My back is better. It just feels like a bad sunburn, like those I used to get in the early days on the Dolphin, when we sailed down to the Mediterranean and, as things got warm, off went my shirt like the rest of the boys, me not having become a woman yet, and so just like them up top. I got scorched really bad, but eventually I tanned up and didn’t burn anymore. Till now.
I can now put on the shirt that Ruth Alden had sewed up so nicely for me. When she had taken the shirt for mending, I told her not to give the needle and thread back and to be very thrifty with the thread as we may need it later, and if they should ask, to tell ’em she dropped them and they fell down into the lower Hold with the rats and they could go get them if they wanted.
Following Sin-Kay’s curt morning inspection—he’s still smarting from his humiliation by the Captain—and after our breakfast burgoo, we start on the Plan in earnest.
Yesterday, I’d met with Dolley and Clarissa and we agreed that we could tell the rest of the girls everything about what we planned. We brought them up to us by division so we could talk low, and we told them about the Rat Hole, my shiv, and the Plan. All were excited and ready to go, all except one—Elspeth has retreated into herself and has to be made to do the simplest of things, like eating and washing and the rest. She is shunned by the others, even though I tell them not to do that, and she spends her days curled up in a corner. Dolley Frazier and Martha Hawthorne, who are on either side of her in Sin-Kay’s line, must pull her to her feet and hold her there till the inspection is over.
“See? You just take out one little chip at a time. Cut down, and when you’ve got a splinter, cut across to free it,” I say, working at the side of the Rat Hole, way back underneath the Stage, with Division Two looking on. “Don’t hurry it, as we’ve got plenty of time—see, like that.” A little chip falls free. “Since we’ll be working at this constantlike, those little chips will add up and we’ll be through in no time. Whatever you do, don’t twist the blade. We can’t have it broken. Do you see?”
The girls nod. Up over our heads, Division Three is pounding out the dance rhythm, setting up a grand clatter to cover up any sounds we might make.
“What’s on the other side, Jacky?” asks Julia.
“I don’t know. It’s too dark in there. We’ll have to wait till we have the Hole big enough to stick our heads in.” I did spend some time down here after the flaps had closed, peering through the Hole, and I thought I could see a faint light, maybe like the glow that would filter in at the bottom of a door. I don’t know. We’ll just have to wait.
I get back to my feet and dust off my underclothes, which is what I am wearing.
“I for one am going to start leaving my dress off after inspection ’cause the work is going to get close and dirty. But, wait, here’s a treat.” I go over to the niche where my seabag is hidden, pull it out, and open it. I take the bar of soap I knew to be in it and hold it up, and there are exclamations of wonder. “I don’t know how much good it will do with the salt water, but it will do some. Make it last, ladies.” I give the bar to Minerva, who takes it eagerly.
“Priscilla, since you did such a fine job setting up the lookout rotation, will you set up the work details, two girls to a section, one carving, the other resting? Thanks. I know that’s all too much to keep in your head, so I will give you a piece of paper so you can write it down.”
I reach in my bag and find my precious little pad of paper. I give her a sheet and a writing implement. She looks at it curiously. “It’s called a pencil, a new invention just lately come out of Germany. Much neater than a pen, and see, you can carry it up in your hair. But don’t let Sin-Kay see it.”
“I won’t and I’ll get right on this.”
“Good. Now send Division One down here.”
There was much done today. The Rat Hole rotation was set up in half-hour sections of two girls each, and the chipping away started. By the time the flaps came down and it was too dark to work, we had gained a good three inches upward and one inch to the side. At this rate, I should be able to poke my head through in three or four more days.
Tonight, I resume my story.
“. . . and then as I lay sprawled on the deck, my hands still bound behind me, the man leaned over me and smiled and made a mock bow. ‘Welcome to His Majesty’s ship Wolverine, girl. I know you’re going to enjoy your stay,’ he says, looking me up and down. His teeth are worn gray stubs, and his puffy face bristles with several days’ growth of beard. ‘But if you ever again call your captain a fool, I will hang you from that yardarm there. Do you understand, girl?’
“Captain? Surely this creature could not be the Captain. . . .”
Much later, when all is quiet, I creep back down to sit with Hughie for a while and hold his hand and tell him about the pretty little horses again.