Arabella of Mars(26)
“That’ll be the head.”
The “head” proved to be a filthy, odorous, dark, narrow space at the very front of the ship, just below the bowsprit, equipped with a variety of incomprehensible bars and handles fixed to the walls. She did not look forward to using this facility in any kind of foul weather, but at least there was a tiny modicum of privacy.
She amazed herself by managing to change into her new clothes in the tiny, cramped space without smearing them with her own soil. “How do I look?” she asked Faunt when she emerged. “More like an airman?”
He did no more than grunt in reply. “Ye want yer old slops?”
She looked down at the small, pathetic bundle of stolen clothing that had seen her from Oxfordshire to London. In a way, it was her last tenuous connection to her old life … a life of ease, and boredom, and wealth, and stifling restriction.
A life which, if she did not prevent Simon from killing her brother, would be taken away from her mother and sisters as well as herself.
“No,” she said, and handed the bundle to Faunt.
*
After a whirlwind tour of the rest of the ship, during which Arabella was exposed to more new airfaring concepts and words than she had any hope of absorbing, Faunt took her back to the lower deck, the place where she would be hanging her hammock. “Ye’ll be messing with the waisters,” he told her. “Which is to say, ye’ll eat yer meals with them as works in the waist of the ship.”
The space was completely transformed from the afternoon, when it had been unoccupied save for clouds of dust shaken down from the overhead by many trampling feet on deck. Now it resembled a boisterous public house, with airmen seated on every available box, barrel, and bag. Most of them were engaged in shouted conversation at the tops of their lungs; the rest busied themselves in eating and drinking from square wooden plates and rough wooden cups.
“This’ll be yer mess,” Faunt shouted in her ear, indicating a group of five men who sat holding empty plates. “This’s Young, Hornsby, Snowdell, Taylor, and that’s Mills. Ye’ll eat with them every day. Where’s Gosling?”
“He’s mess cook today. Just got called up.”
“Right. Men, this is Ashby.”
They were all rough, surly-looking men, who regarded Arabella with what she considered a judging expression: not actively hostile, but not particularly friendly either. She felt as though she were a fresh horse that was just about to be broken. “Evening, sirs,” she said, raising her cap.
Young, paradoxically, was the oldest, a thin pale man whose sunken, gray-stubbled cheeks betrayed a severe lack of teeth. But he smiled nonetheless. “Evening t’ye,” he said, and the others did likewise, except for Mills, the black African, who merely nodded and handed her a plate.
Just then another man appeared, carrying a steaming covered bucket. “Fresh meat, boys!” he cried, to general sounds of delight.
“This’ll be Gosling,” Faunt explained. “Now I’ll leave ye to yer dinner.”
To Arabella’s surprise, Gosling seated himself on a barrel facing away from the rest of the men. He placed the bucket between his legs, drew a large and well-used knife from a sheath tied to his leg, then leaned down into the bucket. After repeated sawing motions, he called out, “Who shall have this?” without looking up.
“Snowdell,” said Young. Arabella noticed that he had a hand clapped across his eyes.
Snowdell, a muscular young man with a long plait of hair down his back, passed his plate to Gosling, who filled it with a cut of some kind of meat, a dollop of stewed cabbage, and a big wedge of bread. Snowdell immediately picked up the meat with his hands and began gnawing with vigor.
“Who shall have this?” Gosling called again, and again the blind distribution was repeated. Arabella came third, and Young last.
The whole process had been a kind of Punch and Judy parody of the way Arabella’s father had always carved the Sunday joint for the family. “Why do you not look at the men as you cut their meat?” she asked Gosling after he’d turned around with his own plate.
“It’sh the fairesht way,” he said, chewing a mouthful of meat, then swallowed. “No one knows who’ll be getting each bit, so it’s all even-like. And we each take our turn as mess cook, t’ mix it up even more.”
Arabella took a bite. The meat was tough, grayish, and had an unfamiliar flavor.
“Good, innit?” said Taylor, the youngest, a lean fair-haired fellow with tattoos all over his arms.
“I have never tasted the like,” Arabella admitted neutrally. “What is it?”
“Horse, I think. And look a’ this! Greens! An’ fresh bread!” He tore off a hunk of bread with his teeth and chewed noisily. “Enjoy it while you can—once we leave port it’ll be naught but salt beef, salt pork, and ship’s biscuit.”
Arabella did her best to enjoy it.
“Ye’ve not touched yer grog,” Young said. “I’ll take it, if ye don’t want it.”
Every one laughed heartily at that, though Arabella had no idea why. To be polite, she grinned and took a sip from her cup.
The drink was not nearly as bad as she had feared—a little sour perhaps, a little bitter, but actually quite nice after a day spent running around in the sun. She was sure she would appreciate it even more once she really started working. She took a deep refreshing draught.