by Barry Sadler
So that was what Julio had, a sharp rock. It would take a long time to cut through the vines. No, that wasn't right. The glass rock was sharper than steel. Casca had seen men shave with it. His wrists would be free shortly. But there would still be the problem of the vines around his ankles. Well, he would worry about that when the time came. In the meantime, if there was obsidian on the island, why hadn't the men used it to make better weapons? The only explanation Casca could think of was that the pirates who were marooned were not necessarily the smartest men in the world. But that didn't hold water either. What about young Julio? He seemed like a pretty sharp kid.
Shit! Casca complained to himself. Here I go thinking again. And every time I do it I get my ass in a sling. Thinking about his ass reminded him that he needed to piss, but that didn't seem to be something that he was going to be able to do in the immediate future. He glanced furtively at the ground around him to see if there was a sharp rock on which he might try cutting his ankles loose. No luck. There were a couple of clubs lying on the soft earth within easy reach of his hands, but nothing useful for freeing his feet. Damn! He couldn't go for the clubs until his feet were free.
At the moment he came to that conclusion, he felt the vines loosen from around his wrists. His hands were now free, but that was all Julio could do for him. Almost all – he felt the sharp rock, warmed by Julio's hand and the friction of sawing the vines, being pushed into his opened palm. Well, he had a weapon of sorts but there was damn little he could do with it.
At that moment, the brush hiding the tunnel entrance moved aside and the one armed Scot wriggled out into the stockade, followed by four of his men.
Outside the palisade wall, Julio, having freed Casca's wrists, now found himself in a tough situation. He had gotten to the fort in the first place by crawling through the grass that lay in the deep shadow cast by the early morning sun and the stockade wall. He had found Casca by his scent – the scar faced stranger was so soon from a ship that he still smelled of things not on the island: rum and tobacco and the other elusive but well remembered odors of life aboard ship, as well as the tarred ropes that had bound him. It wasn't hard to find him outside the wall, and Julio felt proud of himself for using his nose. He also felt proud for having brought the sharp stone along and for having cut Casca 's wrists loose.
But now he was trapped. The sun had climbed up in the sky. There were no more shadows to hide in, not so long as the noon approached.
He huddled against the wall, knowing he had a long, long time to wait.
"Who the hell are you?" The one armed Scot had come over to Casca and now hunkered down in front of him but well out of reach. The Scot had black, feisty eyes under heavy eyebrows. He carried an air of constant suspicion. Casca considered him. The big man looked like a troublemaker all right, and it wasn't hard to figure out how he must have gotten himself marooned.
"I asked you a question, you bastard. Who are you?"
Now that was something Casca would have to think about. Again he did not answer right off but continued staring into the Scot's eyes until something happened.
He could see mirrored in the feisty black eyes something of what the Scot saw in him, and instantly he knew that the Scot had seen the iced water coldness of death in his own gray blue eyes. He had looked deep into the utter ruthlessness that could be Casca, and had the shit scared out of him, even though Casca was bound and apparently helpless but the Scot did not show his fear. Casca knew he had him, so he answered him: "Captain Cass Long, late a passenger aboard The Queen's Revenge, Captain Teach commanding, Israel Hands, master. En route to the command of Captain Tarleton Duncan." He rolled the words out of his mouth in the stately manner that was now the fashion, all the while his eyes fixed sharply on the Scot.
The big man scowled, looked back over his shoulder, and called, "McLean!"
A scrawny little fellow with darting, rat eyes detached himself from the group and scurried over to the Scot.
"You're the latest one to come aboard, excepting, of course, this one with the scar on his face. D'ye recall kenning a mon name o' Captain Teach?"
McLean 's rat eyes grew wide, and his small mouth smirked. "Aye. 'Tis the devil himself. Blackbeard.”
"Blackbeard?"
“Aye”
“Ah”
"Look," Casca interrupted, "let's cut this shit. I want to get off this godforsaken island" - he deliberately made his voice rise in volumes "and I know damn well your men want to get off it too."
"Laddie, y're in naw position t' get off nawt."
"Like hell. I know how to do it, and you've been sitting on your butt."
The Scot started to hit him, then thought better of it. "Talk," he growled.
"All right. What I say you do is stop this damned fighting shit between you and the Spaniards. Get together. Organize. Lay for the next ship that puts in here from the look of how many of you there are on this asshole of an island there must be more damn ships sailing here than there are tits in a Bristol whorehouse – take her, and get back to the sea where the plunder is. Ain't a goddamn man among you's going to get rich squatting on his duff on this hunk of sand eating coconuts."
Casca had been loud enough. The men had come up. Now they were in a semicircle ranged around the big Scot, grinning. One big fisted, red haired, ruddy faced fellow even said: "Fucking good thinking, mate."
The big Scot raised his one hand and scratched his nose with his thumb. "And how d'ye plan to take a ship, seeing as how we've nawt to fight wi '? Nae sword, nae gun, nae weapon o' any kind, me bucko."
"There are fifteen of you. There are thirteen Spaniards. More than enough men to take on the crew of a ship particularly if you lure one of them away and take his weapons."
"Lure? It's going to be luring, aye? And how d'ye think y're about t' lure a mon wi' a wee gun or so?"
C:asca told him and the men roared with laughter.
But the Scot was dubious. "It'll nee work. There's not a mon here…"
"You forget the Spanish. "
"But we fight the Spanish."
"Damn your fighting. You want to get your ass off this damn island, don't you?"
The Scot hesitated. That was when a distant voice came from somewhere high up on the mountain behind them.
"Halloo the fort! Halloo! Sail ho! Sail ho! East-south-east by east. Sail ho! Sail ho!"
"Now!" Casca shouted. "Now's the opportunity. What about it?"
But the Scot still hesitated.
Oh, shit! Casca thought. He didn't have the time to argue. He brought his hands around, pushed himself unsteadily erect on his bound feet, picked up a club, and smashed the Scot in his thick skull before the dumbfounded pirates shocked motionless by his apparently magical eruption could react. "Dammit!" he said. "There's no time to waste! Call the Spaniards! Look lively, you bastards! It's now or never!"
He bent over, and with his left hand began sawing at the vines on his ankles, using the stone Julio had given him and keeping a weather eye out for the crew.
For half a dozen heartbeats it all hung in the balance. Then the red haired Englishman bellowed: "You heard the captain! Hop to it, mates! Lively, now! Lively!"
Casca was free. He called to the Spaniards. There was an answering halloo in Spanish. Now if these morons would only work together for a little while...
Human beings are the damndest animals, Casca thought, looking at the pirates grouped before him out on the open slope of the hill a couple of hundred yards from the fort but out of sight of it. Spanish and English. An hour ago they had been at each other's throats. Now here they were, standing together.
Well, not exactly together. The Spaniards were more or less on one side, the English on the other. But they were more interested in what he had to say than in braining each other.
"Pero, thees ‘lure,’ Senor Capitan Loong," Garcia, the fat Spaniard (the only fat man on the island), was trying manfully to speak in English "who thees one she esta?"
Casca told him. And Julio w
ho had not hitherto been consulted on the matter yelled, "By the Mother of God, no! I will not! No! No! But never!"
"You want to stay on this shitass island?"
"But Honor!" Julio went off into Spanish so fervent and rapid that even Casca could not keep up with it. And that was when the lookout up on the mountain yelled, "Sail making for the island!"
Casca called: "What kind of ship?"
"Sloop."
"There! That does it! A sloop we can take." He turned to Julio and said in Spanish, "This is one we can handle. What about it?"
The young Spaniard looked despairingly around at the semicircle of pirates. One of the Brotherhood men spat to leeward and said: "Shit, kid, ain't nobody going to hold it against you." The words meant nothing to Julio, but he understood the tone.
"All right. Now."
"Captain!" One of the quieter Brotherhood men, a Yorkshireman by the look of him, interrupted. "I can improve on what you had in mind. I spent four years apprenticed to a portrait painter in London." The pirate's voice was soft and his diction unexpectedly above the servant class. Casca guessed he probably preferred boys to girls, but that was his business. Now his deep blue eyes were looking questioningly at Casca. "I want to get off this island, too," he added.
"What do you have in mind?" There wasn't much time. If the sloop was making any headway at all and judging by the stiff breeze coming in from the sea she ought to be they had less than an hour to set up an ambush.
"If the captain pleases, leave that to me."
Hell! Why not? There were other matters he had to tend to. "All right. But step lively, dammit!" He looked out to sea where the top of the sloop's mast was now becoming visible from the beach. He would have to get his men in position; he had never seen the terrain farther down the beach where the sloop would land if it landed
If it passed by now, that, dammit, would tear it all. But he didn't mention his fear to the men. He headed them down toward the landing and then momentarily looked back out to sea. More of the sail was now visible. The sloop was making good time.
Casca wondered what the sloop's captain was doing at the moment. He certainly wouldn't be expecting twenty nine men to ambush his men and take over his ship.
CHAPTER NINE
The sloop's captain was standing aft by the rail, holding a half empty bottle of rum by the neck, idly watching the black slaves work his ship, and thinking of nothing in particular. The one female slave, naked from the navel up, was leaning against the rail to the leeward side watching the green shape of the island come up out of the water. The female slave was the captain's personal property, but at the moment he was not looking at her, nor was anyone else. The way she was standing the big teats on her full brown breasts pointed down at the whispering green sea and swayed with the roll of the ship. Leaning against the rail she had a little the look of a cow but of a cow that had been milked too often.
"Put yet into idt der Godt damn butts!" the captain suddenly roared at the slaves forward. His mulatto third mate obediently brandished his whip.
Slaves! The captain was in a foul mood, and he was more than willing to take it out on the slaves. He was running a cargo of sugar. The hold was packed with hogsheads, and there were even half a dozen or so lashed on deck. The sugar hogsheads were heavy, overloading the sloop, making her ride very low in the water, and the extra tonnage would probably have slowed her down had she not already been hampered by the heavy barnacle growth on her old hull. The captain was a mean, brutal, small minded lout but he was also a reasonably competent seaman. If this ancient sloop were not careened and the barnacles scraped from her she would take forever to make the passage to New Orleans if she made it at all. He had sailed these waters a long time. He could practically smell the storms that were coming. And overloaded as the sloop was she would founder. What he really needed to do was throw some of the sugar overboard. But the greed that had put the sugar on in the first place was the greed that would keep it aboard.
This island, now. Not on the charts but that didn't necessarily mean anything. What he could count on was that she was most certainly uninhabited otherwise she would be on a chart. And if there was a flat beach at all, then he could careen his vessel and get the barnacles off. At least that was what had gone through his mind, but there had been something else, too. If he was right in sensing that a storm was brewing, it would probably come about the time they finished the careening, and he could take shelter somewhere about the island if there was a suitable anchorage. None of this did he discuss with his first mate, the only other white man aboard, an old man, maybe over fifty, whose chief pleasure in life seemed to be seeing the blood run from the whip marks on a black slave's back. Vell, to every man his pleasure.
He glanced casually, at the black female slave, and the left corner of his mouth lifted beneath the shaggy mustache. She was the only woman aboard, and she was strictly for his use only. He could imagine how that galled the other officers and maybe even the slaves, too, though they, of course, were mere cattle, seeing those big brown tits and not being able to do anything about it.
Ah! Momentarily the captain was almost happy. He swung the rum bottle to his lips and took a long pull....
They made the island at about the middle of the day, and, yes, there was an anchorage. More, there was a long stretch of gently sloping white beach backed by a stand of big coconut palms whose trunks were sturdy enough to take tackle. Soundings with the lead as well as the color of the water showed a drop off and a gradient ideal for careening. All that momentarily bothered the captain. The site was too perfect. He swept his spyglass carefully over the entire area, looking for signs that other ships before him had careened here, but there was only the virgin land. So! Vas not only yet der uncharted island, vas one nodt yet found. Immediately he ordered the beginning of the careening, now in the hot middle of the day, seeing with pleasure the dark looks he got not only from the slave crew but from his own officers. Any reasonable captain would have waited until the cool of the evening. Ah! The boat he now sent ashore he put in the charge of the first mate, knowing that that individual hated the boatswain's guts, and the two of them would not be likely to get together against him. Besides, the first mate had an odd passion for weapons. If he behaved as he usually did, he would be wearing a double brace of pistols, a long dirk, cutlass, and carrying a musket double loaded. Not the kind of man to let a slave get away.
Ja!
Damn all slaves! Carter Jenkins, first mate of the sloop Odysseus, lounged in the stern sheets of the ship's boat, pulled up on the white sand of the beach, and waited while the wiry little mulatto boatswain organized his slave crew. There was the matter of the big hawser to be carried to the line of coconut palms and sundry other matters. Jenkins paid very little attention to that. Though he thoroughly despised the little boatswain he was satisfied that the mulatto knew his job. As a matter of fact he envied the little bastard his competence; that was one of the reasons for his hatred. The boatswain would take care of things nicely. Oh, after everything was set up he, Jenkins, might be able to find some little something to bitch about and make life a little unpleasant for the boatswain but let that come later. Right now Jenkins had other things on his mind.
What he mostly had on his mind was the women he was going to have when they got to New Orleans. Silently he cursed the captain for dangling that female slave in front of them all the time particularly the bit about taking her out on deck and having her bathe under the ship's pump. He knew exactly why the captain did it and the son of a bitch had succeeded. Well... He would have been horny enough anyway.
Jenkins was past fifty and that made a difference in the execution but not in the anticipation. As a matter of fact, he admitted to himself, maybe there was more anticipation now than when he was young. After a long voyage he dreamed of women, thought of women, even imagined sometimes that he saw their phantom images, like the mirages on the desert that time the Tripoli pirates had held him captive.
So now, in the noonday
tropical sun, only partially protected by the wide brimmed hat he wore the sun no reasonable white man would ever go out in, he half expected to see the images of naked women in the dancing air over the hot beach. He didn't, though, so his attention came back to the second pleasure in his life, the possibility of killing one of these damned slaves. They were like children. Now that they were ashore they were probably dreaming of making a dash for the underbrush. Which was really the reason Jenkins was still sitting out here in the stern of the longboat broiling his brains in the sun. He wanted them to think they had a chance. Then he would get the first one who tried to run away. In Jenkins' experience, there was always at least one who tried it. He looked forward to shooting slaves or anything else for that matter. Jenkins did not particularly like using a blade. He was pretty good with a cutlass if he had to be, but he never liked it. Truth was, he wanted to stay just a little distance away from whatever he killed, and a blade meant too close contact.
Now a woman, though... Close contact was fine there. Yeah... Real fine...
Jenkins sighed and stood up unsteadily in the longboat. It was pulled up far enough on the beach not to be washed out, but it still swayed a little as he stood upright. Hell! he thought. I got too much going through my mind. His nerves were on edge and he suddenly felt like something was going to happen but he didn't know what. But he thought it was going to be something good, something to look forward to. That was the trouble about getting old. There wasn't all that much to look forward to. Jenkins spat into the water and got out of the longboat.
He had spotted a smooth rock in the shade of a tree and headed for it. The rock would make a good place to sit and watch that little bastard mulatto boatswain struggle with his slaves to get the hawsers around the trees and the tackle set up. It was a nice flat rock with an open space behind it and underbrush coming up on both sides. In a way it was kinda like a stage. After he got his fill of women in New Orleans, maybe he'd go to a theater, watch a play. Wouldn't be as much fun as bedding a whore, but it would be something to do. Now if only–