by James Nelson
After some time – a week, perhaps, perhaps more or less – he found he could not maintain a rational line of thought. He tried, concentrated on some problem or other: how to get a ship off her beam ends without cutting her masts away, where the best spot would be to clear woods for new tobacco plants at Marlowe House; what would be the ideal layout, rig, and armament for a privateer.
But trying to maintain this train of thought was like grabbing an armful of smoke, and his mind wandered off into crazy and unconnected images. He was going mad, and it frightened him more than anything ever had.
And the thing that saved him from madness, as it turned out, was also the thing that nearly killed him.
He was lying on his side, not asleep, not awake, but in that half-conscious state in which he spent more and more of his black hours. The vessel was rising and falling as it plowed close-hauled through a short chop: up, pause, down, thump as the bow hit the wave; up, pause, down, thump.
It was a rhythm that had become ingrained in him years before, through countless hours of walking the decks of vessels on that point of sail. He might not know the time of day, but he could generally guess from the motion of the ship the sea state and the Queen’s Venture’s point of sail. In his nightmare world he sometimes thought he was on the quarterdeck, sometimes thought he was sleeping in his great cabin or wounded and dying on the deck, and sometimes he recalled he was chained in the cable tier.
He lay there, eyes sometimes closed, sometimes open – it made no difference – and smelled the stink of the bilges and his own waste, which he hardly noticed, heard the scurry of the ubiquitous rats, which seemed to be even more active that night. Or day. Whatever it was.
Thomas Marlowe drifted in and out of consciousness and only slowly became aware of the cold inching over him. He felt it creeping over his legs that were sprawled down the sloping deck, a numbing chill, reckoned it was death come for him at last. It was not the sensation he would have expected.
He reached slowly down with his hand, wondering if he could still feel his legs, and his hand came down in water, and suddenly he was alert, sitting bolt upright, his eyes open, all the cobwebs of nightmare washed clean away.
‘Dear God,’ he said, and his voice sounded odd, and he realized he had not spoken in days, perhaps weeks. He reached out with his hands in the darkness, and everywhere around him swirled cold ocean water, rushing unimpeded. The Queen’s Venture was sinking.
‘Dear God,’ he said again. He could tell from the ship’s motion that they were not in any severe weather. She must have sprung a plank. Some rotten wood in her hull, undetected, waiting like a weak spot in a dam to go, and when it did, in came the water, fast.
The water was over the lower edge of the cable tier and creeping higher, gushing in from whatever breach had been knocked in the hull. He strained to listen for the sounds of panic topside: rushing feet, shouted orders, hatches torn back to give all possible light to the carpenter and his mates as they searched for the leak and tried to drive a plug into it. But there was nothing. They did not know.
For a moment he considered keeping his mouth shut. Let the water rise up around him, drown him, deny Roger Press the pleasure. How long would it take them to discover the leak? If he kept quiet, perhaps the Queen’s Venture would sink, and Press would be made to endure the agony of watching both Marlowe and the treasure of a lifetime sink beyond his reach.
But he would not do that. The cold seawater had washed him clean of his ennui, had woken him from his dream stupor. The feel and smell of the ocean invigorated him, and he was ready once again to fight.
‘Hoa! On deck!’ he shouted, and his voice cracked and his hail was unimpressive. He swallowed, coughed, and tried again. ‘Hoa! On deck! Deck there! You’ve sprung a bloody plank! Hoa!’ He shouted until he felt his throat begin to ache, but there was no response. He wondered if they thought it was a ruse, if they thought he had gone mad, if they were all gathered around the hatch, listening and laughing.
‘Hoa! On deck!’ he shouted again, and finally he heard the sound of bare feet on the ladder, coming down to the cable tier.
‘You there, you’ve sprung a bloody plank, and you may want to see to it,’ Marlowe shouted, not so loud. There was no response. He was certain Press had told the men not to communicate with him. But the footfalls grew closer, and he could see the vague shape of a man in the dark.
He heard feet come down in the water, an intake of breath, and the man said, ‘Goddamn it!’ then turned and raced topside again.
Another moment’s quiet, and then the panic that Marlowe expected broke loose. Over the groaning of the ship and the sloshing of water inside and outside the hull, he could hear orders shouted, men racing in a hundred directions, hatches pulled off. The ship came more upright, and the water that was filling the hold, and which had been confined to the low side of the heeling vessel, washed over Marlowe, almost up to his waist in his sitting position. He knew they had hove to. They had to take the pressure off the leak until they found it.
He saw the loom of lanterns above him as the carpenter and his mates raced down from above, and then he saw the lights as the gang clambered down into the hold. He had to turn his eyes from them, the brightest he had seen in weeks.
The carpenter ignored him as he plunged into the knee-high water and made his difficult way forward. In his wake came three men carrying hammers, crowbars, and wooden plugs. They disappeared forward, and soon Marlowe could see only the glow of their lanterns, illuminating stacks of barrels and the bundles of loot that he himself had inspected.
At the same time he heard the sound of the pumps. It was another sound that was familiar to him, his having heard it on a daily basis, generally for an hour or so a day, which was not a lot. But now the sound was different, faster and higher-pitched, and he knew the men were working the pump brakes with the proper urgency.
The water was creeping over Marlowe’s waist, and he wondered whether he would be released from the chains if it rose much higher. He did not think so. From forward he heard one of the carpenter’s mates shout, ‘Here! Over here! Damn me!’
There followed the sloshing of men hurrying through deep water and then the carpenter’s voice, loud with urgency: ‘Go tell the captain there’s a plank sprung, just between the aftermost cant-timbers on the starboard side, right by the turn of the bilge. Tell him I’m going to try and plug the bastard, but he best make ready to fother a sail over it!’
The carpenter’s mate rushed past and up. Fother a sail. Damn, Marlowe thought. The carpenter did not think he could plug the leak. It was so bad that Press would have to take an old sail and pull it over the hole from the outside of the ship and let the pressure of the inflowing water hold it in place.
Suddenly, drowning was a real possibility. But it did not frighten him. The excitement, the danger, the edge of panic were nothing but a relief to him after the darkness.
Marlowe listened intently, and with the hatches thrown open he could hear a great deal of what was taking place on the weather deck. He could hear the orders flying around as the sail was lowered over the side and the instructions relayed back and forth from the carpenter, who was still in the hold, and the officers on the deck above.
It took an hour of the most intense activity before the sail was fothered over the leak. The water was up to the middle of Marlowe’s chest when at last it stopped rising and slowly, slowly receded as the pumps caught up with the inflow. The weary carpenter staggered aft and climbed back up without a glance in Marlowe’s direction.
Another hour, and the water was back below the cable tier, and the Queen’s Venture was under way, the old routine begun again. But Marlowe was no longer lost in his own misery. He was alive, alert, his mind working clean and fast.
For two more days, by his estimate, he sat chained to the cable tier. And then without warning he felt the motion of the ship change, and he guessed that they had come into sheltered water. And then hands began to pull the anchor cable up from the
cable tier and ready it for running, and Marlowe knew they had arrived somewhere. He guessed it was St Mary’s.
This, he knew, was what Press had been waiting for. This was where Press intended to finish him. But Thomas Marlowe was no longer afraid or desperate or ready for death. Now he was simply ready.
CHAPTER 23
St Mary’s. It was only the second time that Roger Press had sailed into that open roadstead, past Quail Island and into the harbor, but already it felt like a homecoming. The southeasterly wind had driven his three ships easily up the channel between the little island and Madagascar, and just enough breeze reached into the harbor to give the ships steerage way as they ghosted toward their anchorage.
On the big house atop the hill and the gun batteries on Quail Island, the Union Jack flapped in the puffs of wind that blew from the sea. The lush green of the jungle spread up and away from the dilapidated town, shot through with bursts of flowers like exploding grenadoes. There were a few ships riding at their anchors, Red Sea Rovers and island traders and, of course, the Speedwell. It was just as he had left it. It was his home now, his kingdom.
Then, from one of the batteries at the big house, a plume of white smoke, shot from the mouth of a cannon. Press started, bit down on the toothpick. And then, a second later, the flat pow of the gun and a second plume of smoke from the gun next to it. Pow, and a third plume. No fall of shot. Press smiled. Tasker had arranged a salute. Good man.
Seventeen guns, the sound rolling around the harbor. Press let his eyes linger on the Union Jack as he rolled the toothpick across the roof of his mouth. Perhaps that was not the flag to fly. Perhaps he needed a flag of his own. Perhaps a red flag with a picture of his enemies screaming as they are crushed beneath a plank piled high with stone. Press. He smiled at the thought.
The Queen’s Venture led the way, standing in under topsails. Up on the foredeck, former third officer, now acting first officer Josiah Brownlaw stood ready to let the best bower go. Clayford was off in the Elizabeth Galley, and the Venture’s second, Mark Montgomery, was in command of the Bloody Revenge. They were spread pretty thin. But now they were home.
Just behind where Brownlaw stood at the cathead was the spiderweb of ropes that held the fothered sail in place. That had been a near thing, the butt end of a plank rotted clean away. If Marlowe had not called out, there was no telling when they might have found out about the leak. Perhaps when the Queen’s Venture filled and capsized. The carpenter had been none too diligent about sounding the well, but once the leak was stopped and Press had thrashed him soundly, he had become far more attentive to his duties.
It was ironic, Press thought, that Marlowe had saved them. It would not change in the least the horrible death he had planned for his former quartermaster, the man who had marooned him. But it was ironic.
They crossed the harbor and came to a spot two cables from the old wooden pier, and Press called, ‘Clew up, fore and main topsails! Round up! Let go!’
Overhead the topsails rose like curtains at a play, and the ship turned up into the wind, and Brownlaw gave the signal for the seamen to let the anchor go. It plunged into the blue harbor, and the Queen’s Venture crept astern and then stopped. Press looked over the side. He could see the anchor cable for some distance through the water, clear as glass.
To larboard and just to windward of the Queen’s Venture, the Elizabeth Galley turned up into the wind and dropped her hook, moving under the expert command of Israel Clayford. Thirty feet away, and Clayford let his anchor go. Thin messenger lines, their ends tied in bulky monkey’s fists, sailed across the gap and landed with little thumps on the Queen’s Venture’s decks. The men grabbed them up, hauled them aboard. Attached to the bitter ends were heavier cables to bind the ships together, and they came snaking over the open water as the men pulled them in, hand over hand.
The Queen’s Venture was a tired ship, a battered pugilist who could no longer stand on his own, but needed to fling an arm over his comrade’s shoulder for support. They would raft the two ships together, the Queen’s Venture and the Elizabeth Galley, and the Galley would keep the Venture afloat. The fothered sail had slowed the leak, but it had not stopped it. If another plank gave way, then the Galley might be the only thing preventing Press’s flagship from sinking to the bottom.
The first order of business would be to remove the booty from her unstable hold. Then careen her on his beach, set her to rights again.
Press watched the cables come across the water. Brownlaw had one of the midships lines taken to the capstan, while on the Galley’s deck Clayford had the same done with the other. A few minutes of rigging the capstans, and then the crews of the two ships were stamping them around, drawing the two vessels together.
On the starboard side the Bloody Revenge came to an anchor with her main topsail aback.
Roger Press shook his head as he marveled at the sight. Two big ships, man-of-war built. The sloop Speedwell, the brig Bloody Revenge. He had a squadron under his command, the most powerful concentrated force on the Indian Ocean. Why stop at St Mary’s? He had the means now for greater conquest.
It took half an hour to raft the two ships to one another. Press, growing increasingly agitated, paced, jabbed his gums with the toothpick. He had expected Tasker to come down to greet him. Scribner, the boatswain of the Speedwell, who had been left in charge of the tender, had come across in a boat moments after the Venture had come to an anchor. He reported that all was well and that he had not had word from Tasker in some time. And that, Press imagined, was all right with the boatswain. He apparently had made no effort to contact the first officer.
And other than the salute from the batteries, Tasker had made no effort to contact his commanding officer.
Press pictured Tasker and the men in the big house, engaged in a wild drunk, or passed out and asleep. It was not like Tasker, but then Press had seen more than one man lose his wits when pirating got in his blood. It was time to see about this.
‘Brownlaw, I want— Belay that, lay aft here!’ Brownlaw left off what he was doing and scurried aft. ‘I want to go ashore. Get the longboat manned and pass the word to Clayford to man his boat as well. Thirty men from his company. I’ll take seventy or so men with me. Pistols and cutlasses. Clayford will come with me.’
Press was not about to leave Clayford alone with all that treasure underfoot and only a hemp anchor cable holding him in place. Brownlaw, however, was young and lacking in experience, the third son of a minor lord with enough money and sea experience to tempt Press into shipping him. He had that absurd sense of honor that all the aristocracy pretended to. He could manage things in Press’s absence, but he did not have the guts or the guile to betray his captain. ‘You are in command of the ships until I return. We may need to do a bit of disciplining up there.’
‘Aye, sir,’ Brownlaw said, and he turned to comply, but Press said, ‘Hold a minute …’
Roger Press paused and stared up at the big house and ran the numbers over in his head. Between the Queen’s Venture and the Speedwell he had somewhere around 250 men. He was taking a hundred with him. Another twenty or so were sick or injured from the fighting. That would leave nearly as many prisoners as men on board the three ships.
That would not do. Not with Marlowe and Billy Bird and that other one – Bickerstaff – still aboard. Any of those might organize the men, take back their ships and all the booty that he, Press, had captured. No, that would not do at all.
‘Also, we’ll take … fifty of the prisoners out of here, lock ’em up in the prisons in the big house. Make certain that little fop Bird is with them and Bickerstaff as well. Get Marlowe out of the hold and his doxy from the cabin.’
‘Aye, sir.’ Brownlaw hurried off to see those orders carried out.
Press liked to make a show. The couple hundred half-drunk pirates and whores who were the residents of St Mary’s would have dubious loyalty at best to anyone claiming sovereignty over the island. But Press knew their type, knew they respected
power in the form of men and arms. So he would win their respect by displaying, as often as necessary, how much of each he had under his command.
One hundred armed men and fifty prisoners would do nicely.
Ten minutes, and the boats were manned. Elizabeth was brought up from the cabin where she had been held since they had set sail in the Gulf of Aden. She had not been molested in any way. Press had considered it, but in the end he had done nothing. His mind was too full of other concerns.
It was enough that Marlowe thought he was having his way with her. He would save the actual doing of it until Marlowe could watch.
Then, from the after scuttle, Marlowe emerged, hands bound before him. He looked as Press had imagined he would. Two weeks’ growth of beard, filthy, pale, squinting, and limping. His clothing was torn, his stockings around his ankles, his hair was a matted tangle. He looked like what he was – a broken man. Press hoped he still had enough of a spark left in him to take an interest in his own death and that of his wife.
‘Marlowe, glad you could join us,’ Press said, grinning, waggling the toothpick.
Marlowe looked at him, his head cocked, his eyes like slits. ‘I feel much refreshed, Captain Press. Are your saltwater baths for everyone or only honored guests?’
Press frowned, looked hard at Marlowe. He had not expected a flip response, had not really expected any response at all. He reckoned that Marlowe would be a jabbering idiot after two and a half weeks chained in the cable tier, with just enough food and water to keep him alive, meals served at odd hours to throw off his sense of day or night, not a one man allowed to speak to him.
But he was not a jabbering idiot, not a broken wreck. There was still a spark there, a bright one, and Press wanted to stamp it out like an ember from the fireplace that has fallen on the rug.
But time for that later. ‘Get them in the gig, let us go,’ Press said, and he climbed down into the longboat, holding his sword out of the way as he sat in the stern sheets.