Chapter 9
Atlantic Ocean
Mary panted against the ropes, her back horizontal to the ship’s deck forty feet below. To fall from the mainmast from this height, she knew, would be instant death.
She would be a fool to let her fear show. Men—she’d learned in her careful study—came in every shape and size and temperament.
But masking fear? This seemed a common feature.
Settling her nerves, Mary steadied her pulse and pushed her strong legs into the spiderweb of slanted lines, climbing a horizontal ladder.
She’d breathe easier if she hadn’t bound her small breasts.
The shirt she wore, her father’s shirt, fit better than it had four years earlier.
She wore it sparingly now, a threadbare treasure for days when she needed luck or when her other shirt sorely needed a wash.
A red kerchief covered her tanned neck, and she kept her dark hair tied at the nape.
At last, she flung her body onto the maintop platform. It wobbled under her weight. Another trip aloft, another day alive.
“What do you make of these shoals, Mark?” shouted Captain Southwick from far below. Captain Southwick stood beside Master Tansley. It had taken years for Mary to notice the pleasant quality of the brooding first mate’s face. But now that she had, she’d never allow herself to study it again.
Mary’s empty stomach lurched as she used the spyglass to squint at the variants of blue in the sea.
They’d waited days in this windless stretch as the sun beat down like a tyrant.
They were supposed to arrive in Provincetown weeks ago to deliver their liquor cargo and pick up a load of timber due in Liverpool.
The whole reeking crew was restless, stricken and weary with heat.
Mary studied the ominous shadows on the water.
The bright sun overhead created glares on the surface, but the captain relied on Mary’s vision.
She’d risen from cabin boy to serving in Tansley’s defense drills by sprinting from cannon to cannon as a powder monkey, running black dust to the gunners.
Finally, at seventeen, she’d mastered her navigation training and become the sailing master’s best assistant.
Mary had beheld America’s shores during vibrant, wooded summers and stark, bitter winters.
She’d seen ports across all of England, but they all blurred together in her mind with their grit and gray and fish and fog.
Back and forth, back and forth. She’d developed calluses on her palms and strength in her otherwise thin body.
She was at least a foot taller—a young man now, according to the crew.
She’d learned to shape the naturally low resonance of her voice to speak with more monotone and less variation, moving the source of her voice downward into the deepest cavern of her chest. Her livelihood and chance of finding Ma someday depended on her performance.
Not a day went by that she didn’t think about Ma.
Alone, Mary practiced dropping her pitch on more difficult sounds by using a mantra of her own making: This work is often awful, but not always.
Often awful, but not always.
“We’re so damn close,” Master Tansley cursed as he looked up at the limp sails. Mary felt the crew’s eyes bore into her with anticipation.
All these years of hiding bloodied rags and concocting creative schemes to urinate, and still no one had guessed her most guarded secret. Not even the generous Captain Southwick. She’d dedicated years to investing in a lie, and the weight pressed on her like an anchor.
“Too shallow in patches,” Mary yelled below with calm clarity, knowing well the rumors of Cape Cod waters. This knowledge was more powerful than all the pressure to press ahead, more important than her own pining for a bath and a proper meal. “We can’t risk this route, Captain.”
Captain Southwick groaned and removed his tricorn, fanning his red face. But he didn’t challenge her. “We’ll sail for deeper waters and approach the harbor from the south.”
“Very well,” she heard Tansley say in a tone indicating that he found this not very well at all.
Mary felt relief in his disapproval. Her stomach squirmed at the thought of his approval, which was out of the question.
But Tansley and the ship’s leadership, along with Captain Southwick, were no halfwits and had little interest in running aground.
Mary climbed down the swaying mainmast as Tansley oversaw positions and the bosun whistled for order.
Much as she hated delivering bad news, Mary knew somehow that practicing caution sharpened her instincts, even and especially when impatience, urgency, and human frailty were present in a situation.
Those qualities had the same blinding effect as fear.
And fearful people made terrible decisions.
Step by step, Mary lowered herself until her feet touched the smooth planks.
She could afford no mistakes.
When they finally arrived in Provincetown Harbor a week later, the wharf hummed with energy. Hawkers approached with more than their usual goods.
“Did ye hear?” one man yelled, waving a broadsheet newspaper at incoming transport boats.
“War! England is at war with Spain!” another shouted down the pier.
War? Mary stepped from the rowboat onto the pier and tried to wrap her mind around the faraway-sounding word.
The only war of her short lifetime was the War of the Grand Alliance against France, though she’d never seen its evidence while it raged.
War, she repeated. She felt nothing: no fear, no excitement.
Nothing but a strange void in her chest. But maybe she’d feel more once she had a corncake in her belly, one slathered with honey.
With a single look, Master Tansley silenced the murmurs.
He turned to Captain Southwick, who wore his usual blue waistcoat and appeared unsurprised by the development.
The two leaders exchanged hushed words. After an agonizing wait, Master Tansley read the names of the men who were to stay behind.
Mary, to her relief, was not among the first guards.
Another set of sailors hefted and rolled the cargo onto the wharf and into the care of a buyer.
“Off with the rest of you,” Tansley said to the remaining crew.
The men sprang into motion. A few snapped up newspapers while others laughed and hurtled their way toward Great Island Tavern or to secure beds at the Black Sands Inn.
Mary waited for the stampede to slow before moving.
Captain Southwick put a hand on her shoulder.
“Mark, might I have a word?”
Mary tried not to think about corncakes. The smell of seagrass. Priceless privacy. But something in her beloved captain’s face, the creases in his forehead, commanded attention. “Of course.”
He gave a coin to a gap-toothed man distributing newspapers and pocketed the parchment.
They walked toward the gray-shingled cottages in town as wispy clouds trailed overhead.
Captain Southwick peered around. When they passed the throngs at the Wren’s Inn, where most seafarers stopped, he finally spoke.
“If it is true what they say, swift change is upon us.”
“Sir?” She tried to puzzle out Captain Southwick’s behavior.
Though she saw the captain as a kind of grandfather, they were not equals.
He respected her, but in front of others, he did not confide in her or ask her opinion beyond navigational matters.
To show preference would breach rank and sour the crew toward her.
White sand blew onto the long road connecting the entire town. Through the grimy window of the Eight Bells Tavern, they saw a middle-aged barmaid mending a curtain. No patrons sat inside.
“Come, I’ll buy you a drink,” the captain said, opening the door.
A musty odor permeated the room. Captain Southwick ordered two mugs of ale.
Though Mary was well-accustomed to alcohol as part of a sailing diet on a liquor merchant ship, she disliked the way it burned her throat and left her thirstier.
Ma had said that too much liquor made even good men lose their minds.
Mary had seen as much among her fellow sailors, their slurred speech and sharp words, and felt little inclination to join in their excessive drinking.
But maybe resentment tainted her opinion. She couldn’t afford to drop her guard, her attention, her position. She couldn’t afford the privilege of escaping into a mug. A second of irresponsibility could cost her, and Ma, everything. She could not be like the other men. Because she wasn’t one.
“What do you know of world affairs, Mark?”
“Not much. Everything I know of the world I learned from you or aboard your ship.”
“Have you followed the gossip regarding the Spanish king’s death?”
She’d heard some tales at various ports and the musings of fellow sailors. But what did the lives of kings have to do with her? She avoided politics and strong opinions; those only drew attention. “No, sir.”
The barmaid set down a pair of tankards with disinterest before returning to her mending.
Captain Southwick took an enormous gulp, then stared off as he continued.
“King Charles II left no heir to Spain’s throne.
Rotten timing, with world powers playing chess—and more than a dozen nations fancying themselves the rightful rulers.
” He caught her eye, maybe detecting her unease.
“I don’t say this to scare you, Mark. But this is no trifling matter.
” He leaned forward on his elbows. He had that paternal look with a furrowed brow that Mary had come to recognize—affection from a man who’d taken her in.
“This will be a war among many nations. Not just any kind of war. One fought on land and sea. Do you comprehend the significance?”
A shiver ran down her spine, and she took a sip. “No, sir.” She might have pretended more knowledge with anyone else, but she didn’t need to with Captain Southwick. “That is, I don’t understand why you are telling me this.”
Only then did he remove the newspaper from his jacket and spread it out on the table. Mary scanned the bold letters. Though she could read a compass, she couldn’t read this.
“It’s as I feared. I wouldn’t be surprised if a third of our crew were to join the Royal Navy once we reach England,” he said with a sigh. “I did as much as a boy. How old are you?”
“Seventeen.”
“I joined the Royal Navy a few years younger than you.” He circled the ale in his mug. “Despicable place, a navy ship. Overcrowded. Cruel superiors. Frequent food shortages. Irregular pay at best. Vicious punishments.”
Mary feared corporal punishment above all; it would expose everything.
“I saw more than a few decent men die from lashes. And illness. Oh, the illness on a ship like that.” He shook his head and his eyes seemed to water at this confession. Mary looked at her hands in case this display of emotion caused him shame, as seemed the custom for many men.
“I promised your mother I’d look after you as if you were my own son.”
Ma. The mention of her made Mary’s insides squeeze.
“Don’t worry about me, Captain,” Mary said, eager to dismiss his concerns.
“I have no plans of leaving your crew. This ship is my home.” In truth, the ship was more than a home.
It was everything. The source of her wages and structure and friendships, however guarded.
The place where she savored hard-won satisfactions and honed her skills and mind.
The ship was her nights and days that inched her closer to financial freedom.
For her, Ma, and whatever they might do, wherever they might go together.
Captain Southwick’s eyes crinkled. They were still a bit damp with feeling. “If you were my son—and understand me, Mark, nothing would make me prouder,” he began again. “I would not have you stay on my merchant ship for a scrap of pay for every ocean crossing. I’d want something more for you.”
Mary felt herself falling, though her body remained rigid in the chair with a grip on her cup. Falling into an old pain, an old memory.
No. Mary wanted to say. Scream.
Not you, too.
Captain Southwick ordered another ale, making sure the barmaid was out of the room before talking again.
“I will speak candidly. War is a curse as well as an opportunity. For a young man like you, with your training, it might seem obvious to join the navy. But don’t throw away your life on the sea. Not even another year.”
“But my talents, my trade?” Mary protested. She no longer had Ma at her side, but she clung tight to her advice.
He held up a hand. “Hear my reasoning first. For an attentive young person like yourself, there is another path I’d advise you to consider: the cavalry.”
“Fighting on land?” Mary imagined herself holding a weapon, charging an enemy line. It revolted her.
“On horseback.”
A faint ember in her glowed at the mention of horses, but it quickly extinguished.
“Holland will be far enough from the enemy lines,” Southwick continued. “Assuming those hold, there will be no safer place to join.” He tapped the broadsheet with a finger. “And no swifter way for a clever, clear-eyed young man to rise through the ranks.”
“Why not the navy?”
“The sea battles will be much bloodier—and they were wretched in my youth. So many countries will engage this time.” Captain Southwick leaned back, lost in what must have been memory. “Besides, the navy is too rigid, too old. Too many numbskulls at the top.”
Mary took a swig of bitter ale.
“Trust the words of an old man who’s seen more than enough.
Do not repeat my mistakes. You’ll always have me, as a friend or an employer whenever you need one.
Not even the king has use for an old sea dog like me in a war like this,” he guffawed.
“But do me this favor: Join the cavalry when we return to England. Apply that sound head of yours to making something of yourself. Rise to your full potential.”
This kindness, this seeing her, made Mary want to sit up taller. She trusted him. A whisper of her believed his words. Another part wondered what he’d really believe about her if he knew the truth.
Or rather, her lie. That constant guilt lodged deeper inside her chest in the presence of the captain’s care.
“Do it for me and for your ma.”
His words were both a knife twist and an unshackling.
She inhaled, dropping into that deep, calm place inside her.
She didn’t know how many more years she could successfully wear this disguise.
But if it brought her more savings, more freedom for the unknown future?
More comfort and security for her and Ma?
With Captain Southwick’s blessing and confidence, she’d take her chances.