Pyrates boy, p.3
Pyrate's Boy, page 3
‘Man the cockboat,’ shouted the captain. ‘Abandon ship.’
There were more than fifty of us on board and one small dinghy. There wasn’t room for more than a dozen. The lady, being the only woman, was helped into a place.
‘I’ll say he drowned in the storm,’ she said to the other passengers. ‘It was not my fault. Thankfully I was paid in advance.’
‘Who sent for me?’ I shouted above the wind. ‘Tell me their name!’
I thought she had not heard me, or was pretending she hadn’t. But then, with an almighty jerk, the cockboat suddenly dropped a few feet as the seamen loosened the ropes, and she yelled out, ‘Crawlfish and swim!’
This made no sense, no sense at all, so I begged her to repeat it.
‘Crawford and Swann!’ she yelled again.
The boat fell a few feet further and hit the water with an almighty splash. The names still meant nothing to me. I called out once more but my voice was lost in the roar of the wind.
With six seamen manning the oars, the rowboat began to pull off, rising up, over, and finally disappearing behind the crest of a huge black wave. Nobody ever saw it again.
7. THE RESCUE
The sinking ship groaned as it listed steeply to the left. Without a full crew to man it, the sails ripped and the masts – the main, the fore and the mizzen – snapped one by one. Those of us left behind began to grab anything we could find that would float: doors were ripped from their hinges and hatches lifted from the hold, caskets kicked apart and barrels emptied. And then the others wished each other luck and launched themselves over the side. I hesitated. I had been taught how to read and write but not how to swim. The decks pitched suddenly and the force threw me overboard. Even now I shudder as I recall the way the sea closed over my head and filled my mouth with the taste of salt. And then I remember nothing.
I don’t know why I didn’t drown, dragged down by the ship as it sank to the bottom of the sea. But when I woke up hours later, I was lying on top of one side of a wooden packing crate with the name Felix Parsons painted on it. I still have no idea who Felix Parsons was and what it was he had paid to have shipped back from Jamaica, but in the night and day that followed I began to think of him a friend. I talked to him when I was cold and lonely and scared that I would drown. And he kept me afloat, quite literally.
Although I tried not to think of it, I knew that with no fresh water, out on the open sea, I couldn’t last for more than a couple of days. I scanned the horizon back and forth, looking hard for any ships or signs of land.
Night was falling on my second day adrift when I spotted a ship.
I waved and shouted and would have leapt for joy if I had been able.
Although I was thirsty and burned by the sun, I knew I would survive. Once I had been rescued, I would ask to be taken back to Jamaica. My life could resume. But as the ship came closer I realised that I had rejoiced too soon. This was no merchant ship. I ripped a length of wood from the edge of the packing crate, exposing a nail and making my raft much smaller. I needed something to defend myself with. The flag the ship flew was black – a Jolly Roger.
As the hull approached I prepared for a fight. Who knew what they would do to me? Make me walk the plank? Dance barefoot on sharpened swords? Anything was possible – these men were pyrates!
A black face looked down at me, a familiar black face. I lowered my weapon. It was the slave who had swum away from the dock at Kingston. Another face appeared behind his, a man’s face with kind eyes and a lopsided smile.
‘Good evening,’ he said. ‘You look as if you’re a long way from home.’
A line was thrown and, after a moment’s hesitation, I grabbed it and tied it around my waist. Stepping off the raft, and much to the amusement of the crew, I turned upside down and was dragged, half underwater, half on the surface, towards the ship. The captain reached down, took my foot, and with one swift yank, pulled me onboard.
That day Black Johnnie was wearing a scarlet silk shirt, blue velvet breeches and a black frockcoat trimmed with gold embroidery. His shoes were polished and fastened with silver buckles, and he wore his black hair long and tied at the nape of his neck with a ribbon. Apart from the musket in his belt, he would not have looked out of place in a king’s palace. He glanced down at my tattered clothes but didn’t say anything. Instead he asked me where I had come from and where I was heading. And then he bowed when I explained what had happened, and he told me I was a lucky blighter.
After I had undressed, washed in a bucket of clean water and eaten a plate of fresh fruit and biscuits, I wrapped myself in a blanket, lay down on a bunk I had been given in the depths of the stern and closed my eyes. But I could not sleep. Although I was exhausted, I was convinced that the pyrates might creep in and grab me when I wasn’t expecting it. And so I lay in the dark and listened to their voices on deck. They were arguing. I supposed they were debating whether to kill me now and cook me or keep me for another day. My fear overwhelmed my exhaustion. You see, since my father had died, I had rarely been shown kindness and simply didn’t recognise it any more. I got up and dressed quickly.
I guessed by the sticky heat and the cry of the gulls that we couldn’t be too far from land. Perhaps the currents would wash me to shore, or at least take me as far from the pyrates as possible. And so, as quietly as I could, I crept up the wooden ladders to the decks. At the far end a small fire was burning on a box of sand and the air smelled of roasting banana. The pyrates sitting around the fire broke into song.
I admit that the sea looked blacker and deeper than I remembered. I no longer had Felix Parsons so I quickly untied a small rowboat that was stowed above the gun deck, managed to hoist it out over the side and then lowered it down so gently that it landed in the sea with only the smallest of splashes. I climbed over the wooden railings. It was not far to jump. All I had to do was launch myself forward.
A hand landed gently on my shoulder. I swung round with both fists raised. It was the black slave. He looked at me with wide eyes. What was I doing, he seemed to ask?
‘I have to go,’ I said. ‘You can come with me, if you want?’
He didn’t answer but turned. And right there was the pyrate captain, his eyes black in the flickering light of the fire. He glanced over the side to where the rowboat was bobbing.
‘You’re leaving us?’ he asked.
I didn’t answer. It was quite obvious what I was going to do.
‘What’s this?’ he said and, reaching out, appeared to take something from behind my ear. He opened his hand to reveal a small silver compass.
‘I didn’t take it,’ I said, in case he thought I was a thief.
He placed it in my hand.
‘If you head west, within two days you should reach Chesapeake,’ he told me. ‘But try and avoid La Vibora, that’s ‘the viper’ in Spanish, a big bank of reef and sand shaped like a snake. Treacherous, unfortunately. Can’t see the dangers until it’s too late. Many a ship has gone down there. Anyway, good luck.’
He stood back. He was going to let me go. And yet my boat had already begun to float away.
‘And then again, it might be better to leave at first light,’ the captain suggested. His voice was rich and deep. He was Scottish, that much I could tell but I wondered where he had grown up. Not in Greenock, for sure. ‘Unless you know the stars,’ he went on, ‘or the moon is full, you might find it easier to navigate by day.’
For a moment or two we stared out at the sea. The boat, by now, was gone.
‘Anyway,’ said the captain turning to me again. ‘We were discussing your arrival earlier. We had a vote. You see, we don’t allow children on the ship. Or women, but —’
‘I’m not a child,’ I replied. ‘I am eleven years old.’
‘Please,’ he said quietly. ‘Don’t interrupt. It was decided that on this occasion, and since you had someone to vouch for you –’ he nodded towards the African man, ‘Toombi here – it was decided that we would offer you a position on board, if, of course, you decide against trying your luck on the open sea.’
I was so taken aback that my mouth fell open. The captain reached forward and with a single finger under my chin, he closed it.
‘You will only have half the cut of the men, you will have to swear an oath to adhere to the pyrate code, and you will initially be on trial,’ he said. ‘But I think, with a bit of work, you might have the makings of a cabin boy.’
I looked him straight in the eye. ‘I will not kill or maim,’ I said.
‘That is not quite what I had in mind,’ the captain replied.
‘Oh.’ I pulled myself up to my full height. ‘Just what will the position involve?’ I asked.
Here, he looked a little embarrassed. ‘Well,’ he said. ‘I like a shiny shoe and a clean shirt and there is so little time, so little time for that kind of toil. I thought that while you learn to be a seaman – although you seem to have acquired many skills already – you might also do that. For me.’
He cleared his throat and raised an eyebrow and then folded his arms. And then I looked at Toombi, the African who had escaped from the slave traders. No matter what had happened to him, he had vouched for me. Something within my chest cracked open. I glanced out at the sea. It had never looked particularly inviting. I was suddenly so tired that I couldn’t help yawning. The captain slapped me gently on the shoulder.
‘Why not sleep on it?’ he suggested. ‘You can tell me your answer in the morning. And you can keep the compass. You never know when it might come in useful.’
I woke up many hours later. Sunlight was streaming into the hold. Someone up above was singing an Irish jig. A plate of fresh mango had been laid out beside me for my breakfast. And then I knew. My answer was yes: ten, twenty, thirty times yes. Of course there have been hard times and lean times and times where I thought we were all going to die. But despite this, I have never for one moment regretted my decision.
The captain seemed pleased. He smiled and introduced himself as Jon Harkin. It is one of the few times I have ever heard him use his real name. Everyone called him Black Johnnie.
Sometimes I wonder what would have happened if I had slipped away faster, if I hadn’t hesitated before hurling myself after the rowboat. And I see myself all alone in the middle of the ocean, floating endlessly, desperately scanning the horizon for any sign of dry land. I may have made it all the way to the American coast. But more likely I would not have.
And yet sometimes my freedom weighs heavily. While I am free, my sister, Agnes still toils like a slave. One day, I vow, I will save her, as I was saved. But when? And how? I have no idea, no idea at all. And so I push the idea down, deep down, where it hangs quiet but leaden inside me like a locked box on the end of a long chain.
8. LIFE ON BOARD
In my dreams I hear my name spoken once, twice, three times. I only closed my eyes for a moment while I was keeping watch over the boy with the lead box, but must have fallen asleep. I sit up with a start. He is standing above me.
‘Silas?’ he says. ‘Is that your name?’
‘It is,’ I say. ‘What’s yours?’
He glances over his shoulder before he speaks in case anyone should overhear.
‘My mother called me James, but on the ship I got called Jimmy.’
His accent is Scottish.
‘So what shall it be?’ I ask.
‘James, if you please,’ he replies. And then he smiles, the smallest of smiles.
‘So, what is your story?’ I ask.
But just then, from the deck just above our porthole, there is a scream followed by a loud splash. The boy cowers and climbs back into his bunk until all I can see is the flash of his eyes beneath the blanket.
He is too young to sail on our ship for long – the pyrate code does not allow it – but I would like to know what happened to him and how he ended up in the sea chained to his precious box. Even though it isn’t legal, boys of his age are sometimes used as powder monkeys by the British Navy. They are small enough to run back and forth below decks bringing gunpowder to the cannons and cheap to feed on scraps. A year at sea with an average number of cannon firings, however, is enough to make most of them stone deaf. By the time they reach my age, their backs are curved from bending in small spaces and their growth is stunted.
But this boy was on a merchant ship, McGregor’s ship. He is weak, but not deaf or curved. He sounds properly schooled. He cannot have been one of the crew. Was he a stowaway? But why would a boy with any other choice take on the hardships of a life at sea?
He hears me when I ask if he’d like to go up for a breath of air but does not answer. The men are loud and merry, having had much rum and, hearing the carousing, he begins to sob again.
‘It’s only the men having fun,’ I say. ‘What do you think of the ship?’
He doesn’t answer but I keep on talking anyway and gradually his sobbing subsides.
‘This is the most beautiful ship in the world,’ I tell him. ‘Of all the ships I have sailed on – admittedly there have not been many – this ship is by far the best. Her name is Tenacity. That means toughness or persistence. I sometimes say it over and over just because I like the sound of it in my mouth.’
He is listening now. I can tell. And so I continue. I tell him that the ship was built in Jamaica as a gift for a sugar merchant’s wife and was won by our captain three years ago in a card game. It has two masts, at the fore and the aft, and is armed with six guns. As well as Black Johnnie, the crew includes a navigator, a first mate, a surgeon and cook. Although there is not much room for supplies – it was designed to sail along coasts rather than across oceans – it is big enough for us.
‘Once we get going,’ I say, ‘we slip over the surface of the sea like a skimming stone. Just look, look around you.’
He sits up and for the first time, he looks, really looks. The doors to the cabins are wreathed with holly leaves and the beams above our berths are decorated with images of mermaids. One of the carpenters who built her was an artist and you can see his hand in almost every single space on the ship; there are tiny mice carved into the table legs and bunches of grapes along the balustrades. But his finest achievement is the figurehead. Leading our way, positioned at the very tip of the prow, is a woman with red lips, an ample bosom and hair that sweeps down from her head in a cascade of painted gold curls.
‘Her name,’ I tell the boy, ‘is Isabella.’
‘That’s my mother’s name!’ he replies.
‘Is she pretty?’ I ask.
‘Very,’ he replies.
He runs his fingers over a carving of a fish on the beam above his head.
‘I hadn’t noticed,’ he said. ‘Can I carve something?’
‘Of course,’ I say.
Like the skin of the pyrates, who are all covered in tattoos, our ship is a work in progress. The men have added new carvings of their own: dolphins, birds and sumptuous ladies. The names of their sweethearts are picked out on the mast and the places where they were born are carved on the hatches. Like sailors’ tattoos that record full names and places of birth to identify their bodies in case of drowning, the Tenacity identifies the crew and their imaginings on its polished wood. To lose it would mean losing part of ourselves.
The morning air is hot and close and the sun falls in bright splashes on the floor. I have already spent hours polishing boots and stitching buttons, washing socks and swabbing the decks. So I lean back on my bunk, stretch out and close my eyes. We are safe here, safe at anchor in the most beautiful bay in the whole world, which is not only full of crabs and bluefish, but also hides us from any other ship that may happen to pass by.
Black Johnnie intends to sail to St Pierre on the French island of Martinique on the next tide. Britain and France are at war in America and no British naval ship would dare to follow us there. I have heard all about St Pierre. The town sits in the shadow of a volcano, and is full of beautiful women, French perfumers and tailors who can make anything you want in the space of a day. And so, after selling our latest haul to an acquaintance of the captain’s, we will be free to wander the streets and spend our cut of the money in any way we wish. I can hardly wait.
‘They’ll come looking for the box,’ the boy whispers, so softly that I barely hear him.
I open my eyes. He is still lying in his bunk but his face has clouded over with worry.
‘What did you say?’
‘They won’t let it go.’
I sit up and look at him. Now he’s holding the lead box in both hands.
‘What’s inside?’ I ask.
He shakes his head and takes a step back.
‘Let me take a look,’ I say, and step towards him. But the boy opens his mouth and lets out a short high-pitched scream. His voice is surprisingly loud, considering the size of him.
Toombi appears at the door; he looks at me and then looks at the boy clutching the lead box, shakes his head and then starts to laugh. But, suddenly he holds a finger to his lips and cocks his head. In the distance is another sound, a sound we all recognise, a sound we all dread: the boom and whistle of a cannon being fired. With an explosive splash, a cannonball lands in the sea about twenty yards to the right of us.
‘Told you so,’ the boy says.
9. THE NARROWS
Up on the deck, it is chaos. Everyone is arguing over what we should do. Man the cannons and fire back, some of the men suggest. Abandon ship. Scupper the Tenacity, make for the shore, hide out on the island and then pull her up again when they’ve gone. Black Johnnie, however, seems to have other plans. First he insists on absolute quiet. And then he sends me up to the crow’s nest to take a look around. I shimmy up the rigging and climb the mainmast. Here the sway of the ship can be so strong that unless you have your wits about you, you are at risk of being flung out of the nest and into the sea.
