The Pirate and the Soldier Boy

Chapter 4

As Carmen once again scrubbed the floor one week later, the sun lingered in the center of the sky, as if some giant holding it aloft had locked his elbows and refused to give up just this one day. She was tempted to dunk her head in the wash bucket, but thought better of it. The scabs and black eye from her beating were constantly pulling at her skin, a constant reminder both to obey and not to play with salt water.
Soft footsteps sounded behind her. Turning and squinting into the sun she recognized the Captain's height. Quickly dropping her rag in the bucket and standing, Carmen turned to the Captain and stood at attention as if she were in the army. The Captain waved a dismissive hand. "Take a break, kid. And put this on your eye."
She held out a raw steak. Carmen took it hesitantly. "As long as I won't get in trouble for stealing and wasting a steak."
The Captain smiled deviously. "Who said we would be wasting it?"
Carmen gave her a disgusted look but gratefully placed the meat on the worse of her black eyes. Kneeling down she continued scrubbing the deck. With only stern deck left, it would be too hard to keep going later if she paused now. Leaning against the railing, the Captain removed her wide brimmed hat and hung it on a door knob. She wiped her forehead with a bandana. She murmured something under her breath. Carmen looked at her. "What?"
The captain scowled slightly in return. "I don't like hitting people."
Carmen, hesitated, not wanting to sound insensitive. "That doesn't relate to anything happening."
"But it really does. Anyone can see how much pain you're in. I'm used to it now I suppose. But others hurting still hurts me." She paused. "But discipline is discipline. And we'd never be having this conversation if I hadn't hurt you and you decided to jump off the side instead."
Angry with the conversation, she stormed off. Carmen sat back in wonder. A completely new person had just presented herself. And left her hat. Switching the steak to her other hand and picking the hat up, Carmen looked at the inside. Written in a messy scrawl on the base of the crown of the hat was the name Jenna. Carefully carrying the prize possession down the stairs to the main deck, she hung it on the latch of the Captain's cabin. The first crack in the mortar of the Captain's- Carmen corrected herself. Jenna's- stone wall.

A person bumped into her shoulder as she returned to her swab bucket. Turning to see who it was Carmen recognized the woman who had first pulled her out of the hull. She had traded her sailing boots for softer lighter ones to climb the rigging, though her frizzy hair was just as tangled. Carmen had no shoes.

The woman, seeing it was Carmen she had passed, grunted. "Interloper. If you want to learn the rigging, come find me later."

As she turned to go she shot another comment over her shoulder. "It was a brave thing you done when you first came here. That's why I'm being nice. Not cause I'm a habitually nice person, by any means."

***

Late that afternoon after dinner was served and the crew had free time, Carmen found the woman from that afternoon, who was trying unsuccessfully to tie several curly flyaways into her pony tail. She held up a finger to keep Carmen from talking so she could concentrate, the tip of her tongue trapped firmly between her teeth. Finally she gave up and stood. When she wasn't yelling at Carmen, she actually looked quite fun and mischievous, rather like an imp.

"Pirate! Good to see you! I'm Olive. Let's get started, shall we?"

Without further introduction, Olive launched into her teaching. "We stand on the Main deck of the ship under the Mizzenmast. Behind us at the back of the ship is the Jigger, over what we call the quarter deck. In front is the Mainmast, then the forecastle deck and the foremast. These sections of rope that look like rope nets are called shrouds, the sticks going across the mast called yards. The sails on the mizzenmast from bottom to top are Lower topsail, Upper topsail,Topgallant sail, Royal sail, Skysail, Moonraker-"

She stopped, seeing the look of panic on Carmen's face at taking so much information so fast. Olive broke her serious facade and smiled, and then laughed the loudest Carmen had ever heard. She took a step back startled. Olive continued laughing. "C'mon. I'll show you how to play dice instead."

Even raised by a soldier, Carmen had grown up around very little gambling. So when she was handed her first weeks pay and five dice, Carmen had no idea what to do.

Olive cleared a space in a game that was just beginning and quickly rolled in. "Watch the first round, pirate. It's a bluffing game, guessing how many dice of one type were rolled at a time, but you can only see your dice. I could say two fours, and then the person after me could say anything that raised one of those numbers, or one that raised the first and lowered the second. If you think someone is bluffing, you call them on it (say if Harvey here was an idiot and said five sixes), whoever was wrong puts a dice and a coin in the middle."

The women went around the table, quietly assessing other players and then shouting numbers, hands cupped around their upside down beer mugs, peeking underneath. Money was pushed to the middle every time someone lost a die. The round was over almost before it had began, so it seemed, and a small woman with a longitude latitude coordinate tattooed above her collarbone smiled and collected the money on the table. Olive retrieved her dice from the middle and sighed. "I'm confident you cheat, Dani. How else would you keep winning?"

Dani sat back in her chair, counting her winnings. "I was born with a set of dice in my hands. Proof I was practicing even in the womb."

She stood and offered her place to Carmen. "Good luck. Olive is merciless to newcomers."

Placing her dice in the mug, Carmen rolled and overturned the dice onto the table. Lifting the mug with her hands cupped on the sides so only she could see, Carmen carefully assessed the dice underneath. Three sixes, a one and a four. That seemed fairly good, but she really wasn't sure. Olive across the table started first, calling three twos. The next called three threes. As Carmen called four fours, Olive spoke. "Harvey, what in the world happened to your forehead?"

A large bump that had apparently not been there the day before became noticeable. Harvey growled. "Hit my head on the bunk. You know they only give us maybe two feet of vertical space to lie in. Four fives. Rolled funny last night, that's all."

A shadow passed over Olive's normally cheery face, and she mumbled something none of them could hear. "Four sixes. Conditions on this floating tub are getting worse by the day. It's like sleeping on a slave ship. Maybe if the captain cared about something other than her precious schemes..."

She trailed off again. The fun of the game was ruined, but slowly came back as everyone forgot what happened. Carmen finally backed out after losing half her weekly wages, which wasn't much to begin with, and Olive ended up winning. "Well, pirate, you aren't half bad at guessing everyone else's rolls. Your problem is that they can guess yours too easily."

Expecting pointers Carmen stayed silent. Hearing no response, Olive looked sideways at her. "Well I'm not givin' pointers. I had to learn it on my own and so will you. We can play again next week when you have more money."

Carmen left to her bunk to catch a good night's sleep. Jenna had promised to actually teach her about the rigging tomorrow, and anything under the instruction of that woman was sure to be exhausting.

As she reached the corner she was squeezed into and opened the safe box at the bottom of her blankets, Carmen couldn't help but think of what Olive had said. Two feet really wasn't much space. But hadn't it always been like that? She couldn't help but feel there was something unsettling happening amidst this strange crew.