The mob pipes down.
I gets me resolve together and me feet under me and I stands up on the top of the piling and puts me fists on me h*ps to show I know no fear.
"Sir!" I yells with all me might. "I can read!"
Well, that puts a right stopper in the boys' gobs. "What the hell's the good of that?" they mutters, and, "Bleedin' little schoolboy he is. Bloody cheek, it is."
But the officer on the ship looks over at the well-rounded cove and cocks a bored eyebrow. "What say, Mr. Tilden?"
Mr. Tilden, who looks like he'd rather be doin' a plate of sausages than doin' this, looks at me and says, "Is that so, boy? Then what's the name of this ship?"
"The Dolphin, Sir!" says I, joyfully pointin' to the name. "It's writ right back there on the arse end of the boat, Sir, with the fishies!" The mob grumbles in common hatred of me.
"And what does that say, boy?" He points to a huge sign painted on the wall of a building.
"Ships' Chandler, Sir! H. M. Wilson and Sons!" I says, less sure this time.
"And what does it mean, boy?"
"Why, Sir," says I, sweatin' now, "that's where Mister Wilson and his boys makes chandles for ships." I smiles hopefully and with all me charm, but there's some snorts of laughter from the ship.
"If you're such a grand scholar, boy, then why do you want to go to sea? You could apprentice to a printer. You could study to be a teacher. Why the hard life of a sailor?"
I places me hand over me thumpin' heart and says, "Oh, Sir, all me life I have longed for a life on the rollin' sea. It's in me blood, like, and can't be denied. I wants to see the Cathay Cat and the Bombay Rat and gaze upon the Kangaroo and all the other wonders of the world!"
The pack of boys is now booin' and hootin' and throwin' things at me, but the fat man looks at the officer and gives a short nod.
"Very well, boy, you can come aboard," says the officer, and I slides down the pilin' with me heart in me throat and suffers a few kicks and threats and jabs on me way to the plank but I don't care, 'cause I'm bein' delivered and goin' to sea.
As I cross the plank I look down into the dark water and give a bit of a shiver. Then I calms meself and goes on.
A girl what's born for hangin ain't likely to be drowned.
***
"What's your name, boy?" says the weedy little man at the table, his pen ready.
"Jack, Sir," says I, as steady as I can. "Jacky Faber."
"Age?"
I thinks fast. A wrong answer could get me tossed back off. I thinks I'm twelve, maybe even thirteen, but that's too old for a boy of me size. Ten, maybe. But what if they won't take boys that young?
"Ten, Sir," I says, and he looks up at me without sayin' nothin'.
"Ten and a half," I says quickly, "almost eleven."
"All right," he says, writing in his book. "You are now written into the record of this ship and, as such, you are now bound by all the rules that pertain to members of the Royal Navy. Should you wilfully disobey any of those rules or the Articles of War, you will be punished by imprisonment, flogging, or hanging. Do you understand?"
"Yessir." I quavers. Is there no place in this world without a handy gallows?
"Good. You'll be the schoolteacher's boy. Mr. Tilden?"
Mr. Tilden turns to me and tells me to stay out of the way until we get under way. He says he'll send for me later and hopes that I will be a good boy.
I promise that I will be, that I'll be ever so good, and thank you, Sir, for takin' me, and off he goes in the direction of the glorious smells that are coming up from below.
I takes meself over to the side of the ship so's I can be out of the way and not be noticed and so's I can watch the proceeding on the dock. The boys is still makin' a commotion, tryin' to get picked to be taken aboard. The boy what said he could splice a line comes up next to me and says his name's Davy and I say mine's Jacky and ain't it prime that we got picked to go, and we looks each other over and knows from the dirt and rags that we comes from the same kind of place. Under the dirt he's got light brown hair and a thin face and he seems like a decent bloke and I asks him if he really can splice a line and he says yes, if it's a little one. He's picked up some seaman lingo at a tavern where he used to beg and sometimes do chores. We both look out over the crowd, mates now.
Three more boys are picked and they hustle aboard. Guess they only needs five. The clerk signs them in and they wander about till they spies us at the rail and joins us. They be Benjy and Tink and Willy. Benjy and Tink seem like decent coves, but Willy, he bein' the one that said he was strong enough for two, he gets it in his head that he's gonna be the boss boy of all of us and figures to set things up right away and hauls off and hits me hard in the shoulder, me bein' the smallest and a good place to start. I don't want to fight, but I know I can't let him mess me about or I'll endure it forever, so I tightens me lips against me teeth in case I take a shot to the mouth and gives him a hard two-hand shove in his chest, which almost knocks him off his feet. I lets out a string of Cheapside's choicest curses, which settles things between us. It's all bluff but I'm glad it worked, and I'm glad the others sees this and knows I ain't to be pushed around.
"Here, here," says Davy. "They won't put up with fightin' on a king's ship, they won't." He points down the hatch at the hulkin' black cannons lyin' down below. "They'll put you across one of them brutes, pull down yer pants, and switch yer bottom till it bleeds."
Davy seems to have picked up a lot of seaman's lore at his tavern, and I takes him at his word. I resolves again to be ever so good as I can't have me pants pulled down and be switched, which sounds right cruel even if I was a boy and not in fear of bein' found out and tossed overboard, or, at the least, put ashore in a strange land full of cannibals. I want to be good, anyways, as it's me nature and I'm thinkin' I could be right content here, as they might feed me and it smells awful good whatever it is, comin' up from down below, and everythin's so clean. I ain't never seen anythin' as clean as this place. The deck under me feet is fairly gleaming, scraped down so's it's almost white, and I feels it's a shame me dirty toes is standin' on its loveliness, smearin' it up, like. All the gear is put away just so, and there's new paint on everythin', smellin' clean and fresh.
Then a terrible thought hits me. I looks around frantic and thinks What about the call of nature, you twit? In the streets it was just get over a sewer ditch and hike up yer shift and there y' go. This will have to be solved straightaway, thinks I with a sinkin' heart, as I feels the call right now and sorely regrets havin' that last big drink at the trough.
"Hey, Davy," I says, all bluff and hearty and offhand, "where does a cove take a leak in this ark?"
"Damned if I know," says Davy, carelessly, but he saunters over to a sailor what is curlin' rope into a coil on the deck.
"Beggin' yer pardon, Sir," says he to the sailor, "but where might a lad shake the dew off the lily on yer fine barky?" Davy's got a bit of a lip on him, I notices. The sailor looks up at him.
"Y'could go piss in yer hat," he growls pleasantly, "if ye had one." He keeps on coilin' the rope, all unconcerned, but then he says, "Or ye could go down to the head, which is next deck down, all the way aft." He jerks his thumb towards the back of the boat.
We all winds our way down a ladder and gets to the next level, which is where the big guns are, and we walks back. We gets there to find the head, a curved room that has a bench in the back curve with holes in it for the sittin'-down business and a metal trough along the side for the stand-up business. I looks down one of the holes and sees the water of the harbor below.
"Aha!" says Davy. "Belly up t' the bar, mates," and he steps up to the trough and fiddles with the front of his pants, and the others join him. I goes to the end of the trough a little way from the others and fiddles with the front of me own pants, keepin' me hands coverin' anything I might be doin', which is nothin', but the boys don't notice 'cause they're too busy makin' crude jokes.
Then they're all fidgetin' and shakin' and I do the same as don't I know how boys relieve themselves after havin' lived with two of 'em for the past four or five years in right-tight quarters?
And then we're all walkin' out, but I hangs back and lets 'em get ahead, and then runs back in and quickly drops me drawers and gets on one of the holes in the bench and lets go. The job done, I pulls up me pants and pats meself on the back for a cool bit of trickery.
When I leaves the head, I find the others have gone off somewheres, so I goes back to me station by the rail. The mob of disappointed boys is gone, but there's a man and a boy standin' on the dock by the plank. The man has his hand on the boy's shoulder and the boy has his head down and is lookin' powerful grim. This would be the sixth boy, I figures. It looks like it was already set up for this lad to come aboard, not picked up like the rest of us. He ain't dressed fine, but he looks clean, which'll set him apart from us, I'll wager.
At last the boy straightens up and shakes his father's hand. He turns and comes up the gangway and does the usual signin' in with the clerk. The boy has a bundle with him, and I suspects it's a blanket and a coat. A bleedin' prince, I thinks. All I got is what I got on and my little bundle of shifts. I hopes we're goin' somewhere's warm.
The boy turns from the table and walks away lookin' lost, so I leaves me post as they're pullin' up the plank anyways, and sidles up to him, friendlylike. Close up I see he's a tall, thin lad with dark hair that is actually combed, and he's doin' a lot of gulpin' and blinkin' of the eyes.
"Cheer up, Mate," I says, showin' me teeth and givin' him a light poke in the ribs with me elbow. "Welcome aboard the good ship Dolphin, and what might you be called?"
"Uh ... James," he says, soundin' not too sure. "James Fletcher."
"Awright, Jaimy, then. I'm Jacky. Let's go see if Jaimy and Jacky can scare up somethin' to eat. I heard a rumor that they might even feed us; can ye believe it?"
Jaimy looks puzzled. "I suppose they shall," says he, and I'm sure he never thought otherwise. "What else would we do if they didn't feed us?"
"Why, beg, steal, and scavenge, like always," I says, "pick up what falls through the cracks, like."
He looks at me funny, but at least he ain't blinkin' away tears no more. We heads in the direction of the food as a shrill pipin' starts up.
We tumbles down the stairs where there's a great millin' about of men and I sees huge cauldrons set up at the end of a big room and sailors sittin' about with great gobs of meat on tin plates and they're chompin' away and me mind goes dizzy with the smell and me knees go weak with the thought that I might get some, too. I goes up to the cook what's dealin' out the heavenly meat and just looks at him not knowin' what to say or do and he says, "Where's yer mess kit, boy?" and I says, "I ain't got one, Yer Honor," and he mumbles, "Better git a mess kit, boy," and he reaches over and gets a shingle lyin' by and plops a great hunk of steamin' meat on it as well as a biscuit and says, "Half ration for ship's boys."
I says, "Oh, bless you, Sir, bless you," and takes meself off, delirious with joy, and heads for a spot at a table.