zeke's kitchen
In a cupboard behind a wire mesh door were heaps of raw caperberries tied with twine, bundled devil’s club, stinging nettle, bitter dandelion and crusted seaweed. Together they added a zest to the ship’s staple: wormy tubers, a hardy, yam-like root vegetable that grew in raised mud beds on the foredeck of the ship. More bitter than sweet, with a rust-coloured flesh and gnarly skin, this everyday belly filler was as pockmarked as the pirates themselves.
“Some say it’s Sam holds the reins o’ this gig, him on the trigger, you know,” Zeke said with a sudden edge to his voice that roused Joe from his observations. “Or Phezzie, keepin’ all the metal in order, the engine parts. Then others say if it weren’t for Johnnie, we’d be a pile ‘o splinters ten times a day. Then of course there’s the Captain, and no one dares pull a finger without his say-so.”
Zeke looked over his shoulder conspiratorially.
“Bosh,” he was defiant. “It’s me. I’m the one what keeps this racket goin’. I grow them tuber bricks what keep those bellies from whinin’ all day long. Without me, this’d be a shipful o’ lost lambs.”