and Tonqui, who, along with Cabrillo the caulker, happened to be Ned’s closest mates onboard. Sometimes they would take to bullying crewmembers in Ned’s stead. This did not bother Ned. In fact, it seemed to amuse him, and he often turned a blind eye to their transgressions.
After a few minutes, Ned and Cabrillo arrived to join the game, cups of grog in hand. At first Ned only listened. Lobster talked, as he often did, of lobsters. With great patience he tried to explain to Cabrillo and Tonqui the difference between shedders and hard-shell lobsters, but seeing they had no interest in this stimulating topic, conversation gradually turned to other things. Lobster, Tonqui, and Cabrillo soon fell to talking less and less, leaving Ned to dominate the discussion, as usual.
“Whoever heard of a respectable ship with two captains!” scoffed Ned Ronk. “And while we’re at it, whoever heard tell of a female captain at all! I tells you, mates — I tells you ’cause I truly care about the dignity of this here crew — that we’re the laughingstock of every port from Tortugua to Tokyo, we are!”
Little Jane’s ears perked at these words, insolent as they were. She listened as they talked of Captains Silver and Bright — although that was not what Ned called them, dismissively referring to his superiors as “that feeble old cripple” and “his harpy cow.” Cabrillo had only just muttered a faint protest at this comment when Ned Ronk spotted Little Jane hiding in the rope pile. Ned started to say something to her, but she was too frightened of him to stay and listen. She leapt up like a shot and was in the hold quicker than Ned or his mates could get to her.
There was little question how word of Ned’s speech reached the ears of the captains that night.
Bonnie Mary and Long John were never great proponents of flogging compared to other pirate captains. Even the most experienced sailor made a mistake or ran a little lazy now and again they figured, with no ill feeling toward captain or disrespect for ship intended.
But Ned’s talk was malicious, pure and simple, and they had seen the bloody results of such idle chatter when left unchecked on other vessels. There were reasons sailors were superstitious about speaking the word mutiny out loud on a ship, even in jest. Although he might be the gentlest of God’s creatures by nature, a ship’s captain could ill afford to show weakness, a fact that went double for a captain who happened to be a woman or one suspected of any sort of fragility of person.
Usually it was the boatswain who did the flogging aboard ship, but in this case the dubious honour fell to Bonnie Mary and Long John themselves.
In a well-calculated display for the crew, Ned Ronk was tied up with his face to the mizzen-mast and the charge of “mutinous speech” read. If any crewman still dared to think of Captain Silver as a “feeble cripple,” or Bonnie Mary as a “harpy cow,” the ability to stand in sweltering heat engaged in the exhausting business of thoroughly whipping the tar out of a man, certainly put those theories to rest.
Little Jane had thought that it would please her to see Ned Ronk brought low and shamed before his mates. She had not truly believed such a despicable person could have feelings like other people. Certainly, she had not expected him to cry. But cry he did, and in such a piteous manner that Little Jane had to keep herself from yelling out “Stop!” as the whipping continued. She did not know how her parents could take it.
It seemed to take forever, but eventually the flogging was over. Lancashire and Sharpova took the boatswain down below to tend to his wounds. Tonqui, Cabrillo, and Lobster were forbidden to associate with him until they arrived in Habana.
Even with Ned out of sight, Little Jane still felt squeamish. There was even more for her to worry about now. How would she ever protect herself from the boatswain’s revenge?
The day after the flogging, Little Jane spent a fruitful morning following Long John around, taking notes for “How to Be a Good Pirate.” By this time Little Jane had already filled a quarter of the exercise book and was still going strong.
As she walked, she listened to commands like “Raise the mizzen-mast! Tighten the topsail! Schooner off the port bow!” and “Look lively!” delivered by Long John in a booming voice like the crack of thunder.
She noted “cuss and shout a lot” as a tip to her future self.
Dutifully she practised yelling out various nautical phrases in the privacy of her parents’ cabin, pleased to hear how naturally they tripped off her tongue with the booming pitch necessary for an aspiring young captain. Brimming with confidence, she now awaited the perfect moment to demonstrate her newfound ability.
One morning, while Bonnie Mary was off studying the star charts, Little Jane noticed her father slip away to the ship’s head. The coast was clear.
Throwing caution to the wind, Little Jane shouted at the pilot: “North to starboard! Starboard to the wedgeward side! Hoist the te’gallant scuppers! Loosen up the rear admiral sheets! Dolphin catcher spars at ready! Look lively now!”
Much to her surprise, though, outside the four walls of the captains’ cabin, out on the wide deck, with the sounds of the open sea, her voice was far from booming. Instead, it sounded thin and piping, and whatever little sense there was in what she said was whipped away by the strength of the wind.
Half the crew couldn’t even hear her and the half who did just stared at her confounded, the ropes slack in their hands.
Ned Ronk, of course, was the first to intervene.
He had been standing by the cutter, smoking his pipe, the heavy shadow of the tarp hiding him from Little Jane’s view.
Now he favoured her with a sly grin. “What?” He gloated as he noticed Little Jane’s shocked expression. “Don’t suppose you’re the only one ever played hide and go seek, did ya? Now I think it’s time you got off me deck!” He closed the gap between them in a two massive strides.
Before Little Jane could flinch, he grabbed her by the scruff of the neck and dragged her away. With the other sailors all still tangled up in the rigging or too scared to challenge the mighty boatswain’s authority, and the captains out of sight for the moment, it was Ned’s turn to get even.
With Little Jane in hand and the fresh whip scars on his back tingling with anticipation, Ned slipped into the gap between the cutter boat and the railing, taking care not to let Little Jane wriggle free.
“Oh, this is mighty rich,” he sneered. “Wait till old Mummy and Poppy hear tell of this t’do! Getting all them blokes tangled up in the rigging — they won’t take kindly to that, I dare say! Not that they’d ever fault their perfect little Princess Janey for it, oh no.”
As his fingers tightened around her arms Little Jane shivered.
“You really are so little lass, so very light. Why, you know, I think all it would take is one little gust of wind to blow you clear overboard!”
What did he think he was doing? Looking into Ned’s hard, depthless eyes on that deceptively sunny morning, she could see her future as an infamous privateer truncated by a sudden act of base murder …
Such was her terror that she little registered the boatswain’s rough hands as he hoisted her up by the armpits and held her over the railing.
She hung
