waves under her. She was smart enough not to slide—the rough rope would have taken off her skin—but instead lowered herself hand over hand. With a few feet left to go, she let go and dropped into the water, sending up a splash.
Above her, Abe cheered, “That’s it, Tadpole! Soon you’ll be a proper frog!”
She smiled back at him. After the hot days on the ship, the just-cool-enough water swirling around her legs felt wonderful. She stood there for a moment, enjoying it.
Then it was time to get back to work.
Most of the crew landed on the beach in the next half hour, with more armloads of ropes and pulleys, which began to come together in a mechanism. They rigged a pulley system between the ship and a couple of tall, strong palm trees on the beach. When that was in place, they used it to lower cannons off the ship. Jill watched in awe as part of the crew worked to lower six of the huge metal guns to the sand, and another part piled up mounds of sand to mount them on. The remaining two stayed on board as counterweights. They turned the beach into a miniature fort, with cannons resting on mounds of sand, facing outward, toward the water and any ships that might be foolish enough to approach. Jill helped dig when Henry handed her a shovel and pointed.
The Diana rested at a steep angle, her hull exposed, especially now that the tide was going out.
Henry seemed pleased at Jill’s awe at the whole process. He joined her while she stood on the beach, staring. “When the tide’s out, we’ll start cleaning,” he said.
“Cleaning?”
“Scrubbing the hull. Don’t worry, you’ll get to help—you should be good at scrubbing by now.”
He led her down the beach and a few steps into the water, until the sloping hull of the Diana came into view. The part that was always underwater was black, slick with slime, dripping with fronds of seaweed, and jagged with barnacles.
“We have to clean that?” she said, despairing. And she’d thought the deck was bad.
“Three times a year or the hull would rot through.”
So. They cleaned the hull.
A dozen of them, led by Abe, climbed back aboard the Diana. Literally, since it was now impossible to simply walk across the deck. They anchored themselves to the side with ropes and made their way down the sloping hull. A few went first with steel blades and rakes, scraping off barnacle shells, which cracked and oozed over the wood, dripping into the water below, turning the wooden surface into a slippery, gooey mess. A few of the others, Jill among them, followed with brushes and brooms. Scrubbing the deck had meant polishing something that was already mostly clean, removing a film of salt water and daily wear. This was completely different. A salty, rotting stench rose up from the slime that they scraped, shoved, and swept back into the sea. Some of the others tied scarves over their mouths; Bessie gave Jill a blue square of cloth so she could do the same. The scarf over her mouth made it hard to breathe; the air she took in was hot, stifling. It was a trade-off—which was worse, not being able to breathe well, or smelling the full force of the rot they peeled off sixty feet of hull? She kept the scarf on.
The water immediately around the ship turned cloudy, filled with debris. Small fish and crabs swam in, darting back and forth, nibbling on bits of barnacle and seaweed.
When she started, Jill was still sore and tired from days of scrubbing the deck. Then she stopped thinking about being tired at all as her movements became mechanical. This was only one side. They still had to roll the ship over and do the other side. She’d have to tell Tom and Mandy how much time pirates spent cleaning. They’d never believe it.
Assuming she ever saw them again and got to tell them anything. She never thought she’d miss them so much.
They didn’t finish that day. The sun set, the sky grew dark, and the hull still had to be examined and damages repaired. That couldn’t be done by the shadowy, flickering light from the fires and torches lit onshore.
The evening routine went on the same as it did on the ship, except dinner included fresh fruit—mangos, papayas, and others that Jill had never seen before, incredibly tart and juicy, so full of flavor they almost burned her tongue. She’d never tasted fruit like this, so fresh, eaten moments after being picked. It made her ration of rum and water taste smoother, brighter. So this was where rum punch came from.
The group of freed slaves stayed together at the edge of the camp, sharing a flask of water and eating food. They had started talking among themselves more, as if waking up,
coming out of a nightmare. They looked around with wondering gazes and seemed content to sit in the open air. Among the pirates, they only ever talked to Abe.
The doctor also sat alone, watching the proceedings, not showing any inclination to run away—because where would he go?
Captain Cooper set watches, guards to look for lights and listen for the sound of ships on the water, or anyone approaching from the interior of the island. Watches on land seemed more tense, more fraught than they did on the water. At sea, anything that approached was visible for miles; nothing could surprise them, and they could run in any direction. Here, they were stuck. There were far too many ways to approach them in secret, and not enough ways to flee. And Jill worried along with the rest of them, no matter how much she told herself she didn’t feel safe with the Diana’s crew, that she didn’t care. They weren’t her people, she didn’t belong here, she didn’t feel any loyalty to them. Let the Royal Navy catch them—even Henry—then she could run away. But that wouldn’t work, either, because Emory was right. As far as everyone was concerned, she was one of them. And she didn’t want to get arrested, captured, hanged, or any of the other possible nightmares. So she worried.