“It is precisely because the galleon has never been taken that it will be vulnerable. It is because the Governor would never imagine that we would take the risk that we should try.”
“It cannot be done!” boomed Bishop.
“Hear me now!” said Read. “By some coincidence, the captain and I are on accord with this plan. I tell you this: the ship on which I rode came within a brace of shakes of taking the galleon last year, had the passengers aboard been but bold enough. Instead, one by one, they turned against each other and only I survive. I have seen that craft, I have seen her crew, and she can indeed be taken, by men that are bold in their boots. With one strike we can make our fortunes and, even if we fail, we can establish our names. So what say you all? Ride or die!”
At such rousing words, all aboard, save Xbalanque and Bishop, called out “Aye!” and raised their weapons above their heads to support the cheer. Rackam, much pleased by Read’s words on his behalf, strode toward him and clapped him on the back.
So we resolved to remain in the waters off the north coast of the island of Jamaica at a certain latitude and longitude that Rackam’s spies indicated would be the route taken by the Madrid galleon. The hands who staffed the masthead were particularly informed that the galleon would fly a black sail and would have a wide hull, like a vessel pregnant with another. Rackam instructed each and every man aboard the Will to be of increased vigilance for men-o’-war dispatched by Governor Lawes set sail to capture us and see us hanged.
“The good Governor Lawes no doubt has the gallows built and the nooses tied,” said Rackam. “I have no plans or desires to see my life’s journey conclude on the end of a rope in the Palisadoes. So stay vigilant all!”
We sail’d in an easterly direction, in close proximity to some of Jamaica’s main cays and natural harbors. We passed Negril Port, where the water is so clear one can see the sea floor, even at several fathoms deep; we glided through the blue-green waters of Montego Bay, where the palm trees on the shore seemed to dance and wave like friendly maids; and we continued past Platform Bay, where the breeze carried the smell of flowers and fruit, making the mouth water and the heart sing.
As we sailed, I noted that Read and Poop, quite against my expectations, had struck up a kind of friendship. The two were assigned the same watch and so spent days and nights together; they combed and plaited each other’s pigtails, they mended and washed each other’s clothes, they took meals together in the mess, and they slung hammocks together side by side. This was not seen as at all unusual; most of the men had partners in such fashion. Sea-life was long and hard and it was borne more readily in pairs. Still, in Read and Poop, I sensed a closer tie than most. And because I knew of Read’s secret, I wondered to myself the true extent of their connection.
Curious, I put the inquiry to him as he cleaned a deck-gun one afternoon. Read had taken command of the cannon that had formerly been assign’d to Angel and had, as gun-head, appointed Poop as the second member of the squad. They were an odd pair— Read in all his blunt, coarse beauty, with his strong words and bold moves, and Poop, pale and most times silent, reluctant to act, given to remaining in the shadows.
When I asked Read about Poop and whether there were any boundaries attached to their friendship, Read just laughed, throwing his head back and grabbing his belly in his mirth. He then hugged me and kissed me on both cheeks. Finally, after a wink, and without saying anything by way of explanation, he turned his back to me and returned his attentions to his cannon.
Xbalanque, from his post on the masthead, had also taken note of the connection between Read and Poop, and I heard him whispering sly poison about it to Bishop, who, word had it, was offended that the two had dared to take possession of Angel’s gun. Bishop was also stung that, tho’ he was the more senior member, Read’s words had managed to have more sway with the crew. Already, by nature, a cruel man, he began to bark orders at Read with an increasing ferocity. His glances at Read seethed with anger, and, when he addressed him on whatever matter, he made no attempt to disguise the disdain in his voice.
Although Bishop was a giant of a man, well muscled and frightening to behold, with his peeled face and many scars from combat, Read betrayed no intimidation. Whenever he was addressed by Bishop, he smiled; whenever he was given a task by Bishop, no matter how difficult, he laughed; whenever Bishop’s name came up in conversation, even when Bishop was within earshot, Read bellowed with jocularity.
“Let him challenge me, if he dares,” Read told me. “’Tis not size that makes the warrior, but skill.”
Indeed, Read’s prowess as a fighter was well known throughout the Will. All had been impressed by his sword-work when I dueled him that day on his phantom craft. Since then, I had seen him wrestle to the ground men twice his size and I once witness’d him, using a broom handle, disarm two drunken crewmates fighting with cutlasses. He was quick and deceptively strong, and, word was, an exceptional pistol shot as well.
“Did you slay those aboard your previous vessel as you suggested?” I asked him one day as we leaned against the rails, breathing in the fresh wind off the Jamaican coast.
“Where did you learn that tale?” said Read.
“Why from you, you fool! In your address to the men, you said your former crew dispatched themselves through combat, with only you remaining.”
“That is a tale to tell children to frighten them,” said Read.
“Then what happened?”
“My previous ship, it could be said, contain’d those who would take advantage.”
“I see your lips moving but cannot, by my troth, figure your meaning.”
Read smiled, but there was a shadow on his face.
“My dear Bonn,” he said, “I am who I am and will brook no evidence to the contrary. There are those, aboard ships at sea, who would treat a woman as a woman, even if she, by any reasonable standard, is of the opposite sex. But I have means of defense and I put them to use. But— ahhh— this is all a horror I cannot tell just yet. When we have made our fortunes, and we sip coconut milk on some Caribbean shore in our dotage, then will I spill the secrets of my youth to you, and you will respond in kind.”
Read continued to laugh off Bishop, and Bishop, his attempts foiled, began to watch Poop more closely. Poop, being of a tremulous nature, became all the more nervous and excitable with a watchful, baleful eye focused on him. Bishop, sensing at last that his pressure was resulting in some ill effect, began to follow Poop all the more, like some wolf stalking the smallest member of a flock of sheep, or a no-see-um buzzing ’round the ears on a sweaty day.
Bishop pushed on in his efforts at annoyance and intimidation. He critiqued Poop harshly as Poop scrubbed the deck, tho’ the deck, after his efforts, was nearly like a mirror; Bishop hovered around Poop as he folded the sails, berating him to repeat each attempt again and again until Poop grew flustered and tearful. And when Poop reacted thus, Bishop berated him directly, attacking not only his skill at tasks but his very person, assaulting the boy’s physique, which was slight, and his general lack of comportment.
After such sessions, Read would take Poop aside and whisper words of encouragement in his ear. Read also began to teach him the skills of fighting— the pistol, the dagger, and the sword— but Poop seem’d a reluctant student, with little natural ability in the martial arts. When Read pushed too hard with his training, Poop would retire to a small dark corner below decks, cover his ears with his hands, close his eyes, and shake, as if afflicted with some sudden chill.
“Get up!” Read would tell his charge. “You must become a fighter!”
“Perhaps it’s not his nature,” I said. “Perhaps it’s not in him.”
“None of us know what is in us,” Read replied, “until our guts are spilled.”
One afternoon, after a full hour in which Bishop mocked Poop’s manhood in full sight and hearing of other crew members, his insults raining down like a plague of frogs, something in the lad snapped. A small dagger— one that he had u
sed in his training sessions with Read— found its way into his hand. Bishop, seeing the flash of metal, snarled and drew his own weapons, a cutlass in each hand. The two circled each other, and the crew gather’d ’round to witness the slaughter. I watched this transpire from the masthead and began to scale down as quickly as I could, with a mind to save Poop before he was hacked to pieces by the larger, stronger man. Read, I knew, was below deck and so it would be up to me to take some action.
But I was too late. First-Rate stepped between the two and called an end to the confrontation, which, if left unregulated, could have spread throughout the ship. He suggested a formal combat to settle the differences between the two, and soon word was passed around the Will: the ship would lay at anchor off some small islet and the duel would take place in the morning.
That night, Poop lay in Read’s hammock, crying softly against his shoulder.
“You can let no man rule you,” Read told him in a quiet, firm voice. “If your life is not your own, it is not a life.”
I was put off by the sight, because Poop’s weakness seem’d to forecast doom in the coming duel. If only I had been faster scaling down from the masthead! The sadness and futility of it all was too much for me to take. I left the sleeping quarters and ascended to the quarterdeck to take in the night air.
Bishop was there, bent over his weapons, sharpening their edges.
chapter 22.
It was a day in which the sun never rose. The canopy of the world, instead, faded from the black of night to a sickly gray, with only a pale patch of sky the color of a long-dead corpse to denote where in the heavens the sun had hidden her face. As the morn dragged on, it seem’d to me that the ceiling of the world had fallen, for a moist, white mist had descended, enveloping the ship in its entirety, and floating along the surface of the water like the pale breath of angels.
I was on the morning watch, and, just as the morning turned to white, I was surprised to be joined by Read, who took a place silently beside me. For a long time, we said nothing to each other, for the masthead is small and cramped and the mere touch of his shoulder ’gainst mine was communication enough between us. Our eyes looked out to sea, studying the flatness of the water, the changing shades of the sky, the shifting mist. I was glad to have him there beside me. With strangers, we often struggle to make conversation; with acquaintances, the dialogue comes easily because of shared pursuits and interests; with true friends, language once again falls away, and shows her face when required.
The mist was clammy and cold, and, as I had begun to shiver, Read put an arm around me and held me tight to him. It was then that I noticed that Read had begun to speak, but in tones so tranquil that his words had mixed almost imperceptibly with my thoughts. Read was talking about his love for the sea, and for high adventure, and of his service on other privateering vessels before this one. I decided to pose a question that had been much on my mind.
“When the men took advantage of you on your last
voyage . . .”
“Must I repeat myself like the seasons?” Read said. “I do not wish to speak of it again.”
There was a silence between us, and then, at last, he spoke.
“My mother, when I was a child of fewer years than I could count on both hands, came under assault by a group of sailors put to shore. They killed my father, and, as he fought, my mother dressed me in boy’s clothes. The attackers, ignorant of my true sex, spared me and bade me to watch while they went about their business with my mother. I remembered that these fellows were each branded by a similar tattoo, that of a bull snorting flames, perhaps obtain’d during some shared drunken revel. As fortune had it, having kept an eye out every day for all these long years, I came upon a few of these fellows, the remains of this gang, on my previous vessel. I ended their voyages early.”
“You killed them all?”
“Grace O’Malley would have done no less.”
“Grace O’Malley?”
“You know the name?”
“Very well. I am surprised that you do.”
“Of course! It is a legend I know intimately. I am British-born, but even as a young’un, I took interest in the fairy stories of your Irish folk. My mother would sing the song.”
Read sang in a strong voice these words:
“Grace O’Malley is coming across the sea,
“With soldiers armed and strong,
“Neither French nor Spanish but Irish,
“They scatter the attackers”
“She is no legend,” I said. “In Ireland we called her Grainne Mhaol. She was a sea-dog, like us. Before the time of your grandmother’s mother, she ruled the waters off western Ireland— King Philip the Second of Spain paid her one thousand pounds for the right to fish in her territories, even Queen Elizabeth petitioned her for a treaty of cooperation.”
“Ha! So the song is true!”
“I will not sing it now, but, when I was a girl, I would hear children in the streets of Cork sing her ballad, ‘Oro Se Do Bheatha Bhaile,’ in our tongue.”
I spoke these words:
“Grainne Mhaol ag teacht thar saile
“Oglaigh armtha lei mar gharda
“Gaeil iad fein’s ni Frainc na Spaninnigh
“’S cuirfidh said ruaig ar Ghallaibh”
“That song gives me heart!” said Read. “Here’s to Grace O’Malley! Like her, I will resist all powers. I will kill before some man passes, unbidden, between these thighs. I will die before some brat, unwanted, issues out of them. The men on my last vessel failed to understand that, and they paid a heavy price. No man will ever rule over me!”
For a long time, it seemed, we were alone together on the masthead, and whether a week had passed or a quarter hour, I could not say. But, at the assign’d time, Xbalanque and Hunahpu came up to relieve me of my duty, and as I climb’d down along with Read, Xbalanque tossed me another of his nasty sneers. But he reserved his real venom for Read.
“The men have cast their wagers ten to one ’gainst your friend,” Xbalanque said to Read. “By tonight, he’ll sleep not in the hammock next to yours, but on the seabed.”
“Ten to one? Those are fine odds! Put me down for a ten-shilling bet cast ’gainst my charge. Either way, then, this fight will result in my good fortune!”
Read laughed as he said this, and appeared merry, but after he passed Xbalanque, his true mood bobbed to the surface and his countenance turned grim.
All hands had gathered on the quarterdeck, and most were in a boisterous mood. One might think that, aboard a privateering vessel, the men would see enough blood in the normal course of action, but duels always aroused a special interest. Rackam stood waiting along with the men and his face did not betray whether he took any joy or displeasure in serving as the master of the grim ceremonies. First-Rate stood beside him, checking on his gold pocket-watch; looking up, I saw Hunahpu at the masthead, his eyes out to sea as was his duty, whilst Xbalanque, by contrast, watched the proceedings below with much interest and exchanged signals with his seconds down below about the progress of the wagering.
The two combatants themselves were, at first, nowhere to be seen, but, in fair time, both came on deck. First arrived Poop, who struck me as rather rabbitlike in his demeanor— his brown eyes were wide with emotion and darted back and forth in his head; his nose was twitching as if he could sniff out the approaching calamity and thus escape it. He had always seem’d a smallish boy, but on this day he seem’d positively minuscule, more punctuation than man, and once he walked into the center of the crowd of onlookers, it was hard to pick him out again, as his tiny comma was lost in the alphabet of full-bodied mariners.
Now came Bishop, and his approach was like that of a mountain. At his base he wore massive black leather bucket boots, square toed and flaring at the top. He was clad in leather breeches on his lower half, and the muscles of his legs could be seen bunching and tensing even through the thick material. His torso, broad and sunbaked, was bare. At his summit, his ruined face
was sunburnt and red, and his eyes smolder’d like the smoking vents of Vesuvius. His mouth, filled with broken, craggy teeth, was set in a deep scowl that fell down his chin like an avalanche of scorn. When Bishop stood over Poop, the boy was lost in the giant man’s shadow.
Just then, Rackam made an announcement that stunned us all— save Read.
“Another has challenged Bishop,” said Rackam in an even voice.
“I’ll have time enough for the next after I finish with the first,” said Bishop.
“The new challenger is Read,” said Rackam. “And he asks for the right to proceed with his challenge first.”
Now Rackam turned to the crew.
“I put the vote to you all: should Read’s challenge precede the prior one?”
A general cheer went up. Privateers, after all, are fair folk when they aren’t engaged in thievery or debauchery, and a duel between Read and Bishop seem’d more sporting.
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