Cast Off by Eve Yohalem

in a minute, Piet,” one of his mates called out.
    â€œHey, Piet, any storms coming up today?” said another.
    Barometer Piet groaned again.
    â€œNow then, Krause. After I remove the spike, you take this cloth and clear away the new blood. I warn you, there will be a lot of it. I shall want you to hold the wound open with these forceps whilst I repair the internal damage.”
    â€œYes, sir,” Krause wheezed.
    With one fast yank, Clockert slid out the spike. Barometer Piet squealed like a pig around the dowel. Blood poured out of the hole and spilled down his sides. Krause dabbed at it like a fancy lady with tea in her saucer. Can’t say I blamed him. I was only too glad ’twas him doing the dabbing, not me.
    â€œKrause!” Clockert spread the hole with his pliers and held out the handles. Krause stuck out a shaky arm for ’em, swayed, and passed out.
    â€œGet this useless drunkard off my floor!” shouted Clockert.
    Two sailors dragged Krause away.
    â€œIs there someone who can assist me without unmanning himself?”
    Everybody shifted their feet and looked away. Piet would likely die if he stayed with his belly open much longer. All kinds of bad humors could get in there. He’d always been decent to me. I knew I should help him.
    â€œA volunteer?”
    More shuffling and sideways looks. Barometer Piet stuck his neck out, begging us with his eyes. I wanted to step up, but I couldn’t take my own eyes off the blood on the floor.
    â€œIn that case, I shall be my own assistant.”
    Piet’s life was leaking out of his belly, but our bellies was too yellow to do anything about it. I looked anywhere but at Pa—at Piet, turning gray on the table, at the blood—
    At Petra climbing over the storeroom wall.
    She crashed to the floor, and there was shouts from every which way while she pushed her way to Clockert. Paying no mind to the hubbub, he tilted the handles of the pliers at her. Without a word, Petra took ’em and stood by his side, cool as ice, holding open the hole and mopping up blood while Clockert rooted around inside Barometer Piet with a pair of long pincers.
    â€œMister Pietersen, I see you were making oakum,” he muttered, pulling out a clump and dropping it on the floor. He dug some more. “You were very lucky with the angle of the fall. A man can live with half a rib, but not without his liver. Unus , duo , tres, and . . . out it comes.”
    Barometer Piet’s eyes rolled back in his head and he fainted. Clockert held up a piece of bone and scrutinized it in the light. The men flinched. ’Cept me. I was staring at Petra. What were you thinking? She shrugged: I have no idea. I shook my head: You ruined us . She bit her lip: I know.
    â€œI’m glad to see there is one man aboard who isn’t squeamish at the sight of a little blood. I shudder to imagine our odds should we engage in combat,” Clockert said to Petra while he stitched Barometer Piet’s belly.
    â€œYes, sir,” she said. And then, because she was Petra, she added, “Perhaps just one more stitch there at the end, master?”
    Clockert paused with his needle in the air and looked down his nose at her. “As you wish.” He added the extra stitch and tied off the end. “And now that this matter is successfully concluded, perhaps you’d care to explain what you were doing in my private storeroom?”

20
    I stood outside the captain’s door, flanked by the twin sailors who’d played piquet next to the VOC trunks, and wishing with all my heart that I’d been born with a working brain. A cow was more intelligent than I. A sea slug, a crab, a Dodo bird. Cor the baker’s boy who wore no mitt. The moment I’d feared most of all came about not by chance but because of my own recklessness. All my plans, all my care was for naught.
    And what would happen to Bram if the captain connected him to me?
    â€œYou know