Peter Wicked

by Broos Campbell

  “Mr. Horne, as soon as it’s convenient, let each new man be issued a couple of shirts from the slop chest.”

  “Aye aye, sir.” There was nothing else he could say, but he hung a question on the end of it.

  “Put ’em in blue checks like the rest of the people,” I said. “Take their old shirts away, show ’em they’re all Tomahawks now. Oh—and remind me to go over the watch bill. I want the Columbias divided evenly between the la’board and sta’board watches.”

  “Ah,” he said, rubbing his hands together. “Aye aye, sir.”

  I was glad he approved, but of course it wouldn’t do to say so. And here was Peebles, who’d been grinning like a scared monkey ever since I hollered.

  “Grand day for sailing, ain’t it?” I said.

  “Y-yes, sir.”

  “I got a reputation as a lunatic, you know.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Worried?”

  “Yes sir! I mean, no sir! It’s just that—” He gulped wetly.

  “To loo’ard,” I said, and then had to grab his ankles to keep him from going by the board.

  We rounded Cape Samanà on the eastern end of Hispaniola, and loitered across the mouth of the long and narrow bay to the south. We saw plenty of small craft in there—a lot of them French, too, for sure, but the Spanish fort on the north side of the bay and a battery on the south side put them out of our reach. What was more important, though, was that I could see straight down the bay, and no Suffisant in sight. Rather than buck the awkward winds and twisting currents of the Mona Passage just yet, I settled for beating along the northern coast of Porto Rico.

  A Spanish guarda-costa came out to meet us as we approached Saint John’s. She was schooner-rigged and pierced for ten guns.

  “Looks to be held together with spunyarn and prayers,” I said, examining her through my glass. I handed it to Horne.

  “We could give her tops’ls and t’gallants,” he said, looking her over, “and still sail her under in an hour or two.”

  “Sure, but that wouldn’t be right.”

  “Oh, sir!” said Peebles, as a jet of white smoke spurted from her away side. “He wants us to—”

  “Heave-to, if you please, Mr. Horne,” I said, but Peebles looked so disappointed that I had to laugh. “He has every right to find out who we are, Mr. Peebles. We’re in his yard, after all.”

  Turned out the guarda-costa’s artillery consisted of eight swivels—little half-pounders at that, hardly bigger than a blunderbuss—and no carriage guns at all, despite her ports. Her captain came aboard of us by hauling alongside and swinging across on a line seized to his mainyard, to save the trouble of launching a boat.

  “I am Capitán de Corbeta Zamora y Ramos of the San Buenaventura, at the gentleman’s pleasure,” he said in English, straightening up after a deep bow and a pretty flourish of the most immense cocked hat I ever seen. His long jaw needed a shave, and his blue uniform was stained at the elbows and knees as if he’d tried to disguise the worn places with ink, and the red of the lapels and cuffs was faded to nearly pink, but he had a solemn kindness about him that I liked. We exchanged a few pleasantries that were too elaborate for me to keep up with easily, but I just bowed him along until we’d fetched the cabin. I waved him into a chair and called for coffee.

  After a lot of jawing it transpired that yes, el capitán de corbeta Zamora y Ramos would take some coffee if I no have the chocolate, and no, this Mèche fellow was no in San Juan.

  “Five days,” he said, sitting with one knee crossed over the other in my cabin and spooning sugar into his cup. “Then he sail east.” He waved his spoon in a direction that might have included anything between the Virgin Islands and Africa.

  “You seen him yourself, sir? You watched him leave?”

  “Oh, sí, sí.” He nodded a while, his lips pursed and his bristly chin sticking out. “Yes. Yes, I follow him myself for half a day. We no want him back. A most unsavory character—he is a norteamericano, you know,” he said, as if that explained a host of ills. He slurped from his cup. “Brandy might improve this coffee.”

  “I got some whiskey, or tafia if you druther.” I opened a locker and hauled a couple of square case bottles out. “Did you talk to him personally, sir?”

  “Tafia? Bah. I try the whiskey, if it please. No, señor, to answer your question, but I see this Mèche in port. Is most illegal, you know. He bring in coffee and sugar.” He slapped himself on the forehead. “Stupido, selling coffee and sugar in this island.” He curled his lip and waggled his fingers alongside his head. “We sell coffee and sugar.”

  “But it’s illegal for non-Spanish merchants . . .”

  He rubbed his thumb against his first two fingers. “La mordita, the how-you-say—”

  “The bribe?”

  He raised his hands in mock horror and clucked his tongue. “Ai-yi-yi, such a harsh word! The ‘little bite,’ always please to say—is alive in this island, and I, the vigilant Capitán Zamora, cannot be in all places at once.”

  “Yes, sir. And no doubt Mèche had his reasons for selling here.”

  He shrugged, smiled. “No doubt. He sell his ship along with the cargo. A nice little bergantín—a brig, two masts—with a hole in the side.”

  “A hole?”

  “Such as a round shot would make. They patch it and paint it, but one could see it all the same. One learns what to look for.”

  “He was in a brig?”

  “No, señor, he has a brig with him, which is what he sell. He himself is in what you norteamericanos call a sloop. One mast, eight guns, and a patch like a yellow cross on the como se dice, how-you-say, the mainsail. ¡Sacrilegio!” He crossed himself.

  “Was the brig armed?”

  “Oh, sí.”

  “So she might’ve been a lawful capture. A letter of marque, maybe.”

  He shrugged. “Then he must to take her to the prize court in your country to be condemned, no?”

  “Well, there’s a prize court in Le Cap now, but yes, a capture needs to be condemned legal so the owners can have their say if they want it. They usually don’t. But you said you saw him. What does he look like?”

  “A tall unpleasant man, thin and bitter. He has the scar on his cheek. His nose is long and his chin is like the crescent moon. It is said he has the mark on his forehead, so.” He traced a comma on his brow. “But he wear his hat low, and I do not see this.”

  “He was here five days, sir, or he left five days ago?”

  “He leaved yesterday morning, señor. I return only last night.”

  “Then I must leave immediately, sir, while the wind serves. You will forgive me?”

  “As we have finished the coffee, señor, yes, by all means, go find this bad fellow. But allow me to send some chocolate aboard—if the young capitán is to entertain more of my countrymen, he will be thankful for it. It will take but a moment.”

  “I’m most grateful, sir. In exchange, will the captain accept some American whiskey?”

  Zamora smiled with more politeness than enthusiasm. “An acquired taste, but one that might be amusing to acquire.”

  With the guarda-costa receding in our wake, I called Horne down from the masthead.

  “Couldn’t see behind the morro fort, of course, sir,” he said, “but other than that I could see down the whole length of the harbor, and Breeze ain’t there.”

  “You mean, Suffisant ain’t there.”

  “Yes, sir, that’s what I meant.”

  We nosed around to windward of Porto Rico to no effect, rolling around on the Atlantic mostly because I was too stubborn to admit I didn’t know where to look and too proud to ask Horne or Gundy for ideas. I had pretty near made up my mind to drop down to Saint Thomas in the Virgin Islands, on a bright afternoon with Isla Cagada lying three leagues to the southwest across the sparkling sea, when we sighted a grubby brig coming up toward us from the Danish islands. She looked to me like she was trying to edge away from us, like she weren’t too sure if we w
ere salvation or doom. Well, I guessed I could answer that for her pretty quick.

  “Mr. Peebles, run up our colors and see if she salutes.”

  As soon as those fifteen glorious red and white stripes commenced to snapping in the breeze, the brig threw her helm over and tried to waddle off among the thousand or so cays to the south. I would’ve bet we drew less water than she did, but her captain could lead us a long chase if he knew the shoals at all.

  “Mr. Horne, what do you make of her?”

  “Yankee, sir.”

  “Then why’s she running?”

  “I don’t know, sir.”

  I took another long look at her through my glass. Even from a mile off she just about oozed shabbiness and neglect. I wanted to take a bucket and brush to her.

  “Me, I’m just busting to find out. Gundy, lay a course to bring us alongside of her. Mr. Peebles, here is the key to the magazine. You may have a dozen three-pounder cartridges—you, Eriksson, go with him and make sure he don’t blow us to hell.”

  The two came back with the first cartridge properly stowed in a wooden cartridge box. Eriksson looked expectant, but Peebles looked positively cheerful.

  “Now then, Mr. Peebles. Clear away the forward gun on the sta’board side.”

  “Aye aye, sir! Eriksson, O’Lynn, to me!” He picked four more men and set them in position around the gun. “Take heed! Silence! Cast off the tackles and breechings.” He got the tampion out of the muzzle and the lead apron off the vent. “Unstop the touch-hole. Handle the priming wire. Prick the cartridge.” Eventually he got to “Handle your crows and handspikes—point the gun to the object,” at which point I stepped in.

  “Belay that, Mr. Peebles. We don’t need to sink her just yet.”

  The men laughed at the notion that our three-pound shot would sink the brig, but not unkindly. Peebles got a little red, crouched down behind the gun and sighting along its length, but he swallowed his embarrassment readily enough.

  He got to his feet and touched his hat. “Gun ready for firing, sir.”

  “Very well. Let’s show her some smoke.”

  “Take your match and blow it—fire!”

  Eriksson blew on his smoldering slowmatch and pressed it to the touch-hole. The priming flared, the gun shot backwards, the iron ball and fiery wad flew off into the wild blue yonder, Eriksson stuck a leather-covered thumb over the vent, and the brig continued on her course like we weren’t there at all.

  “Give her another.”

  “Aye aye, sir.”

  The closer I let Peebles get to her, the more she ignored us—or it seemed that way, at least. I was starting to get vexed. We had a steady breeze on our starboard quarter, and I didn’t have to resort to sextant and cosines to see we’d overtake her unless the ocean opened up and swallowed us. Which could happen. Or a sudden hurricane could spring up, or we could get hit by a waterspout or a white squall, or we could hit a whale, or the nails might fall out of our hull and sink us in the low and lonesome sea, which would be much the same thing as the ocean swallowing us, which is what got me started on that line of thought in the first place—any number of things might impede us, from the possible but not very likely to the damn near impossible; but they were only worth acknowledging as a way of warding off the Furies. I touched wood.

  We were closing the distance without even having to crack on sail. The sea was calm, nothing on it but a long, gentle swell. It was about as pleasant a day for sailing as ever there was, but I wasn’t enjoying it too much. I let Peebles have another dozen cartridges. At long musket shot I had him train his three-pounder as far forward as it would go.

  “Now then, Mr. Peebles, see how close can you get without you hit her.”

  The shot must have passed over her deck, for her helmsman throwed a glance over his shoulder, and a head or two popped over the rail before ducking down again, but we got nothing else out of her for it. Three more times we fired as we closed the distance, all three of them close enough to put a buzz in their bonnets over there; but they declined to come up to the wind, and I began to think that if Peebles accidentally put a shot through her, I would be obliged to cuss him out but my heart wouldn’t be in it. When a naval vessel shows you her colors and gives you a gun, you’re supposed to heave-to and satisfy her curiosity, damn it.

  At pistol shot I said, “Gundy, put us across her stern.” I snatched the speaking trumpet out of the beckets—I wanted to make sure everyone aboard her heard me—and called across, “This is the United States armed schooner Tomahawk. Heave-to!”

  “Nay! Nay! I’ll not,” cried the helmsman.

  “Heave-to or I’ll blow your cabin to flinders! I’ll rake you stern to stem, by tarnal thunder, see if I don’t! You, sir, will be the first to go!”

  At that he threw up his arms and she flew up into the wind. Her sails flapped confusingly for several minutes, and then her yards got braced round properly and she rode easily with her fore-topsail against the mast. We stood off her to windward.

  I called across, “What brig is that?”

  “Horseneck, Cap’n Browbury,” said her helmsman. Without prompting he added, “We were four days out from Antigua, laden with sugar and coffee, nothin’ but light airs all the way, when we got jumped by a ding-dang son-of-a-caterwampus flying American colors. Cleaned us out and took every nigger in my crew as well. Nay, nay,” he said, apparently alarmed at the cheerful industry with which Horne and the boys were hoisting out our boat. “Ye needn’t bother comin’ aboard. I bein’t in need of assistance.”

  “It’s no bother.”

  “Nay, nay!”

  “Yes, yes! Here I come,” I called.

  “Oh—hang it.”

  With pistols and cutlasses all around, I went across with Horne and four Tomahawks. Browbury—he and the helmsman were one and the same—offered no resistance, and his crew merely stood around staring cow-eyed till we herded them all together on the fo’c’s’le. They were a hungry-looking lot, and every bit as dirty as the brig, but Browbury had them beat. He was a big shaggy man, squalid and moldered, as if the clothes was rotting off his body. His petticoat trousers was more rags than legs, he was missing his left sock, and it was hard to tell what color his shirt was, or even if it was checked or plain. The lower half of his face was hidden beneath a wild black beard, and his nose and cheeks were smeared with tar or grease—I couldn’t tell what, and I didn’t particularly want to know. He wore an enormous slouch hat with a brim that looked like he chewed on it in his spare time, and his hair hung in mats around his shoulders. Peeking out from behind his saggy trousers was a girl of six or seven, with scraggly black ringlets poking out every which way from under her bonnet, and a grubby but expensive-looking doll clutched to her bosom.

  “That rover I told ye about,” said Browbury. His eyes kept wandering uneasily to Horne beside me. “He got himself within pistol shot, all man-o’-war fashion and strictly by the book, just like you done. And then he raised the Jolly Roger with a horrible shout and was aboard afore we could so much as raise a musketoon. Er, not that we have any arms at all, no sir. Long as we go unarmed, we ain’t legal prey for French privateers, you know. Which don’t stop ’em, blast their hide. Anyways, that’s why we was leery an’ dinnit heave-to at first—thought ye might be another pirate.”

  “Don’t worry, Captain,” I said. “You’ll pay the shot. I’ll see to it.”

  “Oh, bill me for the ball and powder ye fired again’ us, will ye! Ayyuh, you do that, sonny, you go ahead.” He spat tobacco on the deck. “I’m about cleaned out, so what do I care? Anyway, we’d a-had ’em, if he hadn’t been a sneaky snake.” He put his antique tricorn over his heart. “Imagine, profaning the Stars and Stripes thataway. Ay-yuh, he were a bad ’un.”

  “Ay-yuh, mate, he were a bad ’un, all right!” said the girl. Except for bonnet and beard, she and Browbury were the spirit and image of each other. It was hard to tell them apart by smell, too. They reminded me of the neighbors when I was a boy.

&n
bsp; I doffed my hat. “Hello, Miss.” I waved my hat at Browbury. “Do you know this chap?”

  “Sure, I’d know him anywhere! He’s my old man.”

  I drew her out from behind her father’s legs. She would’ve been pretty if someone had bothered to wash her face and comb the nits out of her ringlets.

  “What makes you say he was a bad ’un?”

  “He almost stole my dolly!” She wrapped both arms around it.

  “Whatever did you do?”

  “I did like this,” she said, and kicked me in the shins.

  Browbury doubled over. “Oh, ha ha ha! A real fighter, she! Ay-yuh!”

  The girl had her hand over her mouth, her eyes shining with the effort of not laughing.

  “Oh, oh, oh!” I cried, hobbling around the deck and rolling my eyes. “Sweet jumping Jehoshaphat—carve me a peg-leg and call me Gimpy, for I am lame, sure!”

  The girl dropped her hand and giggled.

  Putting my hands on my hips and frowning with mock severity, I said, “Now that’s no way to treat an officer, is it, Miss Browbury? Kicking him, and then laughing in his face!”

  “I’m sorry, mister,” she said, all contrition. She held the doll up toward me. “Yvette says she’s sorry, too. See?”

  “Yes, I see. Is Yvette your dolly’s name?”

  “Martha,” said Browbury, “less said, soonest mended.”

  Her eyes flicked toward him and then back to me. “Ay-yuh. She’s from France, you know.”

  “Enchanté de vous voir, ma’m’selle,” I said, bowing low over the doll’s tiny hand. “Exquisite,” I said to Martha. “The best hand-painted porcelain. And dressed in the height of fashion, too. She must be very rich, to dress in silk.”

  “Oh, ay-yuh. She’s a com . . . comtuss . . .”

  “Comtesse?”

  “Ay-yuh, that’s it—what you said. That’s what the pirate captain said she were. Do you know him? I had called her Eve, but that’s not so very grand as Yvette. He were real nice and spoke French as good as you. I’m sorry I kicked him. He weren’t really going to take my dolly, you know.”