* * *
When the bell rang for the larboard watch to come below, Harriet joined them in the fo’c’sle for their meal. With Winston gone, she no longer needed to perch on a water cask as there was space to join them at the table.
“No disrespect to Mr. Langston—‘e’s great guns—but ‘e’s teaching you to fight like a gen’leman,” Jack said.
Tucker nodded. “Aye. S’pose you’re in a pub near the docks, just mindin’ yer own business, wettin’ yer whistle, when a fight breaks out? You need to know ‘ow to fight like a sailor.”
Chang enthusiastically jumped into the conversation. Harriet had been practicing with him to learn phrases in Mandarin but so far didn’t know much more than yes, no, thank you, and please. She looked to the other men to interpret for her.
Jack gestured at Chang. “Since you’re small, ‘e says you need to know ‘ow to fight against a bigger opponent.”
Chang nodded vigorously.
“Good points,” Harriet said. “If not Mr. Langston, who is going to teach me?”
All three men wore broad grins.
They quickly finished their meal and the four of them adjourned to the center cargo hold for her first lesson in how to fight like a sailor.
Of course she knew about the vulnerability of a man’s groin, especially his “dangly bits,” as another teacher at the Academy had called them, knowledge she had put into practice in the Porto market.
Tucker, Chang, and Jack showed her new things, or at least new to her. How to kick out a man’s knee; how to break a chokehold if someone was standing in front of her; or if they seized her from behind. Previously, another teacher at the Academy had told her to just go limp if someone grabbed her, and when the attacker was caught by surprise by her unexpected weight, to then stomp on his instep and run away.
She had never thought of using her head as a weapon. Her wits, of course, but to actually shove her head backwards into the face of an attacker had not occurred to her until Jack pretended to attack Chang. Elbows also had uses she’d not thought of before, with forearms blocking blows and shoving the point of her elbow into someone’s throat or stomach.
“If you ‘it ‘im this aways,” Jack said as he slowly pretended to hit Tucker on the side of his nose with a closed fist, “you’ll make ‘im bleed. Might be messy but you can get away, or cause ‘im more pain.”
“If you hit him this way,” Tucker stopped with his fist just shy of touching the tip of Jack’s nose, “you’ll stop him. Maybe permanently.” He flattened his hand as though he was trying to shove Jack’s nose back into his head. “Dinna do this ‘less you’re willing for him to end up dead. If it comes down to you or him, I say kill him.”
Harriet let that sink in. “This is all very, uh, helpful, not to mention a little bloodthirsty.” She took a deep breath. “But what if I just want to discourage someone from fighting me? Something to distract them while I extricate myself from the pub fight?”
Jack and Chang exchanged words, then Jack charged at Chang. The gunner grabbed Jack, flipped him over his hip, and suddenly Jack was flat on his back on the straw-strewn deck. Tucker cheered. Chang reached a hand down to help Jack up. Jack pulled at the same moment he put his foot in Chang’s stomach, and the smaller man went flying over onto his back, and Jack jumped up.
Harriet watched in awe. “I definitely need to know how to do that. Both of those moves.”
Up until this point, they had just been practicing by kicking or punching the charcoal man on the canvas against the net full of straw, or mock hitting each other to demonstrate moves, but not actually hurting each other. Now they spread even more straw on the deck for padding and began teaching Harriet how to flip someone over her shoulder or her hip.
The third time she went flying over Chang’s shoulder and landed on her back with an “Oof!” he reached a hand to assist her up … and she managed to send him flying, and used his momentum to help herself jump up, just as Jack had done earlier.
She was practically quivering with excitement. In the back of her mind she could hear Madame Zavrina sputtering in outrage not only from engaging in such unladylike pursuits but also her physical contact with men. Harriet mentally flipped the woman over her shoulder. Chang dusted himself off, and all three men critiqued her move, offering suggestions to make it more efficient and safer for her. Didn’t want to injure her back while throwing an opponent.
The next few days settled into a routine. Gentlemanly fighting lessons with Zach in the hold if the larboard watch didn’t need her on deck to help change the sails, lessons on how to fight dirty with her watchmates after they ate, and dinner in Nick’s cabin with Norton and Zach. As soon as the guests exited the cabin, she fell asleep in the bunk, exhausted.
One time Chang took her aside for a private lesson, for something he said he had not taught his crewmates. He showed her how to use the edge of her hand to strike an attacker on the side of his neck, below his ear.
“Hit ha’d,” he said. “Hit ha’d and fast.”
Once she was getting the hang of that, he taught her to quickly follow up with the same kind of blow on the other side of the neck, followed by sharply shoving her attacker’s chin back with the heel of her hand. He moved so fast his hands were a blur. He did it slowly several times until she got the hang of it.
When she finally did it to his satisfaction, he put his palms together and gave her a small bow from the waist. Harriet mirrored his gesture.
She still spent a great deal of time with Nick, who let her practice her nascent navigation skills. He didn’t say anything about falling asleep in the bunk with her, and she didn’t bring it up. He left the tin of salve on the table for her but did not offer to apply it.
On the fifth day out of Porto, Big Jim was still mucking out the hold, so the larboard watch stayed at table after they’d eaten.
“You going to leave your handle nekkid?” Jack said, setting out his scribing tools and an ivory comb on which he was working.
It took Harriet a moment to realize he meant her knife handle. She’d used the knife numerous times already, and like the other crew, had tied a cord around the handle to the scabbard in case she dropped it. “I hadn’t decided one way or the other.” She tugged the knife out of its scabbard to look at it.
