"This ain't about me, Sir. I'm a ship's boy and ship's boys get beaten. I ain't complainin'. It's about you. You're bein' humiliated in front of your men. They like you, Sir, I know they do, but they got no respect for you 'cause of Bliffil's rubbin' your nose in it every day. Like that thing yesterday on the fantail, when he..."
"Stop." He gets redder yet and hangs his head. I hate to be so brutal but I go on.
"The officers notice. They talk amongst themselves about who's gonna make good officers and who ain't. I'm up there on the quarterdeck with them and I hear them. The Captain notices, too. He seems high-and-mighty, but he don't miss much."
"What do you think I should d ... d ... do?" he says miserably.
"You've got to fight him, Sir. Fight him straight out. You can't be any more shamed than you are now. If you don't do somethin,' you'll lose your commission and live in shame for the rest of your life."
I look at him steady. I am being as cruel as I know how. "The Captain's gonna put you off soon, you know that."
"Perhaps that's best. Maybe I'm not cut out for this life," he says. "I could do other things."
"Right," says I. "And you might be right good at other things, but every morning you'll have to look at yourself in the mirror and you'll remember, every day you'll remember, for the rest of your life you'll remember what Bliffil made you eat."
That jerks him up. "What..."
"Your pride, Sir. Your honor. That's what he made you eat. And you'll eat it every day for breakfast, lunch, and dinner from now on if you don't fight him."
I put my hands together like in prayer and put a pleading look on my face. "Please, Sir, go at him just once. I know you've got the stuff, I know you stood up straight beside your gun in the fight even when the gun next to you was blown away, 'cause I saw you. Your men saw you. And you went over in the Boarding Party like everyone else. I saw that. The Captain saw that."
I'm runnin' along full bore now and hardly pause for breath, pressin' the truth of what I'm sayin'. "What nobody but me saw was that Bliffil hid behind the cabin when the fight was goin' on and only come out later all roarin' to finish off the helpless pirate when all was done."
Mr. Jenkins seems surprised by this. "But I thought..."
"You thought he was a bold and fierce fighter? Is that what he told you?" I can imagine Bliffil holding forth in the midshipmen's berth on his glorious taking of the pirate ship, waving his bloody sword about under the other middies' noses.
Mr. Jenkins sits and thinks for a while and I let him. Finally he says, "He scares me. He's so big and his fists look like blocks of stone. He puts that hard look on me and I freeze like a mouse before a snake. There. That's the way of it. I'm sorry."
"But, Sir..."
"No, Faber, that's the way of it. If the Captain hadn't forbidden duelling amongst his officers, I'd have called him out when we went ashore on Palma, and he'd either have killed me or I would have killed him and it would have been done with. I am not afraid to die." He pauses. "Sometimes I want to."
There's something I didn't know, that about the duelling, I mean. I press on. "Sir, there's one thing I think you're mistaken about, if you'll forgive me. You've got the mistaken notion that you've got to win the fight to accomplish anything, and you're wrong. All you have to do is put up a decent fight and you'll see, he won't bother you anymore."
Mr. Jenkins looks doubtful.
"You see, Sir, Bliffil is a bully, and bullies like to hurt people but they don't like bein' hurt themselves. If he hits you five times and you only hit him once, he's still gonna remember that one hit and he'll pick on someone else, 'cause he's got plenty of victims to choose from."
I believe he's starting to see the force of my argument. His head lifts.
"And you got to fight him crude, just as crude and dirty as he fights," I says, seein' hope. "Don't hold back and try to box with him, he'll only laugh at you and pop you one on your nose, which'll start your eyes waterin' and you'll be done. Just go at him, Sir, just go in with your head down and your arms and fists a'flailin'."
I crawl up on the table so I can look direct in Mr. Jenkins's eyes. "I've known many a tough one in my day, and I knows him for a soft one. Just close in, Sir, and punch at whatever ye can punch at, be it face, body, legs, or crotch. Just hurt him, Sir, and he won't be back for more. Hurt him."
I don't know if my call to arms with Mr. Jenkins will do any good, but at least it's a start. I swear the Brotherhood to secrecy and tell them of my plan, and Tink says, "This gets awfully close to mutiny," and I say, "That's why I swore you to secrecy, you ninny, and it ain't really mutiny, it's more like fomentin' revolution, like." I tell them to be real kind to Mr. Jenkins, buck him up some with nods and winks and poundin' your fist in your palm and grinnin', and talk to the men in his division. Who are they? Smyth, Harley, Gonsalves, and Joad? Right, get them to do the same thing. Let's get our Mr. Jenkins charged up for this. What say? Except for Jaimy, they still look uncertain. Jaimy just looks grim, staring at my battered face.
Then I dredges up somethin' from my broadside readin' days and I sticks me fist up in the air, "Remember, lads, 'Rebellion to Tyrants Is Obedience to God!'"
That nails it.
Chapter 23
The boys are talking about the Nature of Things Between Men and Women again. It seems it's all they ever talk about anymore, and what's really maddening is they've got it all wrong. I want to lay it all out for them like Mrs. Roundtree did for me but that would be stupid. Plus I paid a shilling for that knowledge and if they think I'm givin' it out for free, they're wrong.
I guess I snort too loud after a particularly choice piece of falsehood concerning The Parts of the Female and Tink rounds on me like he was reading my mind.
"Awright, Jacky," he says, pointing his finger at me, "you was the one what was in the 'orehouse in Palma. You be the one wi' ex-per-i-ence, you little pervert, and so you be the one to set us straight. Let's 'ave it. Straight now."
They're all looking at me, expecting the true and straight skinny. Even you, Jaimy, you fool.
"I told you I was only asking directions," says I.
"Yeah, right, and me mother's the Queen o' Sheba. C'mon Jacky, you black sinner, you've been there and done it and you've prolly got the pox now, so tell us about it afore you swells up and dies."
I get to my feet and face them. I put my right hand on my hip and my left hand in the air and says, "I, Jack Faber, swear on my tattoo and on my honor as a member of the dread Brotherhood of Ship's Boys of HMS Dolphin that I did nothing at that house except ask for directions." I looks them each in the eye.
Directions in how to be a girl, I finishes to myself.
That satisfies them 'cause they know I wouldn't lie under that oath, which they allows was a right fine oath and ought to be the form for giving oaths from now on. So adopted, say you one, say you all, done.
They fall back into their talk and I reach up and touch my eyebrow. It's just about healed and the stitches are out, leaving a little white scar. The hair of my eyebrow is coming in white around the cut. Jaimy says it gives me a rakish look, like I'm a gay and raffish rogue, but I don't know. I do know my teeth have tightened up and my ribs don't hurt no more and all the swelling went away. All in all, I ain't no uglier than I was before, for which I am thankful.
One thing that worries me, though, is that Jaimy's been acting kind of odd. Sometimes he's real warm and friendly to me and sometimes he ain't. Like, sometimes we lie in our hammock at night and talk real low before going to sleep, him about how much he'd like to help his family, and me about carrying tea from China in my little ship, and him laughing and calling me Captain Jack, Fearless Jack, Merchantman of the Orient Trade and me saying that it could happen, don't laugh. But, like, sometimes he don't talk at all. Maybe he's just moody, off and on, like me. That's got to be it.