by Tim Collins
Then I realized. He was talking about whipping me with the cat-o’-nine-tails. Oh dear. I needed to convince them I was a worthy pirate, and I needed to do it quick.
“Avast ye!” I shouted.
The pirate with curly hair looked at Ollie in confusion.
“Heave to!” I yelled.
“How many lashes should I give him?” asked Ollie.
“Hold off for now,” said the pirate with curly hair. “This child could be useful to us. We can put him up on deck with George when we’re approaching ships. We could do with someone else fairly normal looking. Give him a hammock in the crew’s quarters and put him to work.”
“Thank ye!” I said. “Shiver me timbers!”
The curly-haired pirate shrugged and said, “I’m sorry, son, but I have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about.”
GET REAL
“Shiver me timbers” is an expression of surprise made popular by Robert Louis Stevenson’s book Treasure Island. Timbers were the wooden support frames of sailing ships, and shiver means to shake. So a heavy storm or cannon attack could be seen to shiver the timbers of a ship. “Avast ye!” means pay attention. “Heave to” is a command to slow a boat down.
Thursday, March 9th
None of the pirates talk like I was expecting, though some have strong accents and mumble a lot. It’s just as well, I suppose. I only knew a few pirate phrases, so it wouldn’t have been easy to communicate.
I’ve been given a hammock down on the lower deck, which is much more cramped than the captain’s quarters. Captain Bartholomew, the pirate with the curly hair, has taken over those for himself. He seems fascinated with Captain Wright’s maps, but I think he’ll be disappointed when he finds out none of them have any buried treasure marked on them. They were just to help us get from England to Saint Finbarr.
I really hope that Mom and Dad and the others managed to make it there.
Our British flag has been taken down and replaced with one showing a grinning skull with bones behind it. Every pirate has their own design, made up of things like cutlasses and bones and bleeding hearts.
I went around introducing myself to the other pirates this afternoon. None of them were very friendly, and when I asked them to tell me stories about their adventures and sing bawdy songs, they ignored me. I’m sure they’re fine once you get to know them.
GET REAL
You might think pirate flags always showed a white skull and crossbones on a black background, but there were many different designs. Some showed full skeletons, some featured bleeding hearts, and some flags were red rather than black. Not many original flags have survived, so we have to rely on descriptions in books.
Friday, March 10th
Captain Bartholomew handed me a piece of paper with a list on it this morning. Apparently it’s his code, and all new crew members have to agree to it. The captain says that every pirate has to sign a set of rules when they join a ship.
These are ours:
I couldn’t believe the captain was shoving all these rules in front of me. Pirates are meant to live carefree lives of adventure outside the boring old law. You can’t expect them to agree to even more restrictions than before. Even when Dad confined me to the captain’s quarters, I was allowed to keep a candle burning after eight.
But I wasn’t in any position to argue. And I’d already been caught stealing biscuits, so if anything I was lucky to have escaped the thirty-nine lashes.
I signed my name at the bottom, but I did it in a sloppy way so I could pretend that they forced me to if anyone ever put me on trial.
So that’s it. I’m officially a ruthless pirate now. Even if I am a ruthless pirate with a very early bedtime.
Saturday, March 11th
I just tried to make friends with two of my shipmates Ed and Ollie. They were cleaning some cannons they’d brought onto our ship from their old one, and I offered to use my expert knowledge to help them. They told me they were coping fine.
Getting a close look at two of Captain Bartholomew’s crew made me realize why he wants me to stand on deck as we’re approaching ships. They don’t have wooden legs or parrots on their shoulders, but even someone as trusting as Captain Wright would have guessed they’re pirates.
Ed has wiry red hair and a huge fuzzy beard. Ollie has thin brown hair and a patchy beard. They are both incredibly dirty, with cracked, scabby skin. They are missing lots of teeth, and their gums look very sore and swollen. Dad told me that happens when you’re at sea for too long and you don’t eat fruits or vegetables.
We brought some lemons and limes with us from England, but they ran out. As soon as we find some buried treasure, I’ll use my share to buy fruits and vegetables. If I end up looking like just another smelly pirate, they won’t need me to stand on deck as we approach ships, and I’ll no longer be of any use.
GET REAL
Some pirates suffered from a disease called scurvy, which gave them swollen gums and sore joints. It’s caused by a lack of vitamin C, which is found in fruits and vegetables. Some people still suffer from the condition today, though it’s very rare. Most films about pirates leave out the scabby skin, loose teeth, and bleeding gums.
Chapter 4
-
Learning
the
Ropes
Sunday, March 12th
I noticed Captain Bartholomew studying a map in our old quarters this morning, so I asked if he needed any help finding treasure. He said he had no idea what I was talking about and called Ed and Ollie over from the deck.
“Ever used a cannon, boy?” he asked without taking his eyes off the map.
“Er . . . yeah,” I said. “I think I used one a few years ago, but I’ve forgotten exactly what I did.”
“Ed and Ollie will teach you,” he said. “We’ll need all the help we can get next time we strike.”
Ed and Ollie, muttering angrily to each other, led me to one of the cannons on the starboard side. Ed knelt next to the cannon while Ollie stood with his hands on his hips.
“Right,” said Ollie. “When we do this for real, there’ll be a whole bunch of us working together at top speed.”
He handed me an empty canvas bag and a short piece of rope.
“That bag will be stuffed with gunpowder and that fuse will be lit,” said Ed. “Use them incorrectly and you’ll find out why there was a bit about losing limbs in the articles you signed.”
“Okay,” said Ed. “Check the touchhole.”
I examined the cannon. It was a long brass tube on a wooden cart. There was a long piece of wood with leather on one end next to it, along with a pile of rags and a cannonball. There were lots of ropes hanging off the cart, some of which were fixed to the side of the ship.
I had no idea what a touchhole was, and I didn’t want to ask in case it made me look like I didn’t know what I was doing.
The only hole I could see was the large one on the front that the ball would fly out of. I lifted the cannon up and peered into it.
“The touchhole looks fine to me,” I said.
Unfortunately, the ship listed violently to port side as I was doing this, and the weapon slid out of my grasp.
It slammed onto Ollie’s foot, and he yelped with pain. He grabbed his foot and hopped about while Ed steadied the cannon.
“This is the touchhole,” said Ed, pointing to a tiny gap on the top of the cannon. “If it gets worn, the whole thing can backfire.”
It turned out that the big hole I’d been looking down was called the muzzle. You have to shove the bag of gunpowder down it, then push it in with the wooden pole. Then you have to wedge the wad of rags down, then place the cannonball in. Finally, you light the fuse, put it in the touchhole, and stand aside before it jolts back.
Ollie took me through all this really fast and expected me to remember it in the exact right order.<
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“Go! Go! Go!” shouted Ed. He pointed to the sea. “Imagine a ship is getting away from us and you need to fire now, now, now!”
I looked at all the stuff on the floor and desperately tried to remember what to pick up first. The rags, the fuse, the ball, the stick, the gunpowder bag, the ropes. None of them seemed right. I panicked and went for the fuse.
“Wrong!” shouted Ed. “That’s a lit fuse. Remember, that comes last.”
I screamed and threw it back down. Unfortunately it landed right on the small gunpowder bag.
“Ka-boom!” shouted Ed.
I’m no expert on explosives, but even I know throwing a lit fuse onto a bag of gunpowder isn’t a good idea.
“Sorry,” I muttered. I stamped on the bag, as if putting out a fire.
“There’s a reason you wouldn’t be able to do that,” said Ollie. “You wouldn’t have any legs left.”
Monday, March 13th
I was looking forward to my next cannon lesson, but apparently I’m not going to get any more. Captain Bartholomew has decided it would be safer if I stayed away from them from now on.
Seems a bit unfair after just one lesson, but I’m sure they’ll find something else good for me to do.
I spent the morning standing on deck and staring out at sea and watching for rich ships to attack. George, the girl pirate, came up to mop the deck, and I offered to help. But she refused to let me have anything to do with it, like she had to protect her amazing job from a jealous rival.
She didn’t want to talk at all at first, but I asked her so many questions that she gave in. She’s been in Captain Bartholomew’s crew since she ran away from home three years ago.
Whenever she has a break from cleaning, she gets the crew to teach her all about sailing. When she’s older she wants to become a pirate captain with a crew of her own.
I said it must be weird to be a pirate and a girl, which she took the wrong way. I didn’t say she shouldn’t be both, but I just thought it must be odd to be surrounded by men all the time. But she wouldn’t listen to my apologies and she refused to speak to me.
I hope I can make friends with George again soon because she’s the only other pirate my age.
Tuesday, March 14th
Captain Bartholomew gave me a new job today. He said I could be the assistant to Nathaniel, the crew’s carpenter. I thought about how jealous George would be when she found out. Carpenter’s assistant is a much more important job than cleaner.
Nathaniel is a little older than the rest of the crew. He has white hair and a thick mustache. You have to be a good pirate to survive that long, so I thought I could learn a lot from him.
I stood at the table in the crew’s quarters while he showed me how to saw pieces of wood into plugs that could be used to fix leaks in the hull. He said he had to do it a lot in the last ship, but eventually the holes got too big and they had to swap vessels with us, which made me worry about Mom and Dad again.
He handed me one of his saws and a block of wood and told me to try it. I was convinced I’d mess it up, but I actually managed pretty well. I cut the wood into a long, tapered shape that could be hammered into a small hole. I didn’t chop my fingers off or slice through the table or break the saw or anything.
Nathaniel turned the piece of wood over in his hands, nodded, and said it was fine.
I couldn’t believe it. I’d actually found something on the ship I could do. I was finally going to become a valuable member of the crew.
Just as I was feeling like I was getting somewhere, Ed rushed down and announced that another crew member called Jeremiah had fallen from the rigging and shattered his foot. I wondered why he was wasting time telling the ship’s carpenter about this instead of trying to help the poor fellow.
“Fetch him here,” said Nathaniel. He grabbed his biggest saw and cleared space on the table.
That’s when I realized. Nathaniel wasn’t just the ship’s carpenter. He also was the ship’s doctor. It made sense. Captain Bartholomew didn’t need a full-time doctor on his crew, and Nathaniel already had all the saws.
Nathaniel handed me a bucket and pointed to the end of the table.
“I’ll lay him out with his broken foot on that end,” he said. “You hold his leg still and collect the blood and the foot. Toss it all overboard as soon as we’re finished. It will stink the place up if you leave it to go rotten.”
I felt my stomach flip over as I pictured the bucket with a severed foot in it.
There was the sound of a man’s screams getting closer. Jeremiah was on his way.
The bucket shook in my hands as I tried to hold it in place at the bottom of the table. I told myself it was all going to be fine. I didn’t have to saw through any bones myself. I just had to hold his leg in one hand and the bucket in the other and collect the shattered foot and the spurting, spraying, splattering blood.
The next thing I knew I was on the upper deck staring into the bright sun.
“I’ve never had an assistant faint before the surgery even started,” said Nathaniel. There were splashes of blood in his white hair, and his shirt was stained deep red. “It was quite a nasty one, too. You should be glad you missed it.”
It turns out I’m not so brilliant at being the assistant to the ship’s carpenter/doctor after all. The search continues for something I can actually do.
GET REAL
Not many pirate crews contained a dedicated doctor. So if someone needed emergency medical help, the ship’s carpenter often was called in. After all, if he could saw through wood, flesh and bone would be no problem.
If one of your limbs was infected or crushed, the easiest thing to do would be to take the whole thing off. The carpenter would saw through it, then burn the bloody stump with a red hot poker. You might lose a limb, but you’d gain a greater share of the ship’s earnings, or a one-off payment, depending on the terms of your articles.
Wednesday, March 15th
I found another pirate who would speak to me today. His name is Samuel, and he’s the only one on the ship with dark skin. He was captured and forced to be a slave, but he escaped when the ship that was taking him from Africa to the Caribbean was wrecked. He managed to swim to a desert island, where he met up with Captain Bartholomew and his crew. They were marooning a sailor called Saul who’d been caught stealing, and they were happy for Samuel to take his place.
Samuel was mending a ripped sail on the port side of the deck. It looked like quite an easy job compared with the ones I’ve tried so far, but he refused to let me help. Not that he needed any. His hands were moving so fast it looked like the sail was mending itself.
Samuel was happy to tell me about the different types of sail, but when I asked him about when he was enslaved, he went quiet.
Mom once told me about what horrible lives slaves have, so I probably shouldn’t have mentioned it. I was just trying to make conversation.
GET REAL
One of the most famous black pirates was known as Black Caesar. He served on Blackbeard’s ship, The Queen Anne’s Revenge.
Thursday, March 16th
Captain Bartholomew has finally found a job for me. Sadly, it’s not a very exciting one. I have to go to the bottom of the cargo hold, scoop the water that’s gathered there into a bucket, traipse back up, and fling it overboard.
Sometimes when waves crash over the side of the ship, the water gets stuck in the lowest part of the ship, which is called the bilge. There’s a pump that’s meant to get rid of it, but ours isn’t working very well, so I’ve been given the job of taking the extra away.
If too much bilge water collects it can sink the ship, so I’ve got quite a heroic job really, when you think about it.
It doesn’t feel very heroic, though. The water is really smelly, and lots of rotten bits of food have ended up in it. According to Captain Bartholomew, I�
�ll need to keep my wits about me because sometimes rats end up in there.
Maybe I should have tried harder with the amputations. Even collecting severed limbs in a bucket sounds better than getting attacked by rats.
Friday, March 17th
No bilge duty for me today. Captain Bartholomew has spotted a merchant ship and we’re planning to attack tomorrow. We’re going to use the same tactic of pretending we’re an ordinary ship until we get close. I’ll be joining George on deck as we approach and doing my best to look needy.
Captain Bartholomew has been observing the ship through his telescope, and he doesn’t think it’s as good as our current one. So this time we’re going to steal as much as we can and bring it back onto this ship.
Luckily, I’ve been put on stealing duty rather than fighting duty. Don’t get me wrong. I’m sure I’ll be brilliant at hand-to-hand combat eventually. But I need to build my confidence up gradually. I don’t want to go straight into battle on the first attack.
Chapter 5
-
My First
Battle
Saturday, March 18th
We approached the ship early this morning. I stood next to George on the quarterdeck and put on my best pleading stare. The ship slowed down for us, just as Captain Wright had done.
This other ship was smaller than ours, with just two masts. The sails looked like they’d been repaired a lot, and some of the yards looked wonky. I could see why we didn’t want to steal it.
Captain Bartholomew waved his hands and shouted for help. At first it worked, but something must have made them suspicious when they were just a few feet away because they lowered their sails and tried to get away. I hoped it wasn’t because my helpless expression hadn’t been convincing enough.