The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle

A crewman, Ewing, exhausted from a hot day tarring the rigging, sews a patch on a jacket but breaks a needle. Charlotte offers to find a new one. He tells her where to locate it among his things in the crew cabin. Charlotte runs for Zachariah, hoping he’ll fetch it for her from the forbidden area, but he’s unavailable. She decides to retrieve the needle herself.

She approaches the door and hears men discussing some action in the near future for which seven men have signed on. They mention Charlotte: “Her being here isn’t anyone’s fault. We tried. You remind yourself—we kept those other passengers off” (78). She knocks; they answer impatiently; she explains about the needle, and they let her search for it. Inside, it is dark, crowded, and dirty. The men point her to Ewing’s trunk; she opens it and sees a pistol within. She finds a cork stuck with needles and pulls one out. As she leaves, she stumbles against a trunk in the middle of the room and knocks over a piece of paper. Picking it up to replace it, she sees on it two concentric circles with signatures in between.

Alarmed and nervous, she leaves quickly, bumps against Keetch, and accidentally stabs her hand with the needle. She brings it to Ewing; he notices her stress and asks if she is ill. She denies it and flees to her cabin. There, she thinks about what she has seen. Clearly, a rebellion is coming. She knows the four men who are off watch; one, Ewing, is on deck, and Fisk answered the door; the other two are Morgan and Foley. But three men lay in the hammocks, for a total of five.

Charlotte remembers, back at the Liverpool dock, seeing someone climb a rope and sneak aboard the Seahawk. She realizes that the strange face she saw near her trunk must be the fifth man, a stowaway who set up the carved face to scare her away from his hiding place.

She decides to report this to Jaggery. She climbs up to the quarterdeck, where she finds Morgan, who looks at her and draws a finger across his neck. She turns away, terrified; when she turns back, Morgan is gone. She glances forward at the forecastle. Foley is there, splicing a rope. He stares at her, then looks away.

She returns to her cabin. Realizing that Jaggery is her only hope, she sneaks over to his cabin and knocks. He lets her in. Hollybrass is there. She asks a word in private; Jaggery permits the first mate to stay. She blurts out what she’s seen, including the pistol and the paper with circles, known as a round robin. Jaggery orders Hollybrass to assemble the men: “I intend to crush this mutiny before it starts” (87). 

Arming himself and Hollybrass with guns from the ship’s safe, Jaggery grabs Charlotte, and they hurry forward to the forecastle deck. Jaggery clangs the bell for assembly. At first, nothing happens. Then the sailors emerge, angry and threatening, some armed. One man, “muscular and stocky, with a red kerchief tied around his neck and a sword in his hand” (90), has only one arm. It is Cranick, the man crippled by Jaggery the previous year. He is revealed the be the stowaway Charlotte saw climb aboard.

Jaggery sneers at Cranick and prepares to shoot him. Cranick pulls out a paper: “we’ve got a round robin here, which declares you unfit to be captain of the Seahawk” (90-91). Jaggery fires his weapon; the ball strikes Cranick square in the chest. He falls back, blood gushing. Jaggery threatens to shoot anyone who helps Cranick. He orders the crew to drop their weapons; Hollybrass quickly collects them, along with the round robin. Charlotte looks on, stunned. Zachariah moves toward Cranick, hands raised; the captain prepares to squeeze his trigger but relents. Zachariah feels for a pulse; finding none, he declares the rebellious stowaway dead.

The captain orders Zachariah to toss Cranick’s body overboard. Zachariah protests that he should say a few words over the body; Jaggery refuses and orders Hollybrass to dump the body. Jaggery commands Zachariah to open a gate in the side of the ship; Zachariah refuses. He orders Charlotte to do so; she tells him “I … can’t …” (94). Angry, Zachariah does it himself. Hollybrass drags Cranick’s bloody body up to the gate and pushes it through; the body falls away and splashes into the sea.

The captain says that nothing of this event will be recorded in the logbooks, as Cranick wasn’t a member of the crew. One man will take the punishment for the rest, and the voyage will then continue normally. He asks Charlotte to pick the sailor to be punished; she can’t. Jaggery studies at the men and chooses Zachariah.

The men shrink away from Zachariah. He stands alone on the deck. Jaggery offers him last words. He expresses no regrets, forgives Charlotte, whom he knows was simply used by Jaggery, and declares that the captain is the worst he has ever served under.

Jaggery orders a hesitant Hollybrass to tie Zachariah’s wrists to a rope in the rigging. Zachariah’s hands stretch high, his toes barely touching the deck. Jaggery brings out a whip. Charlotte tries to leave, but Jaggery orders her to stay as a witness. He hands the whip to Hollybrass and orders him to deliver 50 lashes to Zachariah. The first mate blanches but begins without enthusiasm.

Charlotte, in tears, begs Jaggery to halt the punishment. Jaggery scolds her and insists that order must be preserved. She says she’s sorry she told him about the mutiny because Zachariah doesn’t deserve this, but Jaggery silences her with more scolding. Charlotte rushes at Hollybrass, knocks him down, and grabs the whip. She tries to toss it overboard, but Jaggery grabs her. She slips away; he corners her. He reaches for her; she raises an arm to protect herself, and the whip snaps up, cutting Jaggery’s face.

Stunned, the captain snatches the whip from Charlotte and whips Zachariah with all his might. He throws down the whip and stomps away.

Charlotte leans over the railing and throws up. The men cut Zachariah down and, leaving Charlotte alone on the deck, carry him to the forecastle.

For most of an hour, Charlotte lies in her cabin and sobs. She blames herself for what happened but can’t escape the truth of the cruelties committed by the captain. She betrayed the crew, who had taken her in, and cut Jaggery’s face. Charlotte decides to apologize to the captain. She knocks on his door; reluctantly, he opens it. She begins her apology, but he interrupts her, and, turning, reveals the welted gash on his face. Angrily, he tells her he will no longer protect her from the crew. He tells her never to visit him again and chases her away.

Charlotte returns to her cabin. Stunned, she stands there, searching for some solution. She still wants desperately the captain’s forgiveness. She also wants the crew to forgive her. She walks up on deck, looks forward, and sees the crew conducting a funeral for Zachariah. His body is wrapped in a hammock. A few of the men pick up the body and heave it overboard, saying “amen.” They say a final prayer, and, turning, notice Charlotte. They stare at her.

Charlotte stammers, “I … I am sorry” (107). Fisk tells her to go to her friend the captain. Charlotte, sobbing, says he’s not her friend, and that she wants to help the crew instead. They simply stare. She returns to her cabin feeling responsible for everything that happened.

An hour later, the ship’s bell rings for all hands. She sneaks out and watches as Jaggery announces that Mr. Fisk is the new cook, Keetch is demoted to common sailor, and Mr. Johnson, who didn’t sign the round robin, is promoted to second mate. He demands a full complement of men at each watch, no matter what it takes. Mr. Morgan protests that extra watch duty is legal only during an emergency; Jaggery replies that the recent events make for an emergency.

Glumly, the men resume their duties. Charlotte goes to the galley, where Fisk is working. She asks if she can help; Fisk sneers and tells her to go be with her friend, the captain. He tells her she’s the one who betrayed Zachariah’s faith in her, and that, if she can’t cook or steer or manage sails, she should simply wait for landfall, where she can resume her privileged life and forget all about them.

Ashamed, Charlotte retreats to her cabin. Sleeping fitfully, she forms an idea. She removes her clothing and puts on the sailor clothes Zachariah gave her. At dawn, barefoot, she steals over to the galley, where Fisk is working. She has come to be one of the crew.