They returned to the Flamingo and took a table outside on the street. Arnold came out and when he saw them, went back in and brought them two beers.
“I ‘ave a couple of men to see you, sir,” he stammered, looking uncomfortable. “Both capable hands.”
He went inside and came out with two men. There was no doubt they were sailors and Marty would put money on them being runners. They were both around the same age as Tom and had a belligerent look about them. One had a scar on his cheek and wore his sleeves long. The other had torn the sleeves off his shirt to make it into a kind of waistcoat.
Marty sat back in his chair and waited. James, seeing what he did, emulated him.
The two men came and sat, looking at Marty and James.
“’ere Arnold I thought you said we was to see a captain,” Scarface said over his shoulder, looking sneeringly at Marty, who just looked back with no expression at all.
“You’re runners,” Marty stated.
“And what if we are,” snarled Scarface.
“It’s nothing to me,” Marty said. He appeared totally relaxed and unintimidated by the aggressive approach. “I’m only interested in recruiting prime hands.”
“That your ship over there?” Sleeveless asked, nodding at the Tempest.
Marty nodded.
“Looks like a Navy ship.”
“She was. I bought her at auction after she was paid off.”
“Thought you looked like you were worth a bob or two,” said Scareface, “how about you hand over some of that cash now.”
“What the King’s shilling?” Marty replied.
“Don’t be funny with me, boy,” Scarface snarled. “Hand over your purse.”
Marty gave him a wolf smile and said,
“Why don’t you try and take it.”
There was a pause.
Scareface reached for his belt knife and suddenly found himself looking down the twin apertures of a double-barrelled pistol. The distinctive double clicks as it was cocked, froze him in mid draw.
“This little chat is over.” Marty said in a pleasant tone and gestured with the pistol for them to leave.
The two men backed away from the table and as they turned were confronted by the Innkeeper.
“You said you was looking for a berth!” he cried.
Scarface pushed him aside muttering something under his breath.
Marty gestured with the pistol for Arnold to step closer. He looked terrified.
“Now we have got that little misunderstanding out of the way,” Marty said, and the pistol disappeared. “Let’s get back to me finding some prime hands.”
Back on The Tempest, James signed in the four new hands they found at the Flamingo. It was time to get to work.
Chapter 3: Making our name.
The first thing they had to do was establish their identity as privateers gone rogue. They headed up towards Cuba looking for any ships they could take on the way. At least with the constant North-easterly trade wind they didn’t have to keep trimming the sails.
They saw a pair of British Merchantmen that were probably on their way to Jamaica and decided to leave them alone. The men they found in Aruba were from all nations with a fair number of British and there were murmurs of discontent as they watched the two ships keeping a constant distance on the horizon.
Wilson reported quietly through Tom that one of them was a right sea lawyer and was starting to agitate for the ‘boy captain’ to be replaced by someone with a more ruthless streak. Marty knew the man as he was one that came from the Flamingo and he had identified him as potential trouble there but he had his own reasons for letting him on board.
Just before twilight, the lookout reported that there was a sail on the horizon to the Northeast of them. It looked like a sloop or a clipper. Marty wondered about that and on instinct, he ordered reduced sail that night to behave like a merchantman.
He was woken an hour before dawn as he had instructed. He was in a bad mood as he was having the most wonderful, erotic dream about Caroline and woke feeling frustrated.
However, once on deck, he ordered the men to quarters. He told them to keep the main guns run in, but to ready the swivels with grapnels and the carronades with cannister. He got everyone armed and sat down on the deck out of sight so it would look like they were still on the night watch. Now, he had to wait to see if his hunch was correct.
The sky lightened in the East to a dull grey, and the lookout called that he could see a grey goose at a mile. That was almost immediately followed by a cry.
“SAIL HO! CLOSING FAST ON THE STARBOARD SIDE.”
Marty scratched Blaez’s head and said to him,
“He’s mistook us for a merchantman, silly man.”
He could see the other ship and it was a Baltimore Clipper flying an American flag. His grin became wolfish as he signalled for the men to stay down. He needed this bird to come to roost! The ship rushed up to them and furled sails as she drew up alongside about thirty feet away and eased towards them.
“GRAPNELS AWAY,” Marty shouted, and men sprang up to the swivels to send their barbed cargo across to the other ship. Their shooting was good, and they snared the schooner with a web of lines.
“Carronades!” Marty ordered, and the the men pulled the canvas covers off the two on the quarterdeck, trained them and they cough-chuffed their deadly loads as the lanyards were pulled. One aimed for the wheel, and the other sent its load across the deck as John Smith steered them in, so the hulls met. The forward carronade fired as soon as it had the best angle to rake the deck.
“Boarders away! Break out the colours.”
The grapnel lines were tied off, and the men launched themselves down onto the clipper’s deck. Marty’s flag of a fighting knife piercing a skull above crossed pistols was run up on the Mizzen. The schooner’s crew went from thinking they were going to make an easy kill to having to fight for their lives.
Marty launched himself over the side to drop down onto the deck and immediately slipped on a pool of blood. He ended up on his backside with pain shooting up his leg. He didn’t have time to think about it as someone was thrusting at him with a boarding pike.
He raised both pistols and fired. At six feet, both fifty calibre balls hit his assailant in the chest and threw him backwards. Marty cocked the second barrels against the wrist of the other hand and worked himself backwards, so his back was against the gunnel.
Blaez appeared over the side almost straight over his head and landed on the deck with his hackles up and looking around for his boss. He was sure he came over the side in the same place as he had. Marty whistled, and Blaez spun around and saw him. He rushed up to him and put his head under Marty’s arm, trying to get him on his feet.
Marty pushed him off and told him, “guard!” The dog turned and took up position next to him ready to defend.
A few minutes later, Garai arrived with Samuel and they got Marty up off the deck and sat on a crate with his right leg straight out in front of him.
An American sailor backed towards them, defending himself against a series of precise slashes and then folded over as an equally precise thrust of a hanger took him through the heart. Shelby, the Tempest’s surgeon and physician, stepped over the body and sheathing his sword, knelt to check Marty over.
He took Marty’s shoe off and felt around his already swelling ankle.
“Broken! How did you do that?” he asked in his best bedside voice.
“Slipped on a puddle of blood. The idiots hadn’t even sanded their deck!” Marty snapped in explanation.
“Well, we need to get you back aboard The Tempest as soon as this is finished,” he looked around. “They put up a good fight do these Americans,” he added and stepped away, drawing his sword again.
Marty rolled his eyes and grimaced as a spasm of pain shot up his leg. He blinked and looked again as he thought he was seeing things. Fletcher was in the midst of the fighting, wielding a fearsome looking axe with a three-foot handle, a blade o
ne side of the head, and a spike the other.
The fight was over in another few minutes as the Tempest’s outnumbered the clipper’s crew by a fair margin thanks to the decimating effect of the carronades. Tom took command and relegated Marty to the roll of patient in the tender hands of Shelby. His ankle was badly swollen and Shelby told him that he could do nothing until the swelling went down and had him placed in his cabin by Samuel, who picked him up like he was a baby after he had suffered the indignity of being hoisted back onto his own ship in a bosun’s chair.
Marty was, consequently, in a foul mood when Tom came down to report that the clipper, which was called The Eagle, was secured and he manned her with one hundred men under James with Wilson as his first mate. He also told him they found a large chest of gold and jewels in the captain’s cabin and sent over about half their grenades and volley guns.
That did a little to mollify Marty until John came in and told him there was a delegation on deck demanding to see the skipper.
“It be that Jim McElvoy. The one we took on at Aruba,” John said. “Do you want us to chuck him over the side?”
“No. Get me up on deck,” Marty said.
John and Tom helped him up the steps to the deck. McElvoy stood by the mainmast with a group of men, some of whom came from Aruba and others from St. John’s. Marty was pleased to see that none of the men he brought from England or the Africans were with him.
Time to establish my credentials, Marty thought as he had them take him to the Mizzen mast where he could prop himself up.
“What can I do for you?” he asked the delegation.
“We are here to challenge you for the captaincy,” McElvoy stated in a loud voice. “You ain’t no captain and now you be a cripple who ain’t a captain.” He looked around expectantly at the rest of the crew. Nobody reacted. They just waited.
Marty stayed leaning against the mast and said quietly,
“If you want it, come and take it.”
“What did you say?” McElvoy asked.
Marty beckoned him forward.
“I said, if you want it, come and take it.” He looked at John and Tom, who were hovering nearby. “Leave this to me,” he told them.
McElvoy pulled a knife from his belt and stepped forward.
“You’re brave,” Marty laughed.
McElvoy was committed and came forward. Marty didn’t move. McElvoy was three yards away when Marty said,
“Blaez! Kill!”
The dog came snarling around from behind the mast and went straight for McElvoy’s groin. At the same time, Marty pulled a knife from his sleeve and threw it. The knife hit the man in the right bicep, and his blade fell from numb fingers. He let Blaez savage him for a bit then commanded,
“Blaez, leave.”
Blaez backed off but didn’t take his eyes off his victim, who dropped to his knees holding his groin in his left hand.
Marty looked at the remaining members of the delegation and asked,
“Anyone else want to challenge me for captain?”
Nobody came forward.
“Tom, what’s in the water around the ship?”
Tom looked puzzled but went and looked over the side.
“Sharks,” he said, “They’ve been attracted by the blood washed off the Eagle.”
Marty looked at the now cringing man.
“Throw him over the side,” he said.
Nobody moved. Tom just looked at him in astonishment. He was about to repeat the instruction when Samuel and Chipo stepped forward and grabbed him.
“You learning the hard way not to mess with the boss man,” Samuel said as he grabbed his bleeding right arm and yanked out the knife before dragging him to his feet.
There was a collective gasp as the two big men picked McElvoy up and carried him, struggling, to the side. They swung him back to toss him over the rail when Tom said, “STOP.”
Marty looked at him with his eyebrows raised in question. Internally, he was struggling as the pain in his ankle had him on the verge of fainting. Hang on, hang on. He kept telling himself.
“I plead for clemency for him,” Tom said formally.
“What do you suggest I do with him then, old friend?” Marty asked.
“Set him ashore on the next island and give him forty lashes as a leaving present.”
“Only forty?”
“Given by Wilson and Samuel.”
Men winced at the thought of the two big men laying on the lash first from the left then the right.
Marty looked at McElvoy and said,
“I give you the choice: the sharks or the grate.”
McElvoy chose the grate.
“And I choose the Island. Santo Domingo.”
He was tied to a grating and Shelby insisted on a leather apron being tied over his kidneys to protect them.
Wilson, who had come over from The Eagle especially, came forward and took the cat out of its red baize bag. He was shirtless and his massive torso and arms shone with sweat. He didn’t hold back on the lashes, delivering everyone with the full force of his left arm and shoulder. McElvoy screamed from the third to the last. At the count of twenty, he handed the cat to Samuel. Although not as big as Wilson, Samuel was a fine specimen of a man carrying hardly an ounce of excess weight and had the muscles of a warrior. He was righthanded, and he applied the cat with precision, slicing the man’s back into a checkerboard.
After he was cut down and Shelby had him taken to the Orlop for treatment, Tom and John helped Marty back down to his cabin where he promptly fainted. He came around to find Blaez gazing at him with concerned eyes and Tom watching him.
Tom shook his head and smiled.
“Would you have thrown him over?”
Marty sat up. His head spun and he was almost sick.
“I was getting worried you wouldn’t stop them,” he said when the room settled down.
“You could have told me up front what you had in mind.”
“I didn’t know. I was making it up as I went along.”
“And when we get to Dominica?”
“We go into harbour with him tied to the bowsprit and throw him on the dock. Word will get around not to mess with the Tempest or her captain.”
“What are you going to do with the American crew?”
“Put them ashore on the American coast?” Marty suggested. “Or we could dump them on a Spanish island. Did we get any information out of them?”
“Some. The captain was dead, but we managed to question the first mate before he died and in return for a Christian burial, he told us they were the ones who took the Pride of York and they sold the cargo on Bonaire as we guessed. But. and this is the interesting part, they prefer to sell the ships on Costa Rica as they get a better price from the Spanish. They were on their way back from there when they came upon us.”
“That was a bit of luck for us then.”
The door opened and Shelby walked in.
“Good. You are back with us. That was a particularly brutal display. Was it really necessary?” he asked.
“Yes, we have to maintain discipline and any challenge to my authority has to be dealt with. He knew the risk he was taking, and he gambled that I was incapacitated and an easy target. He didn’t factor in Blaez,” Marty replied, leaving out the fact that he was also sending a message to the rest of the pirating world.
Shelby looked at his ankle, which had gone a spectacular purple colour, and asked Marty to lay down. He got a blanket, rolled it up, and rested Marty’s lower leg on it.
“You need to keep this raised. You can sit on your chair, but you must keep the foot up. It helps drain the fluids away from the break. I have an idea that may help.” He took a cloth and dipped in a bowl of water then wrung it out and wrapped it around the ankle. “To cool it. Keep it moist. It will help reduce the swelling. Stay off your feet until the ankle gets down to a more normal size then we will see what can be done with it.”
Marty wasn’t used to enforced inactivity and star
ted to do something he hardly ever did. Worry.
He worried they were going about the mission in the wrong way. He worried they wouldn’t find the bases. He worried the Commissioner at English Harbour would mess things up for them. Lastly, he also worried about Caroline and the children and whether she was getting into schemes that she shouldn’t.
Tom understood what was going on as Marty got more and more snippy and short with people and decided after two days that for everyone’s peace of mind, Marty needed to get back on deck. He talked with Shelby and had a chat with the carpenter, who went below and gathered his tools.
The next morning, Tom came into Marty’s cabin with Samuel. They picked him up and carried him up onto the quarterdeck. There, set under the awning that protected the helmsman from the sun where he could see down the deck and look at the log, was a wooden framed chair with a sailcloth seat and back. There was an extension to the seat out to the front on the right side, which would support his leg.
He found that it was actually very comfortable and in another three days, the swelling had reduced enough for Shelby to examine his ankle properly and decide what to do. It turned out to be surprisingly simple. He identified where the break was by some ungentle probing then manipulated Marty’s foot until the break was lined up. It all hurt like hell, and Marty gritted his teeth as Shelby bound it firmly with a long linen bandage, effectively immobilising it in the position where he wanted the break to heal.
They made landfall and headed the Tempest into the port of Santo Domingo and, as he had promised, Marty had McElvoy tied to the bowsprit as some kind of gruesome figurehead. They sailed right through the harbour parading the wretch to the onlooking ships. Marty had men recording the name and type of every ship they passed. There were several likely-looking Sloops and Brigs that had too many guns to be honest traders. They hove-to in the most prominent spot available and unfurled their colours.
Marty made a show of having him cut down and lowered into a ship’s boat then rowed to shore and tossed onto the steps of the dock. The boat returned and they made way, leaving the harbour in their wake.
The Tempest: The Dorset Boy Book 5 Page 3