The wind howled through the rigging and roared across the sails. Rain flew into Sallina's face, stinging her eyes and her cheeks. The wet boards of the Reliant's aft deck sloped beneath her feet. She held onto a post beside the ship's wheel to stop herself sliding towards the port rail. The ship's masts creaked and the sails hummed. Off to starboard, huge waves rolled out of the west. The waves came with the wind, and the wind whipped their crests into a white foam. It was the afternoon of the fourth of September, the day that Baat was flogged. The Captain was at the wheel, and he laughed when the waves swept over the starboard rail, and sang when the wind howled in the rigging.
Harry stood on the main deck, holding a brass handle screwed to the starboard rail. Five sailors stood on the fore deck, crowded together. They watched the waves rolling towards them out of the rain. Each sailor was tied by a rope to the ship's rail. Sallina herself was tied to the post she held.
The Captain stopped singing. "Do you want to be a sailor, Sallina?"
"I don't know much about sailing, Captain." She had to shout above the noise of the storm.
The Captain took one hand from the wheel and pointed to the right side of the ship. "What side of the ship is that?"
Sallina took a deep breath. "The starboard side, Captain!"
The Captain nodded. "And what's that wall along the side of the deck called?"
"The ship's rail, Captain!"
"Aye, that it is, my lady." He pointed to the left side of the ship. "And what's that side called?"
A wave rolled over the starboard rail and leapt over the bow. It rushed around Harry's waist and flew in the faces of the sailors on the fore deck. The sailors shook their long hair and laughed.
"The port side, Captain!"
"The port side it is, my lady. And what are those holes in the rail that the water is pouring out of?"
"The port-side scuppers, Captain!"
"And the sailors up there," the Captain pointed at the front of the ship, "What deck are they standing on?"
"The fore deck, at the bow of the ship, sir!" Sallina said. "And we're on the aft deck at the stern of the ship!"
The Captain nodded. The wind slowed for a moment. Two of the sails went slack. They tightened again with a crack. The ship shuddered. The Captain turned the wheel.
"Easy girl!" he said.
Sallina watched him. "Are you talking to the ship, Captain?"
"Of course I am, Miss! She's my ship, and I love her!"
Lightening flashed across the water. A heartbeat later came a crack of thunder. The ship plunged forwards into a wave. Water flew high in the air over the bow, right over the sailors heads, and landed where Harry stood on the main deck. Harry straightened his oilskin hat and shrugged his shoulders.
"Steady on there first mate!" the Captain said, "Spill me ten degrees off the fore sail!"
Harry turned to the sailors. "Spill ten degrees off the fore sail. Sharpy, Jasper, jump to it!"
Sharpy and Jasper loosened a rope and pulled it. The sail on the front mast turned a little.
The Captain pointed to the rope around Sallina's waist. It was tied to the post by wrapping it around a piece of metal with two prongs sticking out of it. "What's that metal thing?"
"A cleat, sir!" Sallina said, "I'm cleated to the port post of the aft deck!"
The Captain nodded. "And which way is the wind blowing?"
Sallina looked up. "From starboard, sir!"
The Captain nodded. "Yes, but we say it's blowing from the west, my dear."
He turned the wheel. Sallina reached up to pull her hat forwards. She had tied it under her chin with a piece of string, but the wind kept blowing it backwards. The Captain had his rubber hat tied to his head also, but it never seemed to blow back or sideways.
"We're sailing across the wind, Miss," he said. "There's no faster way to sail. The wind is blowing westerly at fifty kilometers per hour." He pointed to the sails. "See how we have the sails set?" He looked at her. "Tell me about them."
Sallina looked at the sails. The starboard side of each sail was in front of the port side. The sails caught the wind and turned it so it blew back towards the stern.
"The wind must come back here to get around the sails," she said.
The Captain nodded. "Aye, that it must. Very good."
Sallina thought about the wind pushing into the sails and sliding across the tight sail-cloth. Once it reached the back of the sail, it would be free.
"The wind spills off the back of the sails, Captain."
"It does!" the Captain said. "First Mate! Another ten degrees off the fore sail!"
When Sharpy and Jasper had done as the Captain commanded, he wiped water from his eyes and said, "Tell me more, young lady. What makes the ship go forwards?"
Water was running into Sallina's eyes. She could hardly see. Shouting was making her throat hurt. But she wanted to learn to shout like the Captain. She took a deep breath. "To make the wind go backwards, the sails must push backwards on the wind."
A splash of sea-water blew right into her mouth. She coughed and spat the water out.
"You spit like a sailor, Miss," the Captain said.
Sallina frowned. Her mother did not approve of spitting. But what could you do if you had a mouth full of sea-water and you were standing on a ship in the middle of a storm?
"Go on, my dear," the Captain said, "Tell me about the wind and the sails."
"The wind pushes upon the sails. Pushes forward." She pointed to the front of the ship. "The sails push on the masts. The ship goes forward."
"Yes!" the Captain said. "The wind blows from the west, but we can go south. And you know, Miss," he said, "if we want to, we can go south-west also, up into the wind." He looked at her. His smile was broad and his eyes were wide open. "We can go up against the wind! We can go anywhere we like, as long as the wind blows."
The Captain turned the wheel and looked up at the clouds. Lightening flashed. Thunder boomed and echoed above them. The Captain laughed. The ship rolled to port, then to starboard. It pitched forward into a wave.
The Captain looked at Sallina. "But there's more than the sails and the wind, Miss. There's the water and the ship. The wind is blowing us sideways." He pointed to the port rail. "It's rolling us to port! Why doesn't the ship go east with the wind?"
Sallina looked at the port side of the ship. She held firmly to the post and stared across the waves. They were rolling away into the distance. They had white tops, but they were not like the waves you see on the beach. Those waves are breaking in the shallow water. These waves had no sharp tops or steep sides. They were the long, rolling waves of the open sea that the sailors called swells. The swells lifted the ship up and lowered her again. They flowed over the main deck and kept going. The ship did not seem to mind. The doors that led below decks were shut and sealed. Water might drip through, but not much water.
The sailors below might be napping in their hammocks, or playing cards in the common room. Pops might be playing his little guitar and singing. Baat was down there somewhere. He had not been frightened of the whip, Sallina was sure of it. But when thunder cracked for the first time, and the wind started to howl, his face went pale.
Looking at the sea and the sky, and hearing the crack of thunder and the howling of the wind in the ropes, Sallina was afraid also. But she was glad to be afraid of things so large and breath-taking. There was no cruelty in the wind and the sea. Why fear a mere person or a whip, when you could fear such things as these?
"We're alone out here, Miss!" the Captain said. "We're alone and we're free! We are a law unto ourselves. There is no country, no tradition, no place, no king, no social convention that we must bow to other than our own, which we make for ourselves upon this ship by voting and embracing one another."
Sallina turned to watch the Captain. He was frowning now, and for a while he said nothing. Sallina waited.
"The sea took my wife from me. But she would not have it any other way." He looked at Sallina. "My Penelope loved the sea. She loved this ship." He wiped his face. Sallina thought he was crying. She wanted to walk to the end of her rope and put her arms around him, but she did not think the Captain would like that, and she knew the sailors would laugh at her.
"I'm sorry, Captain."
The Captain stared forward. Sallina stared forward also. She did not want to stare at the Captain while he cried. She watched the fore deck. A wave crashed over the bow. Jasper fell and slid across the deck with the water. Sallina almost cried out. Jasper's rope went tight. Sharpy helped him up and Jasper grabbed hold of the rail. He spat water from his mouth and shouted something to Sharpy.
"You didn't answer my question," the Captain said. "I'll answer it for you. The ship has a ridge along the bottom, from front to back. We call it the keel. The keel stops the ship from sliding sideways through the water."
Sallina nodded. "We saw the keel when we were swimming." She pointed to the ship's wheel. "The wheel moves the rudder, which is a big board at the back of the ship, under the water. The rudder makes the ship turn."
"Aye," the Captain said, "Or it makes the ship go straight, which is what it's doing right now."
The Captain held the wheel and shouted an order to Harry. Sallina watched the sailors move the main sail. They moved the fore sail back where it was before. The wind blew steady and hard. The ship sliced through one wave after another.
"We'll make two hundred today!" The captain shouted.
Sallina figured he meant two hundred kilometers. If the wind blew like this for ten hours, and they went two hundred kilometers, that would mean they were going twenty kilometers per hour, which was about as fast as she could run. She looked down at the water rushing past the port rail.
"We're going fast!"
Water dripped down the Captain's fat, rosy cheeks. "Yes we are! We're sailing fast on the wind of the world, across the swells of the deep!"
Sallina held the post with one hand. She felt the ship pitching forward into the next wave beneath her feet. She felt the deck timbers shudder as a gust of wind bent the masts to port. The wind blew hard and the ship went fast. She put her hand on her hip.
"Captain!"
"Yes, dear girl."
"I want to be a sailor!"