by Tim Severin
‘Find out if the passengers have been burning Arabian frankincense to make that smoky smell,’ he said to Jacques. ‘If it is, bring me a double handful.’
He took the pot of butter from the Frenchman. ‘And a mortar and pestle. The cooks are sure to have some for grinding spices. I’ll see you up on the aft deck.’
With Jezreel, he headed to the cabins where the Turkish slave girls had lived. Their rooms had been thoroughly ransacked. Clothes, cushions and bedding had been tossed about, as well as the trinkets that the looters judged to be valueless.
‘Pick out anything that might be turned into bandages,’ he told Jezreel, ‘silk or cotton, it doesn’t matter so long as it’s clean. I’ll see if I can find the girls’ personal possessions.’
A few moments of searching produced a small box daintily inlaid with mother of pearl. It contained tweezers for plucking eyebrows, fine brushes for applying kohl and face powder, and scissors. He continued his hunt, sifting carefully through the chaos until he located what he had hoped to find: a small glass vial with a pale yellow liquid. He removed the stopper and sniffed: attar of roses. Mixed with water it had created the perfume he had smelled in the corridor. In the surgeon’s list it had been described as oleum rosarum and recommended, when mixed into a salve, for the treatment of severe burns.
✻
Tavares sat in exactly the same position as when Hector had left him, and for a moment Hector thought that the artilleryman had died. He knelt down to check that Tavares was still breathing, before starting to peel aside the scorched fabric of the shirt. Behind him, Jezreel give a hiss of dismay as he saw the extent of the wounds. Tavares groaned in pain, making Hector flinch. Burned skin and flesh were sticking to the cloth.
‘Start cutting up the cloth to make dressings and bandages,’ he said to Jezreel. ‘When Jacques gets here, we’ll prepare a salve and spread it on the dressings, and lay them on the wounds.’
When Jacques re-joined them, he brought a small stone mortar and pestle and a cotton bag filled with what looked like broken bits of hard yellow-brown gum. ‘This is the stuff the passengers were burning in little clay pots. Reminded me of going to mass when I was a lad,’ he said.
‘Grind it to a fine powder, mix thoroughly into the butter, then add the attar of roses,’ Hector instructed him.
‘In what proportions?’ the Frenchman asked.
‘I have no idea. Just make sure the mixture remains easy to spread.’
With infinite care they dressed Tavares’ wounds, laying on cotton pads thickly coated with the salve, and holding them in position with silk bandages wrapped right around his body. Treating the artilleryman’s ravaged face was the most difficult part. The skin on the cheeks and forehead had melted or been stripped away, leaving a raw expanse, weeping red. Using the scissors, Jezreel prepared a mask of clean silk with holes for the eyes and nose, and a slit for the mouth. Jacques smeared it with the ointment and Hector tied it gently around Tavares’ head, aware of the sharp reek of burned hair. All the while he tried speaking to his patient, to reassure him that he would survive. But there was no answer. It seemed that the gun’s explosion had damaged the artilleryman’s hearing. Tavares was deaf.
Hector finished tying the mask in and sat back on his heels. Tavares now looked like a ghost, his body and head wrapped in white silk.
He felt a light touch on his elbow. All his attention had been concentrated on Tavares, and he had not noticed that one of the merchants held prisoner nearby had left the group and quietly come across to squat beside him. A man of middle age, the merchant was round-faced and plump, his dark liquid eyes full of sympathy. He was offering a small lacquer container, the lid open. Inside were a dozen dark brown pellets, the size of a thumbnail.
‘To take away the pain,’ he said,
Hector took one of the pellets from the box, and pressed it between finger and thumb. Slightly sticky, it reminded him of a fresh sheep dropping.
‘It can be dissolved in warm water and given as a drink,’ the man added.
All of a sudden Hector was aware that someone was watching. He twisted round and saw that Quartermaster Hathaway had appeared on deck.
‘You’re wasting time. He’ll die anyway,’ Hathaway commented maliciously, a cold look on his face.
Hector deliberately turned his back on him. ‘Will you give my friend your medicine when he is able to swallow?’ he said, handing the pellet back to the merchant. He had heard of opium but never seen it before. ‘And make sure that he is looked after when we’ve gone? Bring him down into a cabin where he’ll be in shelter. I’ll leave you the rest of the ointment.’
Behind him Hathaway was telling Jacques and Jezreel to get themselves down to the lower deck if they wanted a share of the booty.
‘Lynch!’ the quartermaster called out. ‘No need for you to come. You can carry on chatting with your new cronies. You played no part in the fight so you’ll get no portion.’
The merchant leaned in very close. ‘Perhaps it is your turn to be careful,’ he whispered and his eyes flicked to where Hathaway was standing.
ELEVEN
Both crews, from Fancy and from Pearl, had assembled in the open space of Ganj-i-Sawa’i’s lower deck. A crowd of almost a hundred men jostled in front of the two quartermasters, trying to get a closer look at the display of plunder. Many still had smears of gunpowder on their faces. Several wore bandages, and one man was hobbling on a crutch. Their clothes were dirty and sweat-stained, and there was a babble of excited talk, oaths and coarse laughter. Leaving Jacques and Jezreel to join them, Hector seated himself on a step halfway down the companionway where he could see and hear what was going on. The deep mistrust that lurked beneath the greed of the freebooters was immediately obvious. Men who had fought side by side a few hours earlier now eyed one another with suspicion, determined to receive their due and not be cheated.
Hathaway brought some sort of order by banging the table in front of him with the flat of a cutlass blade and bellowing for silence.
‘Spread out! So all of you can see what is going on! Fancy’s company to my right; Pearl’s company over there, behind your Quartermaster Gibson.’
He gestured with the cutlass and, reluctantly, the throng of onlookers fell back to form a half circle. Some of the men climbed up on the piles of pilgrim baggage to get a clear view. Others came and sat on the steps in front of Hector. Looking on, he noted that Fancy’s men greatly outnumbered the crew from Pearl. Also, Fancy’s contingent showed many more signs of having been through a hard-fought battle.
Hathaway rapped on the table again. ‘Division will follow custom,’ he bawled. ‘Captains will receive two and a half portions; carpenters, gunners, coxswains and other skilled men one and a half portions. All others one portion.’
He paused and cleared his throat. ‘Only those who fought, of course.’ His gaze swept over the crowd, and Hector detected that just for a second his glance lingered on him.
Hathaway held up some sheets of paper. ‘This is Fancy’s muster list. Quartermaster Gibson has the same for Pearl. When his name is called out, each man comes forward to receive his fair share.’
‘What’s fair about that?’ came a harsh shout. It was one of Fancy’s men, a mean-looking fellow, tall and bony, with one arm in a grimy sling made from a strip of sailcloth.
‘Fancy did all the hard work,’ the man shouted, his voice sharp and clear. ‘We engaged for eight hours, cannon and musket, long before Pearl joined in, which was only after we had boarded.’
There was a growl of agreement from his companions. Hector caught the words ‘shitten cowards’ and ‘tell them to fuck off’.
From across the circle the men from Pearl glared back and one of them yelled, ‘What about the plunder you lifted from that ship you took two days back? Where’s our portion of that? All agreed to share equally in this venture.’
A slight movement, high up and from the forecastle deck opposite, made Hector glance in that direction. A number of Ganj-i
-Sawa’i’s sailors, the men who worked the great ship, had crept out of their hiding places and taken up positions at the rail overlooking the lower deck. They were gazing down on the squabble; their faces spoke of curiosity and distaste for the spectacle below them, and fear.
The quarrel on the lower deck was getting uglier with catcalls from both sides, accompanied by insults and lewd gestures. One of Fancy’s company shouted out, ‘Three to one would be a fairer deal,’ and his companions quickly took up the refrain, and started stamping and shouting, ‘One to them, three for us!’ Their shipmates who still had their muskets and boarding pikes beat out the rhythm, thumping the butts of the weapons on the deck boards.
It was several minutes before they realized that someone seated directly on the steps in front of Hector had risen to his feet, and was standing, waiting to be noticed. It was Fancy’s captain – Henry Avery.
The hubbub died away and Avery addressed the meeting in his quiet, persuasive voice. ‘I know that a captain has no authority in this assembly. Division of the plunder is a matter for the ship’s company under the direction of the quartermaster. But may I make a suggestion?’
He gestured towards the piles of loot and the strong boxes in front of the two quartermasters. ‘Open one of the strong boxes now and share out whatever is in it. Every man, whether he is from Fancy or Pearl, receives his portion as a payment in advance. Afterwards each ship’s company chooses three members for a joint committee to establish the total value of the remaining plunder, and decide on its fair distribution.’
Avery was being clever once again, Hector thought. Cash in hand would take the edge off the hostility between the two crews and prevent their quarrel from exploding into violence.
‘Which strong box?’ demanded someone from among Pearl’s company, his suspicion evident.
Avery turned towards where William Mayes was standing in the front rank of his men. ‘Why not leave the choice to Pearl’s captain?’
Mayes’s eyes darted from Avery, to the strong boxes, and across to the hostile glare of the men from Fancy.
It was another shrewd suggestion, Hector decided: if Mayes chose the strong box, there was no reason for anyone to suspect that Long Ben was pulling some sort of trick.
After a moment’s thought Mayes nodded and pointed to the largest and stoutest of the strong boxes. Hector had a feeling that it was the same that he had seen carried from the adjacent cabin when he was a prisoner in his cubbyhole. It was too heavy for one man to lift on his own, and after they had cleared a space on the table, Gibson helped Hathaway heave it up. The weight made the thick planks sag.
‘You’ll need a hammer and chisel to get into that,’ someone shouted.
Hathaway flourished a selection of keys strung on a loop of cord. ‘These were placed in my safe keeping. One of them should do the job.’
There was a knowing chuckle from several of his cronies.
Hathaway found the right key on the second attempt, unlocked the strong box and swung back the lid. With Gibson’s help he tipped the box on its side so its contents spilled across the table. Dozens of sausage-shaped, greyish cloth bags tumbled out. There was a low groan of disappointment from those in the crowd. They had expected to see a torrent of precious stones or pearls. Hathaway picked up one of the bags. Six inches long and tightly packed, it was marked with symbols in indigo-blue ink. He turned it over in his hand, searching for a drawstring, but it had been stitched closed. With the edge of his cutlass he slit one end, then held it up in the air to shake out the contents. A cascade of gold coins, each the width of a man’s thumbnail, clattered down on the table.
There was a moment of awed silence. One or two men gave whistles of astonishment. Everyone glanced at the pile of unopened bags trying to gauge how many more there were.
Hathaway picked up a second bag and repeated the process. Another rivulet of gold coins. A third bag disgorged more coins, this time silver.
‘Give me a bite!’ someone shouted.
Hathaway picked up a silver coin and flipped it through the air. ‘Catch!’
The man who caught the coin placed it between his teeth, and bit down to test the quality of the metal. ‘Better than anything from the galley,’ he shouted to a general guffaw of laughter as he tossed the coin back.
Gibson and Hathaway were busy slicing open the rest of the pouches. When they had finished, there were two heaps of money on the table before them: one of silver, the other of gold and slightly larger.
A ripple of anticipation passed through the crowd as Hathaway addressed his audience. ‘There’s enough here for each man to start with twenty coins, fourteen of gold and six of silver. Anything that’s left over we’ll keep back for the committee to decide on.’ He looked across at Gibson. ‘Agreed?’
Pearl’s quartermaster nodded.
‘Come forward when I read out your name. Gibson will make the payment. Then put your mark on this paper where I show you.’
It was a slow process. Each freebooter collected the twenty coins that Gibson had stacked for him, signed his mark, and then returned to stand among his company. Hector felt tiredness creeping over him as he watched. Apart from a few sips of water, he had not had anything to eat or drink all day, and he was exhausted. The distribution of the plunder had nearly reached its conclusion, with Jacques and Jezreel among the handful of men still unpaid, when he remembered that neither of their names was on Fancy’s muster list. He wondered if Hathaway would ignore them.
The next name to be called out was John Dann’s. Fancy’s coxswain was due a share and a half and Gibson had already laid out his coins. Dann came forward, swept them up, turned as if to sign the muster sheet, then spun round and grabbed Pearl’s quartermaster by the wrist. Gibson tried to pull away but Dann had him in a tight grip. Their tussle attracted the attention of the freebooters who had already received their money. One of Pearl’s men moved to intervene, but Jezreel stepped forward and blocked his path.
‘Open your hand,’ Dann ordered, loud enough to be heard by his shipmates from Fancy.
The quartermaster opened his fingers, and a gold coin dropped onto the table.
Without a word, Dann laid one of his own coins on top of it, then slid both in front of Hathaway. ‘Well?’ he demanded.
Hathaway looked down, and his eyes narrowed. He rounded on Gibson. ‘You cheating turd!’ he snarled.
Dann turned to face the crowd. ‘I’ve been watching our friend here,’ he told them. ‘He palms the good coins and makes sure that if a coin is clipped or counterfeit, then it goes to men from Fancy.’
A roar of anger spread through Fancy’s company as its members realized the swindle. They surged forward, intent on attacking Gibson and the men from Pearl. Knives appeared, and the first punches were thrown.
‘Hold hard!’ bellowed Hathaway over the fighting. ‘Let them keep what coin they have because that’s all they’ll get. Clear them off the ship.’
Jezreel and Jacques dodged their way through the mob to re-join Hector as the enraged freebooters from Fancy used their weight of numbers to hustle the men from Pearl back. In the brawl Gibson took a fist in the face which knocked him down. He was given a heavy kicking before being manhandled roughly towards the ship’s side and back onto Pearl.
‘Gibson needs to sharpen up his hocus pocus,’ said Jacques smugly, taking a seat on the step beside Hector.
‘And you can show him how, I suppose,’ Jezreel murmured.
Jacques gave a sly grin. ‘That’s right.’ He shook his closed fist, and there was a soft clink of coins.
Below them the last of Pearl’s men were being bundled over the side and down a rope ladder back to their vessel. One man lingered, clinging on to the rail and protesting that he had not known about Gibson’s sharp practice. He let go with a howl of pain as the butt of a musket mashed down on his fingers. Finally only Captain Mayes remained, guarded by a member of Hathaway’s gang, armed with a blunderbuss.
Henry Avery had stood aside from the turmo
il. Now he sauntered across to have a quiet word with Hathaway. Then the quartermaster raised his voice to address his crew.
‘Captain wants us to clear the area in case other ships show up and want a share. We’ll load all the plunder aboard Fancy and finish the division later. Does anyone object?’
When there was no answer, he looked straight at Hector and called out, ‘You there, Lynch! I’ve unfinished business with you.’
Hector stood up and waited for him to go on. Hathaway looked around at the men from Fancy until he had their full attention.
‘That man has no place in our company,’ he announced harshly, pointing a finger.
‘What’s he done?’ Avery asked, frowning.
‘He’s in thick with an officer from this ship, one of their wounded. I don’t know what information he was passing on because it was in a foreign language. But I saw him speaking to the officer on the quiet. If that officer lives, he’ll hold witness against us.’
Avery looked at Hector. ‘Is this true?’
‘I was telling him not to give up, that he would survive his injuries,’ Hector told him.
Hathaway cut in angrily. ‘Lynch was never voted on to our muster. For all we know he fought against us yesterday.’ He appealed to the men within hearing. ‘This is our chance to be rid of him. What do you say?’
There was a general murmur of agreement. The only voice Hector heard in opposition was Dann’s with his London accent.
Hathaway turned his attention to Mayes. ‘You can have him as a present. He’s handy with charts.’
Pearl’s captain scowled. ‘Not sure I want a turncoat. Who was he being friendly with?’
Hector decided it was time he spoke for himself. ‘Jeronimo Tavares, a Portuguese artillery officer in the Mogul’s service. He treated me decently when this ship rescued me from the sea after a fight with Captain Tew and Amity.’