The Stowaway

VI

"Make everything an adventure. Otherwise, it will suck." Nita Morgan

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VI.

Jackie Despard had grown up with parents as poor as church mice in Paris, France, and so when the opportunity to go to sea arose, he seized it with both hands.

He had first worked upon the merchant ship Calypso before he met Captain Tom Buckley. Jackie's first impression of Tom had been that he was a right cold bastard. Too young to be the way he was.

But he was a right cold bastard that protected and advocated for every one of his men, no matter age, rank or station. To know the measure of a man, one had to look at how his men treated him and spoke about him. Tom Buckley commanded respect, but his men gave him their devout loyalty of their own free will.

It had been ten years that Jackie had been working alongside Tom Buckley aboard the Atlantis. Jackie considered himself Tom's closest ally, and all that he really knew about his captain was that he didn't drink.

Tom rarely, if ever, conveyed an emotion other than ire. He lacked patience and kindness and to extract a compliment would be to pull a fingernail. He could tear strips off a man if he had wronged the crew and one would dare not to question or cross him.

But he always took his meals last. He enforced every one of the crew's superstitions, even if he did not believe them himself, and he made the cook, Cookie's boy Eggs, read for an hour a day.

Jackie believed in many things. A life at sea was a perilous one, and so he believed that following superstitions, praying and leaving one's life in God's hands was the best way to remain safe.

Women brought bad luck. Jackie knew that very well.

But they were not to be aboard a ship.

Jackie wanted the girl off the ship. He would have made the decision to turn back to Ireland, but the captain would not change his mind. He would never change course for an unnecessary reason, and to him, a woman was unnecessary. Not even if the men believed her to be bad luck. That was the captain's one exception.

Jackie followed Tom up the ladder and out onto the main deck. The fresh, salty air was welcome after the overwhelming scent of alcohol and sick in that cargo hold. The crew were going about their jobs, blissfully unaware of the presence of a woman on board.

There would be some that would mind. Others certainly would not mind.

"Find Jonesy and Echo and bring them to my quarter's immediately," Tom requested icily before he stalked off.

Jackie knew those men were in for it. A stowaway was always bad news, male or female. Particularly female. Even though she had looked like a skinny, drowned rat, the woman's dress was fine. She had money, and most likely came from family. That always brought problems. And who would most likely be blamed? The brute sailors, of course.

Jackie knew that Jonesy and Echo, so named because he repeated everything he said twice, would be sleeping down in the crew's quarter's after being at the helm all night.

As he was about to head back below deck, he spotted young Eggs leaving the galley carrying a hot cup of something. He, too, looked to be heading for the ladder to take him below deck.

"What have you got there, Eggs?" he asked, nodding towards the cup.

"Ginger tea," replied Eggs. "For Miss Eliza's seasickness."

Miss Eliza was her name, was it? Jackie didn't know whether it affected the luck to know her name, but it was too late now. In his head, though, Jackie knew the captain was right. Miss Eliza had been on board the whole time and nothing had happened.