The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle

Weaker and shriveled but still alive, Zachariah explains that the men stuffed his hammock and tossed it overboard to make it appear to the captain that Zachariah was dead. He has been hiding in the hold ever since. When the ship docks, the captain will keep the men aboard so they can’t tell anyone about his cruelties, but Zachariah will sneak away and report the captain to Charlotte’s father.

He hopes Charlotte will vouch for him. Charlotte explains that Hollybrass has been murdered and that the captain accuses her. Zachariah believes she is innocent, but she says the men believe the captain. She has proven her toughness and might be capable of murder. Zachariah says nothing; he leaves to find her some food.

Charlotte is seized with the ominous thought that Zachariah killed Hollybrass and the men feel the need to protect him instead of her. Zachariah returns with bread and water; he pries loose two bars from rotten sockets and lets her out. They sit together and eat by candlelight.

She asks if spoke to any of the crew when he went on deck to help during the storm. He admits he spoke with Keetch and Fisk; she says the rest of the crew would probably know as well, and that a crewman probably killed Hollybrass. Zachariah asks who knew about her dirk; she answers that she told the captain, and that Dillingham saw her with it. Thus, everyone would know about it. Zachariah describes the men’s backgrounds. Each has a past that includes high crimes.

The hatch opens; Charlotte hurries back to her cell. Captain Jaggery appears, pistol in his belt, and confronts her. His face filled with loathing, he unlocks her cell and brings her on deck to face trial.

A chair stands on the cargo hatch. The captain orders her to sit in the chair—a “prisoner’s dock”—then declares the court in session, and swears everyone in. Jaggery asks how Charlotte pleads; she replies that she didn’t do it. He asks if she’s willing to be tried by her fellow crew members or, instead, be treated as a civilian under the protection of her father. She says she trusts the crew. He asks if she wishes to accuse another; she declines.

Jaggery begins the prosecution. He quickly establishes that the murder weapon belongs to Charlotte, that Zachariah gave it to her, that she lied about that to Jaggery, and that all the crew members knew she possessed it. He also gets her to admit that, though she kept the knife for protection, none of the sailors ever threatened her. She quickly adds that the only person who endangered her was the captain himself, when he struck her. The captain waves that off as a common procedure between a captain and a crew member.

From Grimes, Jaggery pulls the story of how he taught Charlotte to use a knife just before the storm struck. He gets Grimes to admit that a girl learning such a skill is “unnatural.” He then asks if anyone saw her on deck during the storm; Barlow answers that she was “[d]oing her part like we all was. And good work too” (174). Jaggery gets him to also admit that a girl sailor is “unnatural.” He declares that Charlotte is unnatural in her behavior, and that men need to preserve the “natural order” that Charlotte has violated.

Jaggery forces Charlotte to admit that she resented Hollybrass for whipping her friend Zachariah. He insists she is “unnatural,” but she retorts that she’s merely “unusual.” He asks the men if any will speak up for her; none do. He asks if she has anything to say on her behalf; she says she didn’t do it. The captain proclaims the verdict: Charlotte is guilty of murder. The crime is punishable by hanging; “Within twenty-four hours you shall be hanged until you are dead” (178).

Jaggery returns Charlotte to the brig. Shortly, Zachariah arrives and frees her; they sit, and she describes the trial. He doesn’t understand why the men didn’t defend her. She blurts out that she thinks he killed Hollybrass, and that’s why she and the others didn’t say anything: to protect Zachariah so he could escape.

Honored by her loyalty, Zachariah says that he believes the captain saw him on deck during the storm. Jaggery was arguing furiously with Hollybrass, who accused the captain of deliberately risking the ship in the hurricane. Jaggery turned and saw Zachariah, and a wild look came over him. Zachariah believes Jaggery thought he was seeing a ghost, but Charlotte recalls Jaggery at the trial questioning her closely about whether Zachariah was dead. If the captain believes Zachariah is alive, he’ll want to kill both him and Charlotte so that no report gets out.

Finally they realize that, since no one else would kill a valuable crew member during a dangerous storm, it must have been Jaggery himself who murdered Hollybrass to silence him. He then frames Charlotte, intending to execute her and remove her as a threat against him in admiralty court, then waits for an opportune moment to expose and deal with Zachariah.

The two decide that the only way to solve all of this is to get Jaggery to confess. Zachariah despairs of doing so without weapons—the gun safe has a hidden key—but Charlotte says, “I know where he keeps it” (187).

Charlotte explains to Zachariah how, when she reported the mutiny to Jaggery, he had taken a key from the back of his daughter’s portrait and used it to open the gun safe. Zachariah suggests she retrieve it—if the captain catches her, she already has a death sentence, so there’s no added risk to her—and she agrees only if the entire crew knows about Jaggery’s crime.

Zachariah sneaks off for a time and returns with Keetch. Charlotte explains her theory; Keetch accepts it, then apologizes for the crew’s refusal to defend her and give up Zachariah. Charlotte says she completely understands. Keetch admits he never wanted her aboard, but she proved him wrong and now he’ll vouch for her. They shake hands. Keetch promises to inform the men and find a way to get Jaggery away from his cabin long enough for Charlotte to retrieve the key. She’ll give it to Zachariah, and the men will take the ship.

A short while later, Zachariah leads Charlotte through the hold to a ladder, and she climbs into steerage near the captain’s door. Down the hall, her old cabin door creaks and bangs as it did on her first night aboard. She remembers the voices she’d heard in the hall, an urgent conversation she tries to recall.

Brushing these thoughts aside, she goes to the captain’s door and pushes. The door opens easily. The room is dark; she lifts the lantern. Captain Jaggery is there, waiting for her.

Jaggery tells her that Keetch informed him of her plans. Keetch also told him about the stowaways Cranick and Zachariah, and how the crew scared the other families into refusing to board. He explains why he despises her: She’s “different,” which disturbs the ship’s orderly functioning. It gives the men ideas. He also admits that he killed Hollybrass because “He threatened me,” and that he must blame and kill Charlotte: “Thus is our world set right again” (199).

He lights candles and waves at the room. The furniture and decorations, damaged by the hurricane, have been set roughly back into place. He blows out the candles, and, in the darkness, the damage disappears. “You see—it’s hard to notice the difference. Everything appears in order” (200).

Charlotte tells him he’s insane. He tosses the gun safe key toward her and suggests she use it, remove a loaded weapon, and kill him. Her mission will be complete, but her reputation, and that of her family, will lie in ruins. Or—and he brings out a bundle of her clothing—she can put on her fine dress, renounce her ways, beg for mercy, and he’ll grant it. Or she can hang, and he’ll make some excuse to her parents about a sickness or accident. She has only three choices, he tells her.

She says he’s wrong, rises, and escapes out to the center deck. The men are gathered there; Keetch stands next to Zachariah, whose hands are tied. The captain appears, pistol in hand, and claims that Charlotte tried to kill him but was foiled. She shouts that he admitted to killing Hollybrass. He insists that she means to take over the ship—“A girl!”—and force them to do her bidding.

She runs toward the forecastle deck. The men back away. Jaggery orders them to grab her; they hesitate. The captain follows her; she backs up against the bow. The captain aims and fires, but the ship plunges and the shot goes wild. He hurls the pistol at her; she ducks, stumbles, then pulls herself out onto the bowsprit and, clinging to a rope, edges backward over the sea. Jaggery follows; she pushes past the jib sails toward the end of the bowsprit.

The men gather to watch. Trying to push her off, Jaggery lunges at her, but the ship plunges and he loses his balance and falls. Instinctively, she clasps his outstretched hand; for a moment, he hangs on, then falls away. He grabs desperately at the figurehead, but the sea washes him off, and he disappears below the ship, “not to be seen again” (205).

Charlotte scrambles back onto the forecastle deck. The men back away from her. She asks for a knife, takes one, walks down to Zachariah, cuts the rope that binds his hands, and hugs him. He climbs to the quarterdeck rail and proclaims that Charlotte should be the ship’s captain.

Charlotte notes in the logbook that she’s the captain, but she turns over command to Zachariah. The logbook also states that Captain Jaggery and Hollybrass died heroically during the hurricane while trying to save the ship. “I have been skeptical of accounts of deceased heroes ever since” (206).

As the ship nears port, Charlotte grows glum. She’ll miss this life. Zachariah assures her that she’s from a wealthy family, has many new friends among the crew, and will have a good life. He tells her that, as an East African child, he ran away, and, like her, is unique to the sea.

The night before they land, Charlotte and the crew say their goodbyes. A few hug her; one offers a knife—“refused”—and Ewing calls her his “mermaid”; then they drink rum and shout three “Huzzahs!”

On a hot summer day, the Seahawk docks at Providence. Charlotte puts on her fancy dress, now a bit ragged, and goes to the rail. Her family waits on the dock. They greet her with hugs and kisses. In the carriage on the way back, they mention her bedraggled clothes and her brown face; she answers with a brief account of the hurricane. Her father, watching seriously, warns her about sea tales. He says he looks forward to reading her journal.

They reach the house, bigger than she remembered from when she was six. Inside the great foyer, her mother grasps her hands and wonders at their calluses; she explains that she had to do her own washing. They sit to eat; Charlotte says the other families never showed up, and that she fought loneliness by chatting with the crew and by doing work. Her father sends her upstairs to her room for a bath and change of clothes. He assigns two maids to help her; one, Bridget, is little older than Charlotte.

Her room overlooks a magnificent garden. Bridget calls her “Miss,” but Charlotte asks her to call her by her name; shyly, Bridget refuses. Mary appears and Charlotte asks the same of her, but she, too, declines, noting that she could be fired for doing so (215-16). Mary says Charlotte’s father requests the journal; Charlotte passes it to her. Her father also has ordered Charlotte’s clothes destroyed, but Bridget assures her that they’ll be given to charity. Charlotte keeps her sailor suit.

Two hours later, Charlotte receives a request to visit her parents in the parlor. Feeling as alone as she did on her first day at sea, Charlotte goes downstairs. Her father, standing by her mother, declares that the journal is filled with fantastical “rubbish,” that it does no credit to her English schooling, and that her spelling and grammar are terrible. Already he has tossed the journal into the fireplace, where it burns. He forbids her from discussing the voyage with her siblings. He dismisses her to her room, where she’s confined for a week.

Charlotte reconstructs her journal on the margins of the pages of other books. She bribes Bridget to bring her a newspaper each day; after several days, she finds the listing she seeks: “Brig Seahawk, to sail on September the ninth, by the morning’s tide. Captain Roderick Fisk, master” (219).

She behaves beautifully, is re-admitted to the family’s evening meal, and talks about the books she’s reading. Her father compliments her and comments that the young can suffer shocks and still remain—he searches for the right word—she suggests “orderly,” and he smiles and agrees.

That night, she dresses in her sailor clothes, climbs out the window and down the trestle—such a descent is now “child’s play” for her—and finds her way to the dock where the Seahawk lies at anchor. She climbs the gangplank, finds Zachariah, and says, “I’ve decided to come home” (221).

Charlotte includes an appendix with two sections: a set of drawings of the Seahawk, including labels that name the sails, rigging, decks, etc.; and a section, “Ship’s Time,” that explains how the crew’s work hours, or “watches,” operate, and how to interpret the ringing of the ship’s bell.