An Officer but No Gentleman (6 page)

5

Charlie stood outside the first mate’s quarters reluctant to knock.  He had been with the ship three years and Lionel Byron made no secret, he would move on to any other ship if the opportunity presented itself.  Fifteen years her senior, he knew if Captain Sinclair ever vacated his post as captain, he would undoubtedly be passed over and the post given to Charlie if she was remotely ready for the position.  And it was unlikely that Captain Sinclair would vacate before then.  Since John Sinclair and the ship’s doctor co-owned the vessel, for all intents and purposes, he was just keeping the first mate’s cabin warm until Charlie was ready to move in.

Charlie knocked.

“What do you want, Junior?” he asked upon opening the door, his Australian accent as strong as his first day aboard.

“Mr. Byron, sir.  There’s a discipline problem….”

“That’s your duty not mine,” he cut in, pushing the door close.

Charlie instinctively put her booted foot in the opening before he slammed it in her face. “I am well aware of my duties.  I am putting Mr. Ness in the brig.  I need the key to the hold.” 

Aboard ship the cargo was the responsibility of the chief mate.  He and the captain were the only ones with access.  Once the cargo was loaded, the hold was locked and no one could enter without getting permission and the key.

“Oh, for God’s sake, can’t you just flog him and send him back to work?”

“No, sir,” Charlie gritted out. 

“Mutiny? Attempted murder? Theft?” Sarcasm practically dripped off his tongue. The man never ceased showing his contempt.

“Mr. Mate, I don’t stand over your shoulder while you count the cargo or when you fill out your logs.  This is my duty and I won’t have you standing over my shoulder second guessing me.” Charlie resisted the urge to bow up on the man when he acted like a jackass.  Beating him senseless would feel so good and probably worth the flogging her father would give her.  “The key, sir.”

“Or what?  You’ll go tell your papa?”

If Charlie ever did, she’d get an earful.  John Sinclair raised Charlie to take care of her own problems. He didn’t fight her fights when she was little and one of the cabin boys bullied her and he certainly didn’t fight them now. She would have been in for a lecture on how her behavior embarrassed him.

Charlie folded her arms across her chest and waited.  She would not let him bait her.

Byron snagged a ring of keys off a nail.  “See that nothing comes up missing.”

“Why would I steal from the coffers I will someday inherit?”  Charlie removed the key she needed from the ring.  “I’ll just hold on to this while he’s in there.  No reason to wake you every time he needs the slop bucket emptied or he gets his food ration.”

“Fine. Go lock up your mate because you’re too soft to flog him.  But I’ll tell you this; I won’t have him replaced on your watch.  If your crew can’t get their work done, you’d better get your maidenly soft hands dirty or there will be hell to pay.”

Morty understood on a ship at sea there is no place to run, no place to hide.  He gathered his belongings from the crew’s quarters in the forecastle and followed Charlie into the hold.

Charlie had barely returned to the quarterdeck when the mate and captain joined her.

“Mr. Byron tells me you have something to report,” her father snapped, obviously perturbed by the mate’s spin on the transpired events.

Charlie’s dark look cast at the mate was involuntary. “It’s a private matter,” Charlie said tightly.

“You locked up that tar because of a private matter?  What?  Didn’t he want to be your chum anymore?” Byron asked disdainfully.

“What I meant to say is that it is a matter that should be addressed privately.”  She locked her eyes on her father’s and held his gaze trying to make him understand it could not be discussed within earshot of others.

“Take the quarterdeck, Mr. Byron.”

“It’s not my watch
,” Byron said sounding like a whiny child.

Captain Sinclair ignored him and stalked off to his quarters with Charlie at his heels. 
Neither said a word until they were safely ensconced in the captain’s cabin.

John Sinclair sat at his desk and rubbed his forehead.  “How did it happen?”  He sounded tired.

The last thing Charlie wanted to do was bring up her tavern brawl.  She could already feel his ire and to mention the fight would send him over the edge. He would not be pleased that Charlie had been aware that Morty knew her secret for over a week and had risked letting him tell others during that time.

“I don’t really know.  I think he just…worked it out.”

John Sinclair scowled at her, dissatisfied with her answer.  “You must have slipped up somehow.  Talk to him, figure out what you did wrong and correct it.”  He thought for a moment.  “What exactly did he say?  You didn’t misunderstand, did you?”

“There was no misunderstanding.  He said he knew I was a woman.”  She cleared her throat.  “And that he was in love with me.”

The Captain’s brows shot up so high they disappear
ed in the shadow of his tricorne hat. “Indeed?”  John Sinclair actually smiled a little.  “Anything else?”

She debated whether to tell him.  “He thinks I’m pretty,” she said without emotion as if that would keep her from blushing.

John Sinclair looked at her as if he saw her for the first time.  He had obviously never thought she was pretty or he wouldn’t have had to exam her face so hard.

“Charlie…maybe….” It was one of the rare times she saw her father hesitate. “I-I want you to spend time together while he’s still on board.  You bring him his meals and take yours with him as well.  Give him a chance.

“Frankly,” he continued, “I never thought this charade would last this long.  I always wanted you to have what your mother and I had.  It was probably wrong of me to bring you on this ship, but I didn’t know what else to do—leave you at home with a nanny and a housekeeper? See you for a few weeks a year?”

“I don’t understand, Father.”

“Aye, you understand, Charlie.  It would make me happy to see you in dresses and married with babies.”

“But the ship….”

“Morty is a good man.  If you want to marry him, he can move up through the ranks and eventually move up to replace me.”

Charlie loosened the stock at her neck and poured herself a glass of water.

“All these years, all my hard work, you would deny me what I have earned?” Charlie had to work hard to school her expression.  This was not the time for girlish tears.  “Aye, Morty is a good man.  He has been my friend since nearly the first day he walked up the gangway.  But he is not ambitious nor is he educated.  The sextant and compass confuse him.”

John shook his head.  “Ness is your friend.  Many marriages don’t start that strongly.”

“Father, I have been wenching with the man.  Don’t you think I would think about that when we are together?”  Charlie threw up her hands.  “He passes wind and blames me!”

John Sinclair’s stony face stared at her.  “All I’m asking is for you to spend time together and see what happens.  If you haven’t changed your mind, we put him off when we get to Portugal.”

“Aye, sir.”

“Charlie, I know locking him up was a hard
decision; it shows you have the ship’s best interest in mind. I think when we get back home; I’m going to let Byron go. If you haven’t changed your mind about Morty, you’ll have your promotion.”

“Thank you, sir.”  She turned to leave
, but stopped short of the door.  “The men will ask why he’s locked up.”

“Tell them…
it’s not their concern.”

Morale on a ship is a living entity.  As a pebble tossed in a puddle, one small change can ripple through a small ship.  A bad cook, a new mate, an incompetent jack tar all have unexpected ramifications on men and their morale.  By throwing Morty in the brig, Charlie had started a ripple the size of a tidal wave.  Her watch scowled at her, ignored her orders, and intentionally bumped into her as they passed.

The chill in the galley directed at her was palatable.  The men leaned towards each other and spoke in low tones while casting hostile looks in her direction.  Charlie only stood in the back of the line for a few seconds before she moved to the front.  The men fell back rather than challenge her under the captain’s gaze.

“I need two plates, Melvin; one for me and one for Morty.”

Charlie knew Morty was supposed to get half-rations while in the brig
, but she didn’t have the heart to order Melvin to do it especially since it was not his fault she locked him up.

Melvin was sixty if he was a day.  Cold molasses poured faster than he moved.  He spent his life at sea
, but as he aged, his eyes had become clouded and his vision began to fail and he had been moved into the galley.

Charlie was glad her father had ordered her to eat with Morty.  For once the brig seemed more hospitable than the galley.  Young Benjy helped her carry the food and he was happy to see Morty.

Morty ruffled the teen’s dirty brown hair before taking his plate.  “Hey, Benjy.  How’s life topside?”

“Oh, Morty, it’s a mess,” Benjy said.  “You never heard so much cussing in your life.”

“Why? What’s happened?”

Benjy cast a sideways glance at Charlie.

Charlie answered for him.  “They’re upset I locked you in the brig.”

“Oh.”

“My father decided not to give any reason for it.  He feels they should trust his judgment and mine blindly.”

“Oh.” Morty seemed to fully understand what was happening above deck. “Benjy, you go tell everyone I’m fine.  I’m not chained to the wall.  I have a nice hammock and all my things.  Mr. Sinclair even let me keep a lantern.  You tell them what I did was very wrong and I’m being treated fairly.”

“Benjy, before you go back to the galley, empty the bucket and leave it out there.”

Charlie and Morty sat cross-legged on the floor of the brig.  The door was open
, but provided little air movement.  Charlie pushed the food on her plate around with her fork.  The meal was a salted meat and potato hash.  Every potato cube seemed to have an eye or a bad spot and the meat was nothing but fat and gristle.  She set the plate aside.  Apparently, Melvin was angry with her as well.

Charlie waited until Benjy returned with the bucket and had gone to the galley before she spoke.  “Thank you for what you said to Benjy.”

“Twas pretty rough today?”

“Aye.”  There was no point in telling him she was going to be bruised from all the
accidental
bumps and elbows.  “My father wants me to ask you; what gave it away?”

Morty shoveled his last bite of food into his mouth.  “I don’t know. I mean I didn’t really know until I helped you up. I suppose I really started thinking about it after a dream I had,” Morty said. “It was the last night of the fair back home. There were dancing bears and puppet shows and a big dance.  So I go to this dance
, and there’s this girl in a red silk dress.  The dress is really low cut and she’s got these big….” He holds his hands in front of his chest and casts a chagrined smile at her.  “They’re playing that
Oh, Dem Golden Slippers
song.  So we’re all jumping around and I’m just lookin’ down her dress 'cause she was nearly popping out and all.  Then the music stops and I look up at her face and it’s your face on her body.”  Morty met Charlie’s eyes. “Woke up in a cold sweat, I did.”

If he had told her that story two weeks earlier she would have chortled and teased him unmercifully in an attempt to cover up the truth.  But now she only nodded.

Suddenly, Morty tried to kiss her again, but she pushed him away.

“Stop that.”

“But I love you, Charlie.”

“Stop saying that. You don’t love me. You don’t even know me. 
I
don’t even know me.”

“How can you say I don’t know you?  I’ve known you for nearly a decade.”

“And until recently you had no idea I was female,” she said dropping her voice to a near whisper when she said
female
.  “Just how well do you know me, Morty?  Do you know I hate cigars?  And I certainly have never slept with any of those women I paid for.  My only scar is the one on my arm and I’m not the least bit sensitive about it.  And sometimes I pretend to pee over the railing because I know no one will notice that I’m not and I think that’s funny.  And I don’t like puppies or apple butter.”

“I knew about the apple butter,” he said confidently.  “I hadn’t really thought about the women
, but it makes sense.  But no, I didn’t know those things.”

“If you knew me, you’d know those things.”

“I know one of your secrets,” he said. “I know you can’t swim.”

“Are you sure about that?”

When he began to speak, she cut him off.  “A moment ago, you called me girl.  You were wrong.  My body may be female, but my brain is not. I don’t have the slightest idea how a woman acts, talks, walks, eats or even laughs. You probably know more about what a woman wears beneath her skirts than I do. There are seamen on this ship with better table manners than me. Young maidenly girls aren’t supposed to know what a man looks like unclothed.  I’ve seen scores over the last sixteen years including you.”