The Pirate Round

by James Nelson

  One step back, sword held low, and the man leaped forward, brought the dagger around, and Marlowe had him right under the arm, drove his sword into his thrashing body. The man’s eyes went wide, his mouth fell open, and he screamed as if the sword puncture had released the sound from his chest.

  Sword withdrawn, and the man collapsed. Marlowe turned to see who was next. Searched the deck for a familiar face. He had met most of the Revenges during their floating bacchanal. But he recognized no one.

  And then one of his own men threw down his sword, shouted, ‘Quarter!’ And then another did the same, and then the fight was over, the furious, confused, stunned Elizabeth Galleys dropping their weapons, glaring at this new enemy, who looked on them in gloating triumph.

  And then on the far side of the deck, up the boarding steps and through the gangway came Billy Bird. He stepped with great difficulty. His face was a battered wreck, his nose broken, both his eyes blackened and one of them swollen shut.

  He stood there for a moment, swaying. And then, coming up behind him and shoving him to the deck, appeared Roger Press.

  Hours before, Billy Bird had heard the signal, two guns in quick succession, then a third, and he knew what it meant. His head had jerked up from the deck, half turned toward the sound, and then Roger Press had slammed his boot into Billy’s stomach and driven the breath out of him.

  ‘What was that?’

  Billy Bird, eyes wide, gasping, as if all the air had suddenly been sucked from the deck. At last he managed to draw breath. ‘Cannon fire, you stupid bastard …’ he croaked.

  Press kicked him again. ‘I know it’s cannon fire. Whose? Sounds like a signal to me. Is someone signaling you, Captain Bird?’

  More coughing and spitting blood, and at last Billy Bird managed a weak, ‘Sod off …’

  Press kicked him again, then straightened and stared out at the horizon. He didn’t need Bird to tell him it was a signal; that was clear enough. Soft, muted, coming from someplace over the horizon, but it was definitely a signal.

  He picked absently at his teeth with his silver toothpick.

  He’s no coward, this foppish little prick, I’ll give him that, Press thought.

  The Queen’s Venture had sighted the Revenge’s topgallants at first light, the first European ship they had seen since leaving St Mary’s. With the lookout’s hail, Press had been consumed with hope that this might be Barrett’s – Marlowe’s – vessel. They had run their East Indiaman bunting aloft, closed fast with strange sail.

  But she proved to be a brig, and Dinwiddie had said the Elizabeth Galley was a ship. So the next-best possibility was that the brig was working with Marlowe or at least had spoken to him.

  The brig flew the British merchantman’s ensign. They did not try to run at the sight of the Queen’s Venture. There was no need; an East Indiaman would do them no harm.

  The Venture ranged up alongside, ran out her great guns, overwhelming the brig with her size and firepower and the strength of her company, armed and arrayed along her deck. The brig wisely hove to, agreed to a boarding party, acquiesced to all of Press’s demands with never a shot fired.

  Billy Bird had tried to bluff his way through the interview, an interview that took place on the brig’s quarterdeck with all the Bloody Revenge’s company herded forward and held at bay by the muskets carried by Press’s men, the great muzzles of the cannons that aimed at them from the Queen’s Venture’s side, fifty feet away.

  Bird began with hollow protests at the treatment they were receiving. But Press, wanting to put some veneer of legitimacy on what he was doing, showed Bird the queen’s commission that he carried and then asked to see Bird’s privateering commission. Bird produced some document issued by the governor of New York, which Press glanced at and declared invalid.

  Press informed Bird he was subject to arrest. Asked him about Marlowe. Billy Bird did not know any Marlowe but had seen a sail running off to the westward just the day before, thought perhaps that was him.

  Then Press began to interrogate him for real, using his fists and boots and a belaying pin taken from Billy Bird’s own ship. He went at Billy for twenty minutes in that manner. The Roundsman never wavered in his story and even had the fortitude to continue to hurl back insults and abuse. And the more Billy cursed him and verbally abused him, the more punishment Billy endured, the more Press was certain that he was lying.

  And then came the signal from beyond the horizon, and it did not matter anymore what Billy Bird said. Someone was out there. It was time to go see who it was.

  Roger Press had it all: the Bloody Revenge, the Elizabeth Galley, the Moorish treasure ship, St Mary’s. It was the bastard’s greatest moment of triumph, but Marlowe did not feel privileged to witness it. As he sat on the deck with his hands held behind his head, which was humiliating enough, he searched his mind for something that would make Press’s victory less complete. But he could think of nothing.

  Press himself had taken pains to give Marlowe the particulars. Told him about his conquest of St Mary’s and all the riches there, his capture of the Bloody Revenge, his idea for using the brig in a ruse de guerre that completely fooled the men of the Elizabeth Galley – and their captain. And all the time the damned toothpick waggling at him.

  Press made certain that Marlowe was there to hear his first officer’s report of the preliminary inspection of the cargo carried aboard the captured Moorish ship. Gold and silver in coin, bar, and dust; pearls; jewels, set and loose; jewel-encrusted statues and daggers and crowns and even a saddle emblazoned with rubies and diamonds. Bundles of silks, spices, ivory. It was the booty that the Roundsmen dreamed of. The booty that for a brief moment had been the take of the Elizabeth Galleys. And now it was in the hands of Roger Press.

  ‘Dear God, Press, you whoreson, either kill me or give me a sword and fight me like a man!’ Marlowe shouted out at last, able to bear no more. ‘You hung back before, when your men boarded us, never gave me a chance to kill you. Just like your damned cowardice at Nombre de Dios. Play the man now, if you will, but for God’s sake don’t bloody bore me to death!’

  He did not expect a sword. He expected a belaying pin across the head. But instead Press just grinned, poked at his teeth with his toothpick. ‘No, no, Marlowe. If I give you a sword, you’ll just fall on it and deprive me of the pleasure of killing you. And I haven’t the time to do a proper job of that now. I have all this booty to get into my ship.

  ‘But see here, I know you have a head for numbers. I think I shall have you write out the inventory of my treasure as it is swayed out. What say you?’

  ‘I say kiss my arse.’

  ‘Oh, indeed?’ Press looked down at the quarterdeck of the Elizabeth Galley, fifteen feet below. ‘Say, ain’t that the little doxy who was a stranger to you back in London?’

  Someone of the Elizabeth Galley’s crew, thinking the Moor taken, had told Elizabeth it was safe to come topside again.

  ‘Is she a stranger to you still, Marlowe? Have you no care of what happens to her? Or do you think mayhaps you will cooperate with me?’

  In the end it was cooperation. Marlowe rummaged through the great cabin of the Moorish ship, more like a setting for some sort of harem than a ship’s cabin, under the close scrutiny of three heavily armed guards. At last he found the ship’s ledger books and a silver writing set. He flipped through one of the ledgers. It was crammed with items written in a tight scrawl, the Indian letters utterly foreign. But the second half of the book was blank, and Marlowe reckoned he could use that to take the inventory in English.

  Press did not intend to keep the Moorish ship. He did not explain his intentions to Marlowe, but then he did not have to. Taking the ship would have been pointless; dealing with her poor sailing qualities and the four hundred or so prisoners on board would have been more aggravation than the ship was worth.

  No, Press would empty her hold into his own ship, rob the people on board of whatever valuables they had, and then let them go on their way. It w
as the only logical plan. It was what Marlowe had intended to do.

  As the hatches were broken open and the Elizabeth Galleys forced at gunpoint to go below and begin breaking bulk on the valuable cargo, Press’s ship came up over the horizon. She was a fast one, and big. A former man-of-war, Marlowe guessed. He thought perhaps he had seen her on the Thames, back in London. That would make sense.

  ‘Lovely, ain’t she?’ Press asked, and Marlowe cursed himself for letting Press see him staring at her.

  ‘Queen’s Venture. A gang of these rich bastards with the East India Company hired me to command her. I negotiated for half the prize money. But now I reckon I’ll just take all the prize money. Why go back and be a wealthy gentleman in England when I can be an even wealthier king on St Mary’s, eh?’

  ‘Roger, it’s hard for me to figure anything I could care less about,’ Marlowe assured him.

  ‘Yes, you always did lack direction, young sir. So here is something to keep your mind on your work.’

  Two of Press’s men led Elizabeth onto the Moor’s deck, her wrists bound in front of her. They pushed her down to a sitting position and tied her wrists to a ring bolt in the deck.

  ‘Just a reminder.’ Press grinned. He held the toothpick between his teeth and waggled it with his tongue.

  Marlowe looked at him, expressionless. I am going to rip your sodding heart out, he thought.

  It took another hour for Press’s men to move the Bloody Revenge and to maneuver the Queen’s Venture alongside, but soon the two ships, the Elizabeth Galley and the Queen’s Venture, were tied to either side of the Moor, a floating island of wood and cordage, with the Bloody Revenge and her skeleton crew hove to a cable length away. Roger Press’s private flotilla, an armada of Red Sea Rovers.

  The Elizabeth Galleys and the Bloody Revenges did the work while Press and his men oversaw the operation at gunpoint. The great wealth of the Mogul’s ship was swayed up from the hold and left to hang over the gaping cavern of the Moorish ship’s main hatch while Marlowe wrote down a careful description of whatever it was, along with the quantity in the column provided in the ledger book.

  Press made regular inspections of his work, kept a close eye on him as he did his inventory. There was no need for further threats against Elizabeth. Both men understood how things lay.

  When a guard from the hold dragged one of Billy Bird’s men topside and reported that he had caught the man slipping a loose coin into his shirt, Press smiled and gave the order to hang him, then and there.

  The man kicked his way up to the end of the main yard, and when he was dead, his body was left in place, like a pirate hanged in chains as a warning to honest mariners. The execution took ten minutes, and then it was back to work.

  The Queen’s Venture, being largely empty of stores after her voyage from England, absorbed a great deal of the Moorish treasure, but even her big, cavernous hold could not take it all. Once she was full, hatches were broken open aboard the Elizabeth Galley, barrels of food and water jettisoned, and Marlowe’s former ship – Press’s newest – was loaded with the last of the take.

  It took two full days, bobbing along in the Gulf of Aden, to empty the Great Mogul’s ship, so prodigious was the treasure she carried aboard. As the sun set on the second day and Marlowe handed his last ledger book to Press, the third he had filled, Press smiled at him and said, ‘An excellent job, my dear Marlowe, excellent. You know, I had thought I would kill you now. Thought perhaps I’d bugger your pretty wife in front of you and then kill you, but Lord, I am far too tired for that! So much booty!

  ‘So I think instead I will stow you safe away and let you wonder what I am doing to your wife, and then, when we get back to St Mary’s, then I will kill you. It is far more amusing to think of you all alone, pondering your fate. You may think of me and how I sat in agony for eight days on that accursed strip of sand on which you left me. Do you recall, Marlowe? I hope so. Because I want you to think about it. You will have ample time.’

  He was no longer smiling when he finished his speech and waved for two of the guards to take Marlowe away.

  Marlowe glared at him. He wanted to shout, to threaten, to assure Press that he, Marlowe, would kill him slowly and painfully if he touched Elizabeth. But it was pointless, and if he made Press angry, then that anger might be vented on Elizabeth, so Marlowe kept his mouth shut and let the guards lead him off.

  They took him down into the cable tier of the Queen’s Venture. It was the very lowest part of the ship, where the coils of hemp cable sat on a platform that kept them just a foot above the water in the bilge. It was a black, humid, and stinking place, with rats rushing about in the dark.

  The guards sat Marlowe on a small open part of the platform and chained him hand and foot to a ring bolt driven into a heavy timber brace. They secured the bolts in the hand and leg irons, tested them, and when they found them secure, they left him.

  He sat on the rough deck and tried not to let the despair sweep him away. On the Moorish ship the work was done, and Press was letting his men have their fun with the prisoners. Even so many decks down, and on board another ship, Marlowe could hear the screams of men, the shrieks and sobs of women, laughter, gunshots.

  He could picture what was happening on board the Moor. He had seen it all before, on other ships and other oceans. He wondered what part Elizabeth was being made to play, but he pushed that thought aside. He would go mad for certain if he let himself think along those lines.

  He contented himself with the thought that Press would not harm Elizabeth until they were back at St Mary’s at least. Press would not do anything to her unless Marlowe was watching. He assured himself that he, Thomas Marlowe – Malachias Barrett – would kill every whoreson one of them, and he left it at that. He did not consider how realistic that thought was.

  At some point Marlowe passed out from exhaustion, only to be tortured by nightmare dreams. When he awoke, he was in the cable tier still, still alone. He stared into the gloom, but even with his eyes adjusted as they were to the dark, he could see nothing beyond vague shapes.

  He lay very motionless and listened. There was a great chorus of scratching as the rats scurried around the place, but there was little beyond that. The bacchanal on board the Moor was over. He did not know if it was day or night, but he was quite certain from the movement of the vessel that they were still hove to.

  His legs and arms were stiff. He needed very much to relieve himself. He looked up at the dark deck overhead, could see nothing. He considered shouting out, calling for the irons to be removed so he could use the head. Wondered if anyone would hear him.

  But as he considered it, he realized that Press would not allow the irons to come off, not so Marlowe could use the jakes. This was part of the torment, making him wallow in his own filth. He felt the despair rising again. He fumbled to undo his breeches under the constraints of the irons, then shuffled along the deck until he was at the end of the chains and there did his business as best he could. It was disgusting, humiliating. Torture. That was the idea.

  And so Marlowe established the one spot on deck that was the head and then, at the other extreme of his chains, the place where he lay.

  Back away from the latrine area he tried to stand, but the chains would not allow it, so he sat upright as much as he could. He tried to concentrate, but soon his mind began to wander, and so he let it, and when it tended toward dark thoughts, he steered it toward pleasant reverie.

  He was picturing himself riding the fields at Marlowe House under a blue sky when he heard activity above, feet running, the muted shouting of orders, the creak of the rudder communicated through the timbers of the ship. He listened hard, tried to separate the sounds.

  After some time he felt the ship heel over – not the wallow of the ship in the swells but the heel of a vessel under a press of canvas. He heard the gurgling note of water running down their sides.

  They were under way. To where, he did not know, nor did he know with what ships they were sail
ing in company. He did not know if his own men were still alive, what had become of Elizabeth. All he knew was the blackness and what little he could divine from the sounds, three decks up, and that was very little indeed.

  It was a full day at least before someone brought him food and water, and by then his every lucid thought was concentrated on his hunger and thirst, though the lucid ones were getting further and further between. In his croaking, parched voice he asked the man where they were, what time was it, what of his crew. But the man just set down the weevily biscuit and the half-cooked salt pork and the pewter pint cup of water and left with never a word.

  And so it went every day, once a day, when some dimly seen figure appeared with the barest scraps of food and just enough water to keep him alive. After a few days Marlowe did not bother to ask.

  He guessed that they were bringing his meals at inconsistent times, just to throw him off regarding day or night. He did not think it would matter. Darkness or sunlight made no difference in the cable tier. He slept, woke whenever. Prayed for the hours to pass.

  But as day dragged into weary day, he found himself becoming desperate to know the hour beyond his black pit. It was a need he did not understand, but it was as powerful as his hunger or thirst. What time was it? What watch? Was it daytime or night? Something, anything beyond the darkness and the rats, but he could not find out. There was nothing, only the shadowy figure with the food and water. Once a day, he guessed. He could never predict when.

  He thought of the one voyage he had made as an ordinary seaman aboard a slaver, thought of those poor people chained down as he was now. Was it better for them, to have others there? The slavers tried to mix up the tribes so that there could be little communication. Was it worse, being jammed in with others with whom you could not speak?

  The slaves at least were given some time on deck, which he was not. On the other hand, the Africans had no notion of what was happening to them or where they were bound, whereas Marlowe knew exactly. Was his lot better or worse? He did not know. He knew only that he now shared with those people the bond of suffering, when before he had felt only sympathy.