Spring, year 1716
Eveline Adler is the daughter of a wealthy English merchant. Her family moved to the New World, while she stayed in London to finish her studies. After two years separated from her family, she decides to leave and join her loved on...
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I was constantly terrified of hurting myself. Not because I was afraid of pain, no, but because an injury threatened to give me away. Passing myself off as a boy was a full-time job. I had to be constantly careful that my breasts did not show, that the band was tight enough, I would immediately hide and wash the cloths I used during my period, and undressing in front of the crew was out of the question. Despite all my efforts, the very thing I had hoped would never happen happened. I was impaled by a dagger in my right side. It didn't seem too deep a wound. I thought I could handle it alone, for I had no other choice. It worked for a few days, then the cut started to get infected. Jim knew a lot about wounds and infections, they all went to him when something didn't look too nice, but I refused categorically, so much so that I nearly died. Feverish and with a derailed mind, I tried to carry on as if nothing had happened, but the crew noticed my illness and Jim examined me.
No one took the news well. The Captain's Code stated that if a woman disguised as a man was discovered among the crew, she was to be punished by flogging and exclusion. No one, however, had the courage to grasp the whip in his hand. Although I had deceived them, they all felt some affection for me. They merely forced me to disembark in the harbour of Nassau and commanded me never to be seen again.
It felt as if I were losing the only certainty I had, as if someone had torn me away from the only thing that really mattered. In Nassau I looked out to sea, so near and yet so far. I yearned for that life I no longer had, that feeling of being in the middle of the ocean, at its complete mercy.
I worked here and there to earn a living, just enough to have something to eat. I worked in the port as a mooring and unloading man, servicing ships, cleaning, repairing ropes and sails. At first I disguised myself, but when I noticed that I got the job anyway, even if I showed myself for what I was, I stopped doing that. "It's enough for me that you can do what I pay you to do." Nassau was a strange place. The conventions of society here struggled to solidify. It was a jumble of customs and nonconformities that created a society quite different from the outside. It was a world of criminals, corrupt people and prostitutes, a world that had nothing to do with what was called ethical.
