The Pirate Round

by James Nelson

  Spelt, mug in hand. Without asking, he sat down at Yancy’s table and started to speak, and Yancy had to put his hand on Henry Nagel’s arm to restrain him from beating the man to death.

  ‘Lord Yancy, damn me!’ He held out a hand that Yancy did not accept and then withdrew it as if they had shaken. ‘Yancy, sir, I’ve a proposition I’ve wanted to lay at yer feet, so to speak, a main chance which I think we, being gentlemen of fortune, like we are, might just find to be a profitable enterprise.’

  Yancy nodded as Spelt spoke, though he did not listen. Some nonsense about charging harbor fees and hiring Spelt as harbormaster or some such – it was of no interest to Yancy.

  Rather, the reigning king listened to Spelt’s stupidity, his high opinion of himself, the megalomania that seemed to burst from him as if he were an overstuffed sack, and Yancy thought, You are the man for me.

  The foul weather that the Elizabeth Galley had endured came to a welcome end, inboard and out, and quickly. It put Marlowe in mind of how Noah must have felt, feet on dry land, looking at that great arcing rainbow.

  The storm blew itself out in the late afternoon, leaving only a lumpy, irregular sea as a reminder, and over the dark hours that, too, subsided into the ocean’s usual steady march of waves.

  The next morning the wind was brisk, the sky blue, and it was up topgallants and all plain sail as the Elizabeth Galley plunged along southwest, ever southwest, a heading she would hold until she had crossed the line of the equator and found the contrary winds in the Southern Hemisphere.

  Her namesake, Elizabeth Marlowe, was recovered from her mal de mer and her conviction that her husband was a worthless, manipulative, sneaking bastard. Her awe with his daring, her appreciation of the risk he took to save the lives of strangers, gave her the leeway to reexamine her bitterness and anger. Her polarized feelings, like opposing forces that cancel one another out, gave her the chance to view her husband dispassionately.

  In the end she decided that ‘manipulative’ and ‘sneaky’ were fair descriptions but that Thomas did not deserve ‘worthless’ or ‘bastard.’

  He was not wrong about the wealth to be had on the Pirate Round or the extent to which it could help them in their fiscal crisis. He was not wrong about the degree of protest he would have received from her and Francis. So he had made arrangements on his own. It was his ship, his right to do so. He had not wished to involve her. She had insisted on going along.

  Thomas could never have foreseen what had happened in London or known how very fortunate it would be that he had made his arrangements. In the end his clandestine activities might be the very thing to save them all. He could be damned lucky that way.

  The hidden money irked her still, the anxiety she had felt over their looming poverty, while all along he had a buried treasure, just the thing that pirates were supposed to have.

  The irony, of course, was that real pirates do not bury treasure, despite the romantic notions that people harbored. They spent it long before they could get it interred. It took a retired pirate to have such self-control.

  In the end she was willing to forgive him his foibles. By the first dog watch of the first glorious day after the storm, it was as good between them as it had been right after they met, the morning after the first time they had made love in the tiny cabin of Marlowe’s sloop.

  It made her very happy to have that back again. As she stood on the quarterdeck, near him, watching him, she was very happy to not be angry with him anymore.

  She thought of Madagascar and the Red Sea. If Thomas had proposed such a cruise back in Virginia, she would have scoffed at the notion, been horrified at the thought of leaving her home for so barbaric a place.

  But Elizabeth was not of a docile bent; she did not suffer boredom easily. She would never admit it to Marlowe or to anyone, but in her heart she was thrilled with their pending adventure.

  Bickerstaff was not so thrilled, though in his heart he was eager to see that strange, distant country. It was an intellectual curiosity, and if they were bound away for Madagascar and the Indian Ocean for any reason other than piracy, he would have been very excited indeed. As it was, he expressed nothing beyond an acceptance of the inevitable, like a prisoner aboard a man-of-war.

  Like Elizabeth, he was happy to no longer be angry with Thomas. Marlowe’s actions had proved once again his friend’s essential goodness and morality. No one who would risk his life thus for strangers, men who could do him no great favor in return, could be entirely immoral, even if he could be manipulative and sneaky at times.

  Once the rescued men had recovered enough from their ordeal that they could move about, Marlowe called them aft. Thirteen survivors, they crowded into the great cabin, sitting where they could, while Marlowe endured the deep-felt expression of thanks delivered by the boatswain, the ranking survivor, the man who had helped Marlowe tie the bowline on the sea anchor. One hundred years ago. It had to be that long at least.

  ‘So, sir, I can’t say nothing more, but—’ the boatswain muttered. Marlowe cut him off.

  ‘Enough said, sir. It was my duty as a seaman and a Christian,’ he said, and he was at least a good seaman. ‘Tell me, what ship was she? What happened?’

  The boatswain cleared his throat. ‘She was the Mayor of Harpswell, sir, Indiaman and a good ship. We was running before the gale, deep-reefed topsails. Just getting ready to take ’em in, scud before it. We was pooped. Sea washed all the officers right off the quarterdeck, knocked the helm clean away.’

  Marlowe nodded. One seaman talking to another, there was nothing more that needed to be said. The ship running before the sea, a huge wave sweeping up over the stern, crashing down on the quarter-deck, ‘pooping’ her. All the officers there washed away, killed by the sea’s impact or swept overboard, the helm torn from its mounts.

  With no way to steer, the ship would have rounded right up into the wind, the sails aback, and the storm would have ripped the masts out of her like saplings, left them a helpless wreck, rolling broadside to the waves. It probably took all of two minutes for her to go from being a well-found ship, running easily before the gale, to a foundering wreck with half her complement dead.

  ‘Yes, well …’ Marlowe said, and then he moved on to brighter topics. ‘I will give you all the choice of being set ashore at our next landfall or joining our company.’

  ‘Aye, sir, and pray whither are you bound, sir?’

  ‘Madagascar.’

  A smile spread slowly over the boatswain’s leathery face. ‘Oh, aye, sir?’

  Ten minutes later there were thirteen new names scrawled on the ship’s articles.

  For five weeks they plowed their course south by west, five hundred miles or so off the West African coast, bound towards the equator, enduring the usual calms and squalls and rainstorms and fine weather. They made good time, having now a decent-sized crew – near forty men – small by man-of-war standards but big for a merchantman, men who were quick and able at sail handling, so that Marlowe could make the most out of any slant of wind the Atlantic offered him.

  The ship fell quickly into that steady, happy rhythm that marks a well-run ship, long at sea. Watch after watch, breakfast, dinner, supper, up spirits, lights out, the days and weeks cycled by in their floating world, and only now and again would someone look over the rail and realize that there was nothing but water surrounding them, that they had seen nothing but water beyond the confines of the ship for week upon week.

  Floating under the hot sun, the wind entirely absent, they celebrated Christmas at six degrees north latitude, then in quick succession came the celebration of crossing the line and then New Year’s. But the changing of the year did nothing to change their situation, and once the rum with which they celebrated the holidays had worked through their systems, once pounding heads had returned to normal, the well-established routine took up again.

  Dinwiddie still made veiled complaints about Honeyman, muttered dissatisfaction at playing second to a quartermaster. Honeyman said
little, made no demands, never indicated that the crew had any concerns or desire to make any changes.

  It was an odd stasis. The Elizabeth Galley was running like any merchantman or man-of-war, with the standard hierarchy. But underlying that – for Marlowe at least and certainly for Dinwiddie and Honeyman, no doubt – was the understanding that she was not such a legitimate vessel, that they were run by articles, that with one vote the men could change it all. A happy ship, but for those aft, an uneasy contentment.

  They came at last to the low latitudes, where the sun passed directly overhead and beat down on the deck and softened the pitch and the tar on the rigging. The wind grew fluky and then light and then non-existent. With the ship rolling in the swells, not moving, with no reason to trim sail, the men were suddenly without much to do. That was never a good thing.

  Marlowe would have liked to drill with the great guns, a productive use of idle hours, but of course there were no great guns. And while it was standard practice with a raw crew to pantomime the handling of powder and shot, so as not to expend those precious commodities in the early stages of training, Marlowe reckoned that pantomiming the guns themselves was a bit much.

  Instead he set the men to making mock cutlasses out of wood with leather hand guards and asked Bickerstaff to train them in swordplay, which was certainly as useful and almost as entertaining, lacking only the great noise and concussion of the guns to render it entirely delightful to the seamen.

  The men stood in lines in the waist, a great open space with the guns gone, and followed Bickerstaff through the various positions – lunge, recover, parry, lunge – until they were sweating completely. He drilled them until they began to stumble with fatigue, then sent them off and took the next batch, and so on.

  The first dog watch rolled around, and Marlowe reckoned the men had had enough for that day, that they had earned a little amusement.

  ‘Here, Francis,’ he called down to the waist, stripping his waistcoat as he did. He was dressed in a loose cotton shirt and slop trousers, barefooted – comfortable dress for the doldrums. ‘We have not crossed swords in many a year. What say we have a go, you and me?’

  Bickerstaff looked up, smiled. ‘Delighted.’

  Marlowe stepped down into the waist, carrying a matching set of rapiers. They were thin-bladed weapons, swords made for speed. Not the weapons Marlowe would choose for real combat, but they were good for fencing and for developing speed and coordination. A cork was pushed snugly down on the wicked tip of each blade.

  The men gathered around, leaving a clear patch along the starboard side. They were grinning in anticipation, as Marlowe suspected they might.

  Marlowe stretched out, took a few practice lunges, thought of the several purposes this would serve. Entertainment for the men, practice for him and Bickerstaff. And it would demonstrate to all hands that he was the deadliest man aboard, an important lesson.

  ‘En garde,’ Bickerstaff said, assuming his formal stance. Marlowe was much more casual about the whole thing, standing in a relaxed attitude, weapon held down. He knew that Bickerstaff would try to make him pay for his lack of formality by sticking him quick, and he was right.

  Bickerstaff moved like a snake – one, two, three quick steps, rapier lunging out – but Marlowe was ready for it. He caught the blade on his own, pushed it aside, lunged, but Bickerstaff was already gone. The move drew a smattering of applause. He heard wagers being placed.

  Marlowe took a more formal defensive stance now, feet at right angles, the tip of the rapier level with Bickerstaff’s face. A false lunge, Bickerstaff parried, a real lunge before he recovered, but Bickerstaff knocked the attack aside once more, to Marlowe’s surprise.

  Now Bickerstaff was on the attack, blade flashing, and Marlowe could depend only on his reflexes to fend off the rapier. He was aware of the silence now along the deck, the men watching in awe as the weapons moved faster than their eyes could follow, only the clash of steel telling them that they were witnessing attacks, parries, ripostes.

  And creeping age as well, though Marlowe hoped that only he was aware of it. Three, four times already he had seen opportunities that the younger, less weary Marlowe would have exploited to fatal advantage, but he was not fast enough now.

  The same was true of Bickerstaff. One solid parry, Marlowe found himself opened, actually braced for the hard jab of cork on his chest, but Francis was not there, and by the time he was, Marlowe was ready to knock his blade aside.

  So it went, back and forth along the deck, in front of a silent, watching crew. Marlowe could feel his arm grow heavy, his breath come faster.

  And then Bickerstaff lunged, an awkward move – Marlowe could see he was tiring, too – and Marlowe’s blade came across, sideways, caught Francis’s sword in the hand guard. He twisted, wrenched the rapier from Francis’s hand, and reflexively thrust, hitting Bickerstaff in the chest just as Bickerstaff’s rapier clattered on the deck, Marlowe’s weapon bending under the impact.

  Bickerstaff straightened, smiled. ‘Touché,’ he gasped.

  Marlowe stepped back, saluted with his sword. Turned to his men, ready to face whatever he might see: scorn, amusement at seeing that old man humping it up and down the deck.

  But what he saw in its stead was astonishment. Mouths hung open, eyes wide. No one moved, and Marlowe reckoned they had managed to put on a decent show after all.

  Good, and do not forget it, he thought as the men, led by Honeyman, burst into applause, wild cheers, demands for losers to pay their bets. It was great theater.

  Then Elizabeth stepped across the deck, picked up Bickerstaff’s rapier. ‘Come, Captain, let me have a go at you!’ she called, taking an en garde stance. The crew cheered again, in their high spirits.

  Marlowe let the tip of his rapier rest on the deck. ‘Oh, Lord, woman, I am too tired for this!’ he called.

  ‘Oh, indeed? I’ve never heard that excuse before!’ Elizabeth countered, and the men roared in laughter. Elizabeth had a flawless sense for subtle bawdiness, and the Galleys loved it.

  ‘Very well, my wench, I shall get my weapon up for you!’ It was the kind of happy camaraderie, the sort of ‘gentleman hauling with the men’ fun that worked well, on occasion, with a happy crew.

  Marlowe went en garde and advanced. Elizabeth was no swordswoman, and though she had played around a bit, she had very little skill with a blade. She made an awkward attempt at a lunge, and Marlowe parried, then counterattacked, but slowly enough that Elizabeth was able to step back.

  She came at him again, and he let her drive him down the deck, lunge and parry, lunge and parry. Marlowe could see some potential there – Elizabeth was strong and coordinated – but she was almost entirely lacking in any type of training.

  Back to the main fife rail, and then Marlowe began to press his attack. Slowly, pushing Elizabeth back the way they had come, befuddling her with his swordplay, ignoring the many chances he had to end it there. As they worked their way along the deck he had a glimpse of eager faces watching, men delighting in the display, delighting, he imagined, in this legitimate chance to stare at Elizabeth.

  Marlowe pushed his wife back to the place where they had started, and then it was time to end the thing. He took a step back, lowered the tip of his rapier to the deck, and presented his chest for her thrust.

  She took it, too inexperienced to not fall for his trap, and as her blade shot forward, Marlowe’s came up and knocked it aside. He twisted his blade around hers, caught her steel in his hand guard, and, just as he had done to Bickerstaff, he plucked the hilt from her fingers and tossed the weapon away. It clattered into the waterway, and Marlowe jabbed the corked tip of his own rapier into Elizabeth’s stomach, just the lightest of touches.

  ‘Touché,’ she said, smiling and breathing hard to a smattering of applause and a few good-natured boos. The men had hoped to see Elizabeth win the bout, but that was not going to happen.

  ‘You did very well, my dear,’ Marlowe assured her, and Bickerstaff came up
and said, ‘Very well indeed. You have the makings of a fine swords-woman. Perhaps you would allow me the honor of giving you regular instruction?’

  ‘I should like that above all things,’ Elizabeth said. ‘By the time we reach Madagascar, I shall run my blade right through this arrogant bastard!’

  ‘By the time we reach Madagascar, I will no longer be willing to cross blades with you, my dear. It would do my authority no good for the men to see me bested by my wife!’

  And then Dinwiddie said, ‘You have no authority, Captain. ’Tis Honeyman runs the show now.’ Dinwiddie might have been making a joke, or trying, but it did not come across as such, and Marlowe felt his good humor deflate.

  Despite the unhappy ending to that day’s amusements, Bickerstaff did begin drilling Elizabeth in swordplay. It became a daily event. An hour before the men were mustered for their training, Francis and Elizabeth would meet on the deck and he would put her through her drills in his fussy, exacting way. The men would watch, surreptitiously, catching glances when they could, but Marlowe did not mind. They were stuck in the doldrums for a week, and the spectacle did much to improve the men’s attitudes.

  When he was done with Elizabeth, Francis would drill the crew as a whole, and sometimes Elizabeth would join in as well. They practiced footwork, blade work, offense, defense. When the men had had enough of that, Bickerstaff would set them to sparring with one another. It was a chance for action, rivalry, wagering, and exercise. It was perfectly suited to keep the men occupied.

  They picked up the easterly trade winds at last, south of the line, turning their bow through ninety degrees and making their course to round the tip of Africa. Soon the Elizabeth Galley was bowling along, with a great line of wake stretching out astern and all sail set and straining before the wind, the constant wind. But by then the sword drills and Elizabeth’s lessons had become such a part of the routine that they could not bear to give them up, so they did not. For five weeks they plowed along south by east, and they parried and riposted and lunged and had a marvelous time.