by Kage Baker
The Reverend Mr. Hackbrace obediently regarded the tree, and the tremor in his hands grew markedly worse. He developed a facial tic. A thin flow of spittle started from the left corner of his mouth. His eyes reddened with an indescribable light; his head jerked back, as though he were about to fall in convulsions. Instead he hurled himself screaming at the palm tree.
Such was the force of his assault that the tree snapped clean off at its base, and he rolled with it in the sand, screaming still, stabbing at it with a knife he had pulled from his left boot and biting savagely at the green fronds that lashed his face.
John and Felham looked on, open-mouthed. So did the rest of the queue of men, who had fallen quite silent.
“Mr. Hackbrace!” said a new voice, one high and clear and sweet. John turned and saw the speaker, a short man so fat as to be nearly spherical. He had a beardless face like a painted doll’s. He linked arms with the mousy man and the pair of them lifted their voices in shrill song:
“The little white lamb in the meadow so green
Looks out on the wood where the wolf he is seen
I’ll not be afraid, says the lambkin so dear
For Jesus, sweet Jesus, sweet Jesus is near!”
The song had an immediate effect on the Reverend Mr. Hackbrace. The flailing about and frenzied stabbing stopped. He lay limp, gasping, and lifted his sandy face to croak the last line with them.
“Sweet Jesus,” echoed John.
The two singers turned to face him.
“You see?” said the thin one, with an air of triumph. “What mastiff was ever so vicious in the service of his lord and master? Or so obedient? Of course, we must accompany him.”
“You might sign on,” said Felham, “but—the other one’s a castrato, ain’t he? What the hell use is that going to be on board a ship?”
“I am a deadly fighter, poltroon!” said the fat one, narrowing his eyes.
“Are you insulting my cousin?” said the Reverend Mr. Hackbrace, getting unsteadily to his feet.
“No, not at all!” said John. “Sure, it’d be an honor to sign him on. What’s your name, friend?”
“Dick Pettibone,” said the eunuch, setting his hand on his hip in a challenging sort of way.
“And I am Bob Plum,” said the mouse-man.
“Right,” said Felham, and read them in. They signed, all three, and waded out to take their places in the longboat.
“Christ,” sighed Felham, and wiped his face with a handkerchief. “Who’s next? Step up, you lot!”
They were two who stepped up next, hand in hand. They were boucaniers, rogue men who lived by hunting wild cows and curing the beef over smoke-pits.
Both carried long muskets and wore tunics of rawhide; no brocade for these gentlemen, no plumes nor gold lace. Their limbs were bare, save for leather leggings below the knee, and their naked feet looked hard as horn. Both reeked of the barbecue. Both smoked clay pipes, wreathing themselves in yet more fume, as though to provide their natural element while they were away from it. In this much they were identical.
The differences were, that one was tall and the other was short and squat; one was black, and the other was white; one was clean-shaven, with a mass of knotted and beaded hair on his head, while the other’s face was so heavily bearded only his red eyes and the tip of a little, red nose were visible.
The fact that they were holding hands didn’t weigh much. There weren’t any women amongst the cow-killers and maroons, so they got up to certain practical vices to compensate for it. The gleaming muskets counted for a great deal more, as boucaniers were deadly marksmen and the toughest of fighters. John and Felham exchanged glances, hardly able to believe their luck.
“Names?” said Felham.
“I am Jago and this is Jacques,” said the black. He had lived amongst both Spanish and French, to judge from his accent. The white man merely nodded in confirmation. “We hate the Spanish cochons. We will sail with you.”
“Two shares each, if you’re able marksmen,” said Felham.
Jago’s lip curled in disdain. He loaded his musket, with his pipe drooping over his powder horn—John and Felham drew back involuntarily—and then turned and took aim at the shattered palm tree.
“See the centipede on the trunk?”
“No,” chorused John and Felham.
“I take off his head,” said Jago, and fired. A spurt of sand was kicked up a little way beyond the palm trunk. John got up and went to the trunk, crouching over, squinting to see. There was a centipede there, or most of one anyway, writhing and scrabbling. John squashed it and turned to shout:
“He done it, by God.”
“Three shares,” cried Felham, and grinning broadly he reached out and shook Jago by the shoulder. “Well done, mate!”
Jacques scowled—at least it looked as though he was scowling, under all that beard—and seized Felham’s wrist so hard John heard the bones crack. He began to bellow abuse, in French so far as John could tell, shaking his fist under Felham’s nose. Jago turned round and shrieked more French at Jacques; Jacques let go of Felham but rounded on Jago, thundering away death and destruction. Jago rolled his eyes, threw his hands in the air and screamed something impatient. Jacques wept, tears starting from his little, red furious eyes, and he began to slap Jago. Jago got a double handful of Jacques’ hair and pulled on it. Jacques caught Jago by the wrist and bit him.
John pulled out his pistol and fired it in the air. They stopped quarreling at once and stood apart.
“He very jealous,” said Jago.
“You ain’t going to do that on board ship, I hope,” muttered Felham, rubbing at his wrist. He read them in and they went splashing out to the boat, holding hands once more.
“Next,” John called. The next man stepped up to the table, and John blinked at him suspiciously. He seemed familiar, and not just in that he looked like any one of the down-at-heel cavaliers who’d come out to Jamaica one step ahead of their creditors. No; John had seen him here on Tortuga, three or four times in the past few days. He’d stuck in John’s mind because, each time he’d passed by, he’d looked into John’s eyes. He gave John a smile now, in which there seemed something a little sinister.
John, mindful of the two boucaniers just read in, felt a blush burning up from his collar and glared at the table. “Name?” said Felham.
“Tom Blackstone,” said the cavalier.
“Indeed, my lord?” said Felham. “Age and place of birth?”
“Thirty-one. Waddon Hill, Dorset.”
“Of course,” said Felham, in the politest possible tones of disbelief. John wrote it down, refusing to look up.
“I suppose you ain’t an able-bodied seaman, my lord?”
Clear across the water came the sound of violent quarreling from the longboat, where Jago seemed to have affronted Bob Plum in some way. Felham sighed, drew his pistol and fired a shot in their direction.
“Stand to!” he bawled. Lowering his voice he went on: “Sorry, my lord. You was saying—”
“I was upon point of saying that I am an indifferent sailor, but a damned good fighting man,” said Blackstone. “And well armed, I might add.” He waved a lace handkerchief, and from behind him two shaky old drunks stepped to the fore, each one setting down the chests they’d been bearing for him. They opened the chests to reveal kegs of powder, bars of lead for casting, and what looked to be the ready stock of an armorer’s shop.
“Oh, yes,” said Felham, and read him in. Tom Blackstone stepped up and signed to the register in a bold scrawl. The drunks were paid off with gold and backed out of Blackstone’s presence, knuckling their forelocks.
“If you’ll just walk out to the boat, my lord?” said Felham. “Haul them boxes, John, and see them stowed directly.”
“Aye aye,” said John, feeling surly. He hoisted the chests to either shoulder—for John was strong as a bull in those days—and waded out to the boat, with Blackstone prowling along beside him.
“Shame to get those fi
ne boots wet,” said Blackstone.
“They’re sea-boots. They’ll do,” said John.
“Ah, but I think they’re a little more than sea-boots, aren’t they? All that fine cutwork,” said Blackstone. And then he stopped right there, with the sea foaming around their ankles, and looking straight at John said: “Cumberland.”
“Beg pardon?” John replied.
“Cumberland,” Blackstone repeated. When John just stared at him by way of answer, he narrowed his eyes. “Pray tell me, sir: Where might I buy such boots, if I were so minded? In whose shop?”
“Don’t know, mate,” said John. “I had them off a dead man, didn’t I?” As who should say, I’m a killer, friend, and you don’t want to cross me!
“Did you indeed,” said Blackstone thoughtfully, and said nothing more.
They got to the boat, where the boucaniers and the Reverend and his mates were now chattering away and laughing like old friends. John stowed the chests, scrambled in after Blackstone, and watched him sidelong as they rowed out to the Mayflower.
* * *
Well, so the captains decided to take Panama. Morgan argued for it, shrewdly, in that way he had of making it seem as though it was somebody else’s idea. Wasn’t Panama the great clearing-house of the world, the place where all the silver and gold of Peru was brought down to be shipped away to Spain? She was open and undefended, she had never been sacked at all!
And no wonder, argued some of the captains: for she lay clear on the other side of the Main, facing into the South Sea, with sixty miles of jungle at her back, steep mountains and a winding river. Morgan pointed out that the perfumed grandees of Panama couldn’t imagine anyone attacking them from the west; they themselves would never risk mud on their fancy shoes, or work up a sweat slashing through the jungle.
Then Morgan mentioned, in an offhand kind of way, those great cities he’d taken on his first ventures: Villahermosa and the rest. He’d led his men hundreds of miles through that stinking, mosquito-haunted wilderness, and out again. Child’s play, he said.
But he didn’t press the point. Morgan was too clever for that. He let the images work for him: the bar silver from the mines of Potosi, the long emeralds and beaten gold, the silks and porcelains and pearls. When the captains had all agreed on taking Panama, he got them to sign a paper to that effect, the wily devil, giving sane and serious reasons relating to the safety of the realm. It stood him in good stead later too.
There was one other suggestion Morgan made, one to which all the captains agreed readily enough. Why not take themselves a base on the Main first, a place near to the business at hand, some island where they could refit and revictual at need? Old Providence ought to do nicely, he said. Recapture it, and get a little revenge into the bargain.
THE ISLAND
The fleet raised anchor and sailed, with a fair wind behind them all the way. Six days it took. On Christmas Eve—as the Papists amongst them reckoned it by the new calendar, which was ten days out from the right one—there were the three mountain peaks of Old Providence, red in the sunrise. By midmorning the Brethren sailed up to the anchorage and saw the battery guarding the harbor, and the black mouths of four silent guns. Morgan had a good look at the place with his glass.
No little figures moved along the parapets; no Spanish banners waved. Nobody moving inland, either; no sight of a living soul.
Morgan closed his glass and, cool as ice, bid his captains enter the anchorage. The Satisfaction first; he stood tall on her quarterdeck as they slipped in, right in range of the guns, but never a shot was fired. Had the Spanish deserted the place, after breaking so many hearts to take it? Morgan landed a thousand armed men, and went ashore to find out.
* * *
John led the little party of his messmates that Captain Bradley sent: Reverend Hackbrace with his cousin Pettibone and Bob Plum, who seemed some sort of relation too, and the two boucaniers; at the last moment Tom Blackstone jumped down into the boat too, much to John’s discomfort. He made no trouble, though; he merely bent to the oar like a common hand and kept his mouth shut, though once John noticed him studying John’s boots again.
They splashed ashore and drew the boats up, and John had a long look around. Eerie silence. Inland he could just glimpse a few roofs, bare beams gaping and thatching rotted away. There were wide weedy places that had been fields, maybe. Only, a flock of wood-pigeons rose suddenly in flight, wheeled and circled once, and vanished.
“Do you see, Elias?” Bob Plum pointed to the desolation. “This is the work of the Pope.”
“Here, now, don’t you go setting him off yet,” said John in alarm.
“If you please, I require the proper frame of mind,” said the Reverend. He raised his hands and began to pray; Plum and Pettibone knelt in the sand beside him and joined in. Blackstone watched them with a smirk. The boucaniers were composedly loading their muskets, puffing away at their lit pipes. John shuddered and looked around.
A few yards down the beach, Morgan’s own boat was coming ashore. John thought he’d draw a bit of notice for himself, so he splashed out and helped them pull the boat up. He did his best to catch Morgan’s eye, but the Admiral was staring inland at the ruins, looking grim. So John stood to his full height and saluted smartly, and with him being so big Morgan couldn’t help but see.
“Please you, sir, this plantation ain’t been worked in years,” said John. “Not a sign of a living soul here.”
Morgan looked at him, and John thought he saw a flash of recognition in Morgan’s black eyes.
“Perhaps not,” he said. “Look you, take six men and reconnoiter down the coast.” He pointed, and John set off smart; as he hurried away he heard Morgan ordering other parties out to have a look round.
Well, John led his little party down the beach and saw never a footprint, not so much as a goat’s track; Jago and Jacques cast inshore a ways as they went, and though they walked silent as cats they found nothing either. They met all together at the end of the beach, under the rock cliff, and John splashed out with them to look around into the next little bay.
“Fresh water,” said Jago, pointing. There were some dark wet rocks, with a runnel of clear water flowing down over gravel and shells from the trees to the beach, and white mist blowing along it.
“That’s something, anyway, water,” said John. He blundered forward through the surf and walked up on the glass-smooth sand. He looked again at the mist, and caught his breath.
There was a girl standing there by the water, pale as the mist, still and slender as an egret. She lifted her head and looked at him. John felt a stab of something go right through his heart and lodge there, like the barbed head of a spear. He had never seen anything so beautiful in his life, nor would he ever again: nothing like that girl by the water, with her long, wet hair and her gray eyes gazing so quiet.
Jago and Jacques and the rest came up the beach after him and John put out his hand, trying to make them be quiet. He was sure she’d vanish like a ghost; he was half sure she was a ghost. But she didn’t vanish, and then Pettibone had seen her and cried, “There’s a spirit!”
John was sure she’d turn and run, then, but she didn’t. She stood there, watching them; slow and cautious they walked toward her.
Close to, and she was real enough. She looked young, only a maid of fourteen or so, clad in rags faded and stained. Her hair was a tangled mat, pale as ashes.
John was talking low all the time he came near her, like he was talking to a skittish horse, telling her what a pretty little thing she was and how she needn’t be afraid. He never took his eyes from the girl, but Jago and Jacques were watching the scrub pretty sharp. Nothing moved. She was alone.
Ever so careful, John reached out and took her hand. It felt like ice.
“What’s your name, dearie?” he said.
She never drew back from him, but looked at her hand in a sort of wonder, it seemed, and said, “Anguish.”
“She means English!” exclaimed Bob Plum. “Merc
iful God! She’s one of the Righteous. She must have escaped the Spanish, and been hiding here all this while.”
“It is a miracle,” said Pettibone. “Oh, the poor child!”
Jacques said something, and Jago translated: “Ask her, where have the Spanish gone?”
But she didn’t seem to know. She just looked at them, mute, though she didn’t resist when John pulled at her hand.
“You come with us, sweeting,” he said, and felt her hand warm a little in his grasp.
“Listen to me, girl,” said Blackstone. “Are there others here? Other English, like you? Any men?”
“She’s mad,” said Jago, shaking his head. Pettibone shrugged out of his coat, that was big enough to go round the girl three times, and wrapped it around her shoulders.
They led her away and around the cliff, back to the boats. Morgan was gazing through his glass at the interior, and so did not see them until they were just at his elbow, so to speak.
“Here’s a thing, sir,” said Blackstone. “A young lady.”
Morgan lowered his glass and turned. He saw the girl, and his dark face went clay-color in shock.
“Oh Christ,” he said. He just stood there staring at her, so John, trying to be helpful, said:
“She’s said she’s English, sir.”
Morgan spoke as though his mouth was dry. “What’s your name, child?”
She said nothing. He reached out a hand and brushed back her hair, looked into her eyes.
“Are you alone?” he asked. “Is your mother here? Your father?”
Not a word from her, though tears formed in her gray eyes. Morgan was breathing hard, like a man that’s run upstairs.
“You’re safe now,” he told her. “Safe, and going home. She can’t stay here,” he added, looking around as though he’d only just noticed John and the rest standing there. “Some of you, row her out to the Satisfaction. To my cabin. She’s not to be touched, do you understand? I’ll kill the man who touches her. She needs tending—she must be clothed and fed—” His voice trailed off in a helpless kind of way, as he looked around him and realized he hadn’t exactly the most trustworthy lads to minister to a virgin pure, like.