doing something, and at the end of the voyage she’d have a ship’s ticket to rub in Kyle’s face. She’d show him. She’d regain her ship, she promised herself, and resolutely set out to learn this new ship as swiftly as she could.
But despite her best efforts, her inexperience on such a vessel was multiplied by the lesser size of her body. This was a slaughter-ship, not a merchant-trader. The captain’s objective was not to get swiftly from one place to another to deliver goods, but to cruise a zig-zag path looking for prey. The ship carried a far larger crew than would a merchant-ship of the same size, for in addition to sailing, there must be enough hands to hunt, slaughter, render and stow the harvested meat and oil below. Hence the ship was more crowded and less clean. She had held fast to her resolution to learn fast and well, but determination alone could not make her the best sailor on this stinking carrion ship. She knew, in some dim back part of her mind, that she had vastly improved her skills and stamina since signing on to the Reaper. She also knew that what she had achieved was still not enough to make her what her father would have called ‘a smart lad’. Her purposefulness had wallowed down into despair. Then she had lost even that. Now she survived from day-to-day, and thought of little more than that.
She was one of three ‘boys’ aboard the slaughter-ship. The other two, young relatives of the captain, drew the gentler chores. They waited table for both the captain and mate, with a fair chance at getting the leavings from decent meals. They often helped the cook, too, with the lesser chores of preparing food for the main crew. She envied them that the most, she thought to herself, for it often meant they were inside, not only out of the storm’s reach but close to the heat of the cook stove. To Althea, the odd boy, fell the cruder tasks of a ship’s boy. The messy clean-ups, the hauling of buckets of slush and tar, and the make up work of any task that merited an extra man. She had never worked so hard in her life.
She held tight to the mast for a moment longer, just out of reach of yet another wave that swamped the deck. From there to the shelter of the forepeak, she moved in a series of dashes and gasping moments of clinging tight to lines and rails to stay with the vessel as she ploughed through wave after wave. They’d had three solid days of bad weather now. Before the current storm began, Althea had naively believed it would not get much worse. The experienced hands seemed to accept it as part of a normal season on the Outside. They cursed it and demanded of Sa that he end it, but always wound up telling one another tales of worse storms they had endured upon less seaworthy vessels.
‘Ath! Boy! Best get a move on if you want your share of the mess tonight, let alone to eat it while it’s got a breath of warmth in it!’
Reller’s words had more than a bit of threat to them, but despite that tone the old hand stayed on deck, watching her until she gained his side. Together they went below, sliding the hatch tight shut behind them. Althea paused on the step behind Reller to dash the water from her face and arms and then wring out the thick queue of her hair. Then she followed him down into the belly of the ship.
A few months ago, she would have said it was a cold, wet, smelly place. Now it was haven if not home, a place where the wind could not drive the rain into you so fiercely. The yellow light of a lantern was almost welcoming. She could hear food being served out, a wooden ladle clacking against the inside of a kettle, and hastened to be sure of getting her rightful share.
On board the Reaper, there were no crew quarters. Each man found himself a sleeping spot and claimed it. The more desirable ones had to be periodically defended with fists and oaths. There was a small area in the midst of the cargo hold that the men had claimed as a sort of den. Here the kettle of food was brought by one of the ship’s boys and rationed out in dollops as soon as they came off watch. There was no table, no benches to sit on, save your sea-chest if you had one. For the rest, there was only the deck and the odd keg of oil to lean against. The plates were wooden trenchers, cleaned only with a wiping of fingers or bread, when they had bread. Ship’s biscuit was the rule, and in a storm like this, there was small chance that Cook had tried to bake anything. Althea made her way through a jungle of dangling garments. Wet clothing hung everywhere from pegs and hooks in a pretence of drying. Althea shrugged out of her oilskin, won last week gambling with Oyo, and hung it on the peg she had claimed as her own.
Reller’s threat had not been idle. He was serving himself as Althea approached, and like every man on the ship, he took what he wanted with no regard for who came after. Althea snatched up an empty trencher and waited eagerly for him to be out of the way. She sensed he was taking his time about it, trying to bait her into complaint, but she had learned the hard way to be wiser than that. Anyone could cuff a ship’s boy, and they did not need the excuse of his whining to do it. Better to keep silent and get half a ladle of soup than to complain and get only a cuff for her supper. Reller crouched over the kettle and ladled up scoop after scoop from the shallow puddle of what was left. Althea swallowed and waited her turn.
When Reller saw she would not be baited, he almost smiled. Instead he told her, ‘There, lad. I’ve left you a few lumps in the bottom. Clean up the kettle, and then run it back to Cook.’
Althea knew this was a kindness, in a way. He could have taken all and left her naught but scrapings and no one would have even considered speaking against him. She was happy to take the kettle and all and retire to her claimed spot to devour it.
She had a good place, all things considered. She had wedged her meagre belongings up in a place where the curve of the hull met the deck above. It made it near impossible to stand upright. Here she had slung her hammock. No one else could have curled himself small enough to sleep comfortably there. She had found she could retreat there and be relatively undisturbed while she slept; no one was brushing past her in wet rain gear. So she took the kettle to her corner and settled down with it.
She scooped up what broth was left with her mug and drank it down. It was not hot — in fact the grease had congealed in small floating blobs — but it was warmer than the rain outside and the fat tasted good to her. True to his word, Reller had left some lumps. Potato, or turnip or perhaps just a doughy blob of something meant to be a dumpling but not cooked enough. Althea didn’t care. Her fingers scooped it up and she ate it. With a hard round of ship’s biscuit she scraped the kettle clean of every last remnant of food.
She had no sooner swallowed the last bite than a great weariness rose up in her. She was cold and wet and ached in every bone. More than anything, she longed simply to drag down her blanket, roll up in it and close her eyes. But Reller had told her she had to take the kettle back to the cook. She knew better than to wait until after she had slept. That would be seen as shirking. She thought Reller himself might turn a blind eye to it, but if he did not, or if the cook complained, she could catch the end of a rope for it. She couldn’t afford that. With a sound that could have been a whimper, she crept from her sleeping space with the kettle cradled in her arms.
She had to brave the storm-washed deck again to reach the galley. She made it in two dashes, holding onto the kettle as tightly as she held onto the ship. If she let something like that wash overboard, she knew they’d make her wish she’d gone with it. When she got to the galley, she had to kick and beat upon the door; the cook had secured it from inside. When he did let her in, it was with a scowl. Wordlessly, she offered him the kettle, and tried not to look longingly at the fire in its box behind him. If you were favoured by the cook, you could stay long enough to warm yourself. The truly privileged could hang a shirt or a pair of trousers in the galley, where they actually dried completely. Althea was not even marginally favoured. The cook gestured her out the door as soon as she set the kettle down.
On the trip back, she misjudged her timing. Later, she would blame it on the cook for turning her so swiftly out of the galley. She thought she could make it in one dash. Instead the ship seemed to dive straight into a mountain of water. She felt her desperate fingers brush the line she lunged for, but she did not make good her hold. The water simply swept her feet out from under her and rushed her on her belly across the deck. She kicked and
