So, young feller, you want to hear some more? You too, lass?
Well, I won’t tell ye about learning the ropes from Smitty, ‘cause you know all about that; and you also know what can’t be told ‘cause it’s made of wind and water and being afraid and carrying on anyway, and laughing your fool head off afterwards with them who was there with you when bad things almost happened but didn’t. Smitty kept me from lots of ways I could’a come to grief at sea and ashore. Bailed me out of trouble with drink and what passes for the law in more than a couple of our ports of call, and thank you very much now, Smitty, ‘cause I didn’t say so back then.
I can tell you that the five years went by slow as the graveyard watch and fast as that first drink slides down when you’re in good company. In the beginning, it were endless, stretching out in front of me longer than a lifetime. And as it went on, what was behind me kind’a folded up on itself like the middle of a musical squeeze-box, and what was still up ahead was like the horizon on a clear day: bright and close and beckoning with the promise that there’ll soon be something interesting shoving its head up over that long line where the sky and sea meet and kiss.
Somewhere about year two or three, all of us knew that everything was getting different, and not in a good way. Storms in winter is one thing, but it don’t seem fair when you get them when old sailors is telling you there’ll be summer sailing. And everyone knows it ain’t going well at all at all when somehow, without a word said by anyone, you can see that the master’s worried.
When we made port to do the trading that’s the masters’ and owners’ reasons for building, crewing and working their ships, we’d hear ugly stories about a southern sickness moving north, and of crops failing and folk dying mysterious-like, and fights breaking out at the edges between town and country because money wouldn’t buy what little food there was, and those that had what was needful had figgered out that all the money they was being offered wasn’t something they could eat. It got so folks was taking without paying -- and taking lives, too. ‘Course, there was some what banded together, helping each other out, but that didn’t always work when there was others desperate enough to pillage, loot and kill. Lucky for us, we stayed abreast of most of the ugliness that we heard about more and more as time went on. Howsomever, I was young, and dying was something that happened to old people — older than what I was, anyway. I didn’t take death serious until the night I was standing watch with Smitty in a nasty bit of a blow. Stella was tearing along on the starboard tack under double-reefed main, bare pole on the mizzen and only the storm jib ahead of the foremast; punching our bowsprit into every second wave. Smitty and me was standing shin deep in water spilling down the length of the ship -- and we was amidships on the high side. He’d just told me to hang onto the safety lines if I had to cross the deck, like I wasn’t white-knuckling the rope as he spoke, when for some reason I never figgered out, he let go, and a wave took him. Just like that. One moment he was there, then there was a wave, and there he wasn’t. All the screaming and hollering and swearing I could do wouldn’t change nothing. No turning back in that weather, either. A piece torn right out of the ship, the crew -- and me.
I’d known folk what had died. Me Ma, before I could remember anything except a great big hole where she wasn’t. And Al, too, but when I lost him, I never saw it happen. Losing Smitty was different. I was older, see, and it happened sudden, while I was watching. Shook me up, I can tell you, cause Smitty had taught me so well I didn’t even know how much I’d been changed. From smooth-chinned, smart-arse wharf-rat to confident, shaving-daily, able seaman in only four going on five years.
But I was telling you about the way things were going overall — the march of history, as Al would say — and I got off course and into me own heavy weather.
Well, whatever was happening in that universal grand parade into the uncertain future, Nair, our master, had no problem with making smart deals with scared people, so we had full holds every leg of our way north, and a heavy strongbox in the stern cabin, too, I’ll wager. The master was canny, which is only a couple of points to loo’ard of greedy, but he took care of his ship, and us too, not that we were all that pleased when he anchored when he could have docked, and took only a couple of steady hands with him when he went ashore to bargain, buy and sell. We missed our shore leave, but we knew the ship came first. Nair sure did: he laid in spare spars, cordage, metalwork and the kind of provisions that last a lot longer than they’re what yer call appealing, much less tasty. And because he took us further and further north, he kitted us out with good gear that held most weather out; and though we grumbled, we took what we were given and used it well.
While we were getting used to visiting ports of call what were mostly smaller than the piss-pot town where I was born, I was beginning me fifth year aboard and wondering if I’d sign on again, ‘cause I could see the trading getting harder and the rumours uglier. Afloat were dangerous, no question about that, but though me shipmates bickered and skirmished around, in the end, we hung together for the sake of the ship. It ain’t that way ashore, where it’s every man for hisself. O’course, spite of me asking myself about what and how I’d choose, in the end there weren’t no choice at all.
Stella -- did I tell you the name of me ship? -- needed her bottom scraped and her rigging renewed and a couple of sprung yards replaced with those new spars we’d been collecting. So the master took us into a high-sided bay with a fair-sized river at its head. After we’d anchored in the stream for a day or so to wash some of the sea growth off the ship’s bottom, we dropped back to where the tide dried us out on a hard gravel bank. Then all hands and the cook worked for three hours at low water, and then lay around at anchor while the tide turned, and then did it all over again on the other side of the ship. Loads of soggy, wet, bottom-scraping fun, but good-tasting fresh water from the river and no watches to stand.
On day three of all this diverting entertainment, we was not alone. Two more ships joined us, one after the other, coming around the headland like great white swans furling their wings as they settle onto the water. Living aboard Stella when she was wearing the sails I helped set, I never saw her from a distance; so when the other ships hove into view, I was some impressed. One of the old hands told me that their proper names were Tidewalker and Silver Swan, but to us the hands, they were Wetfootand the Dirty Duck. Wetfoot was first alongside us, and a neat job she made of it, too. I’d not seen staysail rig before, and I marveled at how few men it took to handle her canvass. Then the Dirty Duckcame into view, with her crossed-yard topsail still set on her foremast to catch the evening wind what was bringing her between the headlands and into the bay. As she ghosted up, wind over tide and current, she, too came alongside us so neat you’d think we didn’t need the fenders we’d hung out against her arrival.
I was on the detail what was positioning a gangway between the ships when I looked up at the sailor doing the other half of the job aboard the Duck and saw a girl’s face looking at me. She wore faded-out brown breeks and shirt, the same what we all wore aboard Stella, but there was more inside her shirt than there was under mine, if you takes me meaning.
One of me mates had to give me a shove to get me back to working, ‘cause I was staring at her, flummoxed, with me gob half open, so’s I near to dropped me end. After I belayed the lines holding the gangway in place, I looked about and saw that most of the crew of the Dirty Duck was women, and that included the leading hands and officers. Soon as I got me head around that, I saw the kids. Now you got to understand that nobody takes women and children aboard — at least, that was all I knew till then. What really took me aback was that the littlies — the crawlers, the toddlers and the staggerers — was all on the quarterdeck between safety-nets, with two nursemaids in charge of keeping them out of mischief. As you well know, the quarterdeck is officer country, where the crew don’t go unless they have orders to be there, which was why I was gobsmacked to see the kiddies messed up underfoot of the master and the mates.
Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
While I was standing about, mouth open, taking all of this in, the Duck’s master crossed over the gangway I’d just finished putting in position. She was a woman, and a tall, black-haired, good looking one at that, and not that much older than me so’s I could appreciate her.
Right after that, I heard a couple old hands snorting with laughter at the way I was gawping. They’d known what was coming, of course, but would they tell me there was women aboard the ships they’d named? Not a chance. It was their idea of a joke on the young feller I was at the time, ‘cause I was so sure I knew it all after only four years at sea.
Nair greeted the other masters like they was family, which weren’t all that surprising considering that the three of them were tall, slim, black-haired, green-eyed over high cheek-bones, and very much in command of theirselves and their crews. A couple of words from any one of them, and things got done right quick and no mistake. Hard to say why. It were one of them things that just happens when a master is in command. You know it at once, just like it don’t take no time at all to know when it ain’t there, when the skipper is making do with bluster and shouting.
Anyhoo, they stood talking and eyeballing each other’s ships and each other like they was pleased with what they saw, and then all of them went down to the master’s cabin.
I got to talking with some of the old hands what had laughed at me, and they told me that the woman was Meissa, master of Silver Swan and daughter to Zubin the Grand Master. She, and our master Nair and the other master, Markab, was close like family. It was hard to tell how old they were, ‘cause everybody calls his master “the old man” even when it’s you what’s older, and because there’s something about giving orders that makes a man seem older -- and a woman too, I guess. Thinking about it now, I can tell you that they was all real young to be masters: but back then, I paid it no mind.
A bit later, the three crews was enjoying the pleasure of visiting aboard each other’s ships and messing together all at once on account of not having no sea duties -- except for the cooks and the unlucky sod standing anchor watch ‘cause he pulled the short straw. Some of our crew were paying a call on the other ships, and some of the other crews were visiting Stella. I was sitting between two of me mates, the ones who’d laughed at me earlier, so I began quizzing them. It had never occurred to me that Stella had sister-ships, so I needed educating, which they was happy to do, reminding me all the while that I was an ignorant young sprout what didn’t know nothing.
I found out there was twelve ships, led by Grand Master Zubin aboard the biggest of the schooners, Cygnus, what the hands called Chicken. Then they rhymed off the other ships’ names, both what was carved on the name-boards on their hulls and what the hands called them, along with the names of their masters. And that were a whole other story, because most of the masters had been given new names by Zubin -- like our master, who he re-named Nair when he gave him command of Stella.
When they got to talking about the masters, it got right some confusing. Sometimes they were using the masters’ shore-going names, then a moment later, the names they had from Zubin, and then the ships’ names, too -- like the master and the ship were one and the same. I lost interest about then, because over their shoulders I could see the girl whose deep brown eyes I’d looked into as we were fixing up the gangway, and she were looking at me, and after a bit, the two of us were eyeballing each other, just staring, and by then I weren’t hearing nothing.
All around the mess deck, the hands was drinking a second or a third pint, what was the tradition after scraping and painting, and I was getting to me feet and about to stroll, casual-like, over to where those eyes was beckoning me like two bright harbour lights on a dark night, when Master Nair’s steward taps me on the shoulder and tells me I’m wanted aft. First off, I thought he was joking, put up to it by me mates to stop me eyes and them brown eyes from getting any closer. Then he turns me around with his two hands in me hair, and gives me a little slap on the cheek, just a friendly pat, and mutters something about being sorry to take me away from me hopes and inclinations -- though he used some of them other words with which I won’t burden your tender shell-like ears, lass.
As we made our way astern, I started running through in me mind what I’d been up to in the past few days. I hadn’t hardly been in the stern cabin since signing on, more'n four years gone, ‘cause I’d been keeping me nose clean and me ears and eyes open. All the way down the stern companionway I couldn’t think of nothing that would bring down the skipper’s wrath on me head, but when you’re young, you can never be sure. I thought about how it must have been, back when old Habakkuk was saying “Woe unto ye sinners,” and wondered if I was about to get some woe meself.
After living in close quarters for’ard along with the rest of the crew, the first thing I thought when the door opened in front of me was how much room there was in the stern cabin, and all of it for only one man. You’d almost forget you was aboard till you saw the familiar curve of the ship’s side. Lots of light, too, pouring in from the big, glassed-in scuttles on the ship’s stern. Even with the three skippers sitting around a table, there was space all around them. You’d almost forget you was aboard ‘till you saw the familiar curve of the ship’s side. At first, I couldn’t see any of them clearly with the light behind them, but they could see me. I could feel it, too, like they was peeling back the skin on me head to find out what was inside.
“Able seaman Angel,” said Nair. “Tell us how you got your name.”
I don’t remember what I said, but I spoke the best way Al taught me, so it must have come out all right, ‘cause I could sort of see their faces soften a bit, like they were interested in me and me story, and maybe surprised I could talk without mumbling and grunting and cursing and the like. Anyway, when I was finished, Nair nodded.
He’s known as Able,” he said to his fellow skippers, “and it’s a name he’s earned. I don’t have to tell you that most nicknames aren’t nearly as complimentary.”
Embarrassing it was, but a whole lot better than being the object of what old Habakkuk would have called “the smiting.” I stood a bit easier, wondering what was coming next.
“Able, Master Markab has a need for a man who knows his way around your home port. We know it’s been more than four years since you were there, but your knowledge of the lay of the land is the best we’ve got. The plan is for Tidewalker to transport a couple dozen people to … to a place where they want to live. Unfortunately, it’s not just a simple matter of picking them up off the dock at high tide. In the time since you lived ashore, the people in just about all the ports we visit have become … ah … less friendly with strangers, particularly people from the south, like those that Wet … ah ... Tidewalker plans to take as passengers. The people in the ports and harbours trade with us because they need what we’ve got, but they have no time for people from up country, which is what they call farmers and the folk what live further ashore, and in particular, further south, where things are going to hell in a hand-basket. I can tell you that up country is in bad shape, Able. You may have heard of hunger, lawlessness and the like, and it’s all true and worse than you can imagine.”
I nodded. There was scuttlebutt talk that things ashore were going serious bad, but I hadn’t heard it like fact, ‘stead of a shipboard rumour, what I’d long since learned not to trust.
“Master Markab needs you to meet the … the passengers … and shepherd them to where they can be ferried to Tidewalker without their being seen and … apprehended.”
I didn’t much like the pause before the last long word, which I knew was one of those what important people like to use for times when you or me would use sharp, ugly little words — like “whacked,” for instance. Master Nair must have guessed what I was thinking, because he set the hook real quick.
“Get it right, Able, and you’ll be in line for advancement. Get it wrong, and you’ll share the fate of the … passengers … when the townies find out who they are … and where they’re from.”
Again, there was that very loud silence between some of the words what made me worry a bit, but not enough to stop the word “advancement” from making me dead keen. Meet some lubbers, form them up, lead them to the boats, get them aboard the ship — piece of cake, I thought. I’ll be a leading hand before me twenty-first birthday.
So I said, “At your command, Master.”
I must have looked some eager, because all three of them kind of settled back in their chairs, like the job was done.
“So then, get your kit aboard Tidewalker, and await further instructions from Master Markab.”
Off I went, wondering what I’d got meself into. By the time I had mustered me kit, the girl with the eyes had gone back aboard the Dirty Duck. I never got to tell her that I had been transferred to Wetfoot.