"Ahem! Section Two, Article One. All members of this Corporation shall present a Clean and Orderly Appearance consistent with the Usual Standards of Nautical Dress..."
That gets a few snickers since I myself am dressed in my usual warm-weather nautical gear of loose white shirt, short buckskin skirt, and bare legs and feet.
"Article Two. All members shall learn to read and write in an acceptable manner." Groans from Daniel and Joannie on this.
"Article Three. All members shall demonstrate an ability to swim."
Here I fold up the papers and put them under my arm before concluding. "Mr. Thomas and Mr. McGee, if you will please grasp Seaman Jones by the arms and hold him fast, I would be most grateful."
Davy, who has been standing with his arms folded, looking up at me with an air of complete and contemptuous indifference to what I have been saying, now stares with concern at the two huge, grinning seamen who stand by his side, holding him tightly. Then he looks back at me and glowers. Davy, though he has gotten over being torn so abruptly from his dear Annie's side, does still chafe somewhat on being under my command. Well, we'll see about that, boyo...
"We shall commence your swimming lesson right now, Seaman Jones. You should not fear for your life as you have just been to church and washed clean of your sins, many though I suspect those sins to be. Washed in the Blood of the Lamb, as it were. Well, now you shall be washed in God's own great salt sea, as well, and I am sure you will profit by it," I say grandly, still in church mode. "Mr. Tanner, if you will please affix that line around Seaman Jones's waist. Thank you, Jim."
Earlier, seeing that we were in very light winds and were scarcely making two knots, the pace of a leisurely walk on land, I figured this was a good time to begin Davy's swimming lessons—and maybe bring him down a peg as well. I had Jim attach a stout pulley to the end of the main yard and run a line through it—that same line that now tightly encircles Davy's waist.
Davy struggles but to no avail. "Now, Mate, it won't be so bad, you'll see," says Smasher McGee. "She had me and John Thomas do the same thing when last we was down here, and now we can swim like any fishes and don't fear a dip in the old salt, not no more we don't."
There is an air of barely suppressed hilarity on the Nancy B. All the rest of the able-bodied men have previously passed the swimming test and know that they shall not be subjected to this. Jim Tanner learned to swim when we were on the Mississippi, and Daniel Prescott, being a river rat since birth, already knew how, and my good John Higgins spent many happy hours as a youth with other young lads in a deep millpond near where he grew up in Colchester.
Nay, all of the other men are qualified and now it is Davy's turn, and he accepts his fate. He looks at me with a grim smile that says, I'll get you for this, Jacky.
Ignoring the look, I ask, "Now, Davy, would you like to shed any of your clothes? We are not shy in that way here on the Nancy B., and I remember that you were not at all shy in dropping your drawers when we all went into the Dolphin's bowsprit netting back when we were children."
He toes off his shoes and then pulls his red and white striped shirt off over his head. I notice he has grown more hair on his chest since last I saw it bared. Then he undoes the drawstring of his white trousers and lets them drop, leaving him standing there only in his drawers.
"Whyn't you drop the drawers, too, Davy?" giggles Joannie, who has all along been convulsed with laughter over the proceedings.
I ignore her, too, and go up nose to nose with Davy. "Remember, Brother, that time back on the Dolphin, when you called me the little fairy and then the rest of the Brotherhood picked it up and called me that, too? Hmmm?"
He sets his jaw, stares straight ahead, and does not reply.
I turn away and say, "Throw him over," and they do it.
He sinks straight down when he hits the water. "Take up the slack, Tink," I say, giving the thumbs-up signal. The rope tightens and Davy is hauled, sputtering, back to the surface.
"Stroke with your arms, Davy. Kick with your legs. When you can keep up with the ship, we'll bring you back aboard."
We all lean over the rail and shout encouragement. Joannie stands beside me, laughing and fairly jumping up and down in her glee over poor Davy's watery struggles.
Davy thrashes about, but he does not seem to be getting it.
I step back from the rail and unfasten the drawstring of my buckskin skirt, slide it off, and hand it to Higgins.
All of my crew have seen me do this many times and are quite used to it. Dr. Sebastian, however, has not, and I see his eyebrows go up in mild surprise. I tuck the loose shirt into the waistband of my short underdrawers, hop up on the rail, and dive in.
I resurface close to Davy—close, but just out of his reach, as I know he'd risk punishment for the chance to give me a bit of a strangle.
"Watch me, Brother," I say, beginning to swim. "Like this, see? Nice and easy now, arm over arm, kick your feet. Turn your face to take a breath with each stroke. That's it, keep it going."
He does, and eventually he is able to do it to my satisfaction and is hauled back up, to the cheers of his shipmates. Jim tosses me down a rope, but I do not climb up it, not yet, anyway.
I do hang on to the line to rest for a moment, and say, "Mr. Tanner, will you please divest Seaman Apprentice Joan Nichols of her shirt and trousers, affix the rope about her, and send her down here?"
Joannie's eyes—which had been watching me down here below—pop wide open, no longer with the delight of watching someone else's troubles, oh no, but now with fear for her own. Then her face disappears from the rail as she turns to flee. To no avail, of course. There is the sound of some struggle, accompanied by squeals from her and laughter from the crew, but eventually she comes flying over the side.
Shrieking, she splashes into the water next to me, eyes squeezed tightly shut, arms and legs flailing about. I start swimming slowly beside her.
"Now, Joannie, no reason to be afraid ... Here, like this ... Stroke ... Stroke ... Open your eyes. Yes, that's it..."
And so, all in all, we had a very good trip down, and on Christmas Day, 1806, we dropped anchor two miles off Key West, Florida, and, being only ninety-some miles from Cuba, it's very much in the Spanish Main.
Chapter 19
Sunlight filters down through the clear, blue-green water, dappling the coral reef below me. It is not deep, only about twenty feet down, and I give my feet a kick and swim down to it. Ah, there are some nice sponges over there. I pull my shiv from my forearm sheath and go collect them, sawing off their stems and stuffing them into the net bag that hangs by my side. Pretty little fish come around to peer at me, all brightly colored and curious. There are some bigger fish down there, too, lurking in the crevices of the coral, but I shan't mess with them—not now, anyway. Later I'll dive down with my trident and see what I can do about dinner.
Another kick and I glide over the reef and look down into the abyss that lies on the seaward side of the reef. I cannot see to the bottom of it, and that is a pity, for I know that somewhere down there is where the Santa Magdalena rests, where she lies silent with her dead ... and with all her gold.
Ship's Log: The schooner Nancy B. Alsop. December 28, 1806. Anchored in five fathoms of water, two miles off Key West, Spanish Territory of Florida. Bottom sand and coral. Taking on sponges and scientific specimens. Weather calm. No other vessels in sight.
"Look, Jacky!" cries Dr. Sebastian. "Right down there! Do you see it? Right next to that fan coral!"
I see it, all right—a particularly disgusting-looking creature with a slug's body and yellow tentacles sticking out of what I suppose is its back.
"I believe it is what is called a Spanish Shawl, a member of the Nudibranch family of Gastropods, Flabellina iodinea!" exults the Doctor. "Oh, Miss, we simply must have it!"
We are both lying belly down on the raft that is tied beside the Nancy B., peering through the glass-bottomed buckets we have designed for scanning the sea floor for specimens and possible treasure. We took Spanish Lieutenant Carlos Maria Santana Juarez at his word concerning the approximate location of the Santa Magdalena, but we have found nothing yet in that regard, which is not surprising. We know she is deep, and probably rotted away by now, and I can only dive down so far. Still, we hope.
I sigh and pull on my goggles, which have been resting on my forehead, and press them to my face to seal them around my eyes. "Does it bite or sting?"
"No, my dear, it is perfectly harmless. It is merely a clam without a shell. Oh, look at it! It is beautiful!"
I do not don the heavy leather gloves I had made for picking up the things that do bite and sting—once burned, twice learned—so I just roll over the side of the raft and slip into the water.
My loose shirt swirls about me as I prepare to go down. It had been decided that I would dive in my undershirt and long drawers for the sake of modesty—decided not by me, though. As for me, I had asked them why couldn't they all just face away when I go into the water and I'd dive starkers, but Higgins and Dr. Sebastian would have none of that, so I must put up with all this cloth billowing around me.
I thrust my head under, put rump and legs in the air, and surface dive on down to the reef.
It is not deep here, only about twenty feet down, and I give my feet a kick and swim over to the coral reef.
Ah, there are some nice sponges there ... I shall have to come collect them later. I had decided early on that I would harvest the plentiful sponges I found in these waters, as it would be an excellent cover for our other activities. Hey, señores, we're just some simple sponge divers trying to make an honest living from the sea, so just leave us alone. The Nancy B.'s rigging is now adorned with fifty, maybe sixty, fine sponges drying in the tropical sun, which I'll be able to sell as soon as I find a market. Never let it be said that Jacky Faber ever passed up a chance for profit when one presented itself.
I grab the unfortunate slug and kick back to the surface and slap the thing onto the raft.
"Wonderful!" exclaims Dr. Sebastian, who has a bucket of seawater ready to plunge the creature into, prolonging its life a bit. I know that I will soon be drawing, painting, and labeling it, and then it will go into a jar of alcohol.
Since I'm already in the water, I decide to go down and take another quick look around.
This time I glide beyond the reef and hang motionless over the abyss that lies on the seaward side of the reef. I cannot see to the bottom of it, and that is a pity, for I know that somewhere down there lies that death-doomed Spanish ship.
Enough daydreaming, girl. Back to work. I twist around to head back over the reef and I'm about ready to head up for another breath when ... There! Sticking out from under a clump of seaweed are the telltale whiskers of a good-sized lobster. Ha, you rascal, you shall grace our table tonight! Come here, now...
I reach out to grab his antennae and whisk him out of there, but then ... Oh God, then ... something grabs on to me. Something green and hideous—the head of a huge snakelike thing. When its jaws clamp down, it just misses the skin of my arm but has me by the shirt and is dragging me down toward its den and I am helpless to stop it. While the head looks at me with baleful eyes, the tail of the hideous thing remains anchored in its burrow and holds tight against all my struggles to free myself from it.