Pyrates boy, p.9
Pyrate's Boy, page 9
‘See, I told you,’ says Billy the Fiddle as he helps me on to the deck. ‘I told you a good knot could save your life.’
Even if I had been faster with my knots around the sail, it is doubtful that it could have been saved. Only one spanker on the mizzenmast is still in one piece. The rest – the topsails and the topgallant sail, the skyrail and the jibs flap – are in shreds. The squall dies down almost as quickly as it began. The sun shines through the clouds, and through the holes in the tattered sails.
We sit, the captain and I, on the decks and stare out at the sea, which is now calm again. The captain still has the rope that held me in his hands. Without a word he passes it to me. The knot has held but the hemp is frayed. Only a few strands are left.
The captain’s face is white and drips with sweat. When he stands up, he winces with pain and clutches his shoulder.
‘Are you hurt?’ I ask.
‘Shipshape,’ he replies. ‘It is just the shoulder that is still bothering me.’
A spot of blood has appeared on his shirt and is beginning to get bigger. The captain swallows and looks as if he might faint.
‘I think I need a surgeon,’ he says.
‘Land ho!’ yells Billy the Fiddle.
The captain frowns into the distance. According to our plans, we should be heading past the Carolinas by now, but the squall has blown us right off course.
‘All hands on deck,’ the captain commands. ‘We make for the shore. Whichever shore that may be.’
21. THE MANGROVE SWAMP
The coast is like nowhere I have ever seen before. The land is not land at all but a swamp with still, stagnant water, thick sea grass and small, stunted trees. There is nowhere to dock and so we drop anchor in the mouth of a wide estuary. Toombi volunteers to stay and look after the ship. A few others join him. I don’t blame them. This land is hardly what you’d call inviting. We take the rowboat, and paddle up one of the hundreds of narrow channels that seem to lead inland. After the roar of the sea, my ears strain in the silence. The only things I can hear apart from the constant dripping of water are the buzz of mosquitoes and the cries of strange birds. I don’t like it. Not one bit.
I turn and look at Black Johnnie. His eyes are open but only just. A pad of linen on his shoulder is soaked with blood again. He notices me staring and he gives me a small smile.
‘This won’t take long,’ he says. ‘We’ll be back on course to Scotland before you know it.’
A surgeon will fix him, I tell myself. But what if we can’t find one? And even if we do, how can we pay him? And what if he refuses to treat a pyrate and hands him over to the magistrates instead?
‘Where are we going?’ I ask Billy the Fiddle.
‘One of the men has been here before,’ he tells me. ‘He is sure there’s a settlement round here somewhere.’
I turn and look at my crewmates. A man with only a few rotten teeth in his mouth and a ring through his ear looks at me with a shifty expression.
‘Just up ahead,’ he says and points with a finger covered in warts. ‘It’s right in the middle of the swamp.’
If it were up to me, I wouldn’t trust him an inch. He may be leading us straight into an ambush or round and round in circles.
But then he lets out a short, sharp cackle. There’s a goat’s skull on a stick.
‘I knew it was here somewhere,’ he says.
We round a bend and the water stretches out into a scummy lagoon. On the far side is a cluster of a dozen ramshackle huts on a spit of land. A couple of stray dogs start to bark when they see us but nothing else stirs. Finally, just before we reach a tumbledown jetty, a man in a filthy frock coat and tricorn hat comes out of one of the huts clutching a musket.
‘Scarlet pantaloons!’ shouts the man with the rotten teeth.
I must look as astonished as I feel, because he explains: ‘It’s the password. This isn’t a place you can find on a map. But those who know it call it Skull Creek.’
The man in the frock coat puts down his gun and urges us to throw him a line, which he ties on to the jetty. He is English, by the sound of him, but his skin is a leathery brown colour. He clasps the man with the rotten teeth like a brother, which is what, in fact, he is.
‘Long lost but dearly missed,’ he says and they both laugh so hard that more teeth might be lost before they know it.
A hut is found that we can sleep in, and that night, in celebration of our visit, a hog will be roasted and some bottles of wine opened.
‘Only the finest of French,’ our host assures us. ‘From a French galleon that ran aground on the Keys. Unless you’d like rum from Jamaica. Or gin from London. It may not look like a great place to drop anchor, but in Skull Creek we have anything a man could wish for. Except women, that is.’
Unfortunately there are no surgeons either.
That night the captain falls into a delirious kind of sleep. His head is burning hot and his body is damp with sweat. I am not in the mood for dancing but I know that the men will stay up drinking until dawn. And so I take my place beside Black Johnnie and fall asleep to the sound of smashing bottles.
‘Silas?’ I wake at the sound of my name. It must be hours later. The captain is sitting up on the rough hemp we have been given for a bed. His eyes are shiny but his face is deathly pale.
‘Look at the moon,’ he says.
I look up through the cracks in the roof.
‘I see it,’ I reply.
‘How I love this world,’ he whispers.
The lagoon is surrounded by a fringe of trees whose branches hang down into the water. In the moonlight it looks even more foreboding than during the day.
‘There’s so much more to see,’ he says softly. ‘The ice flows of Nova Scotia. The palaces of France, the lush forests of the Azores. I am sure you will see them all. One day.’
A lump rises in my throat. What does he mean?
‘But you’ll be with me. Won’t you?’
‘Of course,’ he says. ‘All the way. I’ll be right beside you.’
And then he wraps his good arm around me and holds me tight and then a little tighter. And as the moon passes behind a cloud and the night closes in again, I lay my head on his chest and listen to the rise and fall of his breath. What good would the world be if he wasn’t in it?
22. THE HEALER
The day dawns hot and sticky and filled with biting insects. In the sunlight, Black Johnnie’s face is the colour of candle wax. The men are still asleep and can’t be woken. I search for Billy the Fiddle but he is gone. I must do something, but what? Our ship is barely seaworthy. And even if I wanted to sail somewhere else to try to find a surgeon, the rowboat has gone.
It is almost dark when the Billy the Fiddle rounds the bend in the rowboat. I have spent the day dipping a flannel in cool water, trying to keep the captain’s mouth moist and his head cool. He can’t keep anything down any more. I am relieved to see Billy but, despite my hopes, he has not brought a surgeon. A young Indian girl climbs out of the dinghy and follows him along the jetty. I am so furious I that I start to yell at him. How can he think of chasing women at a time like this? How could he forget Black Johnnie?
He has to hold me back with one huge arm or I would punch him.
‘Silas, my boy,’ he says softly, once he has got my arm in his vice-like grip. ‘I like a woman as much any other, but this isn’t what you think. This girl is a healer.’
I turn to look at her. She doesn’t look like much of a healer to me. With her hair in braids and a necklace of animal teeth around her neck, she’s surely only a few years older than I am.
‘Then where are her medicines?’ I demand.
‘She uses plants,’ he explains. ‘She will gather what she needs.’
The girl stares as if she can see right to the bottom of me.
‘Stand aside and let her through,’ he tells me.
Reluctantly, I let her pass.
The Tenacity’s surgeon had accidentally left behind a fragment of bullet in the captain’s shoulder. Once the metal has been removed with a knife held in a flame to make it white hot, the Indian girl stitches up the wound with animal gut. Next, she covers it with a brew of leaves that she has stewed in a pot for an hour. When she has wrapped the captain’s arm and shoulder up in a piece of clean cloth, she gives him a draught and he falls asleep.
When he wakes hours later, the colour has returned to his cheeks. The girl changes the dressing and brews up another special potion. Clearly I was wrong about her. On the third day he is fit enough to take a walk around Skull Creek and drink a little French wine. But once he is out of danger, a gloom seems to descend on him. I feel it too, the swamp pressing down on me like a headache.
‘How can I pay her?’ he asks Billy the Fiddle. ‘I have no money.’
‘She has been paid,’ he replies. ‘Now, let’s not hear any more about it.’
That evening, the girl is taken home, another pig is roasted and the pyrates’ carousing goes on long into the night. Judging by the empty crates, Skull Creek’s supplies of French wine and Jamaican rum must be almost gone.
‘We are being shown so much generosity,’ the captain says. ‘It worries me.’
Once again, Billy the Fiddle shrugs and explains that we owe nothing.
Suddenly the captain’s face pales once more.
‘Bill, you haven’t given me up, have you?’
Billy the Fiddle’s face turns dark red. He is almost speechless with rage.
‘What do you take me for?’ he says. ‘I am no turncoat, but an honourable man. In some respects, at least.’
‘I’m sorry, it’s just this place,’ the captain explains. ‘And once I have recovered, we still have the problem of what to do about the ship.’
Billy looks away but I catch a twinkle in his eye. There is something he’s not telling us, I’m sure of it.
The next day, I am woken by a cry from the lagoon.
‘Scarlet pantaloons,’ a man’s voice shouts.
‘Come ashore!’ booms Billy the Fiddle’s voice in reply.
‘We have only been here for a few days,’ the captain says to me. ‘And our Bill has the run of the place.’
A barge arrives, crewed by three rough-looking men and a small grey monkey. It is loaded up so high with goods and floats so low in the water that one large wave would sink it. We stand aside as the men start to unload the cargo. One by one, boxes of provisions including two crates of rum, three stacks of folded sailcloth and six coils of fresh rope are piled up on a sheet of brand new tarpaulin on the banks of the lagoon.
‘We could be doing with some of this,’ the captain says enviously. ‘Who’s it for?’
He looks around the shore as if another ship and its crew might just materialise from nowhere.
‘For?’ Billy the Fiddle replies. ‘It’s for us, of course. It’s for the good ship, Curby Dodger.’
Black Johnnie stares at him for a moment in disbelief.
‘But how?’ he asks. ‘How on earth did you find the money for all this, Bill?’
‘Never look a gift horse in the mouth,’ he says mysteriously. ‘But I have my ways.’
The captain is lost in thought for a moment.
‘You sold the advance guarantee!’ he says.
‘Not sold,’ Billy corrects, ‘pawned.’ He pulls a small paper ticket from his waistcoat. ‘When we’re richer men and come through this way again we can buy it back.’
‘But the crew?’ the captain asks. ‘The stone was for all of you.’
‘The crew agreed,’ Billy replies. ‘There was a consensus. They didn’t want to lose you. Or the reward.’
Black Johnnie blinks and I see a tear glisten in his eye. But he clears his throat and orders Billy the Fiddle to assemble the men. In the harsh light of day, it’s obvious that the drinking and carousing have taken their toll. Most of them look much the worse for wear. Any longer in Skull Creek, with its suffocating climate and large reserves of booze, and who knows what kind of state they’d be in.
‘We have no more time to waste,’ the captain tells them. ‘We shall be shipshape by dusk and I aim to catch the first tide tomorrow. You are free to stay here, to take your chances on the mainland. Or you are free to join me once more and continue on to our destination, the fair land of my birth, Scotland, where our mission concludes.’
‘I have no mistress but the sea,’ says one man. ‘And I’m beginning to miss her.’
‘Aye, aye,’ chorus the others.
Black Johnnie’s face breaks into a wide smile.
‘Well that’s just fine and dandy,’ he says. ‘Dandy and fine.’
23. THE GREAT CIRCULAR
With the brand new sails and ropes made from finest manila hemp we set forth again, and, after navigating our way through the strung-out archipelago of the Florida Keys, we are soon back on course. Once or twice we spot a galleon or merchant ship in the far, far distance but since we are small, and partly camouflaged by the coast, they don’t see us.
Just to the north of the Carolinas, by Billy the Fiddle’s calculations, we hit a bank of thick fog. We sail on past New York, Provincetown at the tip of Cape Cod, Boston and then up towards Halifax, Nova Scotia. Like the captain, I spend hours peering out in the directions of these towns and settlements, desperate for a glimpse of them. But even though my eyes begin to ache, I still can’t see more than a stone’s throw from my toes. It is like being wrapped up in cotton wool. Only the change in temperature reveals that we are moving north at all.
It gets colder every day and by the time we’re nearing Halifax we realise that we shall need more clothes if we don’t want to freeze to death. According to Bill we should be almost there but we still can’t see a thing.
‘Are you sure?’ asks the captain.
‘Quite sure,’ Billy the Fiddle replies. ‘We should be entering the harbour about now.’
All at once some masts loom out of the fog. And beyond that Citadel Hill appears. We have arrived.
‘Good work, Bill,’ says the captain.
Once we have dropped the anchor and raised colours least likely to attract attention (an Irish flag that one of the pyrates stole from the first ship he plundered) Black Johnnie and several men head to shore. Halifax has many small trading posts and the captain comes back laden with seal-and-bear-skin jerkins, mittens and boots, plus a sack of beaver-fur hats that are all the rage, so they tell us, in London. The crew try everything on and there is much rejoicing until they discover that most of the boat’s supply of rum has gone. The captain has exchanged it for warm clothes.
‘I may have been cold,’ one pyrate laments, ‘but at least I was merry.’
The furs are too big and cumbersome for me. Even the hats fall down over my eyes and make everyone laugh.
‘Here,’ says the captain. ‘This is yours.’
He hands me a bundle of soft white fur. As it unrolls in my arms it becomes a coat.
‘It’s made of polar bear,’ he explains, ‘stitched for a bride who never arrived.’
I almost drop it. I don’t want to wear a dead person’s clothes.
‘Did she drown?’ I ask.
‘No,’ he laughs. ‘She just changed her mind. I thought it might be around your size. Does it fit?’
I pull it on around my shoulders. It falls right down to my knees. For the first time since we left Skull Creek, I feel warm.
‘I never want to take it off,’ I reply.
Off the coast of Newfoundland, the sea is full of herring and lobster. Although we have no more money for supplies, our nets and traps fill up. We sail the westerly trade, which will speed us steadily across the Atlantic. What lies ahead still keeps me awake at night.
Most nights are broken anyway. We all take turns on watch, four hours at a stretch, to look out for other vessels and icebergs. On the second day after leaving Newfoundland I spot an iceberg slowly approaching. It has two towering spires and its surface is a strange shade of blue. One of the pyrates decides to claim it as his own and so, even though everyone tells him it’s far too dangerous, he takes the rowboat, rows across, climbs it and sticks a red neckerchief on a stick as a flag on the summit. He is known as Iceberg Jack from then on, a name he seems to like.
Other icebergs float serenely by, flat icebergs, spiked icebergs and icebergs with clefts or carved with caves. They are usually white but occasionally they are blue or blue creased with grey. Some of them are covered in nesting birds, others look as desolate as if they had come from the ends of the earth. Which, in fact, they have.
One early morning, the captain rouses me from the depths of sleep to join him on the deck. I pull my polar bear coat on and start my watch as the dawn begins to break. As usual, the colours of the rising sun dissolve in the fog, turning it pale gold and copper and the softest violet. When a bloom of white appears out of the mist on the starboard side at first I assume that it is just another iceberg. And then I hear the eerie sound of whistling. Before I can raise the alarm, a huge ship with three masts, a dozen sails and at least sixty guns, rears out of the fog. It flies the Spanish flag. I turn to look for the captain but he is already right beside me.
‘Sssh,’ he says, holding his finger to his lips.
We slip by so close that I can almost see right through the portholes. There is no one aboard. As we pass by I can see what I couldn’t see before. The great ship is listing to one side with a huge hole ripped in its side.
‘It must have hit a growler,’ Black Johnnie says when we are out of earshot.
‘What’s a growler?’ I ask.
‘An iceberg that floats just beneath the surface of the sea,’ he replies.
‘So how can you spot one?’ I ask.
‘You can’t,’ he says.
‘And where are all the crew?’
He shrugs. The fog clears a little and we look at out the rolling ocean.
‘They could be anywhere,’ he says.
