A man holding a curved blade longer than his own arm shouted something at me. I shrank away from his cutlass and deeper into the muck, and wept. My gown had been blue. It would never be blue again. It had a nice silken flounce with a wee farthingale made just for me. My slippers were almost gone, wet through, and my stockings had fallen down. I wondered if Ma would be upset. Surely she would not find me at fault for the ruination of this gown. Surely she would come soon.
When we reached the side of the galleon my mouth opened. I had never been so close to a ship this size. She looked to be a thousand tons. Maybe more. Rows of openings marked decks loaded with cannon. From far overhead, rope nets slid down her sides, looking for all the world like a gigantic version of Ma’s plaited silk hair coif.
They untied our bindings and held us at knifepoint. As if we were rats in a harbor, all the maids in my boat climbed the rigging laid on the sides. I could have gone faster, but a woman above me could barely get up and she seemed not to have balance for the swaying of it. Her bare feet were callused, but they were not used to climbing. I felt the little casket banging against my legs and for a moment entertained the thought that a four-shilling piece in the hands of one of these pox-eaten devils might be all that it took to get us back on land. Of course, I did not have enough shillings for every man, so I kept climbing. On reaching the deck I chided myself for my haste. I have always felt a hurry to get things done. If I must take a medicine, I would gulp it, rather than sip it and prolong the misery. If I must climb a rope scaffold, I would as soon get it climbed.
We had scaled the ship all that way to be led across the deck and down three sets of stairs into the pitch and dark of a hold where they herded us into compartments made of iron. One by one the doors clanged shut. The air smelled of sewage and cattle and rot. The gloom felt so cloying that the dim light of our jailer’s lantern did little to break it, and the thought that it shone full morning outside made it seem all the more mysterious.
Patey stood beside me, as we could not have sat without stacking ourselves like so many chairs. When the last iron had been shut and locked, the men filed up the stairs and dropped the hatch over our heads. At that sound many of the women and girls around me began to cry; first whimpering, it turned to angry wailing. Patience joined them, crying aloud, holding my shoulders. “Patience,” I whispered, “do not cry. Call Ma. She’s full well got to be in one of the other cells.”
I felt Patey’s hands cross my face, fumbling, feeling, as if she had become blind and was using her fingertips to see me. She slapped my cheek soundly and said, “It’s only by grace that we are not all dead. Do not be daft, Ressie.” She hugged me to her bosom and I clutched at her. I began to cry, my heart joining the bedlam about us. How long we huddled together and moaned, I could not say. Our cries began to wane when a great banging and shouting came from overhead followed by scuffling, then men’s screams.
I heard the distant clanging of iron bars. Over our cries, over our heads, many men, maybe Pa and August, maybe even Rafe, were put into cells gated with iron. A man grunted, loud and hard, and others cried out. I heard swords clanging and more grunts followed by groaning. A woman on our deck screamed and cried out, “It’s blood! I be covered in blood from above. The devil Saracens are killing ’em all!”
A wail rose from our deck like a great wave. “Saracens—!” The word sprang from all around, followed by curses and prayers. There was no one my pa feared more than Saracen pirates. Were we now in the hands of minions of Satan, our fates were sure to be monstrous. I cried out in earnest, calling for Ma, reaching for Patey but not sure I had her; I slipped from one form to the next until the voice in front of me confirmed her presence.
“Pa!” I screamed with all my strength. All the girls and women on this deck began to call for their men and boys above. The noise grew to deafening. Out of the shouts came a steady banging, a drumming that vibrated through the ribs of the ship.
I heard Lucy’s voice! She called from a far corner, “Don’ you be calling all at a time. Everyone, you be still, now. You be calling out de names one after de other. Starts here. Call out de name if you mens be up above.” I felt the ship begin to move, as one by one, some meekly, some heartily, women’s voices called names of men and boys. Others repeated the names up and down the length of the deck, so the pattern of it became a ribbon of hope strung from one cell to the next. After a while, the men above began to hear us and rapped on the floor in answer. I wondered how were we to know that a knock meant the man was dead or alive, but I heard a woman call “Bertram? Bertram Willow?” Silence followed. She cried out his name again, and “Bertram Willow” echoed from cell to cell but when no knock answered her, she wept softly.