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The papers had said “caulker’s mate,” and he, in his brilliance, had assumed he knew what that meant. He knew caulking meant stopping up, so he assumed that caulking was a matter of shoving putty or paste into a crevice, easy as you please. He’d thought it strange that they required not one, but two men per ship to do what he’d been doing to keep the draughts out of clapboard rooms since he was a child. But Her Majesty’s Royal Navy ran on Her Majesty’s coin, and maybe they had no better way to spend it. If they were willing to pay him a wage and give him berth and board for something any fool could manage, he’d take it.
As it turned out, there was more to it. Caulking a ship is what let it stay afloat. Caulking this ship is what would keep them all from freezing to death when they got up north. This was somehow accomplished with a chisel, a frayed and unbound rope, and pitch. How? Damned if he knew. Maybe some fools could manage it, but he wasn’t one of them.
Cornelius—for that was his name now, God help him, because some power or other was having a grand old time at his expense—Cornelius stared at the rope and chisel in his hands. The problem wasn’t entirely his fault, he reasoned. He ought to only be assisting Darlington. He was the mate, after all. Didn’t that mean assistant? His pay and lodgings suggested as much. He’d assist and observe, and put on bumbling airs until he got the hang of it so nobody would think anything of it if he made a mistake. But Darlington, that ass, had gone ashore and left him to deal with the first leak alone.
He could make a break for it now. He could sneak ashore and slip away, and once he left this awful name and this nearly-as-awful beard behind, nobody would recognize him. They could search for deserter Cornelius Hickey all they wanted and never find him. But the Orkneys weren't far enough from London for his liking. Scotand was England, but less. Scotland existed so Englishmen had something to point at and congratulate themselves on not being. No, he needed a grander escape. He needed the other side of the world, or else what was the point?
The sea was dangerous, yes, but so too was the open sky.
“Are you alright?”
He turned to see a dark-haired young man with a beard—which described about half the men on this ship, so he had no idea which one this was. The man looked a bit like the stuffy godly-wrath-fearing lieutenant who’d checked him in, but his coat wasn’t right and his eyes were too dark. Besides, the officers were all ashore, dining finely no doubt. This one was as common as he was, then, and he was fixing Cornelius (Christ’s wounds, Cornelius) with a befuddled look from the doorway.
“Of course,” he said, figuring he was safe leaving off the sir this time.
“It’s just, well, you’ve been standing there kind of staring off into space,” said the other.
“And you’ve been staring at me staring, then?”
“Yes,” he said, disappointingly unflustered, “because you didn’t hear me come down, and I wasn’t sure what it was you meant to do with this left up above. It’s gone all solid.”
He held out the pot of pitch, which Darlington had foisted on him earlier, and which Cornelius had set down before climbing the ladder because he only had two hands. “Oh. Thank you, then, Mister—”
“Peglar,” he supplied with a smile as he handed over the pot. “And you’re Mr. Hickey?”
“Unfortunately,” he said with a rueful smirk. Thankfully, Peglar laughed.
“D’you have a stove down here, then?”
“A… stove?” Cornelius cast his memory for what “stove” could mean in sailor-speak.
“To melt the pitch.”
Oh, an actual stove. Hickey poked at the rubbery black blob in the pot and found it warm. “It’s been melted already.”
“Yes, but you can’t expect to paint with it so solid…” Peglar’s eyebrows furrowed as his voice trailed off. “Have you done this before?”
Less than a week into this endeavor, and he’d been asked that question twice. Cornelius laughed as he scanned the room for an escape. “What kind of question is that?”
It was a weak bluff, and Peglar called it. “You haven’t, have you. Good lord, how did you get here?”
Peglar was blocking the ladder, but he could knock him flat with the pot if need be and make a break for it. Did it count as desertion if you were never supposed to be there in the first place? Cornelius Hickey’s ghost could find out. The present Cornelius stalled for time. “They let me on.”
“They’re a parcel of idiots, then. Of all the jobs—” Peglar moved closer. Cornelius stepped back, fingers tightening reflexively around the pot’s handle. But Peglar’s hands stayed close to his chest, and his stance stayed hunched and furtive. “Look, caulker’s important, especially where we’re going,” he whispered. “You need to do it and do it well, or you need to go. Which do you want?”
Want? Cornelius tilted his head. “What’s the trick here?”
“Sorry?”
“You’re giving me enough rope to hang myself with, I reckon,” Cornelius said. “You need to call down whoever’s in charge of the boat while the officers are having their little jaunt ashore, and it’ll be easier if you have me admitting to something. What I can’t figure is which tack you’re hoping for.”
“I’m hoping we don’t sink,” Peglar said, his voice still low. “If you want adventure and you lied your way into it, fine, that’s no business of mine. But this is serious. Why’d you get yourself made caulker’s mate? You could’ve just signed on as a ship’s boy.”
Didn’t have much choice in the matter, Cornelius thought, but said “Bit old for that one, aren’t I?”
“Oh, sorry. You’re just so small—” Peglar winced. “Ah. Sorry again.”
“Why’re you apologizing? What’s wrong with small?” Cornelius asked, and Peglar looked so genuinely chagrined as he began to stutter out an apology for his apology that Cornelius took pity and interrupted. “If I understand you, then, you won’t say anything if I go.”
Peglar shook his head. “Just don’t do it where I can see you.”
A respectable answer. “And if I stay?”
“I’ll say nothing if you stay, either, as long as you learn your trade.”
Cornelius scoffed. “Small chance of that with the master ashore.”
“It’s just a bit of that joint there you need to fix, right?” Peglar asked. “Then I can show you. Give me your things.”
Warily, Hickey handed over the chisel, mallet, and rope. Peglar walked past him to the timber crossbeam in question. “Right,” he said. “See there, where that gap is between the planks? That needs to be sealed up. So what you need to do is take your oakum—” In response to Cornelius’ blank look, he lifted the rope fibers. “Oakum,” he repeated. Cornelius stiffened as Peglar withdrew a knife from his pocket, but Peglar only used it to cut off a length of the r—the oakum. He held the fibers against the timbers. “So then you just stuff that in the joint here, and you use your chisel to make sure it gets down in there snug as can be.” Peglar stabbed the chisel into the joint like a pickaxe and struck it with the mallet, delicately yet firmly. The oakum vanished into the crevice. Peglar repeated this process until the entire handful of oakum had been absorbed. “Got it?”
Cornelius nodded. “Seems simple enough.”
Peglar grinned. “Good! You do the next bit, and I’ll go heat the pitch.”
He exchanged the mallet and chisel for the pot and scampered off back up the ladder. Cornelius stood there in bewilderment. What was Peglar’s game? If he meant to put Cornelius in his debt, he’d miscalculated; ratting him out after the fact would only get Peglar punished for conspiracy or withholding information or whatever name the Navy gave the offense of “not snitching.” If Peglar meant to reveal him now, there was no sense in taking the time to teach him. Then again, “sense” had never been a requirement for betrayal. Cornelius withdrew his own knife and cut off a new swatch of the oakum. If the next set of boots down the ladder belonged to an officer, it was best for Cornelius to appear competent and industrious. “He’s telling tales” was a much more plausible story than “he’s lied about himself and enlisted with no one the wiser.”
He found there was something soothing about thwacking the chisel and watching the oakum disappear bit by bit.
A thump sounded behind him. Peglar had swung down from the ladder with the now-steaming pot in one hand and a paintbrush clenched between his teeth. “You’re back,” Cornelius said dumbly.
“Mmhmm.” Peglar transferred the brush to his free hand and commenced to stirring. “This is what it should look like.” He thrust the pot under Cornelius’ nose. Cornelius recoiled from the acrid smell. The rubbery black blob had become a putrid paste. “The ancient Spartans had something called black broth. Like a foul stew of boiled blood and things. This is what I picture it looking like.”
“I’ve eaten fouler,” Cornelius quipped, and was pleased when Peglar snorted.
“So what you’ll want to do now,” Peglar said, “is paint over the joint with this, to waterproof it. You can do this part yourself, I’ll bet.”
He handed off the pot to Cornelius. Cornelius drew the dripping end of the brush over the seam of oakum. The pitch dragged against his strokes. “It’s like painting with glue. Do I use all of it?”
“A couple coats ought to do it. This is much too much, but I wasn’t sure where you’d gotten it from.”
Under Peglar’s watch, Cornelius sealed up the repair he—well, they—had made until Peglar pronounced it satisfactory. “What’s the point of this job if you can do it?” Cornelius asked.
“I can’t do it, really,” Peglar said. Seeing Cornelius’ raised eyebrows, he explained, “I mean, I know what’s involved. I’ve seen it done and helped out in a pinch. You’ll probably get picked at by Mr. Darlington even so. I’m sorry for that. But it’s a passable kind of mistake, I think.”
“It’s better than what I’d’ve done left to my own devices, anyhow,” Cornelius admitted. “Why’re you helping me?”
“I told you. Caulking’s important enough that someone needs to have that as their most important job. If you don’t do it, we’ll all sink or freeze to death. And what would we do anyhow, sail back Greenhithe? Stay put here in Scotland to sign someone else? All that with us trying to beat the winter freeze?”
Cornelius hadn’t considered the element of inconvenience. “True enough.”
“And… you’ve asked that over and over. Why I’m helping you, I mean.” Peglar rubbed the back of his neck. “I don’t think I come off as shifty, so that means it’s not personal. And that’s… sad, a bit.” His face reddened as he stammered an addendum. “I mean no disrespect, Mr. Hickey. But the way I see it, if you want a place on this ship so badly, I’m not going to take it from you.”
Oh, if you only knew. And Peglar wouldn’t know, he determined. This unwise kindness must have its limits, and… well, it was nice being its recipient. “Then it looks like I’m stuck heading north with you.” His smile felt warmer than it usually did. “What do I call you? I don’t like this mister-last-names business if we’re not on duty. You wouldn’t either, if you were Mr. Hickey.”
Peglar chuckled, crinkling the corners of his dark eyes. “I’m Henry.”
“Cornelius.”