This ship, the music tells him as his fingers grip at last the rim of the deck, is the answer to all his wishes.
By the time that he's pulled himself onto the deck, however, the music has fallen silent.
It's a big ship, right enough. It has three tall masts and what must once have been a proud prow, but where Roger had imagined fresh paint, clean lines, white sails, what he sees are sooty scorches, splintered wood and tattered canvas.
Is the music capable of deceit?
Roger decides that because he hears it with his heart, not his ears, it is not. The mistake is his fanciful interpretation. "I sense a shift..." he sings to himself.
His small words are snipped away by the wind, but his is not the only voice in the air, because while the ship is not the bustling military vessel of his imagination, it is nevertheless alive with activity. Seamen swarm the rigging and gather in gangs to haul at the sheets. They glitter in the sunshine, clothed more in steel than linen and sweaty with their exertions, and their voices are ragged and rough as they offer their work song to the wind. "Cry haul!" they bellow. "Aye, a-diddle-aye-dee."
"Quick smart, now, don't dawdle there." Contrary to Roger's laboured ascent, Angelo has clearly found the rope no trouble. "The Captain he don't like to wait. Straight ahead and up the stair." He prods Roger in the direction of the foc'sle. "And knock before you enter, mate."
Roger covers the length of the rolling deck as fast as his unsteady legs will allow him. He trains his gaze firmly on the boards, trying to ignore the scars and missing limbs, the dull metalwork and harsh, violent tattoos that pass through the peripheries of his vision. He can still hear their songs, though. And that's bad enough. Roger doesn't understand half of the words in the shanties, but the half that he does know terrify him, although they thrill him too. Just a little.
His knock on the cabin door is as trembly as his heart. Judging by the crew he has now entirely revised his expectations of the Captain. Now, he imagines a hulking, brooding monster, worse than all the rum-soaked bastards in Hutton's innroom together. He imagines a thick black beard not quite covering up a horrific facial scar, brows as portentous as stormy clouds and eyes as dead as a shark's.
He listens, but the music holds its counsel.
~
Getting To The Bottom
The voice, when it comes, sings out as clear and melodic as the single trumpet that heralds the music's swelling return.
"Well come in, if yer coming, lad. Come in if you will. Don't stand around sunning. There's work to be done while the sun's on the sill."
The Captain's cabin also confounds Roger's expectations. It's a comfortable room with a bunk on one wall and a chaise longue on the other, both embellished with brocaded cushions. A dangling lantern adds a homely quality. It softens the harsh daylight flooding in through a window that has been opened to dry some rags. There's a map table and a scrolled escritoire, both with their instruments and papers stowed neatly away. The red feathered tail of a quill pen ruffles in the breeze and a gimballed inkwell rocks gently with the ship's motion. It's more like the drawing room of a gentleman than a rogue sailor's bolt hole. The floor's even been newly washed, judging from the mop standing to attention in the corner.
All of this Roger takes in instantly, but after that it's the Captain himself who commands his attention. He's a powerful man. Not especially tall, no, but the living angles and planes of his naked torso phosphoresce with compact energy even as he covers them up with a shirt as white as the smile that is like looking into a crack of the sun itself.
"Welcome, Blondie," the smile sings as the Captain tucks the shirt into britches the colour of blood and adjusts the cuffs, "to our happy delegation. We apologise for the uncouthness of our invitation, but time was pressing and you seemed less than happy with your present station."
It's the wink that tells Roger that he's seen the man before. Only he wasn't smiling then.
"What happened to the Magistrate?" he stammers.
"No concern of yours, little man, but in the interests of seeing justice served, there was a cove who surely got what he deserved." That wink again. "Don't you think?"
Roger has to admit that he's not unhappy that the Magistrate is dead. He manages a nod.
"Grand!" The Captain claps his hands, which Roger notices are pink from a fresh scrubbing. "Now, to the business in hand, but first of all, let's have a drink."
Roger is faced with his second flask of the day, but this one—silver and embossed with fleurs-de-lis — is a damn sight more inviting than Angelo's diseased old antique. The Captain's smile turns conspiratorial, and Roger is unable to refuse. The drink is sweet and minty, and when he catches an escaping drip on his finger it is like liquid emerald. He sucks it off with relish and raises the flask for a second gulp, but the Captain takes it from him with a laugh.
"Steady now, that's quite a thirst! And you shall have your fill. But I'd have yer attention first, so hearken if you will, while we get to the bottom of it..."
"But I know nothing!" Roger interrupts, sensing a tension in the music's underscoring of the Captain's words. Thinking, for the first time, that perhaps that smile is too good to be true.
"That's good son, ignorance is bliss." The hand on his arm is meant to be reassuring.
Roger edges away from it. "I know nothing," he repeats. "Ask the other one..."
"Other one?" The Captain gestures around the cabin. "What 'other one' is this?"
And with surprise, Roger realises that's what's missing. The other boy. His companion-in-adventure-to-be. The music drawls out a mysterioso, tremolos on the brink of an unresolving cadence. He looks around the room a second time, but for all its relative opulence there are no hiding places—unless one counts the small sea chest that sits beneath the window with those two pale embroidered rags stretched for drying on its lid, but even for a boy smaller than Roger that would not be possible. "I'm sorry," he stammers. "I must be confused, perhaps Angelo's forgotten..."
"Well, p'raps there was a brother," the Captain interrupts, arching his brows to mirror his dangerous, devilish grin. "Mayhap, he caused me bother. Asked too many questions, wriggled like a squid, tried to get to the bottom of his situation, and perhaps," the Captain pokes his head dramatically out of the window and the music cuts a plummeting glissando, "that's what he did."
Is he really suggesting...?
No, Roger decides, the Captain is making fun. Angelo must have been pulling his leg too. There never was another boy.
The music draws out a sigh of strings. Does Roger imagine a mocking tone to it? "Am I the butt of some joke," he sings, feeling stung.
"The butt?" The Captain roars with laughter. "The butt, my piggy in a poke? Well, p'raps it's true at that. Old Angelo can't resist a stoke when we take aboard a rat."
"Rat?"
"Shipmate, son, shipmate. Now indulge my curiosity, pray. What else did that old shyster say?" When the Captain smiles again, there is a slash of sabre cymbal that warns Roger against any temptation to fib.
"Treasure," he peeps like a piccolo.
The Captain's eyes widen. "Treasure?" he whispers. "Well there's a word, by any measure, and," he winks again, "p'raps it's even true. But heed this warning young'un, a word like 'treasure' is torch to powder if spoke among the crew. So, keep it down, say it no louder lest it filter through. In fact— " the Captain places his finger on Roger's lips. The skin is scoured raw, but there is still the thinnest trace of red circling the nailbed. "If you'd keep your skin intact, keep 'treasure' locked away for good." His next utterance is sotto voce. "And that goes for the old man too."
"But now," the Captain's finger leaves Roger's lips and rejoins its siblings to execute a snare-tight slap on his cheek, "we've had our meetings, and we've gotten past our greetings, and there'll be no beatings, not unless you're very rotten." The Captain circles Roger as he sings. Roger opens his mouth to protest, but the Captain's hand grips his shoulder and he murmurs close to his ear, "and we'll be having no mo
re bleatings if you please. The light is fleeting, and I'll not have it defeating me so let's..."
Roger feels the Captain's hand on his belt.
"...get..."
The sound of steel. The real thing this time, not just the music.
"...to..."
There's an alarmingly deft movement that Roger can't quite see, and then his britches are at his ankles. The breeze freezes his exposed arse.
"...the bottom!" the Captain finishes in triumph.
~
The Pirate's Life!
When Roger creeps from the Captain's cabin, the sun has climbed high over the yard. The attempt at stealth, however, is pointless. Even if the cabin door were not in plain sight of most of the ship, even if he were able to walk in any other manner than this stuttering impersonation of an arthritic pigeon, there is his waiting audience. The second Roger appears the crowd of sailors erupts in laughter and jeers, catcalls and sarcastic applause.
Roger wishes he could die. He knows what they think is the reason for his crabbed stance and permanent wince—living in the roughest tavern in Montegrosso he has heard all the stories of what could become of cabin boys, even on the crisp, spruce ships of the King's Navy—but what really happened to him was worse.
The rags, which were neither cotton, nor linen, nor cloth of any kind, hadn't been fully dry. They had left a smear of gore on the map table, and Roger had been made to stare at the one rough-flensed, pink scrap with its inked island coastline and its neighbour with its black-blue nautical coordinates. But he had not really seen the island or the writing, he had seen the freckles and soft hairs and could not put from his mind the fate of the other boy. The one who had caused the Captain trouble.
Even as the inkwell rocked.
Even as the needle glinted in the sun.
Even as the Captain mumbled and trumbled to himself about insurance, and even as the music skittered a jolly accompaniment to the greatest amount of pain Roger had ever felt in his life.
It seems that the music is leading him on a more complicated journey than expected. But all stories have their twists and turns, don't they?
"Ho!" The sailors now shout in unison.
A bearded bear of a man, arms swarthy with black hair and—Roger squirms—tattoos steps forward. "Always said the Captain's a generous man." He dribbles as he sings. "There's seconds, long as the boy can stand. We'll teach him the pirates' life!"
"Ho! Ho!" The sailors shout and clap.
"You'll needs to be quick to dip your wick." This is a half-sized man with half a nose and fewer than half his teeth. "This greeny's likely to be sick on his first taste of pirates' strife."
"Ho! Ho! Ho!" The sailors shout, clap and stamp. The deck resounds.
"An orderly queue, lads. Ready your pricks." This third sailor is a negro with raised patterns of scars on his cheeks and arms. His voice is deep as a gravel pit. "We'll all have a pop at the Captain's chick. We'll make him a pirate's wife!"
The music roils like turbulent water as they advance, and Roger knows he's in trouble. Not only for what these men are about to do to him, but because the last thing the Captain said to him with a light, but painful, tap on the bottom was, "Now son. Beware. If you value your hide out there. Keep your britches up at any price, and let no-one clap eyes on that decorated derriere."
Roger edges back towards the Captain's cabin, but the door remains firmly shut. The sailors close in. They're smiling, but that just makes it worse.
"Belay!"
Roger has never been more relieved to see a face than he is when Angelo's beetrooting fizzog pops out of the crowd like one of Ma Hutton's piles.
"Belay!" the old man bellows again. "And stand ye fast. Lest ye wants to feel the lash. The Captain's put his mark on this one, so hear me. Stand. Ye. Fast."
Roger doesn't know how much authority old Angelo carries with the other sailors, but his words, while giving rise to a great deal of grumbling and swearing, appear to have done little to douse the hunger in the sailors' eyes or stop their encroachment. For a moment it looks as though the only change Angelo's incursion has made will be to give the men something to vent their frustrated fists on while they wait for their turn of Roger's arse.
Then the music intercedes, a soaring flourish of strings and horns and a clamour of watchman's bell, and clear above it all, a Nordic accent singing. "Ship ahoy! Ship ahoy!"
"Ship ahoy?" echo the men. "Ship ahoy?"
"Be she riding high or low?" the negro shouts up to the crow's nest.
"Low as a pregnant horse in snow," comes the reply. "Fat with booty, and pond'rous slow. She's for the taking, but the wind's ashift so if we're to take her now is the time to go."
"Then what are you standing around for?" The Captain has emerged. He's wearing a braided jacket and a battered tricorn, and there's a manic glow sheening his face. "If the man says, go—then go!"
And Roger is forgotten as the men leap to their assigned positions and the Ship erupts in activity. Sheets are hauled, booms are swung, sails trimmed and shanties sung as the vessel slews to starboard, picks up speed and homes in on its prey.
Roger watches, impressed by the orchestrated intricacy of it all. The pain and danger are all but forgotten as the music blares into a glorious, majestic stomp. Sailors swarm the rigging in symmetrical conjunctions, singing, "Hey, boys, feel the wind in your face. A-giving the pirates life. Carries us on with the scent of the chase. We're living the pirates' life. This is the pi-rates' life."
Roger turns to Angelo. "You're pirates!" he whispers.
The old man dissembles, despite the overwhelming evidence. "Nay, lad, buccaneers..."
"You're pirates!" Roger persists.
Angelo's old face is reddening again. "No, son, privateers..."
The bear and the negro have thrown open the hold, and the ugly half-pint is dishing out burlap sacks to his colleagues. All eyes are on the other ship. It's close enough now to see the urgency in the scurrying white uniforms as it tacks once, and then again. But any attempt to escape the music is futile.
Avarice shines in the eyes of the pursuers like the anticipation of a holy miracle. "Hey, lads, hear the chink of the coin. Ye'll be counting afore it's night. A flash of a skirt and a bump in yer loin? These'll be ours by right. This is the pi-rates' life."
The refrain is infectious. Roger's fingers tick to its leery sway. The Ship's quarry, the music tells him, is more than likely laden with goods that will sell at port for ten times their value just to make some wiggy merchant even richer than he already is. He'll collect on his insurance from Lloyds of London and grumble at the inconvenience, but really he deserves his loss.
"We're pirates!" Roger climbs up on a barrel. "Living fast and free!"
Angelo goggles at him.
"We're pirates. Monarchs of the sea!"
Angelo places his hand on his arm. "Lad, when you say we...?"
Roger grins. "I mean me! For now it's clear to see that I was born for piracy. It's what I'm meant to be." He sees it all now. A shift, a gift, just as the music promised. His course is set now. The Captain has marked him and he's bound to the fortunes of the Ship.
The other ship is close enough to see the occupants' faces. It tacks once again, a clumsy manoeuvre intended to keep its flank out of reach, but it won't work. The waiting pirates check their pistols, their powder and their piteous blades. A great rumble passes underfoot. Roger jumps down from his barrel, rushes to the side, looks down to see the black snouts of cannons emerging from the side of the vessel.
The music executes a military pause, like the stretched seconds that precede a gallows drop. The tension rolls out on a side drum, with a precise piccolo hornpipe lark-high above it as the pirates sing, "Hey, gents, feel the whet of the fight, sharpening the pirate's knife. Watch 'em run, the cowardly shites. Ain't it a marvellous sight? This is the pi-rates' life."
Then the cannons fire and the other ship is cloaked in smoke and falling debris, and the music is God's own riot. Roger's head ring
s with the noise of it, the thrill of it.
When the smoke clears the decks of the other ship are so close you could spit on them. It's complete chaos. Roger sees sailors frantically organising to repel boarders. Their efforts are hampered by the flock of panicked sheep that have been released by the cannon fire, likewise the flustering chickens and worst of all the demands of the outraged passengers.
The mood on the ship is not helped when the line-up of pirates begin to sing a lilting barcarolle in close harmony. "Stab, slash, burn and shoot. This is the pirates' life! Rake, rape, plunder, loot. This is the pirates' life!" As they repeat the refrain they begin a sinister dance that involves much baring of teeth and brandishing of steel. Over this, the pirates in the rigging, readying their boarding ropes, carry on the original theme.
"Hey, men, see the fear in those eyes? Wild and wide and white. Cut 'em down to size. Not a one left alive. This is the pirates' life. This is the pi-rates' life."
"Stab, slash, burn and shoot," chorus Roger and Angelo.
"This is the pirates' life...all right!" sings the Captain as he launches himself, the apex of a delta of swinging sailors that cross the narrowing water like a flock of avenging geese. The second this vanguard lands on the opposite deck the ring of clashing steel rings out, and this is the signal for the employment of grapples and gaffs to bind the two ships together, for boarding planks to slam down and—"Rake, rape, plunder, loot!"—the rest of the pirates to swarm across.
The fight does not last long. The music helter-skelters to a climax that sees the Captain, acrobatically balanced on the foc'sle rail, a grin on his face, a cutlass in each hand, fencing with the skipper of the other vessel and three of his men. With a swing and a leap, two of the charging lackeys tumble over the side. With a casual flick of his off-hand, the Captain opens up the gut of the remaining sailor, and as the other captain attempts to flee there's a rush of strings followed by an orchestral thump that sees the man pinned to his own mast by the Captain's dead-eyed throw.
The Ephemera Page 24