Cast Off (14 page)

I stumbled to the hold as fast as my injuries would allow and sat down heavily on a barrel. Mortification was the least of my worries. What if the men had insisted I swim with them? I couldn't afford to arouse even the slightest suspicion that I was a girl, for then I would certainly be sent back to Father.

I found bolts of linen stored in the corner of the main hold. Using my new short knife, I cut a generous swath and then tore that into long strips. A quick glance up the hatch to make sure no one was coming, and I pulled off my shirt.

I wound the linen around my torso, stopping well below the bandage on my shoulder so that Clockert wouldn't see the bindings when he changed my dressing. My body hadn't started to soften, but it could at any time and I would take no chance of being found out. I pulled the fabric tighter with each circle until it hurt to take a full breath. Only a few months ago I'd begged Albertina for my first corset and been angry when she said it was too soon. I'd wept then over not being womanly enough. Now I wept because I was too womanly.

Tina, what would you say if you could see me?

I'd say you're doin' what needs to be done, Petje. Like always.

Four days after the keelhauling, I was feeling somewhat less stiff and achy. I left for the sick bay before dawn while the early watch were holystoning the decks, and Bram and Paulus were somehow sleeping through the racket.

Barometer Piet was the only patient in the infirmary.

“There's my boy!” Piet croaked when he saw me. “I thought you was Saint Nicholas the Wonderworker come to save me, but my mates told me different.”

The leathery sailor was nearly delirious with thirst and his bandage was soaked yellowy red.

“How are you feeling, Piet?” I helped him sip some barley water. It was the first time he'd been up to conversation since his surgery.

“Never better now that I know you and me is squared. We
is
squared, ain't we?”

“Perfectly.” I mopped his face with a cool wet cloth. “Do you think you could take some broth?”

Piet winced. “Later, sonny. For now, I want to hear how it was I stowed you away.”

I pulled up a stool and told Barometer Piet how I'd wedged myself among the birdcages.

“Lobo said it got heavy! Remember how it swayed—”

“I nearly died of fright thinking I'd fall straight into the sea!”

We laughed together until Barometer Piet stopped suddenly and narrowed his wrinkled eyes at me. “So that fancy gentleman looking for his lost child . . . he musta been . . .”

My head went numb. How could I have forgotten that Barometer Piet and Lobo had met Father!

“A coincidence—”

“He said he was missing . . .” Barometer Piet continued, thinking out loud, “a
daughter
. With yellow hair . . .”

We stared at each other. I took a deep breath and felt the linen tighten around my chest. How much did Piet suspect? “I don't know that man. Or his daughter. I'm Albert Jochims,” I said firmly.

A long moment of silence passed before Barometer Piet nodded his grizzled head. “A pleasure to make your acquaintance, Albert.”

Clockert arrived then, his eyes red-rimmed and his clothes more rumpled than usual. His hair looked as if rats had been at war in it all night long.

“Mister Pietersen. I'm happy you are still with us, seeing as how it was not a foregone conclusion. Jochims, what have you to say about our patient?”

I stood to make my report, determined to impress the surgeon. “Good morning, sir. Barometer Piet is doing well. I believe—”

“Prithee halt.” Clockert held up a hand. “Now that you are speaking, I realize I do not care to hear what you have to say. I shall examine the patient myself.”

He placed a hand on Barometer Piet's forehead. “A moderate fever, as to be expected.” Looked under his eyelids. “Clear.” Lifted the bandage. “A laudable pus. Well, Mister Pietersen, your recovery seems to be proceeding apace. Later I shall bleed you to draw down the ill humors that oppress your liver and spleen. For now, my assistant shall administer a fresh plaster and redress your wound.”

“Thankee, master,” Barometer Piet said, suddenly looking rather small and old.

I took care of Barometer Piet and went up to the fo'c'sle to breakfast. The sky was heavy and gray, with a new bite of cold in the air. After his wine-soaked dinner yesterday, Bram couldn't stomach his morning ration of porridge.

“Take it,” he said to me. “I can't look at it.”

“Nor I,” I said, turning away from the sodden lump.

“You'd be doing him a favor, Jochims,” Lobo said. “He'll get flogged for wasting food.”

I ate the porridge. Bram had saved my life twice—now we were even.

“You're new to the sea, Jochims. It's no wonder you don't know bow from stern,” Paulus said. “But we're your messmates, so if you've got any questions, fire away.”

As it happened, I did have a question.

“Jochims?” Paulus asked.

It was a bit awkward to put into words.

“I . . . er . . . that is, I was wondering . . .”

“Out with it, boy,” Jaya said not ungently.

“Well, it's about the head.”

“Your head?” Paulus asked.

“No, not
my
head,” I said, “
the
head.” The head was a privy box at the bow of the ship that the crew used when they had needs that couldn't be relieved over the rail. It had a hole in the top and was set on grating that was open to the sea below.

“You mean the
seat of ease
?” Lobo said.

“The
jardine
?” said Jaya.

“The
beak
?” said Bram, looking perkier.

I felt my face flush.

“You need to know how to use the head?” Paulus asked, putting an end to the teasing, I hoped.

“I know how to use it, thank you. What I don't understand is why there's a tremendously long thick rope running through the hole in the seat and down into the water.”

“You mean the butt-broom?” Bram wheezed, laughing so hard he rolled on the deck.

“The
what
?”

“The butt-broom,” Jaya said, gold earrings bobbing merrily.

“Do you mean to say that the crew uses that coarse rope to wipe their bottoms?” The whole ship must be rife with hemorrhoids!

“Next time you're there, pull the rope through the box,” Paulus said, giving the others a stern look that cut off their guffaws. “The end that drags in the sea? It's got long,
soft
fringe at the end, like a mop.
That's
the part you use for wiping.”

“Well. That's another matter, then,” I said, too primly for any boy.

Bram shot me a look, but the rest of them dissolved into laughter again.

I returned to the sick bay, where Clockert was tending to his first patient of the day, Van Swalme's serving boy, Tixfor, who couldn't stop scratching himself.

“It doesn't take a medicine man to see that you're suffering from
pediculosis capitis,
or an infestation of Phthiraptera.” Seeing Tixfor's bewildered expression, he sighed. “The common head louse.”

While Clockert spoke, one of the creatures actually crawled out from Tixfor's black hair and across his temple to bury itself behind his ear. Tixfor twitched.

“How can I make 'em go away, sir?”

“It's nothing a razor won't cure,” Clockert said. “Jochims, shave this boy's head, please.”

“Oh, no, master!” Tixfor exclaimed, his blue eyes widening with alarm. “It took me my whole life to grow this tail.” He clutched his meager braid with both hands. “You can't cut it off!”

Clockert looked down his nose at the tormented young man. “In that case, you must douse your head in the piss barrel. And while you're at it, wash your clothes as well. Urine,” he explained to me, “is an excellent delouser and purifier. For future reference, you'll find the barrel next to the mainmast on the upper deck. Feel free to add to it should the need arise. The other men do.”

“Yes, sir.”
Butt-brooms and piss barrels. What next? Vomitoriums?

Shortly after the start of the afternoon watch, Jaya came to visit Barometer Piet. I was in the sick bay labeling medicine jars, but I could hear their conversation through the curtain.

“How are you, my brother?” Jaya said.

Barometer Piet grunted and I heard rustling. I assumed he was trying to sit up. “Never better, mate. Doc Clock bled me near dry this morning and I feel like a newborn babe.”

“I am glad to hear it. We worried.” Jaya spit betel juice into his cup.

“I bet you did,” Piet said, with a note of some extra meaning in his tone.

Jaya lowered his voice. “There is work to do. Do you think you will be down long?”

“Don't you worry, mate,” Piet said at half his usual volume. “If anything goes amiss, it'll be the wind and the weather, not Barometer Piet. I never lacked for guts before and I don't now, even with half my insides gone.”

“That is what I said to them. But you know Van Assendorp,” Jaya said.

“Tell the commander to take his hemming and hawing and shove 'em where the sun don't shine.
Barometer Piet'll
outlive him and his ten bastard kids—even with half a belly and seven fingers.”

“I shall give your good wishes to our brothers,” Jaya chuckled, stepping into the sick bay.

“With all due respect!” Barometer Piet called after him.

When Jaya had gone, I stuck my head through the doorway. “Are you all right, Piet?”

Barometer Piet was propped up in bed, pale-faced. He forced a grin and then collapsed back onto his cot. “Between you and me, I'm all stoved up. Feels like there's barnacles where my old ribs used to be.”

“Let me get you a draught.”

“Brandy?” Piet asked hopefully.

“Better than brandy. Laudanum.”

I spooned the bitter opium tincture into his mouth and Barometer Piet sighed. “That's better. I can feel it working already.”