Bloody Jack

Bloody Jack
Author	L. A. Meyer
Publication date	September 1, 2002
Published by	Harcourt
ISBN	015205085X
Publication Order
Preceded by --	Followed by Curse of the Blue Tattoo

The first novel of the Jacky Faber series.

Plot introduction

After describing the death of Mary Faber's family and her entrance into the Rooster Charlie gang, the action starts out with the main character, Mary Faber, struggling to survive on the streets of London with the other orphaned children. Their leader is a clever adolescent named Rooster Charlie whom Mary learns to love as a brother and as a leader. The gang's life is rough as they try to survive each day on the streets of 18th-century London. When Charlie is murdered by a corpse seller named Muck, Mary takes Charlie's clothes and shiv, taking on the name of "Jack" to hide her identity as a girl. She quickly finds a position as a ship's boy aboard the HMS Dolphin, due to her limited reading skills.

She is nicknamed 'Bloody Jack' after the crew of the HMS Dolphin board a ship and she, still only about thirteen years old, uses a plundered pistol to kill a pirate who is about to stab one of her fellow shipmates, Jaimy, who is paralyzed with fright. Jacky comes back to the Dolphin covered in blood, and her proud shipmates nickname the little "boy" Bloody Jack.

Plot Summary

Mary Faber is an orphan in a gang on the streets of Cheapside, London, during the late 18th century. After the death of the gang's leader, Rooster Charlie, she dons boy's clothing and goes to the docks, where she attempts to obtain a position as one of six ship's boys on the British warship, the HMS Dolphin. Her endeavor is successful due to her ability to read, and she is signed under the alias Jack "Jacky" Faber. After boarding the ship, she meets the other ship's boys, named Tink, Willy, Benjy, Davy, and Jaimy.

Jacky and the other ship's boys gain their sea legs and begin their duties on the ship. Jacky meets a seaman, Liam Delaney, who becomes her sea dad. Liam teaches her the ways of the ship and how to play the pennywhistle. After some time on the ship, Jacky finds that she has grown, and needing some new clothes, she makes her own out of canvas she buys from the ships stores with part of her paycheck. Jacky's smart new outfit catches the Captain's eye and is asked to sew up more for the other ship's boys.

A pirate ship is spotted and a battle begins. The crew boards the enemy ship, and Jacky picks up a pistol from a dead pirate. She sees a pirate making a path for the side of the ship and about to kill the one of the ships boys, Jaimy, that Jacky is starting to have feelings for. She shoots the pirate with a discarded pistol, and thus gets the nickname "Bloody Jack". It is in this battle that Benjy, a ship's boy in the Dread Brotherhood(what Jacky and the other ship's boys call themselves), is killed. The ship heads for Palma to get the Dolphin repaired.

After the ship lands at Palma, the ship's boys go to get a tattoo to show their eternal brotherhood. Around this time, Jacky gets her period, and having no education in the ways of womanhood, is certain that she is dying until the facts of life are explained to her for the price of a shilling by Missus Roundtree, a prostitute Jacky meets while in Palma. The rest of the ship's boys consider Jack a rake after this, as they only know one nominal reason for a ships's boy to visit a brothel.

Then the ship heads for the Caribbean Sea. While Jacky is in the schoolroom, Midshipman Bliffil starts to beat Jacky up, and only stops when the teacher yells at him. Jacky is put in the sick ward for her injuries. She convinces Midshipman Jenkins to stand up to Bliffil and teaches him some fighting moves. When Bliffil attacks Jacky again, Jenkins stands up to him and Bliffil gives no one else any trouble for the remainder of the book.

A crew member, Bill Sloat, threatens Jacky and her sea dad, Liam Delaney. Liam tries to protect Jacky, which causes problems. Jacky begins to sleep in the rope locker because the Brotherhood had an argument and they think she is "a right little fairy," a homosexual. This is when Sloat tries to sexually assault her, thinking that Jacky is indeed what she appears to be, a ship's boy. Jacky tries to protect herself by stabbing him with her shiv, but she injures Sloat more than she had meant to, and ends up stabbing him in the stomach so hard that he stumbles overboard and is drowned. Liam is put on trial for the murder and he is going to be hanged before Jacky intervenes and confesses to stabbing Sloat. She is put in confinement and fears a hanging of her own, but she is set free because she acted in self-defense.

After that, she is welcomed back by into the Brotherhood, but they all have a feeling that something is still off. Jaimy admits to her that he has strange feelings for her and that he is planning on deserting the Navy so as not to be found out as a homosexual. Before allowing Jaimy to leave, Jacky asks him to hold up a dress she has been working on with her leftover fabric so she can mark where it needs to be taken in, and thus, Jaimy learns that she is really a girl and that she has feelings for him in return!

Soon after they arrive in Kingston, Jamaica. Jacky and Jaimy go out on the streets, and Jacky wears a dress that she bought. They eat at a café, where Davy and Tink see them. They do not realize that the girl Jaimy is with is Jacky, and she puts on a good show of kissing Jaimy before she leaves to change back into her ship boy clothing, catching up with the Brotherhood soon after. The Brotherhood then finds a piercing shop, where they all get a gold hoop earring. Jacky and Jaimy exchange rings secretly, using them as engagement rings.

Davy learns of Jacky's true identity as a female when he discovers her and Jaimy curled up in a hammock together.

They soon meet the pirate, Captain LeFievre ("The Fever"), at sea. There is a battle, but LeFievre gets away, and the Dolphin is damaged and begining to sink. Men are put at the bilge pumps in shifts until near exhaustion before land is sighted. Soon after, Mr. Tilden the teacher wants to put Jacky on a kite and fly her up so she can see more land, but the winds were blowing so hard that the tree she is tied to is ripped out of the ground and after many hours of flying she lands on an unknown island. She stays there for a few days and uses smoke signals to try to get the attention of HMS Dolphin. A boat crew from the Dolphin comes to rescue her and she finds out that LeFievre and his pirates are on the island with her and waiting to ambush the rescue crew. She tries to lead the rescue crew away but the pirates catch her and hold her for hanging and money. She is hanged, but is so scrawny and skinny that she just hangs there choking. The HMS Dolphin rescue crew lands, and Jaimy quickly cuts the rope she is hanging on, and Jacky survives.

Jacky is finally discovered by the rest of the crew to be a girl when her unconscious body is recovered and examined by the ship's doctor so she can be treated for various wounds. She is guarded by someone everywhere she goes. She is confined from almost everyone on board, including her old mates, but they secretly sneak over to the grating above the brig to talk to her. She is told by the captain that she will be enrolled in Lawson Peabody's School for Girls in Boston, and the book concludes with her stepping off the ship to pursue her new life as a fine lady.