Anne was so tired.  She had never worked so hard in her life.  Jerah, the man who had taught her how to clean, had a tender heart.  He was an older man, approximately sixty-two years of age, and had always lived at sea.  He said the sea wasn’t an easy place to make your fortune, nor was it an easy place to live, but since salt water was in his blood, he just couldn’t give it up.  He told her she would need to prove her worth to the crew otherwise they would walk all over her.  At the time, when he’d told her that, she was ready for anything.  However, now, after scrubbing every inch of the 240-ton vessel, on her hands and knees, while members of the crew walked (with their dirty boots) over the area she’d just finished, she wanted to cry.  It took her all day to scrub and mop the deck, and she still had to help Bêrk in the galley.

Bêrk, Anne figured, was one of the youngest men on board.  The captain also looked young, but Bêrk still looked as though he had just been freed from schooling.  A thin almost wiry man, Anne wondered if he lost weight swabbing the deck when he first came aboard.  His hair was brown with a few red highlights here and there, and his eyes were blue.  He was not at all terrible to look at, but in the state Anne was in, she wasn’t too interested in the looking.  “I am supposed to help you with the evening meal.”

Bêrk turned and smiled.  “Yep.  Although, I bet you would much rather go to bed.  I heard how much hell the guys were giving you earlier.”

“Really?  Are they always so hateful, or is it just me,” Anne sat on one of the stools near the counter where Bêrk was chopping vegetables.

“Nah.  They are really great guys; they just like picking on the new kid.  You know, kinda break ‘em in.”  Then he stopped chopping to wave the knife in Anne’s face.  “I can still remember the rubbish they did to me; fish guts on the deck while I was scrubbing, hiding the knives in the galley, moving supplies to the crew deck.  They were merciless,” he laughed.

“Well, then,” Anne began, “are you going to put me through it as well?  Are you going to leave me here to cook by myself, or have me carry twenty plates at a time?”

“Nah.  You see, I’ve only been on the ship about two months, so what they did to me is still fresh in my mind,” he was chopping again.  “I thought I would just show you how things are done in the galley.  Then, you can turn in early.  If you wake up a bit before dawn, you can have most of the deck done before anyone else is up.  And you won’t be too tired to help me out tomorrow.”  He finished chopping the last of the carrots before continuing.  “So, what do you say to getting straight to business?”

Anne nodded, and the lesson began.  Bêrk informed her, while at sea, the crew generally ate salted beef, crackers, and had lemon water.  The salt preserved the beef for long periods of time, the crackers were easier to keep than bread, and the lemon juice was to prevent an awful condition called scurvy.  However, when they were at port, he was allowed to buy a few vegetables to add variation to their diet; this was also to keep everyone healthy.  He said when she returned to help him the next day, he would show her how to salt the beef to make a sort of jerky, and where they kept the brandy which the sailors received for dinner.  Finally, he handed her a small bowl of vegetable stew.  She was to eat and get some shut eye. That night, she fell asleep in a cubby at the southeast corner of the galley.

The next morning, she did as Bêrk suggested; she awakened just before dawn and began to work.  Every muscle in her body ached, but she refused to stop.  By dawn she had finished scrubbing every inch of the 110 ft. deck which needed scrubbing and was beginning to mop as the first members of the crew began surfacing from below.  By lunch time she had finished all her duties including collecting the trash, emptying the bed pans, and mopping the crew quarters.  After lunch she went to Jerah and asked him to teach her as much as he could about sailing, and from one to four she learned nautical terms such as port, stern, hatch, batten down, etc…etc… She learned the Survivor was unlike any ship in the harbor; being somewhat of a cross between a fluyt and a clipper.  It had the pear shape of the fluyt which made it perfect for getting into tight spots and for quick loading and unloading; however, with its three masts it was as fast as any clipper ship.  He wasn’t sure who designed the old dear but appreciated every curve and line.  Then, just before it was time to help Bêrk in the galley, she took a few minutes to write a letter to Laveda.  She told the girl she was on the ship Survivor and that she would hopefully be able to send her four silvers a month.  Anne also wrote, to keep people from wondering how Laveda was paying her way and not working, the girl should disappear for a few hours a day to keep up pretenses.  However, she was to continue to stay away from the docks.  Having said all she felt needed to be said for the time being, she signed her new name to the letter, Andrew Pallas, and ran to hand it to the ship’s messenger before speeding off to the galley.

Bêrk worked her to the bone.  She had to salt eight pounds of beef and juice more lemons than she had ever seen in her life, which made her wince as the juices penetrated the cracks and cuts in her hands.  And it wasn’t even what they were having for dinner.  He told her it was best to have most everything done before they went out to sea.  That way, when the men were tired and hungry, they didn’t have to wait for a meal.  Tonight, would be the last night they enjoyed fresh vegetables, and he hoped the apples and berries he’d purchased would keep for another few days before they would have to be thrown away.  Once, Bêrk had finished chopping the carrots, potatoes, basil, and broccoli; he tossed everything into a large pot and began to make soup for more than sixty men.  While the soup was simmering on its own, he helped Anne juice as many lemons as they could, then they put the juice in a huge glass container which was bolted to the wall.  Anne noticed the container was already half full and Bêrk told her he had been working on the lemons for three days. 

When the soup was ready, Bêrk called in the five other men who helped with the serving every night.  As Bêrk spooned out the soup and placed a soft piece of bread in each, the men would grab as many as they could, sometimes four to five bowls.  Then they carried them into the meal hall, which was also the crew quarters.  Anne not wanting to seem like a sissy did her best to grab four bowls.  If she could just concentrate on not dropping them, she would do fine.  However, right as she got to the door, Bêrk gave her a warning.  “Be careful, Andrew, they like to trip the new guy.”  Great, now she had something else to worry about.

The first few times Anne went out, she didn’t drop a thing.  She was beginning to think no one was cruel enough to trip the new guy when he was holding a hot bowl of soup and was feeling pretty darn good until…. she tripped.  Dyson, one of the meaner men of the crew tripped Anne as she was walking toward Kenward, and she dropped his bowl at his feet.  Luckily, she hadn’t dropped it in his lap; otherwise, he may have ended up with a pretty nasty burn.  Although, that was the only good thing about the whole situation because Kenward was angry.  He slammed his fist on the table then began to yell she needed to be more careful because they didn’t have food to waste.  She tried to tell him she’d been tripped, but he wouldn’t listen.  He told her she was done for the day, and she could sleep above deck without dinner.

Upset, Anne walked away from the tables in the center of the room, went over to her mat, picked up the blanket they had given her, and went above deck.  All Anne wanted to do was cry.  She was tired and hungry, and she knew she would have to get up before dawn on an empty stomach and do it all again.  With her dry cracked fingers, she touched the upper left side of her back and felt a scabby gash in her skin, and she remembered why she was there.  She would not cry.  She would look on the bright side.  The good thing was, she thought to herself, as exhausted as she was, she would soon be asleep.  Smiling at that thought, she wandered over to the port side of the ship and lay down, covering herself with her blanket.