"Because I am going to give myself to you, Robin Raeburne, for we both know what is going to happen when I leave here. And because I want the loss of my maidenhood to be, well ... a good and loving thing and not a thing of tears and shame. I want it to be with someone for whom I have great admiration and affection. I want it to be with you." And if I am got with child this day, I will be able to tell myself that it is your child, Robin, and then I will be able to love it.
I unbutton my jacket and take it off. I pull off my shirt and I drop my trousers and then pull down the drawers and step out of them and stand nak*d on the deck. I hold my hands out to my sides with my palms up and I say, "But only if it pleases you."
He is speechless, amazed.
"So hold me and kiss me again and then undress yourself, if it please you, Robin, and then I will lie with you and we will be as one."
We come together again and I can feel his heart pounding against my own racing heart. When we part, our breathing has greatly quickened. I turn from his embrace and put my knee on my bed and then lie down upon it. "Be gentle with me, Robin. Treat me like a lady," I say, as I reach up for him.
He rips off his jacket and fumbles with the lacings of his shirt and...
...and then there is a furious pounding on the door.
"Lieutenant Faber! The Captain wants you in his cabin right now!" I recognize the voice as belonging to Private Rodgers, one of the ship's two Marines.
"But I am not expected till the Evening Watch," I say, getting up on one elbow. Robin looks stricken to the core.
"The Captain says right now, Miss, please! It will go hard for me if you don't hurry!"
"Very well" I sigh. "I'll be right out."
I rise from the bed and put my hands on Robin's sagging shoulders. "I'm sorry, Robin, I really am," I whisper so the Marine outside can't hear. "Kiss me one more time and then I must dress and go."
"No," he says, standing, his eyes feverish. "No. Come, Jacky, and we will rush outside right now and throw ourselves over the side and sink down and die in each other's arms!"
I kiss him on the lips and then put one on his forehead and smile my bravest smile and say, "Nay, Robin, I know myself and I know I am not a 'Death Before Dishonor' type. I have seen Death too many times up close to surrender myself willingly to his embrace. I do have great affection for you and I will not sacrifice you on the altar of my maidenhead. I will survive this."
With that, I get dressed and, leaving Robin despairing and miserable behind me, I go out to meet my fate.
On our way aft to the Captain's cabin, me between the two Marines, I notice no one is on watch. It's just the helmsman at his wheel, steering the course. It's a calm night, with scarcely a breeze and just a little roll to the ship, so I guess the Captain felt the helmsman could handle things by himself. This leaves him to the business at hand, that business being me.
Halfway there, one of the Marines reaches around me and takes my knife from my side. "Sorry, Miss. Orders."
I enter the cabin.
Captain Scroggs is seated at his table with a bottle and two glasses in front of him. It is plain he has already been into the bottle as his face is even more puffed and florid than it was before. His steward is putting plates of food on the table in front of him.
The Captain swats him away, catching him across the face with the back of his hand. "There's man's work to be done here, pansy. Get out." The poor man seems to be used to such treatment. He bows and leaves.
That shows me what I can expect here, too.
"Come in, girl," he says, "and sit down." I am not even to have the honor of my rank, it seems. Just girl, I think sadly. After all is said and done, just girl, and nothing more.
"You there!" he says to the Marine guards who were about to take up their stations next to his door. "Go away!" The Marines look at me with sympathy in their eyes, but they go away. The Captain closes the door himself and turns back to me.
"Sit down, I said," says the Captain. I pull out a chair, the farthest one from where he is sitting, and sit down. The Captain does not have his jacket on and his shirt is not laced up and it shows the grizzled hair thick on his chest. I look away from him so as not to be sick. I see that the windows are open. People will be listening.
"Sir, I really don't ...," I say in a small voice.
"Here. Have a drink." He grabs the bottle and pours a brown liquid into a glass and hands it to me.
"I don't drink spirits, Sir. I took a vow."
"A vow?" He laughs. "What nonsense. Do what I tell you and have a drink. That is the finest of whisky." There is menace in his voice.
I lift the glass to my lips and pretend to drink, and then set it back down again. My hand trembles and he notices.
"Have another drink. It will calm you. You may take off your jacket."
"That's all right, Sir, I am quite comfortable..."
"Take off your jacket!" he orders, and puts out his hand and undoes my top button.
I put my fingers to my jacket, undo the rest of the buttons, and I take it off. Then I start crying. I did not think this would happen. I had thought that I would be strong, that I would be able to take my mind away from what is going to happen to my body, but I can't. I can't. It shoulda been Jaimy, it coulda been Randall, it mighta been Robin, but no, it's gonna be this. I look into his face with its tic-torn mouth and wandering eye and I turn from him in revulsion.
"Please, Captain, send me away maiden as I came!" I wail, tears gushing from my eyes. "The very angels in Heaven would sing your praises!"
He puts his hand on my knee and I clap my legs together. He leers into my face. "Tears, is it now? That's fine. And maiden, too? Though I doubt it, I like it that way. I..."
What ... What's that?
There is a rumbling noise overhead.
He looks up at the sound. We both realize what it is: It is a cannonball placed on the Captain's roof, right behind the quarterdeck, and left there to roll around with the motion of the ship. It is another of the traditional signs of impending mutiny.
Thanks, Mates, but I don't think it's gonna do any good.
The sound stops and the Captain frowns, but then turns his attention back to me. He kneels next to me and picks up the glass of whisky and puts it to my lips himself. "I told you to have a drink, girl. Open your mouth."
With that he forces the glass between my teeth and pours it back. The spirits hit me in the back of my mouth and I choke and gag and it spews out over my chin and down my shirtfront. He looks at the whisky staining my shirt and says, "You want it rougher, then?" and he reaches over with both hands and rips my shirt open to the waist. I cry out and try to cover myself and...
... and it's another cannonball, rolling overhead.
"Damn them!" roars the Captain, getting to his feet and charging out the door. "Who did that?" I hear him demanding of the helmsman.
"I couldn't see, Sir," says the helmsman, "as I've got to keep my eyes on the course, Sir!" Through my terror, I recognize the helmsman's voice. It is Jared. He must have relieved the other man at the helm after I was taken in the cabin. You saw, Jared. You did.
"Blast you! Keep your eye out then, or you'll pay for it with your back!"
"Aye, Sir!"
The Captain plunges back into the cabin, where I am now on my knees, prayin', with my hands up, palm to palm, in front of my ruined shirt, my eyes cast up to Heaven and sendin' out gallons of tears. He glares at me, his chest heaving, his face even redder than it was before.
"What?" he snarls. "Praying for your deliverance? It'll do you no good. Get in that bed."
"No, Sir, I ain't praying for myself 'cause I know I'm a good girl who never harmed anyone who didn't have it comin' and always tried to do right in everything the best I could. No, Sir, I ain't prayin' for me 'cause I know I'm goin' to Heaven when I die. No, Sir, I'm praying for you and your immortal soul and asking God not to cast you down to the lowest pit of Hell for the ravishin' of poor me, like you know He's gonna do if you do it, even if I ask Him not to, Sir!"
He grabs my arm and pulls me to my feet. He puts his face in mine and I feel the rasp of his cheek. "Do you ever shut up? I don't care for any of that crap! Now get in that bed!" He flings me over onto the bed. "Get those clothes off!"
"Oh, please, God!" I cry, sittin' up and putting my face in my hands and bawlin' away, my chest buckin', snorts and gasps and...
There it is again. Two cannonballs this time, maybe three.
Again he charges out. "Helmsman! What did you see?"
"He scurried off 'fore I could see his face, Sir!" I hear Jared say.
"Marines!" the Captain bellows into the night. I hear the pounding of booted feet.
"Aye, Sir," says one of them, probably buttoning his coat.
"You will station yourselves on the fantail and club into insensibility anybody you find there rolling cannonballs! Do you understand?"
"Yes, Sir!" say the Marines as one. I hear them tread to their stations. Then I hear something else. I jump out of the bed and go to the door. It is the Hmmmmmmmmm sound coming from unseen men in the rigging. The Captain screams. "Mutinous dogs! I will see about you in the morning! Some shall swing! Count on it!"
He comes back in. Any trace of humanity is now gone from his face.
"I told you to undress yourself, girl. Do it now!" He pulls back his arm and backhands me across the face and I go down to the deck. I curl up in a ball, sobbing. I can taste the blood from a cut on the inside of my lip.
Again the cannonballs rumble across and...
... and then there is the sound of muffled shouts and a scuffle. Then the Marines appear at the open door.
"We've got 'im, Sir! It's that Midshipman Raeburne!"
Oh, Robin, no!
I look out and see poor Robin slumped between them. They are holding him up by his arms, but his head hangs down loosely from his shoulders.
"Have you killed him?" asks the Captain, lurching back to the hatchway.
"No, I don't think so, Sir. Just clubbed him up behind the head, Sir."
"Too bad. Well, throw him in the brig, then. We'll see how he likes the feel of hemp around his neck tomorrow."
Hmmmmmmmm ... The sound comes down from the rigging.
"That's right, you hounds! Hum, hum away! First he will swing, then half of you!" I can see him shaking his fist at the unseen sailors in the night. The sound dies out, and he lumbers back into the room. I get to my feet, my heart in my throat.
Maybe, if I can get him drunk and he sleeps long in the morning, the officers will be back and prevent him from harming Robin, maybe....
"Come, Sir, have a drink with me," I say, and get up and go to the table. I try to smile. With shaking hand I pick up the bottle and pour a large portion into his glass. "Here, Sir! Let us be friends! Let us be merry!" I say, but I am sure I sound anything but that.
He comes over to me. He is breathing hard now and must put his hands on tables and railings for support. "To Hell with all this!" He shouts and sweeps everything off the table with his arm. Plates break, glasses shatter. He knocks the drink out of my hand and it spills over me and the glass goes flying off into the shadows. "Come here!"