The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle

Mr. Grummage, a somewhat fussy associate of Charlotte’s father, makes travel arrangements for Charlotte and meets her carriage at the docks of Liverpool to see that she is “safely stowed aboard the ship” (7). Charlotte hugs goodbye to her “sweet” chaperon, Miss Emerson, and follows Grummage and a porter, who carries her luggage, toward her ship.

Charlotte is amazed by all the vessels and people. Grummage tells Charlotte that the ship is the Seahawk, under a captain named Jaggery. Hearing this, the porter plunks down Charlotte’s trunk, declares that he’ll have nothing to do with Captain Jaggery, and stomps off. Grummage offers a young man a shilling to carry the trunk; the man scoffs, and Charlotte produces another shilling. The young man accepts and praises Charlotte; Grummage grumbles but accepts the deal.

They arrive at the Seahawk. The porter takes one look, sets down the trunk, and runs away. Grummage goes aboard while Charlotte waits on the dock. Charlotte studies the ship, a two-masted brig 107 feet in length. It seems ordinary, if a bit aged, perhaps 30 or 40 years old. Hanging from the bowsprit is a figurehead shaped like a seahawk, its wings pulled back, beak open, “red tongue protruding as if screaming” (13).

She waits on the dock for half an hour. The sun sets, and in the gathering gloom she notices someone climb a rope and scurry aboard. Grummage reappears, angry, and informs Charlotte that the two expected families won’t be coming, as one is delayed and the other has a sick member who mustn’t be moved. Charlotte objects that she shouldn’t be alone on a ship full of men: “I am a girl. It would be wrong!” (15) Grummage insists that his orders from her father are specific, and that there’s no money to make other arrangements. Besides, he must leave on business immediately. He commands her to board the ship. 

They climb the gangplank to the ship’s deck. Charlotte meets the second mate, Mr. Keetch, a scruffy-looking small man, who tells her loudly that she should book passage on another ship. Grummage waves his receipt, signed by Keetch, that turns her over to the ship. Grummage wishes her a pleasant voyage, tips his hat, and walks off.

Keetch escorts the nervous Charlotte to her rooms below deck. Her cramped cabin is six feet by four feet and less than five feet high. At one end is a plank with a thin mattress, pillow and blanket—her bed. A cockroach crawls across it. A small chest of drawers is built into one wall. Before she can protest, Keetch has pulled the door shut and gone away.

A few minutes later, Charlotte hears a knock. The men have brought her trunk, but it’s too big to get through the tiny door. They decide to store it in top cargo, just below her room. One sailor, Barlow, says the men have asked him to tell her she shouldn’t be on the ship, and that it will come to no good. She insists that her father wants her here; he accepts and leaves. She wants to rush after him and yell, “Yes, for God’s sake, get me off!” (21). The room feels like a coffin. This is the first moment she’s been completely alone, without the protection of her parents. Angry, scared, and humiliated, she bursts into tears.

She hears another knock. It’s an old, skinny Black sailor with bad teeth and wearing rags. He introduces himself as Zachariah, “Cook, surgeon, carpenter, and preacher” (22), and announces that she can have tea in the galley. Charlotte grasps at the idea as a bit of normalcy and follows Zachariah up to the central waist deck and back down some stairs to a large, disordered storage area crowded with filthy sails. Zachariah points to a door to the privy—“the head”—and Charlotte hurriedly uses it.

Another door opens to the small galley, a kitchen with stove, table, stool, and utensils neatly arranged. Zachariah pours her a cup from a steaming teapot. He offers his friendship, but Charlotte shakes her head, so he offers her a short-bladed knife, a dirk. She yelps and jumps back, but he explains that it’s for her protection. Reluctantly, she accepts it.

Zachariah escorts her back to her cabin, where she hides the dirk under the mattress. She tries to sleep, but her door swings open and bangs back and forth. Through the door she hears Keetch tell someone that he went to some trouble to act as if the “Doyle girl” shouldn’t be aboard, and that she was the only one he could get aboard. The other man expresses satisfaction, saying that “With her as witness, they’ll not dare to move” (26).

Charlotte sleeps fitfully, then awakens to the ship swaying. She makes her way up to the deck, where she finds the sails filled with wind; ocean and sky surround the ship. It left port hours earlier and is now well out to sea. Charlotte is seized by nausea.

A sailor rings the bell three times, and nine crew members assemble on deck. They are a bedraggled, sorry-looking, and listless bunch. The captain, dignified and dressed magnificently, appears. Charlotte’s heart leaps: He is a gentleman, someone she can trust. Captain Jaggery asks the broad-shouldered, raspy-voiced first mate, Mr. Hollybrass, where the final sailor is, and Hollybrass answers that these were all they could get to sign on. The captain asks for the second mate, and Hollybrass answers that it’s Mr. Keetch, who is steering the wheel. The captain inquires as to the location of a Mr. Cranick, but Hollybrass doesn’t understand. The captain seems pleased that Cranick isn’t there.

Jaggery addresses the crew, thanking them and saying that it’s a pleasure to see them once again. Hereafter, the first and second mates will speak for him. He expects the ship to make a profit, and he warns the men that he’ll brook no second-guessing or dissent; any failure to follow commands and “I shall take my due” (31). He orders Hollybrass to hand out an extra ration of rum as a gesture of good faith.

On the captain’s orders, Hollybrass dismisses the men, shakes hands with the captain, and goes below. Fighting seasickness, Charlotte climbs the stairs and stands before Jaggery. He turns, sees her, smiles, tips his hat, and introduces himself as “Captain Andrew Jaggery at your service” (33). She asks to return to Liverpool; he replies that that’s not possible, but he assures her that she will be quite safe on the voyage, and that they will have tea when she feels better. He turns and leaves.

Disheartened, Charlotte stumbles down to her cabin and falls asleep. Sick and tossing and turning, she vaguely recalls Zachariah speaking softly to her and feeding her tea or gruel; occasionally, Captain Jaggery visits. At one point, she hears a sound and finds the knife in her hands; a rat nibbles at the spine of her journals; she hurls the dirk at the rat. Weeping, she falls back to sleep.

Charlotte wakes; she’s hungry. Climbing from her bed, she steps on the dirk. She retrieves it, meaning to return it to Zachariah. She climbs up to the deck. Low clouds hover; her face gets damp; the ship heaves, but the sails hang limply. Sailors are at work. One, Dillingham, “bearded, bald, and barrel-chested” (36), stares at the knife in her hand. She hides it and hurries to the galley.

Zachariah greets her and offers food. She tries to return the dirk but he suggests she eat first. Famished, she consumes some tasteless hardtack bread. She asks how long she was ill; Zachariah tells her “four days.” She thanks him for his kindnesses; he smiles and says, “Zachariah and Miss Doyle—together” (37). Thinking he’s being fresh, she changes the subject and asks if she can visit her trunk. He tells her to ask Hollybrass.

She repeats that she wants to return the knife. Zachariah replies that a ship at sea is a nation unto itself, and its king—who has the power of life and death—is the captain. She says she believes Jaggery is a “fine man.” Zachariah explains that the previous year a sailor named Cranick’s knots displeased Jaggery, who maimed his arm; it later had to be amputated. The crew brought charges against the captain in the admiralty courts, but Jaggery was exonerated. No one will sign on with Jaggery except Cranick’s crewmates, and they want revenge. Hence, Charlotte needs the knife for protection.

The men know that Jaggery works for Charlotte’s father, and that Charlotte will likely stand with the captain. This makes it harder for them to attack him.

They are interrupted by Hollybrass, who announces that Charlotte is invited to the captain’s quarters for tea.

Charlotte feels offended that Zachariah, a social inferior, would tell her what she thinks is slander. She is grateful to be drawn away. She thinks about giving the knife to the captain, and perhaps telling him Zachariah’s story.

The cabin is large, paneled, beautifully furnished, and decorated with nature prints. Piled neatly atop a desk are naval charts and instruments; a nearby table holds a tea set. Jaggery bows elegantly; Charlotte curtsies. He leads her to a set of armchairs. She compliments the cabin; he says he’s glad to have someone aboard who appreciates the finer things. She blushes with pleasure.

She sips some tea and enjoys delicious biscuits. Jaggery expresses regret that the two families were unable to join the voyage. He shows Charlotte a picture of his five-year-old daughter, Victoria, whom he misses. He suggests she chat with the men because it will do them good to be exposed to better breeding. Their stories, he says, sometimes are fantastical (she thinks of Zachariah’s wild tale) but entertaining.

Jaggery explains that sometimes he must deal with these lesser humans in a harsh manner, and that he hopes she understands the necessity for doing so. He points to a large safe loaded with muskets, and declares that his are the only guns on board. He says, “You can be my eyes and ears among the men, Miss Doyle” (48). Flattered by the attention, Charlotte quickly agrees. He asks her also to report to him if she sees a particular symbol—two concentric circles with writing between—which is a sign of impending danger coming from the men.

She gives him the dirk. He asks where she got it; she hesitates, not wanting to cause trouble for Zachariah, and says Grummage gave it to her. Jaggery insists she keep it for her own safety. She asks if she can visit her trunk to get a change of clothes. He agrees to arrange it.

Captain Jaggery escorts Charlotte out onto the deck—in fact, he parades her from the quarterdeck to the bowsprit and back—and she beams with pride.

Back at the wheel, he orders Keetch to unfurl more sails to catch a breeze that he believes will come up shortly. The crew jumps to it, but no breeze rises. The captain has Hollybrass escort Charlotte to Mr. Barlow. Hollybrass goes amidships and calls up to Barlow, who drops deftly down from the rigging and gestures for Charlotte to follow him.

They enter the crew’s mess hall, crawl through a hole, and climb down a ladder to where barrels and boxes are stored. Barlow opens her trunk and steps back while she rummages through it for clothing and books. Barlow quietly reminds her of his warning. He claims that the recent raising of sails was all for show. The captain is “abusing us.” Offended, she cuts him off. He leaves a candle and departs.

She senses someone watching, glances around, and sees, jutting up from the access port into the hold, a “grinning head” that stares at her. She shrieks. The candle goes out.

Her eyes adjusting to the dark, Charlotte pulls out her knife and crawls on her hands and knees toward the grinning head. She touches it, and it rolls to one side. It is a carving of a face on a large nut. She touches it again, and it drops through the access hole and crashes somewhere far below. Nervous, she retreats to the ladder and begins climbing, only to realize she’d forgotten her clothes and books. She retrieves them, finishes the climb, crawls out into the mess hall, and hurries back to her cabin.

She changes into fresh clothes and then wonders who extinguished the candle back in top steerage. She rules out Barlow, then remembers a second face, one she had not seen before. Why would a stranger try to scare her? Finally she decides the candle went out for some other reason and that she was imagining things. For a moment, she wants to report her experience to the captain, but she concludes he’d regard her as a “troublesome child.”

Charlotte realizes that both the Jaggery and Zachariah, though opposites, have tried to befriend her. She reckons there’s no harm in being friends with both, though her preference remains with the captain. Both want her to keep the dirk, so she rejects the idea of tossing it overboard. She places it, wrapped in a handkerchief, under her mattress.