The Blackbirder

by James Nelson

  ‘There is another concern, Marlowe,’ said Dunmore, smug in the governor’s protection. ‘This example you have set, it puts us all in great danger of our Negroes rising up against us, do you see? And again, there is the war with Spain, which you mentioned. The guns on your ship are property of the crown, and I do not see how under these circumstances we can allow you to keep them. We need them now just to protect ourselves from the danger to which you yourself have exposed us.’

  Marlowe felt the hot flash of anger. Ten years before, Dunmore would not have made it through that speech, would have been begging for his life before he had uttered two sentences.

  But Marlowe was a gentleman now, he reminded himself, and should not kill men but in affairs of honor, and even then it was frowned upon.

  He clenched his fists, and with the last rational part of his brain congratulated himself on his self-control.

  The guns, oh God, they were going to take the guns! They could never be replaced! All of the planning, all of the expense, for nothing. James, damn your black hide, why did you do that?

  ‘I’m sorry, Marlowe. I know you’ve gone to great expense already.’ Nicholson rearranged the silver writing set, moved a stack of papers three inches to the left. ‘There is one thing I had thought of, one last shift that could solve this whole thing …’

  Marlowe leaned back, took a deep breath. He doubted he would like what came next, but how could it be worse than his present circumstance?

  Dunmore uncrossed his legs. This was apparently something new to him and he looked concerned.

  ‘Dunmore is right, you know, this is a bad example …’ Nicholson held up his hands to ward off Marlowe’s protest and Marlowe sat back again, silent. ‘I know King James, know that he’s a good man. Bit of a hothead, but a good man. But still, this sort of thing cannot be countenanced, not by black men or white.

  ‘I think the best thing over all, Marlowe, would be for you to keep the guns and go after these renegades, bring them back here. I can guarantee they’ll get a fair trial, get justice. If they are innocent, then they can go free.’

  Marlowe leaned back, let his eyes wander over the muskets and pistols mounted on the wall behind the governor. Heard Dunmore give a grunt at the governor’s suggestion but he said nothing.

  Marlowe wanted to sink his head in his hands, wanted to scream in frustration, wanted to put a sword in Dunmore’s belly, and King James’s too, for getting him into this corner.

  Of course they would not go free. Sam had described the whole thing in nightmarish detail. Marlowe understood exactly what James had done, knew why he did it, could taste the rage in his own mouth, knew he would have done the same. But that truth would save no one from the gallows. He would be bringing them back to die, or kill them in trying.

  And if he refused? What of that place in society that Elizabeth so coveted?

  He had been so sure of himself, setting his slaves free, despite the tidewater’s better judgment. Any number of planters had their slaves working river sloops, but Marlowe had set free black men aboard his. Men who had their pride restored. Men who were no longer cowed, who would no longer suffer any abuse, as long as it came from a white man. Hell, perhaps he was to blame.

  There was a great deal of anger directed at Marlowe, he had already heard rumors.

  And the guns, and the letter of marque. Gone. It would be fiscal ruin for him.

  He would stand accused of protecting killers. Black killers, of his own making. It would strip them both, him and Elizabeth, of all the layers of respectability that they had accumulated, strip them back to their most basic selves. A pirate and a whore.

  Damn you, James, damn you for this.

  He could not do that to Elizabeth, she was his first loyalty, and damn King James for forcing him to make this choice.

  ‘Very well, I shall go after them.’

  ‘Governor,’ said Dunmore, ‘I hardly think that Mr Marlowe is to be trusted with—’

  Nicholson held up his hand to stop Dunmore, but not before Marlowe was on his feet, two steps toward Dunmore, saying, ‘Do you call me a liar, sir? Do you dispute my honesty in front of the governor?’ No patience for this now. Give me a reason, you bastard, Marlowe thought, pray, give me a reason …

  ‘Marlowe, please, take your seat,’ Nicholson said, and Marlowe did so because the governor was a man to be respected. ‘Dunmore, hold your tongue. If Marlowe says he will do a thing, then he will do it. I’ll countenance no insults to his character.’

  Dunmore grunted again.

  ‘Governor, I shall need some kind of official order from you, something with your seal authorizing me to do this.’

  ‘These people are outlaws, Marlowe, you need no official permission to hunt them down.’

  ‘Sir, I must insist. Official orders, with your seal.’

  Nicholson considered this, could find no reason to object. ‘Very well, if you insist.’ He picked up a small silver bell and rang it. It had a silly, tinkling sound. From a side door the governor’s secretary appeared, bowed to Nicholson. The governor told him what was needed and the man nodded, then disappeared again.

  ‘So,’ Nicholson said with a weak smile, ‘damned dearth of rain we’ve had of late, what?’

  The horse moved down the familiar road at his own pace, just fast enough to satisfy Marlowe and stave off a nudge of boot heel in the flank. He needed no direction; they had traveled that way nearly every day for two months.

  For Marlowe, perched in the saddle, it was not a pleasant trip, not like before. No eager anticipation now, just apprehension. No rapture at what the old, decrepit Nathaniel James had become, but rather fear for what would become of her now.

  He stopped at the point where the road curved around to the dock and afforded him the first complete view of his ship, sat there regarding her while the horse found some new grass on the edge of the close-packed dirt road.

  It was a sight to bring joy to a shipowner’s heart. The full complement of seventy-five men was aboard; not so many as Marlowe would have liked, but enough, and as many as he could ever hope to find in that place where seamen were in damned short supply. They were swarming over the ship, hauling away on the stay tackle and easing the stores down through the main hatch, laid out on the yards bending sail, reeving off running gear, caulking and paying the last of the seams on the quarterdeck.

  They were nearly all of them prime seamen, all eager for a little privateering.

  ‘Well, damnation, let’s do it, then …’ Marlowe muttered, gave the reins a jerk, got the horse under way.

  His approach did not go unnoticed, as he reckoned it would not. All hands aboard the Elizabeth Galley would be aware of what their bosun had done, of their captain’s meeting with the governor, of the potential consequences.

  Indeed, it was the talk of all Virginia. Marlowe doubted there was anyone in the tidewater above the age of five who had not heard of what had taken place and already discussed it at length. High talk would have been flying through the rigging all morning. They would want answers, and because of the paucity of seamen they knew they could demand them.

  One by one, as Marlowe approached, the men set aside their tools or eased off the lines they were hauling or slid down backstays to the deck, until by the time he reined to a stop at the gangway they were gathered like a mob waiting on the verdict of a trial.

  ‘Captain Marlowe!’ It was Griffin, the bosun’s mate, an unpleasant fellow, face like one of those small, ugly dogs. Marlowe reckoned he had appointed himself bosun after the news of King James’s departure.

  ‘Captain, we was all wondering, did you fare well with the governor? We on for our voyage, then?’ Griffin, assuming the bosun’s role as crew spokesman. Marlowe did not care for it, not a bit.

  First, the stick.

  ‘See here, Griffin, all of you!’ He had their attention now. ‘My dealings with the governor are my concern alone, do you hear? This is not a damned pirate ship. I’ll countenance no questions, no votes, no
inquiries into my business, is that clear? If any have a problem with that, leave now! Leave now!’

  To Marlowe’s vast relief no one moved.

  He reached into the haversack slung over his shoulder, pulled out the governor’s orders, the ones he had insisted upon. Glanced around for Bickerstaff. His friend was on the quarterdeck, overhauling the ship’s pistols. An expert with firearms and edged weapons, not from soldiering but from his days as a tutor instructing young gentlemen in their use.

  He was a good fifty feet away, listening, cleaning firelocks. He would not be able to see much from that distance in any event.

  Now the carrot.

  Marlowe unrolled the governor’s orders and held them up. An impressive document, with great scrollwork and the huge glob of a waxed seal. Nicholson could be counted on to do nothing by half.

  ‘As you can see, the governor has issued us a letter of marque and reprisal, just as promised.’ He rolled the parchment back up. ‘I wish to be under way at the first of the ebb on the morrow, so turn to. We’ve much to do.’

  A moment of silence, and then Noah Fleming, first mate, a steady and unimaginative man, just what Marlowe liked in an officer, shouted, ‘Three cheers for Captain Marlowe, then!’

  The men belted out their huzzahs, and with genuine gusto, Marlowe was pleased to see.

  What they would be doing in a week’s time remained to be seen.

  Ten minutes later, Bickerstaff joined him in the great cabin, waited silently while Marlowe poured a glass of wine, guzzled it, poured another, and finally turned and said, ‘Wine with you, Francis?’

  ‘Thank you, yes,’ said Bickerstaff, taking the glass, sitting in his familiar chair. ‘The governor gave you a letter of marque?’

  ‘He did. Damned reluctant, but he did. That bastard Dunmore was there as well. Lucky he did not get a bullet through his head.’

  ‘I commend you on your restraint, sir. We are to leave on the morrow?’

  ‘Yes. There is one other thing. Didn’t tell the men, didn’t reckon they’d be so happy about it.’

  Marlowe paused, slugged down the wine, poured another glass. He was not so happy about it himself. Miserable, in fact. Had not realized how miserable until that moment, the moment he had to explain himself to Bickerstaff.

  ‘We must go after King James, bring him back.’

  Bickerstaff stared at him, silent, for what seemed quite a long time. ‘You agreed to this?’

  ‘What else could I do? But look, there is every chance that we will never find them.’

  ‘And if we do, you’ll bring James back to be hanged like a dog?’

  ‘I shall try. I imagine James or I will be killed in the trying. I don’t reckon we’ll both be coming back.’

  ‘James would not come back alive.’

  ‘I have no choice in this, Francis, please understand. There would have been no privateering without I agreed to this.’

  Bickerstaff shook his head. ‘Privateering? We are talking about betraying a friend.’

  ‘Betraying?’ Marlowe was getting angry and trying not to. ‘James betrayed me, putting me in this position.’

  ‘You know why James did what he did. You would have done the same.’

  ‘Indeed I would have.’ Marlowe leaned back, his mind weaving through the maze of arguments. ‘And I would have been an outlaw as well. See here, Francis, you are the one forever harping on the law, the rule of law. Recall how Wilkenson took the law into his own hands, burned our tobacco crop? Well, how is what James has done any different? What law gives James the right to murder a ship’s crew, as detestable as they might be, eh?’

  Bickerstaff thought on that for some moments, long enough for Marlowe to consume two more glasses. Finally he said, ‘You are right, Thomas. It grieves me to say it, but you are right, in a philosophical line. I cannot deny that you are morally justified in trying to bring James to trial. But of course you do not believe a word of your own argument.’

  ‘Not even the first syllable of it.’ Marlowe closed his eyes, took a deep breath, tried to drive the misery away. ‘But I must do this thing, because if I do not, then Elizabeth loses everything dear to her.’

  He opened his eyes. ‘And I must justify it to myself, or I shall never sleep again.’

  CHAPTER 6

  Twenty-four hours since they had cut the blackbirder’s cable and gone, riding the northeasterly wind through the capes and back out into the big sea. Twenty-four hours and that innate human reflex to find order began asserting itself.

  The eighty or so Africans still alive, some just barely, had organized themselves into clusters, by family, by clan, by common language, the men talking and planning, the women tending to their families, the children emerging slowly from their trauma, looking about, exploring the world within arm’s reach of their mothers.

  The ship – James did not know her name and did not want to know – was drifting, the sails brailed up and banging in great folds, the light airs pushing them along more sideways than forward.

  He knew where they were, or close enough. James had learned to dead-reckon, had sailed the Northumberland in fog enough times to understand about noting speed and heading and drift, if it could be figured, and to deduce from that where the ship was. He had found a chart, had pricked their position hourly. Knew that it would be important, once they had decided what they would do.

  He was on the quarterdeck, alone. He had no clan, save for Cato and Joshua, Good Boy and Quash, and they were forward, knotting and splicing and fixing those things that needed fixing for the ship to function.

  King James sat atop the nearly wrecked binnacle box, surveyed his command. The people. The family. The clan.

  The pumps were the only work that needed doing, and they needed a distressing amount of attention, as the ship was taking on quite a bit of water. Madshaka had organized gangs who relieved each other at the turn of the half-hour glass. The creaking of the pumps, the gush of water, were the leitmotif under the babble of talk on deck.

  James looked forward, and saw Madshaka emerge from the hold, his head and big shoulders rising up from the dark as he mounted the ladder, his face grim, set. None of the other people had by choice gone back down there after Cato and Joshua had unbattened the hatch, and James doubted that they ever would.

  Only those dozen strong young men chosen by Madshaka had gone down, gone back into the pit with Madshaka and James to clear away the bodies, the parts of bodies, and throw them overboard, to light brimstone fires and replace the stink of death with the stink of hell. Hell burnt clean.

  It had taken hours. Among the worst hours in James’s life, and the competition was fierce for that distinction. Now it was time for the next step.

  ‘Madshaka, pray, a word.’

  Madshaka trotted aft, his big bare feet making no sound on the planking. Madshaka was a blessing to James, a natural leader, like himself, invaluable in bringing order, second in command by tacit consent.

  ‘Yes, Captain?’ Madshaka said, with his big smile quite at odds with the somber look he had had coming up from the hold.

  ‘We have to figure what we will do next. We can’t drift forever. We must decide.’

  ‘That true. That true.’ Madshaka screwed up his face, as if framing a question, began, paused, and then said, ‘Captain James, you know much about them pirates?’

  James knew quite a bit about pirates, in fact, having fought them at Marlowe’s side aboard the guardship, having learned of their ways from Marlowe, who knew from firsthand experience.

  ‘Yes. Some.’

  ‘When the pirates aboard this ship, I listen. They aboard a long time, and I listen, but I don’t understand. They have no chief, I think. Each man have a say in what they do. And black men too, black men among the pirates and they have a say. Is that right?’

  James nodded. How to explain those nefarious people? He hated pirates, those robbers, murderers. He had killed many of them with his own hands. And yet, and yet …

  Madshak
a was not wrong in what he perceived. The men who turned pirate were the world’s downtrodden, and they would no longer suffer such abuse. Each man had a vote, each man received an equal share. Total equality. The color of their skin was not an issue, only their courage and devotion to the brotherhood.

  Marlowe was the first, one of the few white men to treat James as an equal. He had gained his color blindness among the pirates. How to judge such men?

  ‘The pirates pick their captain, their chief. But he is only chief when they fight. Other times, they all choose what they are to do, where they go. Every man gets an equal share of what they steal.’

  Madshaka nodded, raised his eyebrows. ‘That is very fair, I think, very just.’ He paused, looked around the deck at the various clusters of people. ‘You could tell them what to do, and they would listen. I could tell them, and they would listen to me. But maybe, we do like the pirates? Maybe we vote on captain, on where we go? It seem … most just.’

  James nodded as well, uncomfortable though he was with modeling any part of himself after the pirates.

  Still, Madshaka had a point. It could not be up to him, or any other one person, to decide what they would do. They must vote.

  It was with some small sense of relief that he called Kusi over and explained what he and Madshaka had decided, told Kusi what to tell the others.

  They would vote. It would not be on James’s shoulders. The group would decide. He would do their bidding.

  For a moment, at least, the weight was gone.

  Kusi and Madshaka went from group to group, explaining, hearing suggestions, conferring. There seemed to be quite a bit of organizational talk, but James had no idea because he could not understand a word of it.

  For two turns of the glass the tribes carried on an animated debate within their groups.

  Good Boy, Cato, Quash, and Joshua left off their work, came aft. ‘What’s acting?’ Cato asked.