"I'd say about two thousand miles..." There are more than a few gasps. "But we're not heading for the land—we're heading for the sea-lanes, where we hope to be picked up by an honest merchant or warship and returned home."
I find my old sailor togs and toss them to Clarissa. "Here, Eve, cover thy nak*dness, or yea and verily, thy pinkness shalt be fried to a crisp red." She catches them and puts them on.
"Yo, ho, ho," she says when she has them on, the white duck pants and white top with blue flap. "I rather like it. I wish I had a mirror."
"Besides," I continue, "Captain Bligh of HMS Bounty was put in a boat very much like this with eighteen of his loyal men, when he was mutinied against back in '89, and he sailed that boat through the South Pacific three thousand eight hundred miles to safety. Maybe we will do as well as old Bligh."
"It is up to Providence, now," says Connie. "We shall have to pray."
"Oh, we will do that, Connie, loud and long, but first we have to take care of some things ourselves," I say, and dive back into my bag. While my hands search, I say, "We must have every girl learn to sail this boat, and we must do it quickly." I find what has to be my last piece of paper and the only pencil now and say, "Pass these up to Priscilla if you would. Thanks."
She takes the paper and waits for instructions.
"Priscilla, if you would set up yet another watch rotation, three girls to a section. Two of them will sail the boat, one on tiller, one on mainsheet, as Cathy and Hyacinth are doing now, while the other one will constantly scan the horizon for any ships. We want to see them before they see us, 'cause we sure don't want to be picked up by a nasty pirate after all we've been through." Priscilla puts the paper on the seat next to her and starts writing down names.
"Dorothea, wait ... Here." My hand goes back in my bag and pulls out my long glass. I pass it over to Dorothea.
"It's best to use it standing with your back to the mast to steady yourself ... and, Dorothea, we are looking for ships, not birds." She smiles and stands and does what I've suggested. I know she is delighted to once again have a telescope in her hands. "Dolley, what do we have in the way of water and food?"
It turns out that we have twenty-one wine bottles full of water and two tins of soda crackers, and that is worrisome—we can go maybe two weeks without food, but there's only enough water for about three days, and that's giving each girl a scant five ounces a day. Sure hope it rains, but there ain't a cloud in the sky.
"Now we've got to rig this canvas as a cover, so it can get some of us out of the sun, but first—"
"Jacky, your leg...," says Sylvie.
"I know. In a minute." I step over to take a look at Rebecca. "How is she?" I ask Annie.
"The same. She was able to crawl through the Rat Hole and then stand, but Sylvie and I had to carry her to the boat," says Annie. "She's about out now."
I put my hand on her forehead—still feverish. I lift her upper lip and look at her gums—they're healthy and pink, so it ain't scurvy. I'm thinking jail fever—typhus ... Damn...
"Try to get a little water down her," I tell Annie, and to the others I say, "and as for the rest of us, I think we should take no water today because we only have enough for a very short time." There is agreement to that. I go back to my seabag, and once again open it.
I pull out the oilskin packet I was looking for and open it. Lying there, with the bright colors of their feathers and the brass gleam of their hooks and looking just as resplendent as the day they were made, are my fishing lures. All except for one have a small, twenty-five-foot coil of light but strong line attached to them. Thanks again, Tilly.
I'm thinking this is a job for the Dianas. I see Katy up toward the bow, her bow still in her hand. I call her name and she makes her way back through the ranks of seated girls.
"Take these, Katy, and get them in the water. Tie the end of each line to a cleat and put a girl on each one, and have her pull on the line and then..."
"I know how to jig for catfish, Jacky," she says, almost smiling. "Don't worry. And if we get a big one and he's givin' us trouble, well, we still got some arrows left." She goes to set the lures.
I sit back, feeling a little weak, but I must push on. "Dolley? My shiv, please." She pulls it from her waistband and gives it back to me. I look at my old shiv—Charlie's shiv, actually—and the cock's head I had carved in it long ago in Charlie's memory, and wonder at the places that knife has been, and the uses to which it has been put. Then I reach down and cut off the left leg of my drawers, high up and close to my crotch, and look at the wound.
It's a mess, but it could be worse. I take the cutoff pant leg and dip it over the side and start to clean the blood off my leg and, "Yeow!" when the salt hits the wound. Damn!
"Wait. Let me do that," offers Sylvie. The cut is about two inches long and who knows how deep. The damn thing hurts like hell.
"Did it go all the way through?" I ask, and she reaches around to feel the back of my thigh.
"No, but it looks deep enough."
Indeed it does. The cut itself is not bleeding all that much, just seeping, really, but the lips of the wound are far apart and I know they will not come together on their own.
"Ruth," I call. "Do you still have needle and thread?"
"Yes, I do, Jacky," she replies.
"Then come here, if you would."
I stuck the wadded-up piece of my drawer leg, which will later serve as a bandage, into my mouth and clamped down hard. Annie and Sylvie each held an arm, and Martha and Dolley each held a leg. Ruth leaned forward with her threaded needle ... and the job was done. They were brave—I was the only one to faint.
It was strange to have four o'clock come with no flaps coming down to shut off our light. We got to see our first sunset since our abduction and it was a glorious one—all streaks of pink and white and purple that deepened to red and blue and gold before going dark. We had Connie's reading, and yes, she somehow managed to get out of the Bloodhound with both the Bible and Elspeth, and even a bottle of water. Then, in Chorus, Hepzibah led us in the "Song of the Hebrew Children," which we sang out in great hopes of a similar deliverance, out over the rolling waters from our tiny little boat right in the middle of the great big sea.
Chapter 52
I have always been a quick healer. I bounced back from the beating I got from Bliffil back on the Dolphin, my eye recovered when the drunken Gully MacFarland closed it up for me with his fist that time in Boston, and I did not suffer the dreaded infection from that splinter I took in my butt when on my beloved Emerald. Yes, I have been blessed with a hardy constitution and a tough body resistant to the physical ills that have felled others much bigger and stronger than me.
But not this time. Count on that damned Blodgett to have a dirty sword!
On this second day, the wound starts to fester and I begin to feel feverish. I take off the bandage and look at my leg and it has grown fiery red around the wound. Streaks of red course across the whiteness of my thigh. The skin begins to get tight, and it throbs, oh, it throbs and throbs...
On the third day, we are out of water. We have long since eaten the crackers. It has not rained. We have spied no ships. The wind is light and we do not make much progress north. I hurt, oh, I hurt so much ... It is hard for me to keep my mind on my duties, but I try, and I try not to cry or whine. I see that the watches are observed and the girls are learning their small-boat seamanship. The lookouts are diligent in their search for ships. Rebecca is still down, and now there is no water. I despair for the child. I despair for myself. I despair for all of us. Have I done wrong in planning all this?
The skin on my thigh has become tight as a drumhead and it is now a dull color of purple gray. I have decided I do not want to live without my leg, but that doesn't matter, 'cause no one here knows how to take it off, anyway.
On the fourth day, lips are beginning to crack, and the girls have to be warned over and over that drinking the salt water means death, pure and simple, but the temptation is great, I know ... All that water, and not a drop to drink ... I start drifting in and out of consciousness, and then ... there is a cry from up at the bow, which brings me back awake.
It is a fish! Katy has caught a fish!
I make myself sit up and look. I see that it is a dorado, one about three feet long. Glory be!
"Katy!" I croak. "Come here and take my shiv!"
She comes back to get it while the fish flops around up forward. Two girls immediately jump on it to prevent it from getting away.
"Pop out the eyeballs and slip them down Rebecca's throat. Sailors have told me there's good water in them ... not salt. Do it." She does, and the orbs go over Rebecca's lips and down her throat. Her tongue comes out to lick her lips. That's a good sign, I think ... Hang on, Rebecca.
"Now slit the belly from the throat to that hole back in the back. Good. Spill out the guts. And see that dark red thing there? That's the liver. Cut it up and put a slice down Rebecca and then each of you have a bit. It will give you sustenance. Then cut the flesh from the bones and chew it raw. You could dry it in the sun to cook it a bit, but you'd lose the moisture, so don't do that. Maybe later, if you keep catching them ... maybe..."
I put my head back down and close my eyes and drift off again. I have a dream about my mother lifting my head and holding a glass of cold milk to my lips, but then I open my eyes and it's Clarissa pushing a bit of the fish liver into my mouth. It's good and I swallow.
"Thank you, Sister, but you shouldn't waste it on me, 'cause I don't think I'm gonna make it." I hear someone say, "No, no, don't say that, you'll be all right, you'll see..." I run my tongue over my parched lips and say, "When I die, cut me open right here"—and I lift my finger and run it down just under my ribs on my right—"and you'll find my liver." I think back to the Dolphin and to Tilly with his anatomical charts. I can almost smile—funny how things come in handy. "Take it out and cut it up and each of you eat some of it. No, no ... don't protest. It's what is done in situations like this—none will think less of you for it. It's a grand naval tradition..."
I'm about to slip off again, but then I hear Elspeth speak and it jolts me awake.
"No. No, it should be me ... to me that you do that. don't deserve to live, so just do it..."
What?
I lift my head. "Do you really mean that, Elspeth?"
"Yes ... It should be me ... It will be me ... I can't ... I can't live with myself anymore..."
I must do this thing, and I must do it now.
"Help me sit up," I say, and Sally and Rose put their hands under my back and gently lift me up. Damn, that hurts! Stupid leg!
"Elspeth. Come over here and kneel before me. Who has my shiv?"
Elspeth rises, looking desperate and scared, her eyes pools of deep despair. She stumbles her way back through the ranks of girls seated at either side, holding her hands crossed on her chest so as not to touch anyone for fear they will shrink back from the touch of the Judas, the pariah.