Deluded Your Sailors (16 page)

Mumbles of ‘No, sir,' ‘No, captain,' Coltman mumbling loudest of all. He spoke like an honest man. His little gift, that. He even feigned concern when looking me up and down, and then he gave me a nod and a wink as though trying to cheer me up.

Try to hold both these ideas in your head at once, for tis like balancing a scale without touching it. This man murdered, buggered and abducted all in the one evening, most likely planning a second casual and tidying-up murder, and yet he smiled so handsomely, shone with the angels' own innocence. Truth split for me there. I knew what he'd done, yet I also knew he'd done naught. I knew what pained me, and I also knew naught could possibly pain me.

So Atthey the sailmaker bound up my broken finger and got me some warm clothes. Right quick about it, too, big needle tearing through canvas and even a few scraps of wool. Needle and palm. First lesson for me: how to sew up canvas. Seeing that, Walters told Atthey he'd got his wish, got his sail-boy after all.

Except I didn't piss in the lee. Not about to piss in a scupper, either. Atthey noticed that right quick and gave me orders not to hide below each and every time nature tickled me. Then he stopped, and not because his speech got stogged. He guessed. Rattlebags figured it out next. I doubt Coltman ever did, doubt he cared: a hole is a hole. Rattlebags and Atthey, though, right exasperated with me, then pitying me. I caught Rattlebags asking Atthey ‘Well, Jesus, now what do we do?'

I cared naught for this debate. I needed to layer my heart with leather, the way Atthey leathered his palms to protect them from the driving needle. Besides, I ate three times a day on
Bon Wally
, and Rattlebags and Atthey slipped me biscuit to keep in my pockets. Slept warm, too, wooden box opened up and rigged like a hammock, little crib in the captain's cabin. He tucked blankets round me sometimes.

So I became Kit. The captain's kitten.

Eyes nearly gone, Captain Walters would lean on me, and I'd count out the paces of his own ship – eight, nine, turn left – me quite content to burrow into my new work. But that troublesome and loving old sailmaker would not lie down and be content. I expect Atthey hoped for a few more men to join him and Rattlebags, hoped for a true council of war. He tried his best.

I'd not long come off watch, being much used as a messenger and general scutboy – ever try to clean a slush lamp? Free a while, and beat out, I made my crib ready quietly so's not to wake the captain, who slept a lot but never very well. A heavy knock on the door made us both sigh, and in shuffled Atthey and Rattlebags, for once not studying the floor before looking full on the captain. Pale Rattlebags suddenly could not speak, and he widened his eyes at Atthey in dumbshow. Aye, make the man who stutters break the silence. Walters ordered them take their stares elsewhere, preferably overboard. That caused Rattlebags to clear this throat, but it was Atthey who spoke. As he formed his first word, carefully, he lifted his right foot and pointed his toes, like a drum-major on parade. Then he kedged his other foot into line with the first. Walters giggled at that. A dreadful noise. More and more he laughed like a youngster caught tormenting a cat. Then he leant on me, big hand right heavy.

Walters told them to speak freely, and Atthey drew a deep breath. And stuttered. Walters wondered out loud if Atthey might ever speak freely, and the sailmaker hissed at that. Rattlebags giggled then, just like Walters, and I hated him for it. Finally, Atthey stood as tall as he could at sea and eventually said ‘We be concerned about the kitten, sir.'

Captain Walters rolled his eyes, a jelly-sight. He said ‘As I've already promised ye both, we shall return this little Kit to the Bristol docks when we ourselves, ship and all, return to the Bristol docks.'

Atthey spat. ‘And when will that be?'

‘Plot our course,' said Captain Walters, all easy benevolence. ‘But oh, I forget you be no artist, Atthey, no literate navigator: Christopher Atthey, his mark. Mr Rattlebags can plot and navigate. He knows the course. Mr Rattlebags, tell Mr Atthey roughly when we expect to put in at Bristol.'

Rattlebags shifted his weight, a stupid and disastrous move that pitched him headlong for the captain's bolted-down desk. He broke his fall with his face, quite deliberately, I believe. When he landed at my feet, this great long splinter pierced his cheek, but his hands, curled up right close to his face – well, he had to protect his hands. We all waited calmly, knees and hips bending with the swell, while Rattlebags righted himself and worked the splinter out of his face. The canvas snapped in luff, and we rolled hard, causing Rattlebags to yell ‘Dowse, dowse, ye fools.' He tugged out that splinter, and I wonder now at the roughness of that deck. Did Walters allow no holystone? Rattlebags held the splinter against the dull window's scant light, studied the bits of his flesh stuck to it, and then flicked the thing away. ‘Bristol,' he said, ‘does be a way's off yet.'

Atthey said ‘Kitten'll be a rock round our necks in Bristol. By Jesus, Walters, I promise you that murdering pirates execute the man who steals a brat and hauls him to sea. Yet we stand here all an act.'

‘Hardly pirates,' said Captain Walters, ‘just men of business. Civilized men of business with cargo due. And what's there been of uncivilized behaviour here? In this room?'

Atthey flushed a dark red beneath old sunburns. ‘Not you, sir. But Kit, Kit, you see, tis no simple matter of – you know. You
know
.'

‘What I know, Atthey,' said Captain Walters, ‘is this: the kitten first appeared – as far as I'm concerned was birthed – some days ago. Should there be a man in Bristol who cares – rare man, rare man – that this dockside linkboy tripped aboard a departing merchantman – for all we know, ran loose off his proper master and stowed away – '

‘Forced on board,' Atthey snapped, quite fluent. ‘And we got to see Coltman answers for that.'

But Walters easily spoke over him. ‘For all we know, stowed away, then I shall buy the man who cares about Kit – or Coltman – a mug of strong ale and see he gets to toast his cloven hooves at the fireside, for, mark me, Atthey, no such man exists. And we still got cargo due.'

Atthey talked back to the captain like never before. ‘So keep watch and tend the rigging, for all be well?'

Before Walters could answer, I tugged straight the canvas jacket Atthey'd made for me and said ‘Be no matter I stay on board.'

Not one of them made me an answer.

I figured they'd not heard me, so I said it again. ‘Be no matter I stay on board, being already here and working hard as the rest of ye. I be alone, none left on land worrying. So tis no matter. Not even to you, Mr Atthey.'

The poor mender took a step back at that. At quite some risk, he'd gathered courage for both Rattlebags and himself to confront the captain, even though such deviance sank ships. I frightened Atthey, he told me later, not just with my plain words, but with my calm face and feverish eyes. My words and face said one thing, my posture and eyes another, and he could no more understand me than he could a man screaming into the wind.

Rattlebags shuffled toward the door, touching Atthey's arm to guide him away, but Atthey threw his final weapon.

‘Ask your kitten why he dunna piss in the lee!'

I stared down his hard betrayal, hating him.

Captain Walters gave this naked declaration a little thought, his voice quiet and soft when he finally spoke. ‘Boy, girl, devil or Christ-child, my answer remains. This be a merchantman, not a coach-and six. Resume your duties.'

Atthey tried so hard to answer that his face screwed up on one side, and he made noises like a trapped rat. Walters, pretending first to look at something important on his desk, peeked up at Rattlebags and grinned. ‘Listen to him. He'll be telling me how to sail me ship next. Ye pair of besotted fools, fretting over a docksider squeezed out some slut gone bald for the lues. Atthey, my man, do you live?'

‘I will, sir,' Atthey finally got out.

‘Will, what?'

‘Tell you how to sail your ship, sir. When necessary.'

Captain Walters' fist smashed Atthey's nose just as fast as Robbie Pike used to tap a skull. ‘You, Mr Atthey,' said Walters, ‘you with your pissburnt eyes and your crippled tongue, you will tell me how?' Walters struck Atthey at the base of his neck then, and the mender crumpled to his knees, blood leaking between the fingers of his cupped hands. ‘You, some holy fool of a sail-maker, can tell me naught, naught of any worth in this world, for the tale be only as strong as the teller.' Now Walters boxed his ears and kicked him. ‘Here, a black windrose for your ribs, and here be black pence for your eyes!' Out of breath, Walters quelled. Then he helped Atthey sit up so he'd not choke on his own blood. ‘Sway starboard,' he told Atthey, ‘easy, easy. English oak, you be. Take my word: when time and tide permit, all will be made right.'

I stayed behind Captain Walters that time, for he did not touch my shoulder and signal me to count the paces. No, I remained in that ugly place, trying to help Rattlebags get Atthey to his feet. Atthey shook us both off.

Game and prize revealed in my standing around, Coltman said naught of the new sail-boy, certainly said naught to me, just looked. Hard, smirking. So much can be forgiven an able seaman, and by God, Coltman could probably sail
Bon Wally
by himself. Even Atthey said I could learn much seamanship from Coltman, just not safely. Atthey warned of something else, too, the truth in that warning all tucked in and bigger than one little merchantman.

‘Now that you be numbered amongst us, Coltman will be more choosy, if not outright careful for once. Aye, we all know what he gets at with boys, just as we all know the colour of the hairs on one another's balls. Canna escape much at sea, little kitten. So look behind you. In any dark spot might hide one who'd do you harm. We got a few dark spots on board
Bon Wally
. But you need to watch on deck, too. Scattered man's got the fear ripped out of him, and he, your true enemy, will strike and wreck you in broad fucking daylight. Conny me, Kit? Understand? Daylight, hiding so close you might spit on him. He be the enemy of all of us on board, too, because the captain dunna see him. So he takes what pleases him, knowing the captain dunna see.'

The most of that made no sense to me at all, and I admitted so, but Atthey refused to explain any further. Quicker than squalls, he tied a bowline in a short length of gasket rope and waited for me to do the same. Bloody knots. Pilgrim can tie the most beautiful ones, all purpose and strength, but I need to think through the simple bowline. Atthey so patient with me: ‘Learn the bowline, and you'll need no other knot.' Took me weeks to learn to tie a bowline.

The same day Atthey warned me about dark spots and daylight, I asked for a knife.

He laughed. ‘So you might add murder to your sins?'

‘So I might be safe,' I said. Then I grabbed his words. ‘Safe from one who would strike me in daylight.'

‘Nicely looped. No.'

‘I'll be safer.'

‘You'll only feel safer.'

But the first time I tied the dog-fucking bowline proper, Mr Atthey have me a knife with a gorgeous black handle to it. He said it came from a far-off land. And then he and Rattlebags showed me how to use it, a little slashing dance. Oh, Coltman got nervous, seeing that. I slept better, knife beneath my head. On watch, I hung it down my shirt off a smart lanyard Atthey'd made for me.

The storm got us about two days outside Christiania. Coltman, God's born sailor, smelled the coming roughery before anyone else. I knew about bad weather – on land. Good as naked to the wind some nights, but at least the ground beneath me kept still. Usually cold on
Bon Wally
, but that night I got the proper bone-rotting chills while still abed. My feet were like numb stumps. Couldn't feel the deck beneath them as I counted the paces for Walters. Little pockets of air hit us, mad weather gods, some warm, some cool, and one, I swear, mad hot. All slapping rain and hard wind on deck. Captain Walters could not even hear me count. The men looked like walruses, all wrapped up, but they moved with the tidy speed of little hard bugs. Rattlebags screeched orders in the helmsman's ear, almost kissing him to do it. The wind tore it all up. Atthey, Coltman and two others had gotten aloft and furled canvas, but the canvas fought back. (When Con Pilgrim told me the story of Jacob wrestling with the angel, I saw angels made of sailcloth.) Meantime the jibsails and lines flapped and snapped, soaked, fit to flay the hide off a live bull. Then Coltman lost his grip. He'd got the other hand tight round a gasket, but that gasket did not fully bind the sail. It only wrapped round part way and ended loose. I thought that dog-fucker would fall and shatter, and his brains and guts would make the deck even more slippery. Ned Coltman, nuisance to the last. But Atthey caught him. Steadied him enough so he could fling his loose arm over the spar and haul himself back to the footlines.

But the jibsails. I'd been sent out the bowsprit on steady days, and I knew how to furl. I glanced behind me: Rattlebags shouted and Captain Walters paced about, grabbing hold of lines as if he could see them. Catching Atthey's eye, and Coltman's, I lurched and squat down, hands and feet suddenly on fire, the feeling back. I crept up to the bowsprit. Danger's bliss.

Of course I fell. Jesus, Lieutenant, did you not hear me say ‘storm'?

Atthey caught me, by the clothes and by the hair, his second rescue that night. He screamed right in my ear about being a stupid whelp, and what good was a knife when I threw myself at death? We both fell against the fiferail, me smacking my head off a belaying pin. The last of the daylight gave in. The rain changed to sleet then, and snow, even as it fell. Far colder than ice, those waves gashing the deck. Hills and mountains of salt water, plains and valleys. Rattlebags at the helm now, we yawed hard, starboard gunwales kissing the ravenous water. The boatswain tried to drag me to the charthouse, but we pitched again, and I slid away. Then Coltman took the helm, and Rattlebags, weeping and cursing, bawled at the captain, who screamed back, gesturing at the empty space near his right hand, the space where I should have been. Rattlebags sighted me then, crouched low, and dragged me to the charthouse.