Page 12 of Miss Whittier Makes a List
The idea took hold as she swung one bare foot idly outside the hammock. I should just march boldly on deck and express my appreciation, she thought, and then climbed carefully out of the hammock,onto the gun, and to the deck. Someone—it must have been the ship’s surgeon—had placed another jar of ointment on top of the sea chest, and a hairbrush. She smiled at such a simple pleasure and untwined her braid. Humming to herself, she brushed her hair gingerly at first, and then more forcefully, when she discovered that her sunburned scalp was on a rapid mend. She replaited her hair, pleased with its chestnut color and thickness and imagining that her exposure to the relentless sun had given it those lighter hues that twinkled through it in the last light of the afternoon.
She tucked in her shirt again, wished briefly for shoes, and left the cabin. The Marine clicked to attention outside her door,bringing his long musket to port arms, and then stamping it again by his side.
“Thee really doesn’t need to do that,”she said, embarrassed that a Quaker would elicit such military attention.
“Regulations require it, miss,”he said, his eyes straight ahead.
“Well, if thee must ....”she said, and hurried up the gangway to the main deck above.
The sky was so incredibly blue that she could only stare in frank admiration as it contrasted with the white of the sails and the great tarred mast that seemed to go up and up, prepared to puncture the lazy clouds overhead. As she stared upward, shading her eyes with her hand, she saw the topmen balanced on the foot ropes that ran along each yardarm, reefing the mainsail and topsails above, and then on command through the speaking trumpet from the lieutenant on deck, unfurling them. They dropped with a bang and snap that made her jump.
They did it once, then twice, and then Captain Spark, who paced the quarterdeck, held his watch on them. When the last sail was reefed, they waited.
“By damn, that was slow as my fat Aunt Mabel,”he roared,snapping his watch shut“Try it again,you sons of the guns,and put some back into it!”
The exercise was repeated four more times, Spark’s eyes on his watch. Finally he clicked it shut and tucked it in his pocket.“Better,”he hollered.“Your lives may depend on your speed, lads,mark you.”He glanced at the lieutenant on the main deck with the speaking trumpet.“Tell them to stand down, Mr. Futtrell, lively now.”
“Aye, sir.”The lieutenant barked an order through the trumpet and topmen scurried down the ratlines to the deck one hundred and fifty feet below.
“My,”Hannah whispered out loud as she watched them descend. She looked at the captain on the quarterdeck, expecting to see some show of appreciation. He stood, hands clasped behind his back, telescope tucked between hisarmand his side, his expression sour. As she watched, he peered beyond her into the waist of the gun deck.
“Mr. Lansing, tomorrow we will run out the guns for target practice. I trust you will be more efficient than Mr. Futtrell and his nervous Nellies.”
“Aye, sir!”came a voice from the gun deck.
Hannah sighed. My, but thee is difficult to please, she thought. Hosea would call thee a grouch. She turned away to look out across the water, but her view was obscured by the hammocks rolled into the netting that lined the railing. What an odd place to store one’s bedding, she thought. It quite ruins the view.
She looked up the companionway to the quarterdeck, where the captain stood,telescope to his eye, gazing across the empty sea. I did promise to thank him, she remembered. And the view is better there. She crossed the deck to climb the ladder to thequarterdeck.
Her foot was on the first tread when she heard the helmsman at the wheel suck in his breath. She looked at him in surprise.
“Miss, I wouldn’t ....”he began.“Not there.”
She shook her head. Couldn’t he see that was where the view was? And she did have a word of thanks to express to Captain Sir Daniel Spark. She skipped up the narrow treads, looking over her shoulder in surprise as LieutenantFuttrellbolted from his post by the mainmast and ran toward her, his hand raised.
“How odd these people are,”she muttered under her breath as she stood on the quarterdeck. Mr. Futtrell had stopped now and was watching her, his mouth open.
The view was better. She strolled to the railing andstoodbeside the captain, who still had the telescope to his eye, his concentration intense on nothing that she could see. Hannah admired the play of the sinking sun slanting across the water, suddenly mindful that everyone on the main deck was watching her now. Even the seamen hung suspended in the ratlines.
“How peculiar,”she said out loud, raising her face to the wind that ruffled her hair from the back. She cleared her throat, in case Captain Spark had not heard her remark.
The telescope came down slowly. Howformidablehe looks with that monstrous hat on, she thought as she watched him slam the telescope together with a cracking sound that could be heard all over the ship. I wonder why he stares that way.
“Captain, I wanted to thank you for—”
What she was going to say, she could not have remembered, not even one second later, not in the glare of Captain Spark’s expression, which hardened into granite.
“What in God’s name are you doing on the weather side of this quarterdeck?”he roared, his voice as loud as though he were addressing the topmen who still hung in the ratlines.
She stepped back in surprise, her hands to her ears in fright.
“You don’t need to shout,”she said.“I just wanted to thank—”
“Youare a monstrous lot of trouble,Miss Whittier,”he rasped, as though speaking over firing guns. His voice seemed to echo, as though the sails caught words as well as winds, and flung them back at her. Tears started into her eyes as she looked about for an avenue of escape. Everyone on theDissuadewas absolutely still, as though turned to stone in a fairy tale. She slowly backed toward the ladder.“I’m sorry,”she begas her knees began tosmotetogether.
He was at her side in two strides. She shriekedinterror as he picked her upand held her suspended in his arms over the railing onto the main deck.
“Mr. Futtrell! Do something with this!”he shouted and let her drop.
