Greenbeard (9781935259220)

by Bentley, Richard James

  The crew were paying attention now, and Captain Greybagges shouted down the companionway:

  “Bring it up, Chips!”

  The ship’s carpenter, Jesus-is-my-saviour Chippendale, and the First Mate, Israel Feet, carried an easel and a chalkboard up onto the quarterdeck and set it by the Captain.

  “I must be yez schoolmaster! A pedagogue! Har-har! My old black hat shall be my mortar-board, ‘pon my soul! Now listen yez to where I hid the treasure, har-har! Yez’ll have heard o’ banks, shipmates, but here’s a few notions about banks that may not have struck yez, look’ee ...”

  The Captain spoke on, scrawling diagrams on the chalkboard, tapping them with the chalk to emphasize this or that. The crew were now looking slightly stunned. He is talking for his life, Blue Peter thought, if they think he is doing them down they will feed him to the sharks. Why is he risking that? He could have kept them quiet with an occasional handful of moidores or columnarios, and a few vague promises. That is what Morgan or Teach would have done. Indeed, it is accepted that captains of buccaneers are venal and slippery, that’s why they have the crew’s respect ... The Captain was scribbling on the chalkboard again:

  “Har! Fungible! I do loves that word, shipmates!” he tapped the chalk on the board, “for, d’yez sees, fungible means transferrable, and that do mean that it can go anywhere, like the angel of the Lord that girdled the Earth, hah-har! Consider the fish-market. Iffen yez has a ton o’ fish here, then it be the same as a ton o’ fish there, providin’ all else be equal, so yez don’t needs to send a ton of fish if yer can transfer ownership, and then it be fungible, d’ye see? Iffen the one ton of fish there were old and stinky, then it would not be fungible, would it? Not being the same for purposes o’ trade, d’yez sees? That be the problem with fish, o’ course, it do stink arter a few short days, then it be not fungible, it be olfactible, har-har-har! But there be things that do not stink arter a few short days. ‘Like what?’ sez ye. I could say iron, but then iron do rust, not in days, mebbe, but surely with years. Copper? Copper do not rust, so it do stay fungible, but it ain’t worth a vast amount. Now yez sees where I be headed! Gold! Gold be the most fungible of all things. Iffen yer takes an ounce o’ gold and puts it in a bank, then yez goes back later an’ takes it out again it do not matter if it is not the same ounce of gold, only if it be the same weight and the same fineness, and yez can test gold easily with yer teeth, as yez all knows, or on a touchstone. Ah! Gold! Yez all loves gold, but yez forgets that it is fungible, so yez do! A chest o’ gold buried on a distant isle has not lost its value, but it has lost its fungibility as ye cannot spend it. The only way to return the fungibility is to have a treasure map - har-har-har, that perked summa yez up! - but that be just a piece o’ paper, an’ who knows iffen it tells the truth? A note upon a bank, d’yez see, to be paid in gold, is better than a treasure map. It still be a piece o’ paper, but the gold is more likely to be real. And the chest is not buried on an island, no, shipmates, it is as though that chest o’ gold was buried right under yer feet and followed yez around, always right under yer feet, fungible d’ye see? Nice and handy when yer needs it, but nicely out of sight when yez do not.”

  Blue Peter observed that roughly one third of the crew were intent upon the Captain’s words, brows furrowed. Another third were paying attention, but looked a little bewildered. The final third seemed to be in a waking coma, their mouths open, their eyes wandering.

  “So when I gives each o’ yez a letter such as this,” Captain Greybagges held up a square of paper, “yez must regard it as a treasure map! And it is a treasure map, for it will take yez to the offices o’ the Bank o’ International Export - my bank, your bank, our bank, which we all owns - where yez will find two hundred and fifty golden guineas held there in yer very own personal account. Yer very own little treasure chest under yer very own feet at all times. Now what does yez think of that?”

  There was a rumble of approval from the crew. A low rumble of qualified approval, but nevertheless a rumble.

  “Now iffen yez is daft when ye does that, yer will draw out the whole nut and get robbed in the first tavern or bawdy-house that yer sees, and my wise words to yez this day will have been wasted. If yez is smart yer will take out enough for a shant and some fun, enough to buy yer missus or yer tart a new dress, enough to put shoes on yer sister’s weans, even, but leave the rest under yer feet for the next day, an’ the day arter that. That’d be the sharp way, shipmates.”

  The Captain folded his arms and beamed at them for a few seconds.

  “Now, shipmates, I’ll be giving yez these papers in the Port o’ London, and any of yuz that wishes to shake hands and bid goodbye to the buccaneering life may do so then, an’ I will buys yer a drink afore yer goes an’ no hard feelin’s. Some of yez will wish to sign up for another cruise, an’ yer may do that, too, but until then we are finished with freebooting. From now on we are a innocent Dutch armed merchantman, so’s we can travel incognito, and we will disguise the good old Ark de Triomphe tomorrow, whilst in this pleasant anchorage. Then we shall leave, firstly for the port o’ Gabes, and then on to London. Now gets yer rations and fills yer bellies, for yez will have heard enough o’ my yammerin’s, and there is hard work to do on the morrow!”

  “Well, they took that better than I thought they would,” said Blue Peter quietly. He, Bulbous Bill Bucephalus and Israel Feet were sitting in the wardroom, eating ham-and-egg pie and drinking small beer.

  “T’were a fine speech, it were,” said Bulbous Bill in his high squeaky voice. “When Cap’n spoke a’ compound interest an’ leveraging - why! - I ain’t never reely thought-a it like that afore, I have’nt. It do make a person ponder...”

  “Yer can rip out me liver iffen I follered even the one word, dammee, yer can,” said Israel Hands, munching on pie, crumbs spraying. “The Cap’n do speechify nice as kiss-yer-hand, mind yez, and damn me for a lubber, else! An’ two hunnert an’ fifty guineas be even nicer, har-har!”

  “If yer’d bin a-listening,” said Bill, “then yer’d know yer be gettin’ eight shares. That be two fahsand guineas. Same as me an’ Peter, you bein’ First Mate, an’ all.”

  The First Mate continued chewing for a second, then his face went red and he choked. Blue Peter reached across and slapped him on the back. His huge hand nearly knocked the scrawny First Mate from his chair, and lumps of pork, egg and pastry were expelled from his mouth like buckshot. Blue Peter went to to slap Israel Feet on the back once more, but he raised his hand and shook his head, coughing and spluttering, his thin face red. He recovered somewhat and took a drink of ale.

  “Two thousand guineas!” he whispered, the piratical slang leached from his language by sheer surprise, leaving a soft Dorset accent. “Why, that be enough to buy a baronetcy!” He continued coughing.

  “Ho-ho! Or a bishop’s mitre, belike to ole Lance, eh? D’yuz recall the cully? Archbishop o’ York he now be, don’t ‘ee,” chuckled Bulbous Bill, his chins and jowls wobbling.

  “You jest!” spluttered Israel Feet.

  “No, Izzie, he speaks the truth, perhaps,” rumbled Blue Peter, smiling. “Lancelot Blackburne - the very reverend Lancelot Blackburne - was the chaplain to a small fleet of privateering ships in the Caribbean, and some say that he himself turned pirate in a discreet way, but I don’t know the truth of that. He is, however, presently the Archbishop of York, and there is talk that he bought his mitre from debonair King Charles with looted gold. We met him once or twice down in Jamaica. He can be pleasant company, but he has a wicked sharp tongue when he is in drink. He is a learned cove, too. Fond of quoting Waller.”

  Blue Peter took a draught of ale to clear his throat, and declaimed: “Such game, while yet the world was new,

  The mighty Nimrod did pursue;

  What huntsman of our feeble race

  Or dogs dare such a monster chase?”

  The last lines reminded Blue Peter of the Captain’s tale. He is chasing a monster, he thought, one way or another. Is he su
fficiently a mighty Nimrod, though? Another thought struck him; if he is mad, then he is mad like a fox. He bored the crew into acquiescence, and I believe he meant to. He dared them to mutiny, then he stunned them with words, then he gave them a bag of gold, and a bag of gold dependent upon his goodwill, at that. The cleverer members of the crew will be too busy trying to explain the meanings of negotiable instrument and assignat to the slower crewmen to stir up any discontent. That is what they are doing right now, I am sure.

  “Two thousand guineas! Archbishop o’ York, wi’ a curse!” muttered Israel Feet, becoming piratical again as he mastered his surprise.

  “I got summat that might be just the thing for a night-cap,” said Bill, getting up from his settle. While he was away from the wardroom Blue Peter and Israel Feet sat in silence, thinking of two thousand guineas. From the galley came the sound of voices, Bulbous Bill’s squeaky tones among them, then the sound of a slap, and a shriek. Bill returned to the wardroom with a tray.

  “Cap’n ‘as decreed that all shall get at least a single share, even the young ‘uns. Jack Nastyface were overcome by the thought o’ that gold, got so giddy I had to give him a slap,” said Bulbous Bill complacently. “He be alright now, mind.” He passed out porcelain mugs. They drank.

  “What on earth is this?” said Blue Peter, his eyebrows raised. “I have never tasted the like, yet it is exceedingly good!”

  “Denzil got it from one o’ his indian pals,” said Bill. “Them’s little beans. Yer a-roasts ‘em, then yer grinds ‘em to powder, then yer chucks ‘em into boiling water and stirs like buggery. Bit o’ sugar. Bit o’ cream. It be called chocolatl, in the indian lingo.”

  They sipped from their mugs.

  “This has been a day of wonders, it has, an yer may skewer me with a marlinspike, else!” said the First Mate.

  The Ark de Triomphe cut cleanly through the ocean. The wind was brisk, slightly gusting, on the larboard beam, and the sea was choppy. The frigate was making eight knots on the log, and the sun was shining.

  “It itches a trifle, is the only thing,” said Captain Sylvestre de Greybagges, pacing the quarter deck.

  “Even in the bright day it is impossible to tell,” said Blue Peter Ceteshwayoo. “Even where the boot-polish has been rubbed off slightly. The glint of green just looks like a trick of the light.” He examined the captain’s newly-brown beard critically. “No, it is very convincing. Fine rig, too!”

  Captain Greybagges was dressed in the powder-blue uniform of a kapitein van schip in the Dutch East India Company, with gold epaulettes and frogging, and a bicorne hat with gilt edging. Blue Peter was wearing the more-sober blue uniform of a luitenant, Bulbous Bill the black-and-tan broadcloth of a bootsman as he stood at the wheel. The crew were in VOC matrozenpak slops, the red and grey wijde jurk en broek.

  “Where did you obtain such an abundance of apparel?” asked Blue Peter.

  “From the Vereenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie itself,” said the Captain. “Slight seconds and part-worn. Bid on them at auction in Rotterdam, through an agent.”

  “You speak the language well. I have no Dutch myself.”

  “I was a year in Den Haag as a lawyer. The Dutch are the great masters of the law. The French think that they are, but they are just Creation’s greatest wranglers, which is why they have so many skilled in the arithmetic, the geometry and the algebra. The Dutch realise that the law is the work of men, and so can be challenged and altered, which is how the the Republiek der Zeven Verenigde Provinciën - the United Provinces - can function perfectly well without a king. The French have le Roi Soleil, who believes that he is king by the grace of God, so there the law is perceived as an illuminating light shining from Louis’ bumhole. If anybody challenges the law in France then soldiers are billeted upon them until they recant of their heresy, such a punishment is called a dragonnade.”

  “Because it is alike to having a dragon in one’s house, I presume?”

  “It may well be, but it is so-named because the soldiers are dragoons.”

  “They are indeed a rough bunch of fellows, by reputation.”

  “They are. Louis is not worried about the peasants rebelling - they are too starved to fight - nor the aristocrats - they are too few - but the middle people, the bourgeois, could be trouble, the merchants, artisans, tradespeople. If he billeted the common soldiery on such a fellow that would be seen as terrible, and the aristos might think ‘will it next be us?’. If he billeted cavalry they would not gleefully hump the fellow’s wife and daughters, having a dozen mistresses already, and they would not drink his cellar dry because it would not contain a single bottle of vintage Montrachet, probably they would instead contract the fellow to make them a suite of dining-room furniture. So it is the dragoons he sends; the townspeople can pretend they are civilised like the cavalry, and turn their faces away, yet they behave as cruelly as reivers.”

  “Stupid men will often believe that their spite is cleverness,” said Blue Peter.

  “Louis is indeed a stupid man. Soon his idiot’s pride will bring all Europe to war.”

  They stood against the taffrail in silence for a while, watching the sails snap and vibrate in the wind, and the red-and-grey-clad foremast jacks in the rigging trimming them.

  “Tell me, Captain,” said Blue Peter, “when did you buy the Dutch clothes?”

  “Oh, about four months ago,” said Captain Sylvestre de Greybagges, smiling.

  Insane, deluded, or not, thought Blue Peter, his plan has been deeply laid. Where is he taking us, on his monster-chase?

  CHAPTER THE SIXTH,

  or A Close Shave.

  “As we are a-pretendin’ to be nice peaceable Dutch persons,” bellowed Captain Sylvestre de Greybagges, “it behooves yuz to learn yerselves a few words o’ the lingo.” He tapped the blackboard. “First word, o’ course, be ‘please’, because we are polite Dutch persons, and that word is alstublieft, which is short for als het U belieft, meanin’ ‘if it you pleases ‘. Now you say it ... alstublieft.”

  The crew, assembled in the waist and in the rigging, mumbled ‘alstublieft’ as best they could. There was little wind, and the sails hung, flapping occasionally when a stray cat’s-paw of breeze caught them.

  “Pay attention, shipmates,” bellowed the Captain. “We are in the Gulf of Gabes, an’ so we are in the waters o’ the corsairs of Barbary, who are a parcel o’ nasty buggers, and no mistake. Pirates they may be - and indeed they pays fees to use the ports o’ the Spanish main - but they are not members o’ the Free Brotherhood o’ the Coasts, curse ‘em, and they would surely take us prize as soon as look at us. Iffen they did that they would sell us all at the slave-market and we’d spend the rest o’ our miserable lives pulling the oar of a galley.”

  The Captain paused for breath, and to run his cold grey eyes over the faces of the buccaneers.

  “However, I knows that the admiral o’ the Algerine fleet, Suleyman Reis, is actually a Dutchman, name of Salomo de Veenboer!”

  There was a mutter of surprise from the crew.

  “Strange, ain’t it, mateys?” said the Captain, “but it be true. He was taken into slavery himself, but worked his way up through cunning and brutality, an’ now he’s the donanma komutani, which is to say admiral o’ the fleet. He has recently squeezed the Dutch East India Company into givin’ him much gold to let their ships be, an’ some say he do yearn to go home, to the country o’ his birth, and wishes to be seen in a favourable light, and so we be pretendin’ to be Hollanders to take advantage o’ his present benevolence to them. All this’ll be for naught if yuz cannot learn yerselves a few words o’ the lingo. Think o’ the galley-oar iffen yuz finds yer minds wandering, and how many times ye has to pull it every day! Now says it again, you lubbers!”

  “Alstublieft!” roared the crew.

  “The next word is ‘thankyou’, or ‘thank’ee’, which is dank U wel or bedankt ...”

  This notion of the Captain’s to bludgeon the crew into obedience with words works
wondrously well, thought Blue Peter Ceshwayoo, but I pray that he does not over-use it. If he ever intends to give them lectures in the appreciation of water-colours I shall try and stop him. The sun was hot on his neck, and the still air oppressive, the sky a blue bowl from horizon to horizon. The Captain was still bellowing.

  “ ... the Dutch for ‘no’ is nee, or neen in some parts. ‘Yes’ is ja. After me ...”

  There was a shout from the mainmast top. Blue Peter was jerked from a reverie about a plump Dutch lady he had once seen in a painting. The look-out at the main-top was pointing.

  “Lesson over!” roared the Captain. “Do any of yuz lubbers speak any Dutch at all?” A few hands went up. “Yer must stay on deck, then. Enough crew in the rigging to trim sail iffen the wind stiffens, the rest o’ yuz below. Cutlasses and guns ready. Cannon loaded and primed, but not run out. And be as quiet as little mice below, d’yuz hear me? As quiet as little mice!”

  “Do you intend adopting Lord Mondegreen’s stratagem of concealing the crew below decks?” said Blue Peter.

  “Well, I do have the advantage that my crew will come up when I call them,” said the Captain, “but I would rather convince any corsairs that we are a Dutch ship, and so not their prey. Peter, go and attend to your guns, then come back on deck. Your great size and fine uniform may impress them if we parley.”

  “I have no Dutch, Captain.”

  “Well then, look shy and mumble. I must go up and see for myself.” The Captain strode from the quarterdeck and jumped up onto the ratlines. Blue Peter was briefly obstructed by the ship’s carpenter wrestling the blackboard and easel down the companionway before he could get to the gundeck. The gun-crews were already loading and ramming the cannons, the gun-locks were out of their wooden boxes and fixed to the touch-holes, while the rest of the crew armed themselves in silence broken only by muttered curses and the clink of metal.