Against the Wind Page 5

  “I will see to it, Captain, that you pay for this,” she said coldly.

  McAllister was astonished at her defiance, but he had no intention of losing ground in the face-off. He leaned down to her and took her elbow in his grasp.

  “Now that we know your intentions, Miss Fowler, allow me to tell you mine, in the event you continue to behave as disagreeably as you have until now.” He pointed to the long oak table in the middle of the cabin. “I will see to it that you are brought up here each day for an entire week, in chains, if necessary. You will then be bent over that table with your drawers around your ankles while I personally set your dainty ass on fire with our Mr. Johnson’s paddle or a stout strap, or whatever else comes to hand. Please believe me when I say that what happened to your lovely backside this evening was a mere feathering. Should we meet again under similar circumstances, I will blister it raw.”

  Ethan McAllister had never in all of his thirty eight years struck a woman, let alone spanked one (other than playfully), and until Emily Fowler crossed his path, he would have not considered it a particularly inviting possibility. Normally, it was the duty of the ship’s bosun, Mr. Enoch Johnson, to oversee the well-being of the junior members of the ship’s roster, and to attend to their discipline where needed. But on the rare occasion when the captain had been called upon to administer a lesson to a rebellious cabin boy, he always recalled his own time as a cabin boy, and the memory made it impossible for him to apply the required penalties with as strong a hand as Mr. Johnson might have. As a consequence of this widely recognized soft-heartedness, the lads had come to prefer a stern summons to their captain’s quarters over a similar invitation from Mr. Johnson.

  The boys were never truly flogged, of course, and flogging on merchant ships such as the Liza had been outlawed some years earlier. Flogging was a vicious punishment, with the unfortunate victim tied hand and foot before being whipped. The cat-o-nine-tails was a difficult implement to look upon, let alone to bear across one’s back, yet flogging remained a common practice by some ships’ masters who believed it served a useful purpose. Because the Liza’s owners explicitly sanctioned it, flogging remained official policy aboard the Liza. The concept of flogging a man went against McAllister’s nature, though, as well as his own common sense. He knew all too well that there were few enough able-bodied men willing to sign on as common seamen without the added risk of being beaten.

  The maximum number of lashes McAllister had ever ordered was eight, and that had been some years previously, for repeated drunkenness and theft. To Emily Fowler’s tender young backside, however, he had just applied—with no remorse at all, and even a certain degree of satisfaction—a healthy two dozen, or more. Most of these blows had been applied with the palm of his own strong right hand, and only the last several with his belt—a mercy Emily was hardly in the frame of mind to appreciate. Fortunately for her, the infamous and rarely used “cat” was kept elsewhere, in its own, small baize bag. She had suffered intensely and howled lustily during her first whipping, but had the captain ordered Mr. Johnson to use his customary thick black strap, Emily’s evening would have gone considerably worse than it did. Even the infamous strap was stored elsewhere, hanging from a handy hook in Mr. Johnson’s quarters, but even if she had known about these small mercies, Emily was in no mood to be grateful for them small mercies. She had been soundly chastised, it was true, but she had not emerged from the encounter chastened.

  Her bottom was extremely sore to the touch, and a quick inspection in the privacy of her cabin revealed that both cheeks were the color of healthy, ripe tomatoes. From Emily’s perspective, at least, she felt as if she had sat down on hot coals. This was an exaggeration, of course, but Emily would never have admitted that, since she preferred to think of the punishment as highly unjust, and the captain as a brute. The backs of her thighs and the exquisitely tender undercurve of her buttocks still stung whenever she moved, though, and from the resolute look on his face when the whipping was over, she suspected that had his arm not begun to tire, he might well have continued. Her pride notwithstanding, even Emily understood that it would be extremely unwise to cross Ethan McAllister, again.

  “Now, Miss Fowler,” he had warned. “I hope that we understand one another a bit better. From this moment, you are little more than dunnage or ballast to me, and since I harbor no expectation whatever that you are able to cook or scrub or do anything else of real value aboard, I have decided that you shall undertake the simple duties of a cabin boy. These duties will no doubt be well beyond your capabilities, but this is as low a position as I can think of at this moment. As befits your low estate, you will take orders from each and every member of my crew, and lapses in your behavior and performance will be reported to Mr. Johnson, to be dealt with by him. From here on, you will dance to Mr. Johnson’s tune, which means that when you are disobedient, you will be bent across Mr. Johnson’s bench to have your bottom strapped, just as any miscreant cabin boy would.

  “In deference to your gender, you may continue to sleep in the cabin you occupied previously. Your day will begin each morning at four, and you will be in your bunk each night by eight, sharp. You will neither speak to nor approach me without first asking the first mate’s leave to do so, and I will advise you right now that your reasons for doing so had best be excellent.

  “I would also advise you to remove that ridiculous corset you’re wearing. You’ll be provided two pairs of duck trousers, one pair of wool ones, and two loose shirts, which you will go and ask Mr. Johnson for, when we’ve finished here. You will eat your meals in the forecastle with the younger boys, but I advise you to stay well-clear of my men. It is considered bad luck to have a woman on board, and I don’t need fights on this voyage, let alone a mutiny. Now, have you any questions?”

  Emily shook her head, her voice very soft now. “No, Captain, sir, I have no questions. You have made yourself abundantly clear.”

  McAllister nodded. “Well, then, Miss Fowler, perhaps our time here this evening has been well spent.” Emily couldn’t be certain, but she thought that the captain was suppressing a grin.

  It should be reiterated, here, that despite what had just happened at the captain’s hand, and despite the intense heat and disagreeable sting beneath her skirts, Emily felt neither subdued nor intimidated by Ethan McAllister, nor impressed by his authority. What had happened was that she had begun to understand for the first time in her life the simplest elements of survival and accommodation, neither of which had been necessary in her life until now. She recognized that there was no way off this boat, and no way around Ethan McAllister. She would simply bide her time, do what was necessary to get through the ordeal, and repay the captain’s abuse later, from a stronger position.

  Emily trudged back to the dank cabin and fell facedown onto the damp bunk. She was cold and exhausted, and the place smelled of burned tallow and mildew. And to make matters worse, the only blanket she found was damp and reeked of mold. Unable to sleep, other than on her stomach, she pulled the sour blanket around her shoulders and rested her head on her arms. Without wanting to, she began to cry, and finally fell asleep to the lonely sounds of the vast, rolling sea, as it fell away from the Liza’s stern.

  Chapter Three

  Before dawn the next morning, groggy from lack of sleep, Emily was only vaguely aware of a bell clanging harshly somewhere forward of where she slept. Annoyed, she rolled over and pulled the blanket up over her head, managing to muffle the sound. Finally, dreaming contentedly of a fragrantly steaming pot roast, she drifted back to sleep.

  Shortly thereafter, the cabin door burst open with a crash, and before she could make out the face of the intruder, the rough blanket was ripped from her bunk, rolling her off the coarse mattress and onto a hard, cold floor.

  “Six bells, y’ little slug! Git yer butt up an’ goin,’ afore I take the flesh from it!” With that, the faceless sailor used a short length of knotted rope to deal a painful blow to the lower portion of Emily’s thin mu
slin shift. As she tried to scramble under the bunk, he reached down and pulled her out by her bare ankles, slashing again at her backside with the stiffened rope.

  “Up, I tell ye’! If the Cap’n hears ye’ve missed yer first watch, he’ll have my hide, and your’n too!” When the knotted rope sliced across the back of her bare legs, Emily yelped and struggled to her feet, keeping her back to the unwashed gentleman she could only assume was the renowned Mr. Johnson. He dropped a parcel of clothing at her shivering feet and strode from the cabin, swearing as he went.

  Hurriedly, Emily dressed in the crude woolen trousers and thick checkered shirt, making them fit as best she could by rolling up both cuff and sleeves. She had never worn trousers before, and these were tattered, and far from clean. The coarse fabric scratched painfully on her tender backside, and chafed miserably between her legs, where Ethan McAllister’s smacks had left her smarting and itching. In the small scrap of mirror over the wash-basin, Emily glanced at her reflection and groaned, wondering what Mr. Withers II would think if he could see her now.

  Barefoot and ravenously hungry, she staggered up the companionway and onto the deck, only to be knocked backwards by the wind, and into the path of a sunburned giant of a man with almost no teeth. As he passed, the man dealt her a cuff across the shoulder.

  “Out of m’ way, boy!” he boomed, pushing rudely by her. A second later, he halted and looked at her, again. His eyes explored her with open lust, as if he could peer right through her rough garments and see her naked.

  “You’ll be the one the Cap’n spoke of this mornin’, I reckon. The one he says we’re to steer clear of.”

  Emily drew herself up as tall as she could.

  “I would remind you, sir, that you ran into me, and not the other way around!”

  The man seemed puzzled, but thrust his grimy hand toward her and gripped hers.

  “I go by the name o’ Billie Oakes, Ma’am. Very proud to make your acquaintance.” With a slight touch to his cap, he strode away, leaving Emily standing foolishly, with her hand still extended. It would be the first of many surprises on her first day.

  When Mr. Johnson appeared once more, she asked about breakfast, and he shook his head. But though he spoke gruffly, his words were not unkind.

  “There’s another lesson fer ye lass. Them what won’t be roused are like to go without their grub of a mornin’. Be late again and ye’ll get yer hide tanned, as well as miss yer breakfast. And ye’d best do somethin’ with that mob o’ hair before it gets all-a-tangle in these lines, here.”

  Emily sighed and went forward to join the boy they all called Little Eli, who was busy scrubbing out a mountain of greasy barrels.

  “You’re not so little,” she observed after they had worked together in silence for two hours or more. “Why do they call you what they do? Little Eli?”

  He laughed. “I guess you just ain’t seen Big Eli, Ma’am.”

  Emily smiled. “Well, Little Eli, my name is Emily.”

  The boy looked around furtively, and when he had assured himself that no one was watching, he continued to chat amiably with her as they worked. “I’m sixteen, come June, and I never seen no lady on board, ‘cept fer passengers, that is. There was the second mate’s wife, o’ course, on my first ship, but she waren’t a real lady.”

  “Why not a lady?” Emily asked, laughing.

  “On account o’ her and the second mate wasn’t married fer true, and he’d brung her on board from a New Bedford whorehouse. Cap’n Brown put her ashore when we come to our next port, but by then, a lot of the crew had got the clap. I didn’t, of course, since I waren’t but eleven, and didn’t have the cash-money to try m’ hand at pokin’ her.”

  Emily coughed and blushed, but kept scrubbing.

  “What do you think of Captain McAllister, Eli?” she asked, watching the boy’s face for signs that he was ill at ease with the subject.

  “Cap’n Mac’s as fine a cap’n as I ever seen. Fair-minded, like, and he don’t whip the men none, either. ‘Course, he did give me a proper hidin’ a couple o’ years back, but then, I had it comin’, and the crew woulda prob’ly swung me by the yards if they’da had their say in the thing.”

  “What was it you did that was so terrible?” she asked curiously, remembering last night all too clearly.

  Eli grinned widely. “Me an’ a couple a bigger fellas got ourselfs grogged up pretty good and then goes up in the riggin’ with the new boy, and hangs him up there by his ankles, so’s he’ll puke. T’waren’t nuthin’ but a dumb prank, but then the little fool gits hisself loose and breaks him a rib or two in the fall. The men with me lost a powerful big cut o’ their shares, but all’s I got war a whuppin’. A damn smart one, tho’, I kin tell ya that. Mr. Johnson was busy at sewin’ up the new boy, so the cap’n hisself strapped me ‘til I were cryin’ like a baby. ‘Course, I waren’t but thirteen, then, and a whole sight littler, so there waren’t so much shame in hollerin’ like I did. Some cap’ns woulda used the cat and tore up my backside for real, but Cap’n Mac didn’t, and that war mighty decent of him. I ain’t stepped outta line since. Still, he can be a hard’un when he’s cross’t, the cap’n can.”

  Emily rubbed her aching backside, and nodded in agreement.

  The weather turned foul the next day, and Mr. Johnson kept her busy below, scrubbing floors and caulking, a talent she was learning, but hoped devoutly never to have to use again. In her two short days aboard, she had worn down all of her fingernails, and her entire body was covered in bruises and scratches. Within a week, her knees were so stiff she could barely walk, a condition that drew the unwanted attention of the bosun.

  “What’s wrong with yer legs?” he asked, swatting at her calves with his ever-present rope knout. “Ye’r scrabblin’ aroun’ like a damn crab!”

  “It’s nothing,” Emily lied, wary of another swat from the dreaded knout. “I don’t feel very well.”

  “Ye’ need a tonic?”

  Emily grimaced. “No, Mr. Johnson,” she replied, unable to keep the sharpness out of her voice. “What I need is a bath and full month of sleep, since you have so kindly asked me.” Once the words were out, she wanted to bite her tongue, and waited with her mouth shut and her head down for the blows she knew were about to come. To her surprise, Johnson merely chuckled.

  “Aye, lass. We could all do with a bit o’ that. I’d even suggest it to the cap’n, if I cared a tad less fer my hide.”

  Days on the Liza passed quickly, each day filled with hard work and little time for conversation. The crew turned to at dawn, ate a rough breakfast at half past seven, or seven bells, and spent the rest of the day laboring without pause. In a never-ending round of filthy, backbreaking work, they scrubbed the decks, scraped, tarred, and greased everything in sight, and when they were done, they began again. The men were civil to her, but distant, and Emily spent most of her daylight hours in the company of the younger crewmembers, one of whom was barely twelve years old. They were usually respectful, and contrary to what she had expected, and she soon learned that most of the boys had come from good, even wealthy homes, and regarded their grueling lives on board as valuable apprenticeships. As she watched them scamper about in the perilous rigging, sometimes barefoot, in winds and seas that usually drove her below, Emily’s feelings for her mates took on an almost motherly feeling, although neither she nor they would have admitted to such a sentimental relationship.

  She saw McAllister every day, but, as he had instructed, she neither approached. nor spoke to him. Nor would she have wished to do so, considering their unpleasant history. Instead, she pried what information she could about their arrival dates from those few persons she had begun to regard as shipmates.

  Mr. Turner, the first mate, occasionally talked to her, asking about her progress aboard ship, or sometimes chatting pleasantly about nothing at all. And so, when the moment seemed right, she decided to risk asking a favor of him. It was a small favor, and would have seemed trivial anywhere else. Claiming ill
ness, she would ask permission to sleep an hour later each morning, no more than that, certainly. As she broached the subject, she was very glad that she had washed her hair that morning. Mr. Turner was standing very close to her, close enough to take in the fragrance of her hair, and to make soft, slyly flattering remarks about how attractive she kept herself under these difficult conditions. Emily lowered her gaze and batted her lashes, in exactly the way she had seen described in novels.

  It was her bad luck that Ethan McAllister came upon them in the shadows, witnessing the touching moment—and the batting of her eyes as well. With a look of profound embarrassment, Mr. Turner walked quickly away, peering up into the rigging with unusually great interest, while McAllister bellowed for Mr. Johnson.

  Johnson arrived on the scene, already in his usual surly temper.

  “Take Miss Fowler below, Mr. Johnson, and apply four of your best to her disobedient rump, keeping in mind at all times, of course, that Miss Fowler is a lady.”

  Emily shook with anger. “Surely, Captain, you do not intend that I be exposed to the gaze of yet another strange man!”

  “Mr. Johnson may be strange, Miss Fowler, but on this ship and in this instance, he is not a man. He’s the ship’s bosun, and responsible for disciplining all the cabin boys, which you, to your great misfortune, are. Additionally, Mr. Johnson is an often-married fellow, who at sixty-seven years of age has seen more naked female bottoms in his day than most men. One more set of lady’s buttocks will neither unduly excite nor especially interest him. In any case, although he will afford you what privacy he can, he will do his duty, as ordered. Take her below, Johnson, and lay them on well.”