Cast Off (11 page)

I stood outside the captain's door, flanked by the twin sailors who'd played piquet next to the VOC trunks, and wishing with all my heart that I'd been born with a working brain. A cow was more intelligent than I. A sea slug, a crab, a Dodo bird.
Cor the baker's boy who wore no mitt.
The moment I'd feared most of all came about not by chance but because of my own recklessness. All my plans, all my care was for naught.

And what would happen to Bram if the captain connected him to me?

“You know what happenth to thtowawayth?” the toothless one asked. He and his twin were a head taller than I, and I had a view straight up their noses, which were none too clean.

“Skipper tosses 'em over with a couple o' stones in their pockets. At least that's what I seen,” said his brother, wiggling his nostrils with enthusiasm.

“Ith that all? They don't get a hundred flickth of the cat firstht? Nithe and thalty?”

“Don't know. Happy Jan is close with his salt. Might use galley embers instead.”

Whipped with salt and fire! I swallowed the bile that came up my throat.

“Courthe, he could alwayth keelhaul him.”

“Keelhaul?” The word was out of my mouth before I could swallow it. I didn't want to know more.

“You don't know about keelhauling?” The twin with teeth put an arm around my shoulders. “It's what happens to men at sea who break the law somehow. Like by stealing. Or stowing away. It's a simple thing. Someone ties a rope around the criminal who did the bad thing. Then they toss him in the water.”

“Bu . . . but what if he can't swim?”

“Oh, that's no matter. He don't have to know how to swim, because the men on deck do all the work for him. The criminal gets dragged underwater, see, from one side of the ship to the other, past the keel. That's why it's called
keelhauling
.”

“But won't the person drown?”

“Only if the men doing the dragging take their time about it.” He gave my shoulder a friendly squeeze. “But you don't have to worry about that, mate. We'll be quick.”

“No,” said the toothless brother, “the thing you got to worry about ith barnacleth.”

“Bar—”

“The little black shellfish that's stuck to the sides of the hull? Those shells is mighty sharp. Sharp enough to flay the skin off a man's face. I've even seen a man lose an arm.”

“I've theen one looth hith head.”

“Captain will see you now.”

An elderly bewhiskered man poked his head around the door. A bluish white film covered both his eyes—he must have been at least half blind. For a moment I imagined his head was floating in the air, and my stomach floated up with it. But then he held the door open, and
I saw that
his head was attached to a body, stooped and crooked with age.

The twins moved forward with me, but the old man said, “Just the boy, please.”

I stepped into the great cabin alone.

Captain Michael De Ridder was seated at an elegant desk with a quill in his hand. Open before him was a large ledger bound in brown leather with a hunk of gray ambergris—waxy stuff vomited by sperm whales, excellent for treating headache and poisoning—on the left side as a paperweight. Sunlight poured through a wall of whitish glass windows across the ship's stern. Down the center of the room was a long table that could seat ten. On the bulkhead wall hung a portrait of a pretty round-faced woman with two young children—his family, I guessed—and an embroidered sampler that read
fair skies and following winds
in crooked letters. At the captain's feet slept a shaggy black dog with a head the size of a watermelon.

I chewed my thumbnail to look boyish and studied the captain carefully while he wrote, hoping to determine something of the man in his looks. Brown hair turning gray, worn loosely and pulled back under a tricorn hat. Quality linen, starched and pressed. A strong jaw in a weather-beaten face. He could be kind or cruel, wise or dull.

“Captain, may I present . . .” The servant raised shaggy eyebrows at me.

“Albert Jochims, sir,” I said, taking Albertina's name for my own.

“Stowaway,” he supplied helpfully.

De Ridder laid down his quill and wiped his fingers on a handkerchief.

“Thank you, Slippert. That will be all.”

Slippert backed out of the cabin.

“I suppose you're our demon.” De Ridder spoke in a quiet voice, but there was no mistaking his authority.

“I suppose I am, sir.”

“Do you know the penalty for stowing away on a ship of the Dutch East India Company?”

“I do, sir. It's either thrown overboard with stones in my pockets or whipped to death—with salt or burning embers from the galley oven.”

The captain looked amused. I couldn't imagine why. Death was no laughing matter to me.

“Tell me. What were you doing on my ship?”

I answered with care. Father was well-known. If I revealed my identity, I'd be sent back to him at the first opportunity. “I've broken no laws, sir. Well, 'cept for stowing away.”

“That's a tremendous relief,” De Ridder said dryly. “But I
am
curious. Why would you spend your nights cleaning and repairing my ship?”

“I'm not a thief, sir,” I said. “I wanted to make myself useful.”

My answer seemed to surprise De Ridder. “What else can you do?”

“I know all the sailor's knots and the names of the sails and the lines and sheets—all the ship's parts—though I've never worked 'em myself. Also, I could holystone the decks. My arms ain't too strong, but I could try to man the pumps.”

“You know all the sailor's knots?” The dog laid its giant head across the captain's lap and De Ridder scratched it behind the ears. “I wonder who taught you those?” I held my tongue. “Well, Jochims, it seems a waste of life to throw you overboard. You may stay with the
Lion
for the remaining weeks until we reach Cape Town, and there you will disembark for good.”

“Thank you for not executing me, sir.” I nearly swooned with relief and caught myself before I did something girlish like clasp my hands to my chest.

“Indeed.” He nodded. “However, you will have to be punished. Stowing away is a serious offense.”

My liver turned to ice. “Yes, sir,” I whispered.

“How old are you?”

“Twelve.”

“I thought about as much. Twelve lashes, then. On the bottom.”

It was an easy punishment, twelve lashes on the bottom. One that boys far younger than I suffered every day and then went back to playing in the streets, sore but wiser. But not one that I could take. Shirtless, I looked no different from a boy, but I could not pull down my trousers.

“No, sir! Not on the bottom. Please. I'll . . . I'll take my whipping on the back, like a man.”

“You shall take your lashings on your bottom like the child you are. There's no shame in it.”

“I don't need special treatment, Captain. Whip me like a man. I can take it.”

“It's choice you want, is it? Then choice you shall have. Either take the lashes on your bottom or be keelhauled.”

De Ridder was through with me and so had made me an offer he knew I wouldn't accept. A choice that was no choice. He pushed away his dog's head and went back to his ledger.

“Keelhauled,” I whispered.

He looked up, grave-faced. “Stop this foolishness, young man. You know not what you ask.”

“I beg your pardon, sir, but I do know.” I described the process as the twins had told it to me.

“That's a fair account,” he said. “Men die from it. Do you understand? They die of grievous wounds.”

“I understand, sir. But you said I could choose my punishment.” I swallowed hard. “I choose to be keelhauled.”

“You know how to hold yer breath, Albert?”

“I—”

A pair of strong hands shoved my head into a bucket of seawater. I swallowed lungfuls, thrashing my arms and legs, until the hands yanked me up again.

“Not like that. You got to take a deep breath before you go under and then shut your mouth tight.”

The hands and the voices belonged to the Gos brothers, the twins who'd brought me to the captain and who'd since decided to become my best mates now that my death was imminent.

“Ready to try again?”

I most certainly was not ready, but I couldn't tell that to the Gos brothers while I was doubled over coughing up seawater on the fo'c'sle deck.

“Give him a thecond, brother,” said the Gos with no teeth.
Goth
. Goth with the lisp and Gos with teeth.

“I—I—”

“Take your time, mate,” said Goth.

“But not too much time,” said his brother, squinting at the afternoon sun. “It's almost six bells. Remember, Albert, keep your arms over your face so the barnacles don't scrape your nose off.”

“And keep your feet pointing down.”

Gos punched Goth in the arm. “Go get him a weight!”

“A wei—?” I sputtered.

Goth slapped me unhelpfully on the back. “To tie to your feet. Tho you'll think fathter!”

Why would I want to sink faster?! With my lungs still half-drowned, I couldn't get the question out. And now Goth was tying a twenty-pound cannonball to my ankles while a growing crowd of sailors gathered around to watch.

I scanned the sun-browned faces. Bram's wasn't among them. Was he angry with me? Had he been found out and was now chained in the hold, awaiting his own punishment?

“Handth up, Al,” Goth instructed. Dumbly, I obeyed, holding my arms out to the sides while he tied another rope around my waist. The rope went from me to one of the portside yards—a yard being a horizontal piece of wood that a sail hangs from—and overboard, where it disappeared under the ship, just as I would do moments from now. I cast around wild-eyed until I found the other end of the rope lashed to a yard on the starboard side. My lifeline.

“Too tight?” Goth asked, tugging on the knot.

I'd stopped coughing but couldn't speak.

Gos slapped my back again. “Don't you worry about nothing. We'll take care of you. Just keep those arms up like we said and you'll keep your nose.”

A hush came over the deck. Captain De Ridder had arrived. He moved to stand at the bow so he could address the whole of the crew. Even the soldiers had been let out to witness my punishment. Sickly and hangdog as they were, I imagined I looked worse.

The
Lion
was lying to in the light wind with all her sails turned out. She was as still as she could be in the middle of an ocean.

Where's Bram?

“Lions,” De Ridder said, his deep voice carrying easily in the silence. “Albert Jochims here is a confessed stowaway and must be punished for his crime. I offered him a penalty of twelve lashes, but he chose to be keelhauled instead.”

A murmur went through the crowd. “That true, Al?” whispered Gos. “Why'd you do an idiot thing like that?”

“Mister Jochims,” De Ridder said. “Do you wish to change your mind?”

I did. I wished to change my mind more than I wished for food or sunlight or fresh air. More than I wished for anything. Except going back to Father, which is what would happen if I was stripped and whipped.

“No, sir. I stand by my choice.”

“Don't be a fool, boy!”

“Addle pate!”

“Cod's head!”

“Dullpickle!”

“Mister Jochims?” the captain asked again.

I licked salt from my lips. “Please go ahead and keelhaul me, sir.”

De Ridder glared at me. “As you say. Haul him up!”

Gos stuffed a sponge tasting of rancid oil in my mouth. “It's maybe got a bit of air in it,” he explained.

There was a jerk on the rope around my waist and suddenly I was dangling from the yard, the cannonball tied to my ankles threatening to sever my feet. Gos, Goth, and a mate held the end of the rope on the starboard side. Once I hit the water it would be their job to pull me from one side of the ship to the other. Too fast and I'd lose my head. Too slow and I'd drown.

Where was Bram?
I felt my nostrils flare with every breath.

“Breathe before you hit the water!” yelled Gos.

He crossed his arms over his face and then touched his nose, as if I needed another reminder of the razor-sharp barnacles. I looked around again for Bram. Instead I found Clockert, still wearing his bloody apron from Barometer Piet's surgery.

“Hard over, men,” De Ridder commanded. The yard swung out and now I was hanging over the sea.

“On my count,” De Ridder called. “Three, two, one!”