with the stranger in Habana. For the next two days, the boatswain watched her like a hawk and stuck to her like tar to a feather. Worse luck was the hard work of getting the ship ready for departure that kept her parents up on deck at all hours instructing the crew on how to load and unload the goods they were trading. Little Jane tried to stay awake, but much to her chagrin, she always managed to fall asleep long before her parents came down to go to bed at night.
The time came for them to sail far too quickly. Little Jane gazed miserably at the buildings of Habana harbour as they receded from view along the blue horizon. The snapping sails carried the Pieces of Eight out to sea, seemingly in no time at all.
However, Little Jane had no intention of taking these difficult circumstances lying down. “If I can’t tell anyone,” she reasoned to herself, “least ways I can keep an eye on things and make sure Ned don’t get up to more mischief.” In that spirit, Little Jane spent a few monotonous days spying on the boatswain. Strangely enough, Ned did nothing more suspicious than urinate off the quarter deck when he was supposed to be on watch. As the days went by, her spying activities dwindled to the occasional sneaky hour or two caught in between her own ship’s duties.
Little Jane wondered if perhaps she had confused the meaning of what she’d seen that night in Habana. Maybe the man she’d seen climb down the rope hadn’t really been Ned at all. Even if it was Ned, it didn’t mean he’d necessarily been up to no good. And even if he had been up to no good, he was only one man. As long as she stayed near her parents, she was protected, for he was certainly no match for the two greatest pirate captains to ever sail the seven seas. There was nothing to worry about, nothing at all.
A good captain always retains a level head in the face of danger and makes decisions based on proper evidence, not fear. Wasn’t that what she’d been told to write down in her book by her mother?
She could manage to convince herself of it during the day, but in bed at night, with “How to Be a Good Pirate” unreadable in the dark, she found a level head was not the easiest of things to maintain.
As always, the first day of the month was Cannon Defouling Day on the Pieces of Eight. It turned out that the auspicious date had not come soon enough, for seagulls had made homes for themselves in several of the aft cannons, thoroughly clogging them with their nests and droppings. The four-pounders, although much better off, were choked with spider webs, not to mention rust, dust, salt, and seaweed.
Despite being too little to help carry the smaller cannon barrels up to the main deck for cleaning, Little Jane’s job was still crucial to the success of the enterprise. It was she who was responsible for tying the knots that held the cannons in place and with her small, speedy fingers she was exceptionally good at it.
She had just tied down the second aft cannon, called “Mr. J. Thunders” (all cannons on the Pieces had names), when Ned Ronk sent her down to storage to get more grease.
Little Jane returned to find the rest of the crew hard at work on the other cannons — “General Wolfe” and “Typhoon.” She noticed Mr. J. Thunders moving in an odd sort of way as she approached.
The Pieces of Eight listed to port as the ship hit a big wave. All at once, J. Thunders rolled free, burst through the railings, and plunged towards the sea in a shower of splintering wood.
Little Jane tried to snatch the ropes as they slithered past her ankles. She managed to grab one mooring rope and held on with all her might. Her arms and shoulders shook with the effort, but she was too weak to stay the cannon’s progress one iota. The rope shot through her hands like a live thing, stripping the skin off her palms as it went. Then the cannon paused in its descent, swaying precariously just below the railing, held fast by one unbroken strand of rope.
She grabbed the taunt rope.
For one miraculous second it held. She pulled with every fibre in her body, ignoring the coarse hempen hairs of the rope as they poked into the raw flesh of her palms.
J. Thunders swayed below her like a pendulum, striking the hull of the ship with a sickening sound of shattering timber.
She might as well have tried to bend iron.
The single strand broke and the rope exploded out, lashing out at Little Jane like a whip across her forehead. She fell senseless to the ground and J. Thunders tumbled into the ocean, never to be seen again.
It had all taken little more than a few seconds.
A flurry of orders broke out and Long John rushed over to where Little Jane lay, just coming to, on her back on the deck. She opened her eyes to find herself enfolded in his brawny arms.
The pirate captain’s concern poured out in a babbling stream of words. “Jane — Jane, oh Jane, thank God — what — what was ye doing? Yer head! Good lord! What was you thinking? You’re hurt!”
But Little Jane just sat blinking at the broken railing and the rust-stained deck planks where the massive cannon had been, as if it were all a mirage. It seemed impossible that such a huge thing as J. Thunders had so suddenly up and disappeared.
“Not hurt,” she replied vaguely, but her forehead felt hot and wet in the place the rope had struck her and there was blood around the cuffs of her shirtsleeves.
“You are hurt!” protested Long John.
“I’m not hu—” she started to argue, but then the palms of her hands began to smart so terribly that tears filled her eyes.
“What happened?” asked her Papa.
“I … I …” What had happened anyway? She had tied up the cannon’s ropes, and then gone down below to get the fat to grease the wheels. She had come up again and J. Thunders was … going over the side? It made no sense. She groped in her mind for some explanation.
“It’s her fault!” someone shouted. “The cannon ropes weren’t tied proper!”
Without looking, even through her throbbing headache and burning hands, she knew that voice.
“Eh?” Long John looked up, puzzled.
“Look!” Ned Ronk cried and he pointed to the empty deadlights fixed to the deck that the rope should have been tied to.
Gasps and curses broke forth from the crowd of sailors.
Long John looked from Little Jane to the deadlights and back again. “Jane …”
“It weren’t me,” she swore vehemently through her tears. “It weren’t me! I swear it!”
“But it was your job — tyin’ down the cannons!” called out Changez.
“How we gonna defend ourselves now?” grumbled Mac the gunsmith.
“Shaddup, woodworms!” bellowed Long John. “We still got a slew o’ cannons! Leave ’er out of it!”
But somehow this did little to staunch the crew’s anger toward Little Jane. She curled up further into her father’s belly, making herself as tiny as possible, trying hard to pretend she did not hear the voices of people she’d known and lived with like family all her life turning so swiftly against her.
“What you get
