The Pirate Round

by James Nelson

  ‘Aye!’

  ‘Vast fighting! Vast fighting!’ Hesiod and Marlowe shouted together, and the sounds of the fight faded. The Elizabeth Galleys had pressed the defenders between them, scattered them, run into one another.

  ‘Some of them fellows has gone aloft!’ a voice shouted from the dark, then Honeyman’s voice: ‘Some has gone down the after scuttle.’

  ‘Very well, we’ll ferret them out directly.’ The deck that a second before had been a battlefield was now quiet, waiting on Marlowe.

  From the other side of the waist, Johnson’s voice: ‘Brownlaw, you stupid bastard, give it up!’

  Marlowe turned, they all turned. The figure of a man – Brownlaw, apparently – stood on the foredeck opposite, near the bow. He was little more than a silhouette, but Marlowe could see the sword he held in his hand.

  Billy Bird stepped forward. He had a knack for sounding like the universal friend, the cheerful voice of reason. ‘Come along, there,’ he called. ‘The ship’s taken, but you and your men won’t be hurt if you give us some cooperation here. Not so much to ask.’

  They watched the figure of Brownlaw backing away, the sword held up.

  ‘Come on,’ Billy tried again. ‘Not bloody much you can do with that sword!’

  Then Brownlaw turned, and with three wild strokes he cut away the fothered sail.

  CHAPTER 27

  ‘Oh, that’s bloody done it,’ Billy Bird said.

  With a curse Marlowe pushed through the men, raced down the gangway and across the foredeck to where Brownlaw was backed up against the bulwark, sword held uncertainly before him. The frayed ends of the lashings lay limp on the deck.

  Marlowe peered over the side. He could see the water below and realized the sky was growing lighter. He could see nothing of the sail or the several lashings. The whole issue must have sunk to the bottom of the harbor. There was no retrieving it now.

  Marlowe, furious, like an injured wolf, turned and growled at Brownlaw. Brownlaw pushed harder against the bulwark, tossed his sword to the deck, a gesture of supplication. Two steps and Marlowe was on him, grabbed him by his collar, jerked him close. Their faces inches apart, Marlowe looked into the man’s frightened eyes. Brownlaw was shaking his head side to side, a mute plea for mercy, and Marlowe realized that he was not going to hurt the man.

  Fifteen years before he would have killed Brownlaw, just on principle, the principles that he held then, but now he would not. He was too old, had done too much bloodletting.

  You are one lucky bastard, Marlowe thought as he shoved Brownlaw away. The young officer stumbled, and then Marlowe heard a shout, a cry of despair – ‘You stupid, stupid whoreson!’ – and he saw Johnson, just a shadow, snatch a pistol from the man next to him, cock it, and fire.

  The flash lit up Brownlaw’s face, eyes shut tight, jaw clenched, the fine spray of blood and bone from the back of his skull as he was flung against the bulwark, already dead, and his body crumpled to the deck.

  Johnson, Marlowe’s newest recruit. Apparently he did not care to see riches come and go so quickly.

  Marlowe had no thought to spare for either man, living or dead. He turned to meet Billy Bird, who was hurrying up beside him.

  ‘Sail’s gone. She’ll fill quick,’ Marlowe said.

  ‘I could get the lads on fothering another. A lot of good hands here.’

  Marlowe recalled the cable tier, the cold water rising fast around him. ‘No time. She’ll sink before they’re done. Pass some more cables to bind the ships together. Bowse them up good and tight. Then break open the hatches, we’ll sway as much as we can aboard the Elizabeth Galley, then cut this bucket away, make off as soon as it’s full light.’ He looked to the east. The mountains were black against a low band of dark gray sky. ‘We have an hour. Whatever we can salvage in an hour, that is our take.’

  There was silence on the deck, and it lasted three seconds. Then Billy Bird turned and shouted, ‘You heard him, lads! We’ve an hour to get what we can, so turn to! There’s our own people still locked down below! Get them up and set these bloody prisoners to work, and let’s clean this filthy bucket out!’

  The men on deck scattered in ten different directions. It was like nothing Marlowe had ever seen, like the companies of three men-of-war all clearing the same ship for action. He had never seen sailors move so fast, work so efficiently and with such cooperation.

  The wedges were driven from the main hatch of the Queen’s Venture and the Elizabeth Galley as well, hatch covers pulled back, gratings lifted off. Another gang of men cast off the stay tackle. They laid the falls of the tackle along and saw them manned. Still more were ripping off the after hatches, and on the Queen’s Venture they were using axes to widen their openings.

  Up from below came bedraggled, filthy prisoners, Marlowe’s men and Billy Bird’s men, those not taken ashore. They were half starved and confused and trying to understand this sudden change of fortune, this shift in circumstance. Like sleepwalkers they were directed toward the falls of stay tackles and yard tackles to add their meager strength to the effort.

  Also from below, the better-fed men of Roger Press’s command, driven topside at the ends of pistols and cutlasses. They were the men who had forced the Roundsmen to load the Queen’s Venture with booty, and now they were made to unload her again.

  It was an astounding effort, all the more so because it was carried out with never an order from Marlowe or Billy. Honeyman was there to coordinate efforts, and Burgess and the Revenge’s boatswain as well, but for the most part they just fell to. They were seamen to a man – not man-of-war’s men, trained to a single task – but Roundsmen, whose death or fortune rested on their own initiative. They knew what to do, and they did it, fast and efficiently.

  By the time the first iron-bound box of booty rose from the Queen’s Venture’s hold, twisting at the end of the stay tackle, the morning light was enough that Marlowe could see the activity on the deck of his own ship, lashed alongside. The men there were working the stay tackle as well, emptying the Elizabeth Galley’s hold of whatever they could – food, water, supplies – to make more room for the treasure.

  Across the deck of the Queen’s Venture went the boxes, across the deck of the Elizabeth Galley and down through that ship’s main hatch and down into her hold. Then, fast as could be done, the tackle was retrieved, and then the next chest of treasure or bundle of silk or barrel of spice was hove up from below and swayed across, Queen’s Venture to Elizabeth Galley.

  Marlowe paced back and forth on the Queen’s Venture foredeck. There was little for him to do but wait. Wait until they had secured all the treasure that they could, wait until the moment when he had to order the men to leave the rest, to set sail and slip the cable and cut away the ropes that bound the Galley to the Venture.

  Just as he was thinking about that very thing, the Queen’s Venture gave a little lurch, tilted away from the Elizabeth Galley. The ropes groaned, made tiny popping sounds of fibers snapping. She was listing already, lying at an odd angle, a few degrees off an even keel.

  ‘She’s filling. Fast,’ Marlowe said to Billy Bird, and Billy nodded.

  ‘We’ve a bit more time, I should think,’ Billy said.

  Then, across the water, from the deck of the Speedwell, clear even over the commotion of emptying the Queen’s Venture’s hold, the order ‘Fire!’ and the gray dawn was torn apart as the tender fired her full broadside into the Elizabeth Galley.

  On the top of the hill, below the big house, in the back of the cell formerly occupied by Roger Press and his men, entirely forgotten by everyone save for the jailer who brought him his twice-daily food and water, Peleg Dinwiddie stared at the open iron-bar door.

  For week upon week he had sat alone in the cell, alone with his own thoughts, the worst torture of all. The rack, it seemed to him, would have been welcome, the thumbscrews, branding, flogging – anything. Any of it would have meant human contact and pain to blot out the thoughts, the constant, unchecked thoughts. />
  Weeks of nothing, and then the most extraordinary series of events. First Roger Press and Thomas Marlowe, both marched down as prisoners. Dinwiddie recognized most of the men who were put in the cell with Marlowe. They were his former shipmates, men under his command. Some he did not recognize, such as the foppish fellow whom Marlowe called Billy.

  But they were put in the other cell, and Press and his men were put in the cell that Dinwiddie occupied. Peleg had kept to the back, to the shadows, did not wish to be noticed. He was noticed, of course, not by Press but by others, and those men who did see him did not say anything to him. They just looked him over, turned away.

  He was filthy, his once-fine clothes nearly rags, almost two months’ growth of beard on his face. He reckoned he looked like some madman, locked away, and he was not certain he wasn’t.

  Dinwiddie had sat as silent and unseen witness to the fast-changing situation, as first Marlowe had been released by Elizabeth and then Press by Yancy. The cells had been emptied, the door left open, and still Dinwiddie sat there, unmoving, staring.

  But now his thoughts were off on a new tangent. Marlowe was there, free, on St Mary’s. It could mean only that he was heading for the Elizabeth Galley, making sail for home.

  Home. In his dark madness Dinwiddie was not even certain what that meant. Some mythical place, some land where there was something besides a stone cell and the endless self-flagellation.

  Marlowe, Elizabeth Galley, home. It took him two hours to stand up and take a step toward the door. He paused, listened. The guard with the broken arm had not made a sound in over an hour. Nothing happened, nothing moved. Dinwiddie took another step toward the door.

  Whoever was in command of the tender Speedwell had smoked what they were about. Marlowe did not know how.

  Perhaps one of Press’s men had swum over there. Perhaps they had sent a boat, unseen in the dark, to reconnoiter. Perhaps they were just guessing. It hardly mattered. They were loyal to Press, and they had figured out that his booty was being carried off, and now they were trying to prevent it.

  Iron slammed into the Elizabeth Galley’s side, and Marlowe could feel the impact even on the Queen’s Venture’s deck. It screamed through the air, and the stay tackle was shot through. The iron-bound box that hung from the end of the tackle plunged to the deck, fifteen feet, hit with the impact of a cannonball. The box burst open, and a cascade of gold coin spilled along the deck, but no one paid it any attention. There were more important things at the moment.

  ‘You there!’ Honeyman pointed to the gang of men holding the now-useless fall of the stay tackle. ‘Reeve off a new tackle, quickly! You’ – he pointed to another gang by the main hatch – ‘get the girtline down there. We can use that for the lighter stuff.’ Billy Bird stepped up beside him, and Marlowe said, ‘This fellow has loyalty and courage, if not so much sense, firing on us.’

  ‘Perhaps not so much loyalty or courage either,’ said Billy. ‘I perceive two boats pulling for us, and it takes no art to guess who is in ’em.’

  Billy pointed forward, and Marlowe followed the gesture. Far off, up the harbor, two big boats coming bow on, their oars like flickering shadows moving in the odd mechanical way oars do. They were just visible in the dawn’s light. If they had not been painted white, they would not have been noticed.

  ‘Damn it,’ Marlowe said, and he ran around the gangplank and over to the Elizabeth Galley, then down into the Galley’s waist. Flanders was directing the men who were emptying her holds, and there was Bickerstaff, hauling with the men on the Galley’s stay tackle. ‘Flanders, belay that for now!’ Marlowe shouted, and the Speedwell fired again. The Galley shuddered, a section of bulwark ripped apart, the men inboard of it tossed aside. The clang of round shot hitting one of the Galley’s great guns, from the Queen’s Venture a prolonged shriek, and then nothing.

  ‘We’ll have to man the guns, give these bastards something in return. Francis, will you set some men to handing out powder?’

  ‘I will.’ This was not piracy, this was defence of their own ship, and Marlowe knew that Bickerstaff would have no qualms about joining in.

  Flanders dispatched men to the guns, Bickerstaff took a half dozen below to the powder magazine. Overhead, more booty came swinging across, a great bundle of ivory tusks hanging from the Venture’s girtline, over the deck and down into the Galley’s hold.

  On the Venture’s foredeck men swarmed around the stay tackle like ants on a pile of sugar, reeving off a new line, getting it back into action, eager to get every last groat they could out of the hold of the sinking ship.

  The Queen’s Venture shifted, rolled another foot away from the Galley, the bar-taut ropes binding the vessels together groaning, the wood creaking, and Marlowe could picture the water rising higher and higher. It would be almost waist deep by now, to the men working in her hold. If the ropes holding the two vessels together were to let go, then the Venture would roll right over and take them down with her. They had to realize that. And no doubt they did, but greed was stronger even than their sense of self-preservation.

  Up and down the Galley’s waist the guns’ lashings were cast off, the guns rolled back, the match lit and ready to touch off powder. Up from below came the men, dispatched by Bickerstaff, bearing cartridges of powder in long leather tubes. Powder, shot, wadding – it was all rammed home and the guns trundled out again.

  Marlowe sighted down the barrel of the closest gun. The Speedwell was growing more distinct as the dawn spread across the sky, her upper rails no longer shades of gray and black but dull red, dull green. One hundred feet away, half a cable length, point-blank range, the muzzle of the gun seemed to rest on the side of the tender. No wonder their fire had been so devastating.

  ‘Don’t wait on me!’ Marlowe shouted. ‘Fire fast as you can!’

  Crews stepped back, gun captains took one last sight, match came down on powder train, and all along the Galley’s waist the six-pounders fired their devastating blast of iron. The guns were just coming to rest at the end of their breeches when the Speedwell fired. The hull shook, two shrouds parted and hung limp, a spray of splinters exploded from the mainmast. But the tender’s guns sounded smaller now, less impressive, after the Elizabeth Galley’s larger battery. Marlowe could see at least two of the Speedwell’s guns that did not fire, and he hoped the Galley’s broadside had managed to knock them out.

  ‘All slack! Ease away, handsomely, handsomely!’ came the shout from behind, and Marlowe turned to see a big chest, bound with iron strapping, easing from the Queen’s Venture’s newly rove stay tackle to the Elizabeth Galley’s. A moment’s pause as the Venture’s tackle was cast off, and then the chest sailed down into the Galley’s dark hold, a controlled plummet, where it was received by unseen hands three decks down.

  The Elizabeth Galley’s stay tackle had not yet emerged from the hold by the time the next chest was heaved up from the Queen’s Venture.

  Oh, Lord, Marlowe thought, we shall be wealthy, if we are not dead.

  Peleg Dinwiddie grew bolder with each step. Out of the cell, past the guard who did not move, up the narrow steps. He emerged into the grand entrance and listened for a long time, but the house seemed absolutely deserted.

  My house, he mocked himself, given me by Yaney, when he died. He could not stop himself from doling out the emotional beatings, like probing at a sore tooth with one’s tongue.

  Across the big space and out the door. It was early dawn, light enough that he could see the harbor below in grays and browns and pinpoints of bright light. Cannon fire. The Elizabeth Galley and Press’s tender, blasting away at each other. Marlowe would not remain long at his anchor, not once the firing started.

  That thought drove Dinwiddie forward, and he humped across the grounds, through the gate swinging in the offshore breeze that was building with the rising sun.

  He stumbled and ran down the road from the big house to the dock. A mile distant, it seemed like twenty. The cloud of smoke piling up between the ships
looked nearly solid, and through the cloud, pinpricks of muzzle flash, and under it all the distant muted thunder of the guns.

  God, how he ached to be aboard the ship! To walk the deck with the iron flying all around, to be cleansed by the physical danger and selfless defense of the ship and company! There was redemption, there his sins could be burned away by the battle fire. He ran faster.

  Heaving for breath, stumbling, at last he clambered out onto the dock and stopped. He was eye level with the ships, could see them clearly. A cannonball screamed by, not far over his head. The sky to the east was orange and blue, and the only gray overhead was far to the west. The broadsides had not stopped, the constant roar of the guns, the smoke piled on smoke, all but hiding the tender from Dinwiddie’s sight.

  The men on the Queen’s Venture were desperately unloading her hold, and Dinwiddie could see why. She was listing hard. He imagined that the ropes binding her to the Elizabeth Galley were the only thing keeping her upright. He had to get there, but all the boats were gone. So close, so damned close.

  He ran to the edge of the dock, looked around, under, for any kind of conveyance. Nothing. He ran to the other side. There, tied to one of the pilings, half full of water, was a dugout canoe, a crude paddle floating in the four inches of water in her bottom. She was as unseaworthy as a vessel could be and still float, but to Dinwiddie she looked like the royal yacht.

  He untied the painter, led the canoe the length of the dock, and pulled it up on the beach. He stepped awkwardly down through the sand to his boat, tipped it over, and let the water pour out. He shoved the dugout into the harbor, waded in knee deep, then carefully, carefully, eased his large body into the unstable craft. He sat for a moment, got a feel for the balance of the thing, then dipped a tentative paddle into the water and stroked.

  The dugout moved ahead easily, and Dinwiddie took another stroke, felt the momentum build. The boat bobbed and dipped in the little waves that came in around the point, but there was shelter enough that Dinwiddie felt he had a chance.