The Pirate Round

by James Nelson

  ‘You do not think this might be a problem?’ Bickerstaff asked Thomas in a private moment. ‘Sure, these fellows are as capable as any landsmen, but you will have to hire genuine seamen as well. Do you think others might object being shipmates with black men?’

  ‘Your sailor is an altogether more liberal fellow than your landsman,’ Marlowe said. ‘I don’t think they will object to any man who pulls his weight. It is not unprecedented, you know, white men and black working together on shipboard.’

  ‘Indeed? I have never seen it.’

  ‘You don’t too often aboard honest ships, but aboard pirates it is common enough.’

  ‘Humph,’ said Bickerstaff. ‘That is not a precedent I might wish to follow.’

  Smart, able, and willing as those young black men were, they were not sailors. Marlowe set them to work transferring all of the gear in storage back to the ship – work that needed no special expertise.

  At the appointed hour Peleg Dinwiddie reported aboard. With an experienced first officer to oversee the setting up of the rig, Marlowe was free to begin his campaign for the recruitment of experienced mariners, a scarce commodity in the Tidewater. He took his own sloop, the Northumberland, down the James River and across Hampton Roads to the small, rough port town of Norfolk, where he hoped to find sailors in a region that did not see a fraction of the shipping that the northern colonies did.

  He went immediately to the taverns, the likeliest place to find not just sailors but sailors in a compliant mood. In the second loud, dark, smoke-filled, stinking tavern he entered, he found one.

  The man was sitting alone at a small table. He was dressed in a linen shirt and well-worn broadcloth coat. His face was a sailor’s face, lined and tanned, his hair was long and worn clubbed, sailor fashion. He might have been an ordinary seaman at one point in his career, but he looked now like a bosun or mate of a small merchantman. Perhaps a bit of privateering, perhaps a bit of piracy.

  There was a quality that drew Marlowe’s eye, an air of self-assurance. A certain attitude. There was nothing soft about the man; he was all sharp edges. If Peleg was something of a tame bear, this man looked like a wolf, and a hungry one. But those qualities were good, too, if they could be channeled the right way.

  ‘Mind if I join you?’ Marlowe stood in front of the small table. The man looked up, regarded Marlowe for a long moment, said nothing. Marlowe was wearing his seagoing clothes: faded blue coat, cotton waistcoat and shirt, and soft, well-worn canvas breeches. The clothes he might wear to call on the governor would not answer in a place like this.

  Finally the man nodded to the other seat. Marlowe put his mug on the table and sat.

  ‘Name’s Marlowe. Thomas Marlowe.’

  The man nodded.

  ‘I’m shipping a crew. Tobacco to London. You’ve the look of a seaman. Are you a’wanting a berth?’

  The man looked up from the table, met Marlowe’s eye, and then nodded, slowly. ‘Perhaps.’

  ‘Ship paid off? Sail without you?’

  ‘No. I sailed in here as bosun on a merchantman bound out of Plymouth. But the master and I didn’t see eye to eye, and now I’m on the beach.’

  ‘What was the matter?’

  ‘The master was a horse’s arse.’

  Marlowe nodded. This made things difficult. A judgment call. Perhaps the master was a horse’s arse. Or perhaps this man was incompetent, a thief, a drunkard. But these were the risks one always took, hiring on a crew. Sailors were not tame men, not bookkeepers or dancing masters. They were the original troublemakers. It was little wonder that Jesus had picked mariners as his apostles when he wanted to stir things up.

  ‘You shipped as bosun, eh? I’ve need of a bosun. Care to come aboard for the fitting out, see if you want to sail with us?’

  ‘Tobacco to London? I guess I was keeping a weather eye out for something that was a bit more … lucrative.’

  ‘So am I. I had a thought to perhaps sail to Madagascar, after.’

  The man grinned. ‘Perhaps? That don’t sound too certain.’

  ‘It’s not certain. It’s the most I can promise.’

  What in hell am I saying? Marlowe thought. He was starting to bandy this Madagascar thing around like he had decided on it, which he had not, not at all. And even if he had, Bickerstaff and Elizabeth would never go along with it.

  But he needed sailors, and they needed inducement, so there it was.

  ‘All right,’ the man said at last. ‘I see something in you I like. I’ll come aboard for the fitting out, and if we can stand each other, I’ll sail as bosun with you.’ He grinned again. ‘Then we’ll see what you decide.’

  His name was Honeyman. Duncan Honeyman, and he arrived aboard the Elizabeth Galley with three sailors in tow, men also looking for berths.

  ‘Friends of yours, Honeyman?’

  ‘Shipmates. They thought the master of our old ship was a horse’s arse, too.’

  Marlowe nodded, looked the men over. They were a rough-looking bunch. Gold earrings; big knives worn with ease in the small of their backs; arms like gnarled tree limbs; long hair, clubbed like Honeyman wore it; wide slop trousers, patched and tar-stained. They each chewed absently on the tobacco in their cheeks. They smelled of rum and sweat. But he had seen worse, and shipped with much worse.

  ‘Very well,’ Marlowe said. ‘I’ll offer you the same terms I offered Honeyman. I’ll hire you for the fitting out, seaman’s wages, and if you work out, you can stay on for the voyage. Tobacco to London and back with cargo, that’s all I can promise. And I’ll thank you to not say more, regarding any other venture we might try.’

  The three men exchanged glances but made no protest. At last they all muttered their agreement.

  Honeyman ran his eyes along the deck and up the lower masts. He squinted slightly, but beside that his face showed no expression. ‘This the crew?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘They sailors?’

  ‘Not yet. But they’ll do a hard day’s work. And they’ll learn. Do you have a problem with that?’

  ‘Not if you don’t.’

  ‘Good. Take these men and report to Mr Dinwiddie, on the quarterdeck there. With the black coat. He’s first officer. He’ll set you to work.’

  Honeyman nodded, and without another word he led the three men across the brow and aft. Five minutes later they were aloft, seeing the main topmast set in place, the standing rigging ganged over the masthead and set up.

  For three weeks the Elizabeth Galley’s rig rose higher as masts were stepped, yards crossed, running rigging rove through blocks and belayed at the pin rails. At the same time her hull sank deeper and deeper in the river as stores of water and food came aboard, and after that barrel after barrel of tobacco, all that Marlowe House had harvested that year and much of the harvest of the Marlowes’ three closest neighbors as well.

  Marlowe continued his recruitment, picking up another five able-bodied seamen, and saw to the outfitting of the great cabin and the acquisition of those things they would need for navigation.

  Bickerstaff took careful inventory of everything that went aboard. Dinwiddie saw to the stowage, and Honeyman, quiet and generally surly, proved at least to be a competent bosun and was left to supervise the setting up of the rig and bending of sail.

  Elizabeth kept track of the money and fretted about their funds, which were being spent at a frightening rate on stores and gear and all those things that a ship consumed before she put to sea.

  Marlowe tried to assuage her fears. He did not succeed.

  The night before they sailed, the night that Marlowe should have been resting after the unmitigated labor of getting the ship ready for sea in an absurdly short time, he found himself instead pushing a wheelbarrow across the dark lawn of Marlowe House. The wheelbarrow held a shovel and an unlit lantern. He had to wonder at himself.

  Old habits died hard, his need for a secret held back. He thought of a trick he had used many times at sea, dragging a sea anchor behind his s
hip to slow it down, give an enemy or victim a false sense of his own ship’s abilities. Then the sea anchor was cut away, and suddenly his ship could move with an unanticipated speed. This was like that. The little thing held in reserve.

  He pushed the wheelbarrow onto a trail in the woods, and when he was lost from sight from Marlowe House, he pulled out his tinder pouch and lit the lantern. In the light of its feeble glow he made his way down the trail to the spot of dirt he had last turned six years before.

  It was not easy to find – the weeds and the shoots of young trees had grown up around it and over it – but Marlowe had been careful over the years never to let it become lost completely in the bracken.

  He set the lantern down, lifted the shovel, and jammed it into the dark earth. Five minutes of digging, and the spade hit the iron-bound box, hidden under a foot of dirt. He moved the lantern closer and worked the point of the shovel around until the box was fully exposed.

  Why have I never told Elizabeth about this? Or Francis?

  It was not a matter of trust. He trusted them both, completely, more than he had ever trusted anyone.

  Perhaps that was it. He had never trusted anyone, until he had met them. Perhaps he could not get past that.

  He breathed deep, readied himself, and then grasped the handle of the box and pulled. He thought at first it must still be caught on something. It would not move. He tried again, and this time it yielded, just a bit, and he realized that it was just heavy as hell, which he knew. Another deep breath, he braced himself and tugged, and the box came up from the dirt. He pulled it over the edge of the hole and rested it on the ground.

  He stood up, flexed his back, gulped breath, cursed his creeping age. When he had recovered from the exertion, he knelt beside the box and held the lantern close.

  It was wrapped in tar-soaked canvas, which was still intact. He pulled his sheath knife, cut away the canvas, and was pleased to see that the box was not rusted through. It looked pretty much as it had when he buried it in 1701.

  He fished the key from his coat pocket and worked it into the lock, which sprang open after a moment’s fiddling. Marlowe took it from the hasp and paused, looked around, listening. There was nothing but the sounds of the woods at night. He swung the lid open, held the lantern up.

  The gold inside the box gleamed its lustrous metallic yellow, a great jumble of gold. A few bars, but coins mostly, Spanish escudos in various denominations, doubloons and ducats of Venetian and Spanish mintage. Their origins did not matter. It was all gold.

  Marlowe sat for a long moment and looked at it. Here was his financial sea anchor, and he was about to cut it away. He had been tempted often enough to dig this up, during hard times in the past few years. Yet he had always resisted, and the need had passed.

  But this was different. He was at the end now. This box was all the wealth he had left, and if he did not rebuild his fortune on this voyage, then he was finished.

  He closed the box and locked it, then stood and braced himself. With painful effort he hefted it up onto the wheelbarrow. He grunted through clenched teeth, felt something pop in his arm, knew whatever it was would hurt like the devil in the morning.

  But it was done. The gold was on the wheelbarrow, the last of his wealth unearthed and ready to be put to use. He set the lantern and shovel beside the box, took up the handles again, and made his way back down the trail to Marlowe House.

  CHAPTER 3

  Roger Press sat back in the velvet wing chair and worked the silver toothpick around with his tongue. He liked the feel of the hard, smooth metal between his lips. The toothpick was almost a part of him now, a constant companion. He gave no thought to it as he worked it into his gums, probing them till they bled. He liked the coppery taste of the blood in his mouth.

  In his hand he held a snifter of brandy. He pushed the toothpick to one side, tucked it in his cheek, and sipped the liquor. Magnificent. These rich bastards drank it like water. The brandy mixed with the blood in his mouth, swirled down his throat.

  Tall and thin, but not handsomely so, with big hands and feet, joints like doorknobs, his face scarred from a childhood bout of the smallpox, his teeth growing black around the edges and often painful, Captain Roger Press was not a lovely man to look on. And so the other men in that richly appointed drawing room arranged themselves in their seats, busied themselves with some little thing, and avoided his eyes.

  In the uncomfortable silence he glanced down at the snifter, the knife-edge rim, the seemingly impossible delicacy of the glass. He could crush it in his hand, make it explode into a thousand glittering fragments. The thin glass probably would not even cut through his callused palms.

  That would surprise them.

  ‘Captain Press …’ The older one broke the silence. Sir Edmund Winston. He was the owner of the house in which they sat, a grand edifice that fronted on Pall Mall. It was one of a half dozen he owned, the house he used when he was in London for the season.

  Sir Edmund blathered some nonsense about how grateful they were that he could come. Press worked the toothpick in his mouth and ran his eyes over the room. Rich velvet on the walls, portraits of brooding Winstons glaring down at this coarse intruder. A carpet laid over the polished oak floor, the kind that a younger, diffident Press might have been afraid to step on.

  Ten o’clock in the evening. Four bells in the night watch. Outside it was black night, but the chandelier overhead held enough candles that the room was brightly lit.

  More money in this one room than most men I know would see in a lifetime.

  And he was the guest of honor.

  ‘Captain Press,’ another of them was saying. Hobkins. This one was Hobkins. Owned a Jamaican sugar plantation, did a big business in slaves and silk from the Orient. Owned a dozen ships at least. Roger pulled his eyes from the silver arranged on the sideboard and met his eyes. The man was all silk and ruffles and chins.

  ‘Captain, as you are no doubt aware, we here represent a good portion of the shipping between England and the Moorish countries. India, the Arabian lands, the Spice Islands. Thinking of getting into China trade. But that is not your concern, of course.’

  Press looked long and hard at him, but the man would not flinch. He was flabby, but he was not weak. Weak men did not become as powerful as Hobkins.

  Still, Press could hear the note of discomfort in his voice. Roger Press was not a subtle man. He had not gained his place through intrigue and manipulation, as these men had. He had fought and killed his way up, used and discarded men, won his present notoriety by being meaner and bolder than most, and outlasting the rest. He exuded violence, and it frightened these civilized men.

  ‘Of course,’ Press agreed.

  ‘Our problem is this, and this is where you are concerned.’ Another, Robert Richmond, took up the discussion. ‘We are suffering the most egregious depredations in the Indian Ocean. These so-called privateers, these Roundsmen, hunting after the Moorish treasure ships. The current Great Mogul is a bloody-minded heathen named Aurangzeb. Thinks the company is in league with these pirates. Even imprisoned our manager and fifty of our men till he could be convinced otherwise.’

  ‘And it’s not just the Moors these rogues hunt neither,’ Winston continued. ‘The villains are attacking our shipping. British East Indiamen. It’s piracy, is what it is, and it must be stopped.’

  ‘Indeed.’ Set a thief to catch a thief Press had been as much pirate as any of those in Madagascar, and these men knew it. He had been granted a letter of marque and reprisal at the outbreak of the present war, had fought a few hard actions as a privateer, taken a few valuable and legitimate prizes. Now he was a sought-after fighting man.

  Well, he would take their money and let them kiss his arse, one and all.

  ‘Navy’s not worth a damn,’ Sir Edmund continued. ‘Too busy with the rutting French to bother with the pirates in Madagascar. What we need is to make a show in the Indian Ocean. A show for this nigger Aurangzeb and for the damned pirates, too. Sho
w them all we will not tolerate this nonsense any longer.’

  ‘But I had thought the East India Company ships were armed like men-of-war,’ Press said, deigning to make his first comment. ‘Sure they should be enough to fight pirates or Moors?’ It was a question, the answer to which he already knew. But he wanted to make them say it. It would further reinforce his own invaluable stature.

  ‘The company ships are armed, to be sure. But they are too damned weak to do any good. A drain on resources, worse than useless. Can’t find any active or intelligent men to command, can’t find enough men to man them like a fighting ship.’

  What you mean, Press thought, is that you will not pay for enough men to man them like a fighting ship.

  ‘And that, Captain, is where you come in,’ said Hobkins.

  ‘More brandy with you, sir?’ asked Sir Edmund.

  ‘Yes.’

  Sir Edmund snapped his fingers. The attending servant filled Press’s snifter and then the other men’s.

  ‘We are putting together our own expedition,’ Sir Edmund continued, getting to the heart of the thing. ‘Two ships. A decent-sized man-of-war and a tender, also armed. The man-of-war is a frigate, sold out of the navy. We have named her the Queen’s Venture. And we’ve secured a royal commission for the hunting of pirates. Gives quite a bit of latitude.’

  ‘We reckon it makes more sense for us all to pool our resources and put together an expedition that can genuinely be effective,’ Richmond added.

  Press nodded, sipped brandy. You bunch of tight-fisted bloody buggers, he thought. You could build a fucking armada, the money you got. One rotten old man-of-war and a tender! Cheap, bloody—

  ‘We think you are the man to lead this thing,’ Sir Edmund said. ‘No one expects you can entirely wipe out the villains in the Indian Ocean. But we want a lesson taught, do you see? Show ’em they ain’t as safe as they reckon. Go after them on the high seas and in their so-called strongholds on the island of Madagascar.’

  ‘And St Mary’s,’ Press interjected. ‘Hotbed of piracy, St Mary’s. It cannot be ignored.’