In The Belly Of The Bloodhound (3 page)

But I don’t think young Andrew will take warning at all, nor will he beware. Truth to tell, I think he will relate the tale all through his life, when sharing a cup of cheer with his friends, of how he once courted and nearly won the heart of a famous pirate queen. It’s all right, Andrew, you can tell tales on me, I won’t mind. I just hope you don’t believe all that stuff about me, ‘cause it ain’t all true—but let that go, as maybe it’s best you think of me as a bad girl so that you’ll give up all thoughts of me and find a nice, good girl to live your life with. Of course, in the retelling of our time together, you will embellish the romance, throwing in fevered kisses on the quarterdeck, with ragged breath and torn bodices and heaving bosoms and all, but so be it. Enjoy the tale, Andrew, and enjoy your life, for I found you to be an excellent young man. However, as a friend, I must tell you this: Should you marry and share a bottle of wine with your lovely bride, do not get so deeply into your cups that you are foolish enough as to tell your wife the story—she just might believe it.

One thing they didn’t describe on that poster was my new blue tattoo. No, it’s not a real tattoo, but, like the one on my hip, certainly one I didn’t want to get stitched on my skin. It is a small spray of little blue dots that radiate from the outer corner of my right eye. The dots are powder burns that I got when sighting over a cannon on the[_ Wolverine_] and not getting out of the way fast enough after I pulled the firing matchlock. The burnt powder spit out of the touch hole and got me. They are hardly noticeable now and I can cover them with a pat of powder or a lock of my hair pulled down, but they are there.[_ Come get me and marry me, Jaimy, and on our wedding night we shall strip me down and play count-the-scars. Won’t that be ever so much fun?_]

Good night, Jaimy. I hope you are safe and well. I wish you were snugged up here beside me, I do wish that. But, maybe someday…

Log of the[_ Morning Star,_] November 22, 1805. Anchored in Sakonnet Cove, Rhode Island, U.S.A. Storm continues. Hope to get under way tomorrow. Bottom sand and mud. Seas very rough. Anchor holding, thanks be to God.

I decided to keep a log of my journeys on the[_ Morning Star,
] as I did on the[
Emerald.
] It became a habit during my time on Royal Navy ships, and once I get into habits, I find them hard to break. It is the fussy part of my nature, I suppose, but so be it. It gives me comfort to do it and it may well be that, in the future, I might find these entries amusing…or maybe nostalgic, even.[
You sit still, young Master James, while your grandmother reads to you from the sea logs she kept when Faber Shipping, Worldwide, was just beginning. Here! Leave your sister alone! You want a smack, young man? I thought not. That’s better. Ahem…Now, where were we? Ah. All right, yes, well, I was just getting over the setback of the loss of my dear_] Emerald.[_ I was back in Massachusetts, alone on the_] Morning Star…[_ What? Your grandfather? Well, at the time I didn’t know. After the Great Battle, I guessed that he would be assigned to another ship. I did hope that he would_]

come to get me, though, but I couldn’t blame him if he didn’t, it was such a turbulent time, those years of war with that Napoleon…
p. Actually, I hoped that this log would meet a somewhat better fate than the log of the[_ Emerald,_] which now rests at the bottom of the sea. If any mermaids can read, I hope they are enjoying both my ship and the contents of the log.

Morning Star
log, November 23, 1805. Ain’t going nowhere. Storm still raging. Am bobbing like cork. Cannot even make tea. Eating dry biscuits. Got belly cramps. Nightmares. Am sick and miserable and feeling very sorry for self.

Morning Star
log, Nov. 24. Ain’t got nothing good to say. Seas still high. Black clouds out there and black clouds in my mind. To hell with this. To hell with everything.

Morning Star
log, November 25. Skies clearing. Seas subsiding. Mood much improved. Hauled anchor, stopped whining, and set sail on Course 079, making for Horseneck Beach on Cape Cod in Massachusetts.

The[_ Star_] is fairly ripping along, and with the wind in my hair, my hand on the tiller, and my foot up on the gunwale, I am feeling much better. The Black Cloud that sometimes comes over my mind is gone, but I worry that it might be back soon, and I just cannot let it. I know it’s because I’ve seen so much blood, so much death, but death is so common, why should I care? One can as easily die from a fever as from a French cannonball, I know that, but it doesn’t make it any easier for me somehow. I shall try to keep the Black Cloud off. But I don’t know…

This morning I was able to make tea and biscuits with butter and warmed maple syrup and it was good and I am content. Really.

Star
log, Nov. 25, cont. Have made landfall at Horseneck Beach. Have tied up at dock. Am now in the state of Massachusetts. Looked about for opportunity to work at my musical trade. Found none. No taverns. No inns.

I was hoping to find an out-of-the-way tavern where I could play a couple of sets, but no luck. At least there were no
WANTED
posters starring my own poor self, and I got to pass a pleasant evening tied up to a dock. There was a tannery there and I was able to buy a small jar of brown leather dye. When I was back on the[_ Star,_] I used it to color my white eyebrow. It’s not an exact match with my other one, but it will do.

Star
log, cont. Bought fish from boy on dock. Cooked it. Ate it. Practiced my new fiddle. Disturbed no one but the gulls. Threw off lines and anchored a little ways off for the night, for safety’s sake. Note to self: Buy a stout lock for cabin at first opportunity. So to bed.

I have named my new fiddle the Lady Gay, in the tradition of the Lady Lenore. No, my Gay is not in the same league with Gully MacFarland’s Lenore, but still she has some depth, and she has a friskiness about her that I find appealing. I named her after that old ballad in which this mighty Lord Arlen is off at the King’s court, consecrating King Henry the Eighth or somesuch, when this boy, this page as they were called, from back at his castle, rushes all breathless up to him, fairly bursting with news. Lord Arlen asks him what’s up with his castle and his farm and how’s his wife that he left behind, and the little snitch opens his mouth and:

No harm has come your house and lands, The little page did say,

But Matty Groves is bedded up With your fair Lady Gay.

Course all hell breaks loose then and Lord Arlen roars off to settle things with his wife and this Matty Groves, and most everybody ends up dead as usual in these kinds of songs, but still it’s a great tune and I thought it a good name for my fiddle, as she is a frolicsome young dame, too.

Star
log, Nov. 26. Wind from the south. Fair skies. Decide to avoid New Bedford due to risk of capture and so set sail directly across Buzzards Bay, on Course 075 for small harbor called Woods Hole. Hope to make passage through Devil’s Eye to save time. Chart so far proving good and true.

I found out why it’s called Devil’s Eye. After a fast and very pleasant ride across the bay, I entered the passage between the Elizabeth Islands and the mainland of Cape Cod and was not even fairly into it when I encountered a tide rip so fierce as to make the very ocean itself writhe and foam like a mighty, raging river. I was able to hold my head in the torrent for a few moments, but I made a slight wrong move with the tiller and was turned violently around in the current and nearly sent tail over teacups, with the[_ Star_] spinning around drunkenly, her sail flapping like a wild thing, and her boom swinging back and forth, threatening to brain me and send me overboard.[_ Finally,
] I despaired,[
for all my efforts and all my troubles I am going to end up as mere fish food, after all._] And on such a beautiful day, too, with blue skies and gentle breezes and all to lull me into complacency. Just goes to show, never trust the sea. Sometimes Neptune is your friend, and sometimes he ain’t, and I vowed never to forget that again.

After being spit back into Buzzards Bay, I regained control and put in to shore to wait for the tide to turn, hoping no other sailor saw me sent all[_ a-hoo_] like that. Would hurt my nautical pride, it would.

The tide did turn and I went through the Eye again and, this time, slipped right into the charming little port of Woods Hole. It has a perfectly protected inner harbor called, I found out later, Eel Pond, which didn’t sound too cozy, but what the hell, I didn’t see any slimy eels trying to climb aboard, so I pulled next to a likely looking dock and…[_ Aha!_] If that ain’t a right jolly tavern right there, then my name ain’t Jacky Faber, Singing and Dancing Toast of Two Continents. Three, if you count the time in Algiers last summer, on the tabletop in that hashish den, with my emerald—the jewel, not the ship—stuck in my belly button and…well, never mind.

After I scouted the little town and satisfied myself that there were none of those
WANTED
posters around, I marched into the tavern and pronounced to the landlord that I was the renowned musician and singer Nancy Alsop and that if he was lucky enough to have me perform in his establishment for one, maybe two nights, I would do these sets in return for lodging, a bath, and whatever tips I might earn from the crowd. He, of course, would gain from the selling of his beers, wines, and whiskies to the increased crowds. When he looked doubtful, I pulled the newly christened Lady Gay from under my arm, put her under my chin, and whipped off a bit of “The Queen of the County Down,” sang a verse, and ended with a rattle of my hooves on the floor.

Entertainment of any kind, good or bad, is rare in these small towns, and I am hired, in spite of my youth and gender.

As my bath was being prepared, I wandered through the town, playing on my concertina and announcing that I would be playing at Landlord Prosser’s that evening and that all should attend for a night of good fun and entertainment. It did not take long to make a circuit of the village, but I thought that would be enough to get the word out.

It was. We had a good crowd the first night, and a full house the second. Got men, young and old, and women, and yes, kids, too. Entertainment is hard to find and cruel winter’s coming on.

Being that Cape Cod was a seafaring place, I kept my act generally turned in that direction, with merry songs of the sea like “The Kangaroo”—”_ a China Rat and a Bengal Cat and a Bombay Cockatoo, all on board the_ Kangaroo.” And sad songs like “The Lowland Sea”—”_ and he crossed his hands upon his breast and he sank to the bottom of the lowland, lowland, lowland sea…”_

Of course, “Cape Cod Girls” goes over real big here—[_ “Cape Cod girls ain’t got no combs, they combs their hair with codfish bones, boys…”_]

I sprinkled the act with Irish and Scottish tunes, too, ‘cause that’s where a lot of these people come from original-like, and I go back and forth from fiddle to concertina to pennywhistle, peppering all with dancing. And I end off, as I always do, with “The Parting Glass”—”[_ Good night and Joy to you all”—_] and I always think of Gully MacFarland, him who taught it to me.

Course there were a couple, well, maybe more than a couple, of the local youngbloods who would like to get to know me better, but I put them off, saying they should pay attention to their local girls as I am sure they are much worthier than I, and not to think that I have any great worth for merely being a stranger. And besides, while you boys are so very pretty, and so very charming, I[_ am_] promised to another.

Back in my room, with some more jingle in my purse, I prepared for bed. First, I tapped the little wood wedges I carry with me under the door so it could not be swung inward. Then I took off my clothes and crawled into bed and I must admit that the bed did feel awfully good. Although my bunk on my dear[_ Star_] is much loved, it does sometimes tend to be a bit damp, and this bed is not. I burrow in, knees to chest.

Good night, Jaimy. Your girl is off again in the morning.

Star
log, Nov. 28. 07:30. Under way on Course 053. Winds from southeast, 10 knots. Seas 2 to 4 feet. Weather clear. Fine day. 09:35 altered Course to 045. 12:12 altered Course, 033. Heading for Poponesset Bay. 13:50 sighted town of Mashpee. 16:45 moored alongside pier in Mashpee.

Star
log, Nov. 29. 07:30. Under way on Course 047. Winds fair, but chill. Hope to make Yarmouth.

Mashpee was good. Another ten dollars. But I’ve got to get going. Winter is setting in.

16:30. Made Yarmouth. Moored. Bigger town than the others. No
WANTED
posters. Play at Bull and Moose tonight.

Looks to be a rowdy place. Must be careful here. Self notes that while Landlady Willendorfer seems upright and kind, Landlord Willendorfer has a roving eye, it roving mostly over me. When Mrs. Willendorfer is not watching, Mr. Willendorfer makes his interest plain to me.

The night’s show went well, and I made a neat twelve dollars and left the stage to great applause. Dressed, as always in these shows, in my serving-girl gear to set the crowd’s mind at ease as to who and what I was, I did my usual set and added to it two new songs that I learned from the fiddler on the[_ Enterprise._] One was “Billy Broke Locks,” about a jailbreak, which I could certainly warm to, having been behind bars more than a few times myself, and “Three Jolly Coachmen,” a slightly bawdy little piece that I used to get the crowd roused up and singing along. If you can get the audience to do half the work by singing the chorus, why, all the better, I say, and this song has a lot of repeated lines that make it just right for such a thing. I started out the song on my own…

Three Jolly Coachmen sat in an English Tavern, Three Jolly Coachmen sat in an English Tavern, And they decided,

And they decided,

And they decided…

To have another flagon!

By the second line, the crowd, seated at tables grouped around me on three sides, got the idea and they would come in and repeat the first line once and the third line twice.