The Pirate Round

by James Nelson

  If the canoe swamped, if it sank or capsized, he was dead. He could not swim.

  Out past the dock, his eyes were fixed on the Elizabeth Galley, and he grew bolder with each stroke. The dugout moved easy despite the occasional wave that lapped against the bow and spilled water over the low freeboard. Stroke, stroke, the ships growing closer.

  Dinwiddie, the mariner, with his practiced weather eye. He caught motion to his left, something moving on the water. He turned, careful, looked across the harbor.

  Two big boats, carrying fifty men each, it seemed, swivel guns on their bows, also pulling fast for the Elizabeth Galley and the Queen’s Venture. It took little imagination to guess who they were.

  Dinwiddie groaned out loud. It was a race, him in his little canoe against Yancy and Press in their big boats, all pulling for the Queen’s Venture, all racing to get there before Marlowe could cut and run.

  A puff of smoke, a flash of light from the bow of the nearest boat, and the bang of the swivel gun. Yancy was going in shooting.

  ‘Oh, God!’ Dinwiddie said out loud, digging in harder with the paddle. The canoe shot forward, its low bow cleaving through a small wave, sending gallons of water over the gunnel, knocking the small boat off course.

  ‘Damn!’ Dinwiddie swung the paddle over to stroke from the other side, bring her head around. Another wave slapped the bow, but more broadside. The canoe began to tip. Dinwiddie shifted hard to keep it upright. And then the boat rolled clean over.

  CHAPTER 28

  Yancy stood in the stern sheets, screaming at the men, ‘Pull, you bastards, pull!’ He glared at them, saw the sweat pouring off their brows, even in the cool morning air, saw the muscles stand out on their necks and forearms, their teeth clenched with the effort of pulling oar.

  ‘Pull, you lazy, worthless bastards!’

  At first he had just wanted Marlowe back. And Elizabeth. To punish her, take her, show her that he was a man. Teach her. But now that was only a part of it, a small part.

  Running down the hill, Yancy had had the chance to really see the ships at anchor. Two big ships, a sloop, a brig. A powerful armada. With such a fleet he could be ruler of much more than tiny St Mary’s.

  He heard Press’s words over and over in his head: ‘While I was out hunting Marlowe, I captured the Great Mogul’s treasure ship’

  Those words had not impressed him at first. It was only money, and money he had. He wanted Marlowe, and Elizabeth. He wanted vengeance.

  But those words kept coming back to him, until at last their real significance took hold: ‘The Great Mogul’s treasure ship’ That was not wealth. Wealth was not the word. That was empire, and it was his for the taking.

  Yancy glanced down at Press, sitting beside him in the stern sheets. Had to keep Press near him, but the smug look on Press’s face was like a sliver under his thumbnail. He wanted to slap him, looked forward to the moment, the very second, when he did not need Press anymore.

  ‘Nagel!’ The big man was in the bow, attending to the swivel gun. Yancy had to keep his eye on him now as well. ‘Hurry with that God-damned gun, or I will run my sword up your arse, do you hear me!’ His voice was shrill, almost a shriek, a most undignified sound, but he was beyond caring. Every tiny fiber of him was focused on reaching the ships and taking them.

  Nagel scowled, stepped back, touched off the powder in the touchhole. The gun fired, langrage and round shot. They were half a mile from the anchored ships. It was entirely possible that the small gun could not even shoot that far. But that did not matter. The shooting might unnerve the men on the ships. And Yancy had to do something.

  The gunfire from the Speedwell had dropped off, and the Elizabeth Galley was still blasting away, with only one of her great guns and four of her men knocked out. Overhead, the squeal of blocks, the strain of rope, as crate, barrel, bundle were lifted from the Venture, swayed aboard the Galley. The thick, choking smoke from the guns swirled around the deck, partially obscuring the growing daylight.

  Bickerstaff was on deck. ‘I’ve left one of those fellows in the magazine,’ he reported to Marlowe, ‘handing the cartridges out. I thought I might be of more use on deck.’

  ‘Quite. I—’ Marlowe began, and then a shout from the Queen’s Venture. Billy Bird. ‘Marlowe! I don’t reckon we have much longer!’ His words were punctuated by a groan from the Venture, a creaking as the two ships ground together. The Queen’s Venture listed farther away, the ropes binding the ships together and the fife rails and bits to which the ropes were tied groaning in agony.

  Marlowe looked up through the smoke. He could see the crazy angle of the Queen’s Venture’s masts. ‘Good Lord!’ he shouted. With the distraction of fighting, he had not kept a watch on how far the ship had gone down. He could hardly believe she was still floating.

  ‘Get the men out of her hold, we have to go! That’s all we get!’ Marlowe shouted. Then, from beyond Billy Bird, from over the water, came the sharp report of a gun, smaller than a cannon but bigger certainly than small arms.

  The boats. The two boats pulling for them. In the heat of it, Marlowe had forgotten them entirely, but now a new front was opened up.

  Marlowe raced up the ladder to the gangway and then around to the far side to which the Queen’s Venture was tied. It was a jump now to the other vessel’s deck, listing as she was away from the Galley. Behind him the Elizabeth Galley’s guns blasted, the Speedwell answered, sending the shot screaming over deck, smashing woodwork, rigging, toiling hands.

  Marlowe moved to the Elizabeth Galley’s foredeck, and Bickerstaff and Billy Bird joined him.

  ‘There,’ Bickerstaff said, pointing to the east end of the bay. The boats had halved their distance, and now in the full light Marlowe could see how fast they were coming on.

  ‘I don’t imagine they are coming to our aid,’ Marlowe said. The bow gun from one of the boats fired, and the water twenty feet short of the Queen’s Venture was marked with the falling shot, like a sudden isolated burst of rain. They were firing langrage or case shot, both loads consisting of hundreds of musket balls or bits of twisted iron scrap, designed to tear apart a packed mass of men.

  ‘Once they reach us, our prisoners will throw in with them and they will overwhelm us for certain. We have to get these prisoners off,’ Marlowe continued, talking over the soft thud of the distant gun as it finally caught up with the shot. ‘Honeyman!’

  The quartermaster came running up. ‘Get the oars out of the boats, and we’ll set the prisoners adrift. That should keep them out of trouble for a while.’

  ‘Good thought,’ Billy Bird said, and then Bickerstaff said, ‘Whatever is that?’

  Marlowe followed Bickerstaff’s finger. There was something or someone thrashing in the water, fifty yards away. He could not tell what it might be.

  ‘Here.’ Billy Bird offered up a small telescope. Bickerstaff took it, pulled it open, trained it at the thrashing creature. A moment’s silence, and then Bickerstaff said, ‘It is Peleg Dinwiddie. He is clinging to a log or some such.’

  Peleg Dinwiddie? How odd to hear that name. Marlowe had entirely forgotten about his former first officer. It seemed a hundred years since he had last seen him. What had become of him? What was he about?

  Bickerstaff offered the glass to Marlowe, and Marlowe took it, trained it on the man in the water. It was not a powerful telescope, but strong enough that Marlowe could make out Dinwiddie’s form, the features of his face, even under a growth of beard. ‘Another bad choice for old Peleg, I reckon,’ Marlowe said, snapping the glass shut. ‘Billy, set your men to rounding up the prisoners. I’ll get Burgess on the sweeps.’

  ‘Marlowe,’ Bickerstaff stopped him just as he was stepping away. ‘You don’t intend to leave Dinwiddie, do you?’

  ‘Leave him? No, he left me. Told me to sod off, you may recall. I am doing as he wished.’

  ‘He is obviously trying to reach the ship.’

  ‘And doing a piss-poor job, just like he did as first officer.’ Marl
owe made to step away again, but Bickerstaff grabbed him by the arm, hard, turned him back around.

  ‘You cannot abandon him,’ he said, a simple statement of fact.

  ‘Damn him, I say.’

  ‘Marlowe, whatever temptation Yancy lured him into, whatever he put in his head, you were still the one that brought him here. You were the one who recruited him, convinced him to sail the Pirate Round. He was loyal to you once, and you to him.’

  Marlowe held Bickerstaff’s eyes, furious at this defense of his faithless officer, furious at this interruption at that critical juncture. The ropes holding the Queen’s Venture groaned again, and the Elizabeth Galley’s battery and the Speedwell’s battery went off, clouds of smoke rolling over them, the deafening noise of the guns, the shot smashing rigging, rail, men, the shouts of the men at their tasks, or fighting, or dying, and on that little patch of deck, silence, the two men holding one another’s eyes.

  And Marlowe found himself conjuring up the picture of Dinwiddie – stolid, unimaginative, impressionable Dinwiddie – at race day at the Page place. The look in Dinwiddie’s eyes as he dangled Madagascar in front of him. Ingenuous Dinwiddie in his silly best dress, preparing for the governor’s dinner.

  I set that poor bastard up from the onset. I am as guilty as Yancy.

  ‘I cannot leave now. We are in the middle of a bloody sea fight!’

  ‘I do not want you to leave, Marlowe. I want you to give me leave to go. And a manned boat.’

  Marlowe glared at him. Bickerstaff was not asking him to be a hero, or even a decent human being, just asking that he, Bickerstaff, be allowed to be one.

  Around them the great guns blasted, the vessels shook with the impact, the smoke choked them, made their eyes water. The noise was unbearable. Why must I bloody bother with this? Marlowe wondered.

  But Marlowe could not do it. He could not let Bickerstaff go alone, into that kind of danger. Nor could he order another of the officers to go with him.

  A cry of exasperation built in his guts. ‘Ahh, goddamn you!’ He looked away, looked back. ‘Very well,’ Marlowe said at last. ‘We’ll take the gig … no, we’ll take the longboat.’ He turned fast, stepped across the deck to the starboard side where the pilot ladder hung down to the boats.

  ‘You do not have to come,’ Bickerstaff shouted, following behind. ‘You have your duty here.’

  ‘Billy and Honeyman have things in hand, but if those boats reach the ship, we’re done for. Perhaps I can help draw them off.’ It made it more palatable, thinking of a genuine tactical reason for what he was doing, not just saving Dinwiddie’s dumb arse.

  They stopped at the head of the ladder, and Bickerstaff said, ‘You are doing the right thing.’

  ‘Yes, yes, always doing the right goddamned thing.’ Marlowe turned. ‘Billy Bird, you will be in command in my absence. Get everyone clear of the bloody Queen’s Venture before she rolls over. Hands aloft to loosen sail.’ He turned again. ‘Honeyman, get some men in the longboat. Muskets if they got ’em, but don’t waste time looking for them. Set a swivel gun in the bow. There are four of them aft on the quarterdeck, and I see powder and shot beside them. Go!’

  Honeyman began to shout orders, Billy Bird began to shout orders. Marlowe directed men down the ladder and into the longboat floating below.

  Low in the water, the boats had been mostly spared from the incessant fire from the Speedwell. The barge had a neat hole clean through both sides, and the very tip of the stem of one of the longboats was shot away, but beyond that they were intact.

  Across the deck, running, led by Duncan Honeyman, came twenty men. Burgess carried a swivel gun, cradled like a baby in his arms. The others carried muskets, pistols, cutlasses. They swarmed down the side, handed the swivel down, set it in place, took their places on the thwarts, set oars in tholes.

  Marlowe and Bickerstaff came last, sat in the stern sheets. The Speedwell fired, the round shot slamming into the hull mere feet above their heads, showering them with a fine spray of splinters.

  ‘Give way!’ Marlowe called, and the oars came down, and the men pulled with a will, eager to put the Elizabeth Galley between themselves and the Speedwell’s broadsides.

  Stroke, stroke, they pulled under the Galley’s counter, around the Queen’s Venture’s stern, and the Speedwell was lost from sight. Marlowe pushed the tiller over. He could see Dinwiddie now, clinging to whatever that was he was clinging to, could see the two big boats pulling fast for the Queen’s Venture. This was going to be a close thing.

  The men leaned into the oars, driving the big boat across the harbor. In the bow Burgess loaded the swivel, poured powder from a horn into the touchhole.

  ‘There!’ Bickerstaff pointed. One of the big boats had broken away, was making for them. He had drawn off half the attacking force, and he took some comfort from that.

  ‘Probably don’t know what we’re about, but figure to stop us anyway!’ Marlowe yelled over the gunfire.

  Fifty feet from Dinwiddie, and the other boat was closing fast. A bang of a swivel gun and case shot tore up the water, crackled into the side of the boat, and smashed into the arm of the man at number-two oar, who let go of his sweep, screamed in pain, clapped a hand over the spurting wound.

  ‘Let ’em have it, Burgess!’ Marlowe shouted. Burgess already had the swivel trained on the approaching boat, aimed straight on at their bow, straight at the man feverishly reloading their swivel.

  Burgess snapped a pistol over the train of powder in the touchhole. The sparks drifted down, tiny, delicate points of light, and then the powder flashed and the swivel roared out, pushing the whole boat sideways, and the man at stroke oar in the approaching boat was blown away, tossed back into his shipmates as he disappeared below the gunnel.

  That should cool their enthusiasm, Marlowe thought. And then from beyond the bow, a voice like a memory, like something out of a dream, floating through the gunfire: ‘Help! Help! Here!’

  Peleg Dinwiddie.

  Marlowe half stood, looked beyond the bow. Dinwiddie was clinging to an overturned dugout, and he was slipping. Two boat lengths ahead. Another stroke. ‘Backwater! Backwater!’ The oars came down, the tholes creaking with the pressure as the momentum of the heavy boat was checked, and then they were dead in the water, and Marlowe was looking down into the bearded, gray, terrified, wide-eyed face of Peleg Dinwiddie. He was a frightening sight.

  One of the oarsmen reached out with his blade, and Dinwiddie grabbed it and pulled himself over. Eager hands reached down and grabbed handfuls of clothing and hauled his tired and near-limp form over the gunnels.

  Bickerstaff, beside him in the stern sheets, had snatched up one of the muskets. He trained it over the side at the approaching boat, fired, began to load it again. In the bow Burgess let go with another blast from the swivel, and several men jumped, cursed in surprise. Dinwiddie was deposited in a heap in the bottom of the boat, gasping, water streaming off him.

  ‘Give way, together!’ Marlowe shouted. He had done his moral duty, the Gospel According to Francis Bickerstaff. Time to get the hell out of there.

  The men fell in, pulled. Marlowe put the tiller hard over. The longboat turned in a great, elegant arc away from the approaching boat, away from the half-sunk dugout, back toward the Elizabeth Galley.

  Marlowe looked at the other boat. One hundred feet back, the swivel belched out its smoke and flames and case shot. The blast tore up the water, but the gun had been aimed too low, and none of the shot struck.

  Marlowe pulled his eyes from that threat, looked up at the Elizabeth Galley. Her hull was nearly obscured by smoke, but rising from the gray cloud he could see her topmasts and topgallants, straight as ancient trees. Beside her the spars of the Queen’s Venture jutted out at a crazy angle as the ship tried to sink and the ropes binding her to the Galley held her up.

  He could see men along the Elizabeth Galley’s yards. The tight bundles of furled sail tumbling down, ready to be set. He could hear that the great guns had slow
ed considerably, and he wondered if the Speedwell had had enough.

  The land breeze was filling in. It lifted the smoke in a big blanket, pitched it forward, rolled it away. Behind the two big ships Marlowe could see that the Speedwell had indeed had enough. She had slipped her cable, set a topsail and was moving out of the range of the Galley’s great guns. Defeated or driven off, it did not matter, as long as she had stopped fighting.

  ‘Thank you, Marlowe! Bless you, bless you, thank you.’ Dinwiddie was on his knees now, like a supplicant, hands clamped. Marlowe could see that his clothing, torn and filthy, had once been highest quality, better than anything Dinwiddie had carried on board the Galley. He was thinner, his face covered with sprawling beard. Marlowe wanted to kick him.

  ‘Don’t thank me. Thank Bickerstaff. I’d have left you to drown.’ He turned his attention elsewhere.

  ‘Captain!’ Burgess, standing in the bow, half turned around. They were pulling for the Galley, the attacking boat on their larboard quarter, and his swivel gun would not bear. ‘Captain! One last shot!’

  Marlowe nodded, pushed the tiller over, and the longboat turned away from the Galley until Burgess’s gun could be trained on the attacking boat. Marlowe looked over his shoulder. The others, Yancy’s boat crew, were pulling like men possessed. Fifty feet away a man like Burgess’s mirror image bending over their swivel just as Burgess was bending over his.

  They fired in the same instant. Marlowe saw the flame jump from the other gun, but the sound he heard was Burgess’s swivel going off, a deep-throated sound, and Marlowe thought, He’s fired round shot, and then the case shot of the attacking boat hit them broadside.

  Men were knocked off their thwarts, oars dropped and disappeared over the side, men shouted, clutched bloody gashes.

  Marlowe coughed in the smoke blown back from the gun. There was a pulsing, dull ache in his right hand. He lifted it up, stared at the place where he felt the pain. The agony grew sharper, sharper, like an image in a telescope coming into focus, and he realized that two of his fingers, his little finger and his ring finger, had been shot clean away. Blood ran down his palm, down his arm.