When all was decided, and all had eaten and drunk their fill, I took the saddlebag again and this time pulled out the Captain's uniform I had bought for Ozgood's temporary use and I gave it to Liam. Higgins had brushed it up and added a bit of gold here and there.
In the morning, Liam was wearing it when we left for the Emerald.
"Ain't she beautiful?" I exclaim, bouncing up and down in the saddle and pointing at the Emerald, lying there like a jewel in the harbor.
"Aye, she is that, Jacky," says Liam. "As fine a ship as I've ever seen. Looks right new, too."
"Sound as a drum, with new copper on her bottom," says I. "Come on! Let's go aboard your new command, Captain Delaney!" And I give my heels to the horse and down to the ship we clatter.
"Haul away, there. Careful," says Liam. An eighteen-pound cannon is being hoisted in the air by crane and swung aboard the ship. I had felt, and Liam agreed, that we needed two more guns on each side and a Long Tom up forward for the job we mean to do, and those are being hauled aboard and blocked and rigged under his watchful eye.
"Padraic. Go see Nader and see if he can rig a better chock for Gun Number Six there. It looks like that one might slip if the work gets hot."
"Yes, Father," says the young man, so delighted to be here that he can scarcely contain himself. He gets a warning look from his dad and says, "I mean, Aye, Sir!"
Padraic dives below to find the shipfitter, while Mairead stands with me on the deck watching all the confusion. Liam has brought his family down here to Waterford for the fitting out. Mainly, I think, to set Moira's mind more at ease, and further, I think, to show her what a little money in the pocket can do. While it may not have made much of an impression on Moira, it certainly made one on her eldest daughter.
"I'm not going back to that dirty little farm and I'm not going to marry that dirty Loomis Malloy like he thinks I'm gonna and you think I should just because he's got that scabby little bit of land!" she shouts at our stern Captain Delaney, who's trying to maintain a bit of dignity here on the quarterdeck of his new command.
"Your time will come, Mairead," I say, trying to smooth things over for Liam, who looks about ready to have her dragged bodily off the ship. "You'll just have to wait a bit."
She shakes her curly red locks and glares at me. "You didn't wait. Why should I?" I ain't got no answer to that. She breaks away and climbs up the ratlines to the maintop to pout and sulk. I recall that when she came on the ship three days ago that it wasn't five minutes before she found her way up into the rigging. Ah, well...
Higgins stands by the gangway and checks off items in his notebook as dockyard laborers haul aboard stores for our upcoming foray—barrels of salt pork, kegs of rum, sacks of flour, and the like. John Reilly, an old man-of-war's man who Liam has picked for First Mate, is directing the stowing of bags of powder. There are also new cutlasses, muskets, wads, and ball—we hope we will not have to use them, but we do have to have them. Grappling hooks, too. And, since the Emerald is too small to have a brig, some sets of leg irons, just in case.
Liam takes a deep breath of the salt air and looks about with satisfaction. Aye, Liam, your farm was lovely, but you ain't no farmer, that's for sure, I'm thinking as I look at him.
Liam looks at me sideways. "You're becoming a young woman on us, Jacky."
I blush and say, "Nay, Liam. It's just the clothes."
"No. It's more the way you carry yourself now."
"You mean this?" And I rear back and put on the full-bore Lawson Peabody Look, the same one I had just used to put a chandler in his place a few minutes ago when he was trying to overcharge us for rope.
Liam laughs, and I say, "Well, I've been to school, is all."
The crew has been signed on, good Irish men and boys all. There are thirty-six of them in our company—enough to handle the guns and the ship in a fight, but not enough to be crowded and bring on an epidemic of jail fever, typhus, which has killed many more poor sailors than war ever did.
The families of the crew who came down to watch our preparations depart. Liam sends Moira and his own brood off, Moira in tears over the leaving of her husband and son, Mairead furious at not being allowed to come along. The girl sits in the coach with her arms crossed over her chest, staring straight forward and not saying a word to anyone when both Liam and Padraic kiss her cheek good-bye. Moira will certainly have her hands full with that redheaded fury, now that the girl has seen the bustle of the harbor town and has had a taste of freedom.
Such a lovely girl, Mairead—and such a lovely name she has ... It is spoken mah-Ray-ad, though it is spelled many different ways.
Everything is rigged and set, everything is stowed. All the stores are in. The upper edge of the Emerald's hull, wherein lie the gunports, has been painted green to honor both her name and the country from which she sails.
Tomorrow we go adventuring.
Chapter 27
The tide is right and the wind is fair for the channel.
"Shall we get under way, Miss Faber?" says Liam, coming up next to me on the quarterdeck. He had taken off his fine black uniform during the dirty work of fitting the ship out, but now it was back on, the black jacket with the broad leather straps, newly polished, crossed on his chest. He is a fine figure of a man, every inch the Captain of his ship.
"Yes, we shall, Captain Delaney," say I, and the order is given to cast off the lines that bind us to the land.
I had made a flag, about the size of a Captain's command ensign. Against the field of white was emblazoned a blue anchor with line twined about it—what we sailors call a fouled anchor—and when the last line slips from our ship, I have the flag cracked out at the top of the mainmast. The Emerald, the flagship of the Blue Anchor Line, Faber Shipping, Worldwide, is under way.
We clear the harbor and the wind catches her sails and my beautiful ship leans over ever so gracefully, and her elegant bow cuts cleanly into the increasing chop of the waves. I take a deep breath and my chest expands and my heart starts thumping so strongly that I fear that others might see it beat through the cloth of my jacket. I face into the wind and my lips peel back from my teeth in a grin of pure joy.
"She's a fine ship, and I wish you the joy of her," says Liam.
"Thank you, Liam," I say, looking up at the fine spread of white canvas above me. "And it is good being back at sea, is it not?"
He does not have to answer, for I know it to be true.
We tear out into St. George's Channel and then up into the Irish Sea. We sail 'round and around and up and down and back again to season our sailors. We sail up to Dublin, then further north to Dundalk, and then down to Cork till every man jack aboard knows her ropes and how to handle her in a light breeze or in a howling gale. The new men get seasick and cry out loud for Jesus to come deliver them from their misery and why, oh why, did they ever leave their dear little farm. But they got over it, just like I got over it when first I went to sea. I felt for them in their misery, though, as I know there's no worse feeling in the world.
There are some experienced sailors aboard and they quickly bring the green hands up to snuff—everyone knows that the lives of each of them depend on the skills of the others. Any slacker will be put off in the next port, without doubt or pity. There will be no slackers, not on my ship, there won't.
All the men work hard but none is more eager to learn the craft of the seaman than Liam's son Padraic, beautiful, red-haired Padraic. He has cast what he thinks are secret glances my way, but I think the gulf between us is so great—me being Owner and all—that I won't have to tell him that I have decided to live single all of my life.
We have gunnery practice every day—Liam drilling the port guns and me the starboard—and we blast away at barrels, we blow up rafts, and we roar out broadsides at innocent rocky islands to the amusement of curious seals. The men start out inept and clumsy, falling over one another in confusion, but soon develop a gratifying smoothness in the operation of their guns. After they get good at it and feel proud of themselves, the gun crews take white paint to name their cannons—mostly in Gaelic, but I was told by Liam what they meant: Thundercrack, Widowmaker, Firespitter, Old Murder, and such. It is good. It builds team spirit.
At first it takes awhile for the crew to get used to me being aboard and walking around in my old sailor togs, or, on Sundays, my lieutenant's coat and white trousers and boots. But they do get used to me—after a bit. Especially when they find out that I know my business and that I know it better than they do.
These Irish boys follow me 'cause they've got an example in their own Irish history of Grace O'Malley, she who first went to sea by cutting off her hair and pretending to be a boy, just like I did. Now she was a real pirate—she captained not just one ship but commanded a whole fleet as well. She even met Queen Elizabeth one time and managed to survive the encounter. Sometimes I've even heard the crew call me their own Grace O'Malley. And I can't say as I mind. Like I really didn't mind Puss-in-Boots.
Like Grace's boys, our Boarding Parties are drilled on what they are to do when we come alongside a prize, like how to swing a grappling hook and such. Liam shows them the hacking and hewing art of the cutlass and I teach what I know of the parry and thrust of the rapier. There is practice with the muskets, with speed in reloading being stressed as much as accuracy. The rifles are too heavy for me, so I work with my pistols.
When I am not needed on deck for drills and such, I take to crawling around the insides of my ship, putting my hands on her knees, the massive timbers that support the thinner planks of the hull, marveling at the craftmanship that went into building her—the carefully shaped pegs and wedges that are pounded into her and hold her together—how like a delicate eggshell she is, yet she is able to keep out the raging sea and keep us safe inside her. I go to the lowest deck and watch the tiller ropes slide back and forth as the wheel above me is turned by the helmsman—sometimes just a little bit, sometimes a lot. The ropes, which are attached to a drum at the base of the wheel, come down through the floorboards of the decks, go through pulleys, and attach to the rudder, and so the ship is steered. If anything happens to any of this rig in a fight or a storm, then the ship has to be steered from down here, and it ain't an easy thing. I sit way down below the waterline and listen to how she creaks and groans as she weaves and twists her way through her watery world. To my ears it is music of the finest sort.
The Emerald is a brigantine bark, in that the mainsail is a fore-and-aft sail called the spanker rather than square rigged. She's a bit too long for a proper brigantine, but with her sail rig she has to be named as one. Besides, I think brigantine is ever so much more elegant than mere brig. A brigantine is a Thoroughbred, a brig is a nag, from the sounds of them. Course, the Wolverine was a brig and she wasn't bad, not bad at all, once she had proper command.
Higgins serves me my meals in my cabin and he keeps me and my clothes neat and tidy. He also serves Liam and supervises the cooks in the preparation of the food for the men. I invite Liam to eat with me sometimes, for dinner or maybe lunch, but not all the time—I find more and more that I like to be alone, alone in my lovely cabin, alone with my thoughts.