Booty Calls

It was dark in the hold of the ship, dark and damp and stank of bilge water and the clink of chain from the corner broke the rhythmic creak, creak of the ship as it rode the swell.  Bucket, in short, was not happy as she slouched on the damp wood and kicked the tray of ships biscuits and the tankard of water in temper, adding to the filth of this lowest deck as the slimy cask water flowed over the already saturated planks.  Maybe, she mused maybe, coming aboard wasn’t such a good idea after all…

A shadow moved across the tiny grille in the ceiling at the other end of the hold; Probably someone else coming to gloat…She pulled herself upright with a shick and chink of manacle and chain and prepared for the latest taunting.  She never thought that them finding out she was a woman would be such an issue…

Emma Fisher had always been the adventurous type, as it goes. Always the one to rip her dress by climbing trees, always out at the harbour watching the boats come and go and her father always got into trouble for letting her help with the nets, and sometimes he would even take her out with him. As a result, she grew up able to handle a boat and she knew the sea like an old, and slightly treacherous friend.  She got a reputation with the black clad old widows of her village as a ‘bit of an odd one’, always more comfortable in the low ceilinged old tavern with the men and fishwives, rather than drinking tea with the ‘respectable’ women.  She got older, as people are unfortunately wont to do and her oddness started to be regarded as eccentricity.  The widows started to make noises about how a woman her age should be married, how she was from a good family, how she was disgracing them by ‘carrying on like this’.  She carried on helping her father, mending the net, painting the boat and then he would get it in the neck for letting his daughter run wayward.  “We’ll be alright, Bucket, lass”, he’d say.  She could see no problem with it, her brother was useless…a lazy boy who turned into a lazy man.  He already had two lazy children and a stupid wife that waited on him hand and foot and people applauded him for it, said he was a pride to the family, unlike his crazy spinster sister who would likely turn out a fish wife, not our kind of people at all.  Well…she had taken about as much of this as she could stand; enough of the snobbery in this stupid little village, enough of the way they treated her and what stung most was the way they treated her father.  Anger welled as she stuffed what few belongings she had into a leather satchel, anger welled as she tied the bandana around her head and pulled on the breeches, anger welled as she picked up her bag and took a rowing boat down the inlet and along the coast to the port, but by dawn as the little boat sculled up to a jetty, John ‘Bucket’ Fisher had been born and the anger had gone.

She had been to the port a few times before with her father to sell the fish that she had spent hours packing in the sardine cellars by the quay.  She could never get over the bustle, all the people, the life that the place had.  Tall ships, galleons from a dozen nations loomed up from the dock, barrels packed with supplies, crates of cargo, loose dogs, ships cats, navy men, merchantmen, fishermen, ropes, nets, ship’s bells and the smell of spices from far away filled the air, mixing with the docker’s whistles and the cries of street vendors.  Seeing it through the eyes of John Fisher made it a very interesting place indeed.  Women came up to him and batted their eyelashes and swung their hips, men jostled him and street traders hassled him.  Bucket walked through the port, searching for a ship bound for distant parts.  It was her intention to get aboard as a deckhand until the waters took her sufficiently away from home, then jump ship and start fresh, away from the sardine cellars and the complaining old women in a place where she could be herself.

She walked down the moorings; too posh, too grubby, Royal Navy, a coastal schooner, a tea clipper, ship after ship until she came across an old looking ship, clean, not cargo laden yet with a sailor sitting on a capston on the quay.  This seemed the best of a bad lot, and she couldn’t afford to dawdle.  “Hey, mister”
“Hm…What lad?  Bugger off.”
“Where are you bound for, Mister?”
“The Indies, now bugger off lad before I kick your arse.”
“Need any crew, Mister?  I’m a good deckhand.”
“How old are you?”
“Fifteen, Mister”
The man paused and regarded bucket for a short while.  “Any good with knots, lad?”  Bucket nodded.
“Good with a broom?”
Another nod.
“Fast learner?”
Nod, nod
The man paused for more thought and scratched his beard with a noise like sandpaper.  “Could use a decent lad for a deckhand…A penny a week, and a share of anything you help acquire, savvy?”
“Yes, sir”
“That your stuff?”
“Yes, sir”
“Go stow it then, quick now before you get my boot up your arse.  We sail on the high tide.”

Bucket ran up the gangplank and onto the scrubbed deck.  A few sailors were hereabouts, a couple up the rigging, one mending a sail, one with a bar of soap and a brush, scrubbing the deck.  She stood, wondering what to do now when the one with the brush came up to her.
“Talked to Murphy, did ye?”
“What?”
“The first mate, Murphy down there, talked to him did ye?”
“Yeah, he hired me…”
The man started to laugh “Oh, he did now?  And what might a clean looking lad like yourself be running from, may I ask?”
“What?”
“Running, lad…No-one boards the Elizabeth-Rose unless he’s running from something or someone.  You look too young to have got a young lady into trouble…Thieving is it?”
“Er…yeah…”
The sailor nodded.  “You’ll fit in alright I’m sure.” A brush was thrust into her hands. “Now, let’s get some callouses on them soft hands and get seaworthy before the captain gets back, we’re sailing on the tide.”

And so life aboard the Elizabeth-Rose went on.  Looking like a merchantman most of the time, she made her way from port to port, picking up supplies a little at a time, not drawing any attention to herself, learning to shoot a pistol, and to her surprise, learning to fire the cannons that were arrayed below decks.  She began to realise that these merchantmen may not be all they seemed.  That suspicion was confirmed when they grappled another vessel in the Solent and plundered her hold, the skull and crossbones flag flying high on the mast.  Bucket had become a pirate.

Weeks turned to months and they were no closer to the West Indies, just coasting and plundering vessels that crossed their path.  “We’re no good in the Indies poor, lad” said one.  And so she waited, meaning to jump ship for another at every port.  She cut throats and shot and plundered with them all, and soon her own fortune began to grow, all the time hiding the fact that young John Fisher was really Emma and fast having designs on a ship of her own.  All went well, until a merchant ship, laden with brandy and rum turned out to have guns of their own.  News like the Elizabeth-Rose got around, and one of their filthy swabs plugged Bucket’s shoulder full of shot.  When the raid was over and the other ship’s crew dealt with, the ship’s surgeon was called; a butcher named Maltman, and her shirt was torn open and all, so to speak, was revealed.

Her ability to fight spared her any acts of gross indecency and she had friends among the crew, all gone now but not willing to turn a hand to the ‘boy’ who had saved their own hides more than once, and so she was chained in the hold, with the intent of selling her for a good price when the West Indies were reached.  The big houses over there would pay well for a handsome English girl for a servant and a heavy hand would make her more biddable, and so this was her lot.  Chains for chains.  

Bucket snapped out of her reverie as footsteps clumped on the stinking deck towards her.  She stood up, as much as the low, low hold ceiling would allow and look into the face of Mr Wetherall, boatswain and general blackguard.  He looked down at the bits on the tray “Now then, lass…best eat something and keep your strength up, eh?”  He smiled and revealed a mouth full of black and gold teeth. “Yer shoulder’s healed nice…”  He pushed the shirt collar down to reveal Bucket’s shoulder and began to stroke the healed flesh with the back of his hand, and so didn’t notice Bucket winding the chain around her hand.  He was even more surprised when she whipped about, pulling the chain around his neck tight ,cutting off his breath.
“Unlock me, Wetherall you dog…Where’s the key?”
He struggled in vain, fighting for breath and the strength to shed himself of Bucket who had the strength of desperation behind her.  In the end, he tapped his belt with a ‘chink’ and the bunch of keys jingled as he gasped for air.  Her eyes also fell on his flintlock, tucked in his belt.  In a swift, fluid movement, she kicked him in the kidneys to wind him, took the chain from around his neck and removed the pistol from his belt, by the weight, it was loaded.  She cocked it and held it to the greasy head.  “Slowly….Slowly unlock the cuffs….and I mean slowly”  Obediently, the reeling pirate reached for the keys and slowly, slowly the cuffs came free.  He made a feint, but Bucket’s foot met with his stomach, doubling him over.  “Put them on…”  He gave her an incredulous look “I said put them on, Wetherall, you scurvy ridden scum!”  The boatswain stooped and closed the manacles around his wrists and lightening quick, Bucket locked the cuffs fast around his wrists.   Her legs feeling weak from not having walked for weeks, she made her way barefoot and silent to the opposite and of the hold, where a ladder ascended to the upper decks.  No sound came from above and so she padded her way up the ladder to the next deck and strained her ears as she rose above the water line of the ship.  “Make ready to weigh anchor!  Turn to port!”   So, they were coming into a port?  She was being smiled on after all… She climbed the ladder further and no light came.  Dark as well?…You’re lucky, Bucket…

Crouching behind crates of booty and cargo she watched them make ready to weigh anchor, the pistol still cocked and ready to use.  One shot only but one could be enough.  Everyone was busy as the anchor took hold and they prepared to launch the rowing boat to take a party to the dock and she made her way to the rail of the ship, her bandana still tied on her head.  She tucked the gun into her breeches and dropped off the ship with a splash and as she began to swim with all the strength she had, cries rose up from the ship, first of “Man overboard!”, then of  “Fisher!  Damn you, Fisher!” and the water was peppered with shot.  Bucket made her way through the freezing water as if she was possessed, determined to leave piracy behind her, at least for now.  Penniless, shoeless with only the flintlock and the clothes on her soaking back and the friction burns from the manacles on her wrists, she hauled herself out of the water and staggered into the town, the rowing boat of the Elizabeth-Rose hot on her heels.  She ran until her nostrils felt the familiar sting of a sardine cellar and she ducked into the stinking door.  She saw a mob run by, passing the stinking shed without a glance, searching stables and crates for their missing captive.  The streets grew quiet and Bucket, still barefoot, padded her way outside and into the glowing moonlight.  Songs could be heard from a distant tavern and a dog barked, but other than that, the place was thankfully quiet, good job too, since both her gun and the powder in it was soaked.  And so, stinking of fish and soaking, Bucket made to leave town.  Passing a dark passage between two doss houses, she felt the ice cold sting of a gun barrel at the nape of her neck and the ‘cli-click’ of a flintlock being cocked.  “Stand and deliver, sailor boy”