The Pirate Round

by James Nelson

  It seemed to grow quiet on the brig, quiet enough that Brownlaw could not hear anything over the sounds of his own company turning out below and charging up on deck, the clatter of weapons, the loud talk of confused men.

  Then, from the far side of the brig, a cannon fired, one of her great guns, blasting flame out over the water. The report made a famous echo around the harbor, and Brownlaw leaped clean off the deck in surprise and nearly dropped his pistol over the side.

  ‘Damn!’ he shouted. A single gun, that was the distress signal as specified in Press’s standing orders.

  Of course they are in bloody distress, you fool! Brownlaw chastised himself. They’re bloody fighting someone! Make a decision, make a decision, goddamn it! He found himself near paralysis.

  Find out what’s acting …

  ‘Hoa, the brig, ahoy! Hoa!’ he called, and, as he did, he realized that it was stupid to think someone would respond, but to his surprise someone did.

  ‘Holloa! Mr Brownlaw, is that you?’

  ‘Aye! Johnson?’ Johnson was the master’s mate who had been left in charge of the Bloody Revenge.

  ‘Aye, sir!’ He sounded upset. His voice wavered.

  ‘What’s acting, Johnson?’

  ‘Prisoners tried to break out, sir! Got their hands on some weapons, don’t know how. I reckon we got ’em secured now!’

  No wonder Johnson’s voice wavered so. Damned frightening. ‘You need some more men there? To help guard them?’

  That was met with a long silence, then, ‘Aye, sir! We’ve got some hurt ones here. What can you send?’

  Brownlaw had sixty or so men on the two big ships and another twenty on the brig and twenty more aboard Speedwell. But nearly all the boats were ashore; he had only the barge. ‘I can send twenty-five,’ he announced at last.

  ‘I’m grateful, sir!’ Johnson called out. Brownlaw turned to the men in the waist below him. ‘You heard Johnson. They’ve had some trouble with their prisoners. Twenty-five of you in the barge, go over and lend a hand.’

  That was all he needed to say. The men were well trained and used to working together. They quickly sorted themselves out, and twenty-five of them piled into the barge.

  Brownlaw watched them as they pulled over to the brig, and he felt a great relief, an almost-giddy sense of joy. Here he had been terrified that he would make a hash out of his responsibility. But instead a prisoner revolt had been put down on his watch, and he had dispatched more men to see it dealt with proper.

  A voice from the Speedwell, riding at her anchor, less than a cable length away. ‘Brownlaw!’ It was Scribner, the Speedwell’s bosun, in temporary command. ‘Brownlaw, what’s acting? What are those guns about?’

  ‘It’s nothing, Scribner. Prisoners trying to break out. I have everything under control!’

  And he did. Brownlaw smiled to himself. Even that bastard Press would find no fault with his leadership.

  Yancy was still getting the men assembled in the open ground outside the front door when the gun went off and echoed around the high hills. Seventy of his men, fifty of Press’s, and they all looked up as if their heads were controlled by a single string.

  ‘What in hell was that?’ Yancy demanded, his voice near a shriek.

  ‘Cannon,’ Press said.

  Yancy’s head jerked around, glared up at the pockmarked face that stared with insouciance out toward the harbor. ‘Don’t you play it coy with me, you whoreson, or I’ll have you impaled here and now.’

  Press looked down at him, flicked the silver toothpick between his lips. Yancy had ordered that damned thing taken from him. He must have had another concealed in his coat. ‘I don’t think now is the time to impale me, Yancy …’

  ‘Lord Yancy.’

  ‘Forgive me, Lord Yancy.’ Press drawled the words. ‘My men have standing orders to fire a gun in case of any trouble. If I am not wrong, I believe Marlowe has reached my ships.’

  Yancy clenched his teeth, looked out over the harbor. Press stood a good foot taller than he did, and Yancy hated to stand next to him. Considered forcing him to walk on his knees. ‘My ships, Press. Not yours,’ he corrected. Press had already grown too cocky.

  ‘Then let me suggest we get down to “your ships,”’ Press said, but by that point Yancy was too swept up with his growing sense of urgency to slap him down for his impudence.

  ‘Come along, men! Down to the harbor! Hurry now, there’s a goddamned fortune to be had!’

  Those were the most motivational words that Yancy could have said to that crowd. They surged forward, Press and Yancy in the lead, and in their quick step crossed the grounds, poured out the gate – the unconscious guards unseen in the shadows – and raced down the hill toward the harbor below.

  ‘Here they come, under the counter,’ Johnson said, just a whisper, and as he spoke, Marlowe could make out the dark outline of the boat pulling for the Bloody Revenge.

  By way of rewarding Johnson for his good work, Marlowe removed the barrel of the pistol that he had been pressing against Johnson’s lower spine and held it aside. He could smell the sweat on the man, an unhealthy smell of fear.

  ‘Burgess,’ Marlowe whispered, and the boatswain appeared at his side. ‘Take this pistol. When the men in the boat come up the side, Johnson here will send them below, tell ’em that’s where the prisoners are being held. We’ll take them as they come down the scuttle.

  ‘If Johnson gives an alarm, shoot him. Not in the head, right through the spine, here.’ Marlowe jabbed Johnson’s lower back with his finger, more for Johnson’s benefit than Burgess’s.

  ‘Aye, through the spine. Bloody mess that’ll make. Seen ’em live for weeks that way,’ Burgess said, taking the gun and pulling his cocked hat low over his forehead. Burgess would be a lot less conspicuous standing beside Johnson than Marlowe would be.

  Marlowe crossed the deck, went down the scuttle to the tween decks, waited with the others. A few moments, no more, and the boat thumped alongside and feet clumped and padded up the side, and Johnson’s voice, tight with fear, directed them below.

  Across the deck overhead and down the ladder to the dimly lit tween decks, Roger Press’s men stepped right into a ring of muskets aimed at them. Thomas Marlowe, his finger to his lips, urged them to silence. It was a warning they heeded, making not a sound as they were relieved of muskets, pistols, swords, and sheath knives and then were battened down in the dark place where just half an hour before, thirty of Billy Bird’s men had been imprisoned.

  The hatch was closed and secured, and Marlowe nodded, looked around at the assembled men. The Bloody Revenge was theirs, the Queen’s Venture assured that all was well, and her defense now weaker by twenty-five men.

  Dawn was an hour away. At first light they would have to run the gauntlet of the batteries at the harbor mouth. Yancy and his men were no doubt rushing to the waterfront at that very moment, summoned by the great gun that some hero had fired off.

  I have been in worse places, sure, Marlowe thought, but he did not have time to think of when.

  Yancy had set the pace at first, walking fast down the hill. But Press’s long legs carried him half again as far as Yancy with every stride. Soon Yancy was jogging to keep pace with Press, and that made Press break into a half jog, and then the men did likewise. Yancy could not order Press to slow down – it was as much as admitting he could not keep up with the gangly bastard. He could not let Press move ahead.

  By the time they reached the dock and clattered out over the worn boards, they were all gasping for breath – Yancy, Press, the heavily armed men. For a moment they could do nothing but breathe.

  ‘… Must get out to the ships … Where are your boats?’ Yancy spoke. His breath had not fully returned, but he had to speak first.

  Press straightened, made a great show of placing his toothpick in his mouth. ‘Had four boats tied up here. Marlowe must have taken them.’

  ‘Goddamn it! Nagel, where in bloody hell are you? Nagel!’

  Henry N
agel ambled up out of the dark. He seemed to have little of the deferential snap he generally displayed.

  ‘Lord Yancy?’

  ‘We bloody need boats, Nagel!’ A scream, barely suppressed. Yancy heard the high pitch of his voice, very uncommanding, and made a note to watch that.

  ‘Some of them lads, the ones come from Press’s ship, they say there’s the treasure of the Great Mogul hisself aboard them ships,’ Nagel said. It was a mere statement of fact, spoken plainly, but it had the weight of accusation.

  ‘Yes, there is. Which is why we need bloody boats!’

  ‘Some of the lads was wondering, how come we didn’t know that?’

  Yancy frowned, took a step closer to Nagel, until he could make out the man’s face in the dark and hoped Nagel could make out his. ‘Don’t you question me, you son of a bitch! I tell you things when I am ready, do you hear?’

  Oh, bloody hell! Yancy thought. He had just learned of the treasure himself. In the rush of going after Marlowe, Yancy had simply forgotten to tell Nagel about it, and now Nagel and the others thought he was betraying them.

  That could not be happening.

  He might, at some point, betray them all, but it was not possible that they should accuse him of doing so when he genuinely was not.

  Nagel was quiet for a long moment. ‘There’s the canoe, there,’ he said at last, nodding toward a small, leaky, half-rotten dugout tied to the dock. Then almost grudgingly added, ‘And there’s them two big boats, with the swivel guns in the bows, tied up, up harbor.’

  ‘Yes, yes, of course,’ Yancy said. Two big ship’s launches, he kept them armed and concealed in the event he wished to make a boat attack on a vessel inor outbound. They were ideal.

  ‘Get some hands …’ Yancy began, then stopped. Send Nagel off alone to man the boats, give him the chance to capture and make off with the treasure? No, that would not do, not now. Go himself? It would take forty minutes at least to reach the boats, another twenty to pull back to the dock. Leave Nagel behind? Press?

  Damn it, I must keep a weather eye on every one of these disloyal, motherless bastards!

  ‘All of you, with me! To the boats!’ Yancy led the way back down the dock, back to the road that paralleled the harbor. At least Press did not know the way. He would not be able to push ahead this time.

  Johnson of the anchor watch had been held at gunpoint for some time, near an hour, and in Marlowe’s extensive experience with such things, he knew that the threat of being shot would not keep the man’s fear up for that long. But he still needed Johnson’s help.

  Marlowe climbed back up on the main deck, found Johnson sitting on the hatch, hands locked behind his neck. Burgess crouched before him, gun pointed at his chest.

  ‘Johnson, how are you?’ Marlowe asked.

  ‘Been better,’ Johnson growled. The fear was gone.

  Marlowe crouched beside him. ‘Johnson, do you see these?’ He held up three gold doubloons that Billy Bird had retrieved from a secret stash in his great cabin, saw Johnson’s eyes get a little wider. ‘I’ll wager this is more than that bastard Press would pay you for the whole voyage. Do you like working for Press, Johnson? Or do you think it might be time to change sides?’

  Ten minutes later, the newest loyal member of Marlowe’s crew called across the water, ‘Hoa, Queen’s Venture, ahoy! Mr Brownlaw?’

  ‘Johnson?’

  ‘Aye, sir! All’s well, got them bastards all battened down, sir! Thought I’d send your men back and come across myself, to report, like!’

  ‘Very well. Do so,’ came the reply from the dark.

  Johnson turned inboard. ‘Right, you men, in the boat!’

  On that command, twenty-five of Marlowe’s and Billy Bird’s men clambered down the side and into the boat, taking the places once occupied by the twenty-five men whom Brownlaw had sent across and who were at that moment locked up in a lightless place in the Revenge’s hold.

  The men made as much noise as they could reasonably make as they climbed down, drowning out the sounds of the other four boats, hidden from Brownlaw’s view on the far side of the Bloody Revenge. Those boats, commanded by Honeyman, Flanders, Burgess, and Hesiod, were at that moment shoving off and pulling for the Elizabeth Galley, which they intended to board, take, and then cross over to the Queen’s Venture.

  Johnson went down in the boat, and last came Thomas and Elizabeth, who had exchanged her skirts for slop trousers and her straw hat for tarpaulin. They sat on the farthest thwart aft, the aftermost rowing station, facing Johnson in the stern sheets.

  Marlowe lifted up his oar, held it straight up. ‘Take up your oar, dear. Hold it like this,’ Marlowe said to his wife softly. Elizabeth grabbed the oar that lay across the thwarts and with some difficulty lifted it so that like the others she was holding it straight up and down. With the wide-brimmed hat she wore, Marlowe did not think Elizabeth would be seen for what she was, not in the dark.

  Dark. Marlowe glanced up. It was night still, but only just. He thought he could detect a general easing of the blackness, the first hints of light. It would be gray dawn in an hour.

  Thomas Marlowe was well armed – the sword he had taken from the guard, a short sword, two braces of pistols – but he did not hold a gun on Johnson. Johnson was on his side now, and there was a tacit understanding that in case of betrayal he was the first to die.

  Marlowe nodded to the man, and Johnson called, ‘Shove off! Ship oars! Give way!’ and the bowman pushed the bow off. Elizabeth lowered her oar, slowly, until the weight became too much, and then she dropped it with a thump between the tholes. She cocked her head toward Marlowe and watched him and imitated his movements. Lean forward, blade down, pull and lean back, blade up, forward, down. She looked by no means as if she were an old hand with an oar, but she did well enough that she would not stand out.

  They pulled slow for the Queen’s Venture to make it easier for Elizabeth to keep the rhythm and to give the others more time to pull around the far side of the rafted ships.

  The Queen’s Venture appeared at last on the edge of Marlowe’s vision, facing aft as he was. They made for the boarding steps, and Johnson called, ‘Toss oars!’ and all the oars came up at once, save for Elizabeth’s, as the order had taken her quite by surprise. But she managed to get the oar aloft before it caught on the side of the ship, and there was no comment made.

  The boat glided against the Venture’s side, and Johnson climbed up the side and disappeared from Marlowe’s view. Marlowe had given him careful instructions to make his report to Brownlaw there on the gangway, within earshot. ‘The minute I can’t hear what you are saying, we board,’ he said, the threat there, the placement of the first bullet.

  But Johnson had the fidelity of a true Roundsman, loyal to whoever could do him the most good, and from the boat Marlowe could hear him clearly. ‘Mr Brownlaw, sir! Lord, I had thought to never be speaking to you again! Those prisoners, I finally smoked it, knew of a secret way out of the hold. A passage through the forward bulkhead, sir. They bided their time, till they knew all but the anchor watch was asleep …’

  Johnson talked loud and fast, a man excited by the events of the night, not letting Brownlaw get a word in, not letting him ask why the others did not come aboard, not letting him hear the sounds of the other boats.

  But Brownlaw was not the only man awake. From across the deck, from the Elizabeth Galley, a shout of surprise, someone yelled, ‘Hey, there!’ and another ‘Boarders!’ and a gun went off and another, and Marlowe was on his feet.

  ‘Now, men, away! Away!’ he shouted, then grabbed on to the boarding cleats, scrambled up the side, and burst through the gangway.

  Johnson, unarmed, was standing to one side. The fellow that Marlowe guessed was Brownlaw was charging across the deck, waving his sword and shouting, ‘To me! Queen’s Ventures, to me!’

  There were a lot of men on deck – nearly sixty of Press’s horde, Marlowe guessed. But he had as many, and he had surprise.

  The men f
rom the boats were swarming over the far side, rushing along the Elizabeth Galley’s gangplanks and meeting her defenders with sword and pistol. The flashes of the muzzles lit up the place like a washed-out painting of a battle, men frozen in various attitudes: aiming, hacking, defending, falling, and then swallowed again by the dark.

  The twenty-five men from Marlowe’s boat were all aboard. ‘Come along! Shout like the devil!’ Marlowe called, racing forward, along the Queen’s Venture’s gangway, rushing around to the side made fast to the Elizabeth Galley and into the fighting there.

  ‘Death, death, death, death!’ Marlowe’s men screamed, their voices curling up to a wild, inhuman, piercing shriek, and they fell on the backs of the men who just a second before had not even known they were there.

  Press’s men on the gangway turned, raised pistols and swords, were shot down, driven back by the onslaught. Marlowe was the first there. A pistol in his hand, he discharged it into the mob, reached for another, but before he could pull back the firelock, he found himself sidestepping a hacking cutlass that swished past him and hit the deck.

  Marlowe let the pistol fall, lunged with the sword in his right hand, found only air. The man he was facing came at him and Marlowe parried the attack, pulled his short sword, which he held in his left hand, stood ready.

  Another lunge, and Marlowe beat down the blade with his sword, lashed out like a snake with the short sword, caught the man in the shoulder. The man shouted, drew back, and Marlowe hit him again with his sword, stepped into him, shoved him hard off the gangway. With flailing arms the man plunged down into the waist, and Marlowe heard the thud that he made on the main hatch as he turned to meet the next man.

  A big man, he loomed in front of Marlowe, cutlass moving as if it were made of paper. Marlowe met the blade, felt the ringing shock go through his arm, stepped back from the counterstroke. A dangerous one. Marlowe took a step back, held the short sword ready.

  The big man was no subtle fighter. He plunged at Marlowe, cutlass cleaving the air. Beside him someone fired a pistol, lit the man up from below.

  ‘Hesiod!’ Marlowe shouted, thoughts of further betrayal crackling in his head, but Hesiod stepped back. ‘Marlowe?’