At once from overhead a voice called, “Dogwatch to the deck! Mast on the windward!” He sang the last word, lengthening it long as all the other words he had said.
We girls shrank against a hogshead and a bale of something wrapped in rough cloth and tarred, as we were surrounded by sailors, all peering this way and that. Finally came the ship’s captain with his long glass. He climbed halfway up the mainmast to the wide step built there, and hanging by one arm looked through the glass all about the area. When he returned to the deck, he motioned to several of the crew.
I knew them by now. The captain’s name was John Hallcroft. The quartermaster was Percival Dinmitty, and the boatswain went by Aloysius though I never heard whether that was a given name or surname. They circled right next to where we knelt by the fire brazier. Patey, Cora, and I shrank down and did not move, trying to become but shadows upon the deck.
Captain Hallcroft said, “It’s a ship of the line. Looks French. We’ve no one left to man her even if we take her.”
“We’ll take ’er, Cap’m,” said Aloysius. “Our men are stouthearted to the last.”
I watched the captain as those bragging words made play upon his face. I could see that the man Aloysius had little thought other than fighting and plundering, while Captain Hallcroft held responsibilities in mind. Even a girl young as I knew that for this ship, just as the ships that came to Meager Bay, there was a master someplace back in England who’d paid for the rights to her cargo. It was a risk to what he now carried to take another ship without adequate defenders. I wondered, would the others take us instead? He pursed his lips and tapped the glass with the fingers of both hands as if he were playing it like a flute. “No. We’ll make way. Strike the sails and drop the small anchor.”
I was well away from the men who had argued over tossing me overboard on the Saracen ship; indeed, Hallcroft was not one of those. Hearing that, I believed I was fond of Hallcroft. Perhaps he had been one of many kind and gracious captains who discussed cargoes in my pa’s study. Then I remembered that I was the cargo, and I seethed with hate.
Dinmitty cleared his throat and spat on the deck, narrowly missing Cora’s skirt hem. “There’s no’ a drap o’ clear water left. Rations will go to half tomorrow. If we don’t move along smart, they’ll stay on half for four days, then a quarter.”
Hallcroft nodded. “As you say, then. We will make for land in a few days. For now have the men heave to.”
“And what, sir, if they don’t let us pass? Men on short rations—”
“Strike sails, Aloysius.”
Aloysius was disappointed, but kept his face pinned so that no one could have claimed he had disagreed with the captain. I caught it, though. How a stern visage could make even a dull person of good use. A great bustling ensued about us as everything aboard this ship, whose purpose in creation was meant for movement through water, was brought to halt. The stoppage was so abrupt that even the towed canoe, the shallop from which they had boarded the Castellón, bumped nose first into the aft hull. The Castellón languished far to the rear. It had been unable to keep time with the Falls Greenway and was not even a concern at the moment.
Night was falling and a French ship of the line was approaching. These were two facts on every tongue, and though they meant little to me, I feared they made all about us so wary that we keened our eyes toward the far horizon, trying to see what fate that could bring us. Perhaps, I thought, this meant a vessel large enough to take down these English rogues. We had gone from the hands of Saracens to these men, and rough though they might be, we were far better off. What would French sailors be like? And would they return us to Jamaica or take us to France? The English struck the colors and shrouded all the sails, sending men to man the guns but wait with the hatches shut.
“Strike that lamp!” someone called, and the single lantern on board was doused.
The Irish prisoner who had asked me for the salt water shoved us aside and poured my bucket of salt water on the brazier, sending a plume of smoke into our faces. Hallcroft himself shouted, “Damned fool! The smoke will be seen!”
“Aye, sir. I should have put a plank on it. My apologies!”
I watched him with open mouth. The man was lying! He had done it for a signal, I would swear on a Bible.
Dinmitty turned to another sailor and said, “Get the prisoners below and lock them up. Take that little one,” he said, pointing to me. “One sound from any one of them and cut out her heart and feed it to the sharks.”
“Aye, sir,” the sailor said. “Move!” he shouted in my ear.