Greenbeard (9781935259220)

by Bentley, Richard James

  “You freely confess to being a pirate, Captain Greybagges, and yet all my instincts are to trust you,” said Mr Benjamin. “Kings, popes and potentates are often constrained by circumstances to act in ways that are morally dubious, as you imply, and yet they are held to be the fount of order and law in this turbulent world. A pirate may be as much a creature of virtue as a king, I find. That man with the beard and turban in Barbary caused me to confront my mortality, to brace myself to face death, imprisonment or slavery with as much courage and dignity as I could muster. A barbarian, indeed, without honour or pity. You are not such a man. You buy my freedom at much risk to yourself, and yet you say that should only earn my goodwill, and that you will pay me for my labours and deliver me safe home to Virginia in the spring. I am honoured by your courtesy and your straightforwardness, and I will gladly accept your offer.”

  He held out his hand and Captain Sylvestre de Greybagges shook it solemnly. “I am pleased to have you aboard, Mr Benjamin, as one of my pirate crew. Do please call me Sylvestre, but not on the quarterdeck, as that would breach naval ettiquette.”

  “Call me Frank. I drink a glass with you!”

  They touched glasses and downed the last sips of the sweet Madeira wine. “Frank, I must take a turn around the deck, as it grows dark. Please do accompany me, for the appetite is stimulated by the fresh salt air, and then please do join my officers and myself for a little supper.”

  The pirate frigate Ark de Triomphe, disguised still as the Dutch merchantman Groot Ombeschaamheid, cleaved a white wake thought the darkening sea into the gathering dusk. She had been heading northwest into the Atlantic to avoid lee shores and inquisitive Spaniards, but the wake was heading now northeast towards the Channel, with the prevailing southwesterly winds at her stern. The sailors hauling on the ropes were dressed in the red-and-grey matrozenpak slops of the Dutch East India Company, but they were singing in English - many of them in various accents, perhaps - as they hauled:“Farewell and adieu to you, Spanish ladies!

  Farewell and adieu to you, ladies of Spain!

  For we’ve received orders for to sail for old England,

  But we hope in a short time to see you again,

  We will rant and we’ll roar like true British sailors,

  We’ll rant and we’ll roar all on the salt sea.

  Until we strike soundings in the channel of old England;

  From Ushant to Scilly is thirty-five leagues.”

  Captain Greybagges awoke at dawn as the tall windows of the Great Cabin let in a cold grey light. The ship was pitching more - a rougher sea - and rolling more - a gusting wind. A splatter of rain rattled against the stern windows. He yawned and swung his legs out of the hanging bunk, slowing its swinging with his feet on the canvas deck-cloth. He put a black coat of thick Duffel cloth on over his nightshirt, fastened its wooden toggles and went up to the quarterdeck. The ship was thumping through a moderate chop, the deck was wet and cold under his bare feet from the spray blown over the leeside taffrail. Two steersmen were at the wheel, under the watchful eye of Bulbous Bill Bucephalus, who wished the Captain a good morning and then indicated upwards with his eyes. The Captain looked up; Mr Benjamin was standing on the lower crossyard of the mizzen mast, facing sternwards into the wind, wearing only his wig, his spectacles and a pair of cotton drawers. He had tied a length of rope around his waist and the mast so that he could spread his arms wide and not fall.

  “A very good morning to you, Captain!” he called down, just audible against the buffeting of the rain-filled wind.

  “How long has he been up there?” asked the Captain.

  “Oh, about half an hour,” said Bill.

  Captain Greybagges nodded and sighed, and went below. After his head had been shaved by Mumblin’ Jake, and he had washed and dressed in his piratical black clothes, he returned to the deck. Mr Benjamin was standing by the pump, waiting for two foremast jacks to rig the handles.

  “Taking a seawater bath, Mr Benjamin? It sets a man up for the day! Though I must confess that I prefer to do it in warmer climes.”

  “I feel it would be a grand thing to do after an air-bath, Captain, if I am not inconveniencing anybody.”

  “They will tell you quick enough if you are. But what is an ‘air-bath’, pray?”

  “Why, a bath in the air! I have a theory that certain vapourous humours are drawn from the corpus by exposure to a brisk breeze, and that clothes tend to insulate one from the roborative effects of fresh air, much as they are necessary for warmth.”

  “I notice that you have tied your wig and spectacles to your head with codline. Surely it would be easier to leave them off?”

  “I need my eye-glasses to see, Captain, and keep my wig on that I might retain my dignity. If I may presume to ask you a question in return, why is your beard green?”

  “Because I am Greenbeard the pirate, Mr Benjamin. I am not in disguise as Myneer Oplichtenaar, kapitein van schip. This is how I normally attire myself.”

  “Ah! You are indeed a notable buccaneer, Captain Greybagges! Even a landlubber like myself has had report of you.”

  “The price of such fame is that I must colour my beard with brown boot-polish and, sadly, restrain myself from writing for the broadsheets as I used to do. After your seawater bath there is breakfast in the wardroom, Mr Benjamin. I must attend to some paperwork.”

  Captain Greybagges turned and addressed the crew in the rigging in a loud carrying voice.

  “Listen, you swabs! There looks to be a great storm a-blowing up from aft, damn me iffen there ain’t! It will be upon us before dark, so’s you keeps the sails in good order betimes, keep a weather eye open and attend to Mr Bucephalus, for iffen yez don’t and the storm don’t tear out yez guts I surely will, and yez may lay to that, wi’ a wannion! The Bay of Biscay is a graveyard for damned lubbers, but not for canny sailormen, so sets yez the sails handsomely, shipmates!”

  The pirates had rigged the pump and fitted a stand-pipe. The Captain noted that Mr Benjamin removed his wig and spectacles before standing under the gushing gouts of cold seawater.

  There was a knock at the door of the Great Cabin. “Enter, wi’ a curse!” shouted Captain Greybagges, lifting his quill from the paper. Mr Benjamin looked around the door, his wig still looking slightly damp.

  “Ah, Frank. Come in.”

  “Captain, Sylvestre, I have a notion to demonstrate to you something of the electric fluid, if there is to be a storm with lightning, but I need the assistance of a carpenter. Is he busy?”

  “I do not think so. Tell him I said to do your bidding, unless there is some pressing task which must have his immediate attention.”

  “Thank you, Sylvestre. I am sorry to have disturbed you.”

  Captain Greybagges returned to his correspondence and the comforting scritch-scratch of the goose-quill on foolscap. I wonder what Mr Benjamin is intending to do, he mused, as he penned a letter of instructions to be sent to a clockmaker in Dublin.

  As the Captain wrote letters and dealt with the mundane paperwork of the frigate he was aware that the weather was slowly worsening. The pitch and roll of the ship increased and became more random. He had to keep things stowed in drawers rather than have them slide around the top of his desk, and he spread his feet wider to steady his seat in the chair, in case there should be a sudden lurch. This did not bother him unduly, but he wondered how Mr Benjamin was taking it. If he was working with the ship’s carpenter the activity would perhaps keep his mind off any queasiness.

  Mumblin’ Jake came with the Captain’s lunch; a doorstep-thick sandwich of bread, cheese and sliced onion, two boiled eggs, a thick wedge of pork pie with mustard, an apple and a tankard of ale. The Captain kept the tankard in his left hand on the desk’s leather top and the basket of food in his lap, and was able to enjoy his repast and continue writing in between mouthfuls despite the movement of the ship. The ship was by no means troubled by the wind and waves, and made agreeable creaking noises as though it were a live creature
grunting with the effort of shouldering its way through the green seas. I hope Mr Chippendale has checked the bilges, he thought, and not been distracted by whatever it is Mr Benjamin wants of him.

  The storm following the Ark de Triomphe worsened as it drew closer. As twilight fell the waves rolled past it one after another, lifting the stern with a lurch, and the wind howled. The foremast-jacks swarmed in the rigging, trimming the canvas to catch the blow yet not burst the gasket-ropes. Some of the pirate crew donned oilskins and boots, but the more-active men on the yards could only wear shirts and pants as heavy-weather gear would hamper their freedom of movement, and freezing cold and wet are better than a fall into the churning sea. They were relieved on a rolling-shift system so they got hot drinks and burgoo below before they became stupid from the cold, and fresher men took their place.

  Jemmy Ducks was still in disgrace and was not relieved from his watch at the main foretop crosstrees, although he was well bundled up in several woollen jumpers, an oversize griego and a tarred sou’wester. Jack Nastyface had joined him in his lonely vigil out of friendship, a meaningful gesture when young Jack could have been lollygagging by the warmth of the galley stove with a mug of sweet coffee in his hand. Jemmy Ducks was resentful of his friend’s sacrifice at first, it seemed to diminish his punishment, and he was aggrieved at himself for his near-calamitous dereliction of duty, but Jack Nastyface was such a well-meaning fool that soon they were arguing as of old.

  “You must have heard him wrong then, you ass!” said Jemmy Ducks. “He probably wanted a barrel of beer, the mad old bugger.”

  “He did not,” insisted Jack. “He pacifically asked for an empty barrel. I heard him clear as I hear you now.”

  This was no guarantee of clarity, as the wind howled around them in their lofty perch, but Jemmy Ducks was partially convinced.

  “And three fathoms of cotton cloth, the sort that is dyed for flags,” continued Jack Nastyface, “and forty fathoms of codline, and a bar-shot, and some oilcloth, and four pounds of gunpowder, and …”

  “And here he comes now!” shouted Jemmy Ducks above the wind’s noise, pointing down to the deck. He then felt a twinge of guilt. “I cannot look. I must keep watch on the horizon. Tell me what they are doing.” There was not much horizon to watch, as the squall-line crept closer, a mass of angry clouds, dark in the twilight and stitched with flashes of lightning. Jack Nastyface hung over the yard, to better observe the deck.

  “Yes, it is Mr Benjamin. He has tied his wig on with string, and it is flapping, hee-hee! The Captain, too, and Mr Chippendale, and the barrel, and a bundle of sticks, or something. They are going forward … onto the forepeak. Mr Benjamin is buggering about with the sticks … aah! It is a kite! A big kite! I used to have a kite when I was a boy ashore, but it is much bigger than that. He has launched the kite into the wind! … It soars! The carpenter is paying out the line, and the kite soars ahead of the barky … the Captain and Mr Benjamin have put the barrel on the rail. Aha! The bar-shot is rigged alike to a keel on the barrel, and something sticks out of the top, alike to a little mast. They are tying the line off to the little spike-mast. The kite flies high now, and almost all the string is paid out.”

  Jemmy Ducks, in his scan of the obscured horizon, could see the kite as it lofted high towards the cloud, but he tore his eyes from it to continue his watch; if he missed something again the Captain would surely have him flogged, or else the crew would kill him. Jack Nastyface continued, shouting about the keening of the wind.

  “The line is all paid out … they have pushed the barrel over the side! The Captain waves to Mr Bucephalus by the wheel.”

  The Ark de Triomphe turned away from the floating barrel. Jack Nastyface hauled himself upright to let a party of foremast-jacks clamber out on the yard. He could see the barrel bobbing amongst the white wave-tops. The kite was towing it perceptibly, such was the strength of the wind.

  “By the Saints! The kite pulls the barrel! Take care, Jemmy, the squall is almost upon us!”

  “I can see that, you dullard! Look to your own handholds. Watch the barrel! What the devil are they doing? Why throw a barrel into the oggin to get pulled by a kite? It makes little sense.”

  “The kite is soaring into the cloud-bottoms! I never got my kite to fly so high! Here comes the squall! … Oh!”

  From the corner of his eye Jemmy Ducks saw first a white flash, then a red light, and a fraction of a second later heard a ‘boom’.

  “Oh, crikey!” yelled Jack. “There is a strange thing! I have never seen the like of that! I trow I have not!”

  “Seen the like of what, you fathead?”

  “Well, that is a wonder! A wonder indeed!”

  “What is a wonder, you donkey?”

  The squall howled around their ears, and a lightning flash lit the bottoms of the clouds an eerie blue. Jack Nastyface waited to speak until the thunder and the squall had abated.

  “A great wonder, indeed! I have never seen the like of that!”

  “Of WHAT!” pleaded Jemmy, still keeping his watch as though his life depended on it.

  “Har! When the kite went into the bottom of the clouds lightning ran down the string, like a line of white fire, then the barrel blew up, ‘boom!’ The fire of the levin-bolt must have lit the gunpowder in the barrel! How very extraordinary!” He peered down at the deck. “The Captain congratulates Mr Benjamin, and claps him on the back! He must be a wise old cove to know the nature of lightning, and to guide it into a barrel of powder! I take my hat off to him!”

  Captain Sylvestre de Greybagges and his officers were still chuckling from the surprise of the explosion, shaking their heads and going, in their different ways ‘zzzzt! BOOM!’, to demonstrate how the barrel had detonated. The Captain sloshed dark rum into Bulbous Bill’s lignum-vitae beaker, then Israel Feet’s tarred leather drinking-jack, then Blue Peter’s tumbler of precious diamond-cut Bohemian crystal, then his own chased-silver goblet and finally Frank Benjamin’s pewter tankard. He raised his goblet:

  “A toast, me hearties! A fulsome toast to Mister Frank Benjamin, the man who has mastered the fire of the lightning-bolt, leading it where he wills, alike to the good farmer who directs water to the parched field through leats and ditches with a turn of his spade! A toast!”

  They downed their rum and banged their various drinking-vessels back onto the Captain’s desk. The ship rolled with the seas, and rain rattled on the tall transom windows from the following wind, but the Great Cabin of the Ark de Triomphe seemed cosy with light from the oil-lamps and the warm fellowship of the pirates. Mr Benjamin grinned modestly and raised his tankard:

  “My thanks, friends and shipmates! Captain Greybagges has done me great honour by inviting me to join your illustrious company, and I am glad to have given such pleasure by a modest demonstration of the power of natural philosophy. I return your toast in full measure! To the lusty buccaneers of the good ship Ark de Triomphe and to their captain, the illustrious Sylvestre de Greybagges!”

  They drank again. Mr Benjamin seated himself, staggering a little from a lurch of the ship. He filled his pipe.

  “I must say, though, Captain,” he said, “that you may have to repay your excellent carpenter for the reel of fine copper wire which I used to direct the flow of electrick fluid down the kite-string. He was loath to part with it, and I had to invoke your name to ensure his compliance. It is a pricey commodity, that cuprous filament, not valuable for its metal, but for the rare skill required to draw it so hairlike thin, and now most of it is turned to vapour.”

  “Surely I shall reimburse Mr Chippendale his reel of wire, and another reel of wire of pure gold if I can find such a thing, for his metal thread has shown to me that certain things, certain plans of mine, lie within the bounds of the possible, and are not mere pipe-dreams. I am grateful for that, and relieved, and grateful to you, too, Frank.”

  The Captain refilled their cups once again. Mr Benjamin leaned forward to nod and acknowledge the Captain’s compliment, the
flickering light of the oil-lamp reflecting on his pince-nez spectacles as ovals of yellow.

  “This is also an opportune moment for me to add that Mr Benjamin is now a full member of the crew, with all the rights, responsibilities, emoluments and perquisites appertaining to that position, as laid out in the Free Brotherhood o’ the Coast’s rule-book. Somebody give Mr Benjamin a copy to study at his leisure. Be assured, though, Frank, that I shall not command you to stand a dog-watch as masthead lookout dressed only in your wig and your drawers, har-har!”

  There was mirth at this sally, but Mr Benjamin did not seem unduly put out, smilingly slyly and sipping his rum.

  “You said as how you might have plans, Cap’n?” said Bulbous Bill Bucephalus carefully.

  “Indeed I do, Bill. Indeed I have plans. They are still in a state of vagueness because of their dependence on certain things happening, mind you, so I am unwillin’ to discuss them much. Things will be clearer to me after I have settled some business in London.”

  Up in the mainmast cross-trees Jemmy Ducks and Jack Nastyface wrangled idly about this and that, Jemmy all the time keeping a regular circle-scan of the horizon, or what could be seen of it through the darkness and rain. Occasional flashes of lighting lit the clouds from within and without.