I have been largely forgiven for getting us kicked out of India, and I am soon back in Captain Laughton’s good graces, if not Mrs. Barnsley’s—“Little brat gets away with everything, I swear,” she grumbles to Mrs. MacDonald and Mrs. Berry, and they tsk! tsk! right along with the old biddy—as each night Mairead and I once again prance into the Captain’s cabin for an evening of good food and revels.
As we sail on, Mr. Gibson tells me that we have entered the Strait of Malacca, because the islands of the Dutch East Indies will afford us some protection from high seas. That’s good because after we had left India, we did encounter a storm of truly horrific proportions—a true cyclone—and the ladies of the Lorelei Lee finally got a taste of what the wrath of Neptune really could be like.
The storm worked up, and when it was upon us, hatches were battened down, and all, except for the watch on deck, were ordered below. As the poor ship was tossed about and groaned ’neath the fury of the wind and raging sea, I know there was many a wail of despair from those who thought their end had come, that they would surely drown. I am sure there was many a bargain made with God. I know, for I myself have made many such bargains in the past.
At the height of the cyclone, I’d gone back on deck, in the lashing wind and rain, to help where I could. There I spied Enoch Lightner, the Shantyman, one arm around the mainmast and the other held high, his sightless eyes on the heaving sea, yelling.
Blow, winds, and crack your cheeks! Rage, blow!
You Cataracts and Hurricanos, Spout!
Mairead, who had come up by my side in this malestrom, shouted, “What makes him go on so?”
And I shouted back into the wind, “He may be blind, but he is still a sailor, and he is still a man. He’d rather die out here in the open than down below, trapped like a rat! Come, let’s get him!”
She and I, with ropes secured about our waists, approached him and tried to talk him down. He would not listen to me, but he did listen to her. I have noticed that they have become quite close in the last few weeks. After the singing and the laughter in the Captain’s cabin has died down of an evening, I often find her at his side, holding his hand and listening to his stories.
“Enoch! Please! Come down!” she pleaded, reaching out to him, rain streaming down her face. He continued to roar, shaking his fist at the wind.
Blow winds! Spout!
Till you have drench’d our steeples, drowned the cocks!
Singe my white head!
At last, grasping at his hands and placing them on her heaving breast, she coaxed him below.
Meanwhile, at Assistant Purser Higgins’s suggestion, we have made a darling little white turban for Ravi, to go with a nice white shirt and blousy trousers. He looks absolutely smashing. All my girls are madly in love with him. He gets many hugs and kisses and pronounces himself to be in a place called Nirvana. We are thinking of getting him some white slippers with turned-up toes. Before his debut in the Captain’s cabin, I put my thumb in my pot of red watercolor and smudge a dot of the color on his forehead, just between his eyes. He protests—“No, no, Missy Memsahib, you cannot! Wrong caste! Is mark of Brahmin, not Untouchable!”—I am, however, unmoved by that. “You’ll be whatever caste I tell you, Ravi. Consider it a promotion, you little twit! Hold still!”
When we first had sent him in to wait upon Captain Laughton, bearing a small tray upon which rested a glass of Madeira, the Captain, upon seeing him standing there trembling in that outrageous costume, burst into gales of laughter, exclaiming, “Ha! Makes me feel just like a heathen Maharajah, by God! Capital! Oh, just capital!”
Ravi puts up with the trousers but refuses to wear the shirt, except when he’s waiting on the Captain. I can’t blame him—all the crew and half the officers go about shirtless because of the heat. Most of the girls, the younger ones, anyway, have dispensed with their heavy dresses and go about in drawers and chemise.
It’s all right, though, for everyone seems to have settled down with mates. I have succeeded in getting Maggie and the shy Keefe together as much as possible, and that seems to be working out.
Cookie continues to take his pleasure where he finds it—trading favors from his kitchen for favors of another kind; but he seems content to spend most of his time in his galley with Jezebel, and Mick and Keefe, along with my gang and me on occasion. I do not allow any men into the Newgaters’ quarters, so Cookie’s kitchen has become sort of an informal meeting place for mixed company. Club Cookie it has come to be called, and Cookie rules his smoky kingdom of pots and pans and stove with an iron hand, similar to mine, and only a select few are admitted to his realm—a good policy lest some of the bawds get even fatter than they already are, as Cookie is a very good cook.
Mick is still with Isabella Manson, and he has expressed some resentment over the use of his Bella by other men when we are in a port of call.
“I knows they’s all whores, but I don’t know if I likes the idea of them other swabs gettin’ on our girls. ’Specially, my Bella . . .” he was sayin’ as we were hanging about the Club yesterday.
“Well, that is her profession, Mick,” I point out. “You ain’t the first one to amble down Bella’s path, so to speak.”
“I know, I know, but still, it causes me some . . . I dunno . . . some . . . unease.”
Men, they always want it both ways. They want what the girls got and yet they want them to be good at the same time. I swear . . .
Some of the unattached women have made other . . . arangements. Most of the cabins are now occupied, and the Captain is most appreciative of the rents. Love lives in many guises on the Lorelei Lee.
Ravi, aside from being the Captain’s cup bearer and the darling of the ship, is also my arrow bearer—he holds my arrows for me when I am hunting rats in the bilges, and retrieves the arrows when I miss. He also holds a lantern up high so I can see the little buggers when they poke their noses out of their holes. While we lie there in the semidarkness, waiting for a target, I regale him with tales of the Great and Terrible Katy Deere, Archer Supreme and the Bane of All Rats, with Her Fearsome Cohort of Deadly Dianas. I know he objects to this killing and trembles when he prays over each bloody body—“Consider, Missy, that you might come back as such a mousie.” He is a very religious little boy and some of my so-called Puritan friends could take notice. But he does what he is told, even though he worries over my karma, as well he should, as it generally does need some serious tending.
The millers, as we sailors call ’em, are much appreciated in Club Cookie, and some have already graced the Captain’s table—good fresh meat was very scarce in Bombay.
Another of Ravi’s tasks is to look after Mr. Gibson’s monkey, who has been named Josephine, after the Empress Josephine, Napoleon Bonaparte’s wife. I suppose it’s a mock upon both of them. I, who have actually met the Empress Josephine, think it’s rather mean, as she had been very gracious to this sous-lieutenant, Jacqueline Bouvier, a mere messenger, when I had delivered to her the news of Napoleon’s victory at Jena-Auerstädt.
After the excitement and terror of the storm, things settle back into their usual tedium—school, laundry, scrubbing of decks, and so on and on and on. To liven up the routine, I have, to Higgins’s great dismay, restaged the little playlet I had written when Higgins and I were on the Mississippi, “The Villain Pursues Constant Maiden, or Fair Virtue in Peril.” Higgins sighs and offers it up and is a good sport in reprising his role as narrator of the grand epic. Mr. Gibson plays Captain Noble Strongheart, the hero, and I, of course, play Prudence Goodheart, the virtuous heroine. Mr. Seabrook does an excellent job as the Villain, Banker Morgan, while the Captain graciously consented to act as my father, Colonel Goodheart. Consented? Nay, the dear old ham demanded to be included as part of the cast, bellowing out his part with great gusto.
Ship’s Boy Harry Quist reluctantly plays the sickly Timothy Goodheart. He had to be bribed.
A dress was again constructed with weak seams, to be ripped off my quivering form by the lustful Banker Morgan. There was a great roar from the assembly as that dress was torn off, leaving me cowering in my chemise and drawers—always a high point in these productions.
All enjoyed our little drama, with hisses and boos and catcalls at the villain, cheers for the hero, gasps when my dress comes off, and calls of “Get the snotty little bitch. Do her up good!” from the likes of Barnsley and Crew.
And so life goes on. The hours turn into days, the days turn into weeks, and all the while, the sun blazes and the waves roll as the Lorelei Lee plows on and on through the wine-dark sea.