Heart of Steele

by Brad Strickland

  “Far too many,” grumbled my uncle. “I have never known a merchant ship to have more than a couple of dozen.”

  “I see no problem there,” Captain Hunter said easily. “We sail with the full crew when we are out of sight of land or other vessels, and when we are closer in, most of the men will hide belowdecks. Mr. Adams can appear as the master of the vessel, perhaps wearing my court wig and with a pillow stuffed into his shirt to give him the proper fat-merchant look.”

  “For of course you are too well-known to show yourself,” Uncle Patch said sarcastically.

  “Row us back, Davy,” said the captain. To my uncle he said very seriously, “I just may be too wellknown, Patch. For I have the feeling that Steele, devil that he is, has done his foul work all too well.”

  It seemed I was ever and again learning new things about Uncle Patch. One calm evening the captain told the crew to be lazy and enjoy the fair weather, so hard had they worked at transforming the ship. At sunset they gathered in the forward part of the main deck and sat or lay back listening to Lloyd Jones scrape at his fiddle. Jones, a stringy, lean man of forty or so, was scratching out a mournful tune, suited almost to a funeral.

  I sat leaning against the mainmast, listening with the rest. Uncle Patch came on deck, sniffed the air, and then walked to the windward rail, where he stood staring out over the sea. Presently he turned and in a chiding voice said, “Jones, the Lord commanded us to make a joyful noise, not a doleful Welsh whine. Play something cheerful!”

  Jones coughed and said, “Well, maybe I would if Your Honor would consent to lead us in a song.”

  I almost laughed aloud at the very thought of my grumbling uncle bursting into melody, but he chuckled and said, “Fairly spoken! Very well. D’ye know ’Fare thee well, my darlin’ Kathleen?’”

  “Spin it out, and I’ll follow,” responded Jones.

  To my surprise and considerable embarrassment, my uncle planted his feet, put one hand on his chest, and broke out in a clear, strong tenor:

  Fare thee well, my darlin’ Kathleen,

  A thousand times adieu.

  I am bound. I am bound from Dublin Town

  And the girl I love so true,

  I will sail the salt seas over,

  Ten thousand miles or more,

  But I’ll return to the girl I love

  And Dublin Town once more—

  He paused, and the whole crew stamped or slapped the deck and roared, “Fine girl you are!” by way of refrain. Jones had picked up the lively tune at once and jigged it out on his fiddle. My uncle took up the song again:

  You’re the girl that I adore,

  And still I live in hopes to see

  Old Dublin Town once more!

  That was the chorus, and as he sang his way through the song, the men always introduced it with their lusty cry of “Fine girl you are!”

  Of all the words, I remember only one more verse he sang, an ill-omened one:

  And now the storm is ragin’,

  And we are far from shore,

  The sheets and lines are stretched

  and wrung.

  And the riggin’ is all tore.…

  There, I forget the rest. But I do recall that Uncle Patch finished his warbling to shouts of approval. I was glad that twilight had come, for to me his behavior was so unlike him that it made my heart heavy to think on him making a fool of himself that way, and I know my face was a-burning red.

  And besides, besides, besides …

  My dead mother’s name was Kathleen.

  I go A-spying

  HOW WELL JACK STEELE had done his work was made known to us only two days later. It was but a bit after noon when we spotted a sail away to the west. Immediately, Captain Hunter gave the order and most of the men disappeared below-decks. This would be the first test of our new disguise.

  “Are you feeling like a proper captain, Mr. Adams?” Captain Hunter said, adjusting his good black court wig, which now resided atop the first mate’s head.

  “Begging your pardon, sir, but what I most feel like is a proper fool.” Mr. Adams stood patiently as the captain yanked at the wig again. Mr. Adams was dressed in a blue uniform jacket from the stores, a white blouse and breeches, and a perfectly respectable hat. The only problem was that none of his new finery exactly fit.

  “Be glad we talked him out of the pillow, lad,” creaked Uncle Patch, “or you’d be looking like a fat fool on top of it.”

  “None of you have any sense of the theatrical,” the captain sighed, finally finished manhandling the wig on poor Mr. Adams’s head.

  “Perhaps I’ll grow into it, sir.”

  “Close in on her, Mr. Warburton,” Captain Hunter called up to our helmsman. “Let’s see what’s going on in the wide world!”

  “Aye,” muttered my uncle. “And what kind of role we’re playing in it.”

  Over the next hour, we slowly closed in on the other vessel. It soon became clear that she was a sharp-looking sloop, sleek and well maintained, and like ourselves, stacked high with boxes and barrels. She was also armed with a brace of twelve pounders on each side. As we got closer, I could see men suspiciously crouched over those guns, slow matches at the ready. A tall, slim man with auburn hair tied back in a queue stood at the stern and stared back at us.

  “All right, Mr. Adams,” whispered Captain Hunter from where he lounged on the railing next to him. “Do your duty, sir.”

  Mr. Adams squared his shoulders and brought his speaking trumpet to his lips. “Ahoy the sloop! What ship are you?”

  The man with the auburn queue stared at us for a moment, then raised his own trumpet. “This be the Piedmont Star out of Charles Town, bound for Antigua, George Edwards, captain. What ship are you?”

  “This be the Fairweather out of Edinburgh, bound for Port Royal. I am Captain Adams.”

  The man on the sloop bawled, “Port Royal? Then hoist all yer sails and come about, Fairweather, for ye be sailing into rough waters!”

  “Rough waters?” Mr. Adams called. “Mean you storms, Captain Edwards?”

  “Has Scotland broke loose and drifted out to sea that you get no news, Captain Adams? I mean pirates! Mad William Hunter prowls the waters around Port Royal!”

  Captain Hunter jerked up at the sound of his name but then caught control of himself and, with a nod of his head, instructed Mr. Adams to carry on. Our first mate looked nervous as he raised his trumpet again.

  “Mad William Hunter? But we fly the Union flag and he never attacks British ships!”

  “Tell that to the crews of the Lord Marlborough and the Princess of Wales—if only you can find them. Beware a black-and-yellow French frigate—that be the wicked Aurora herself. Show her your heels, and may the devil take the dog!”

  And with that, the Piedmont Star pulled away from us and headed off on her way. No one, not even Uncle Patch, said a word, but all eyes turned to where Captain Hunter leaned back against the railing.

  “Well, that does answer the question of whether Steele has taken other English ships,” he said at last.

  “Aye,” grumbled Uncle Patch. “And whether or not our reputation has suffered in the bargain.”

  Captain Hunter smiled at him, but somehow the smile never quite reached his eyes.

  We hailed several other ships but received no more useful news. At last we stood off south of Port Royal. The time was hours before dawn, and I waited on deck, receiving my orders from Uncle Patch.

  “The plan is simple, so see that ye hold to it, lad!” he said, staring me straight in the eyes with never a blink. “You’re to head ashore in the skiff alongside. We’re to continue westward to a quiet anchorage William knows of. You have one week from today to get your snooping done. After that, every night at midnight, we’ll stand off here until three o’clock. Understand? Three o’clock and not a moment past!”

  I nodded earnestly, it being at least the fourth time he had told me, then shocked him by giving him a great hug. Before he could do anything more than sp
utter, I was over the side and into the skiff. Then it was only a matter of seconds before I was loose from the Aurora and rowing for all I was worth toward Port Royal.

  The night was dark, but the sky was rich with stars and a late moon was was low in the west. I could see the faint harbor lights in the distance. I started to find the rhythm of rowing, putting my back into the effort. Ten or fifteen minutes passed.

  “Any luck, lad?”

  The voice to my starboard nearly made me swallow my tongue. I stared wildly into the night and could just barely make out another small fishing boat with two men in it. One was chuckling softly to himself. At last it came to me that they were only asking about the fishing. Relief washed over me like a tumbling wave.

  “Not a single fish did I have for a night’s work!” I called. “And yourselves?”

  “’Twas not a total waste o’ time. Next time go a bit north. The fish there know how to help a poor man earn a penny!”

  They laughed again and I with them. They were fishermen, as I was supposed to be. My luck had held true. Around me in the dark I could now see other small boats heading back into Port Royal. Once I was sure of my heading, I risked hoisting the skiff’s small sail so that I could give my weary arms a rest. The wind was only indifferent, but with a careful hand at the tiller and on the lines, I steered for the harbor.

  Around me other voices drifted back and forth, complaining and joking about their luck, good or bad. I was just another poor soul trying to make a little extra money. Just as Captain Hunter had planned.

  The sun was slowly starting to rise when I tied up my skiff in the shelter of a lonely dock. Other boats bobbed beside it, enough to keep it safe for the time being. It wasn’t the kind of craft anyone would want to steal, anyway, being old, gray, and splintered. Just about any other vessel would be more tempting to a thief.

  Port Royal had changed not a whit since I had landed on these same docks more than a year earlier. Everywhere there was a bustle and crowds hurrying back and forth. For the first few moments I walked in fear, certain that any moment someone would point at me and shout, “There he is! There’s that famous pirate, Davy Shea!” Then, of course, I remembered that I had never been the famous pirate Davy Shea or even the famous loblolly boy Davy Shea. I was just another ragged boy making his way in the world. I walked a bit more jauntily after that.

  At last I made my way to the good old King’s Mercy, where my uncle and I had lived before all this excitement had begun. Strangely enough, it too still looked the same. Surely it should have changed. After all, I certainly had. I pushed open the stout old oaken door and walked into the dimly lit great room. A robust figure in a long dress was bustling around the tables. I walked up to her with my hat in my hands.

  “Beg pardon, Mrs. Cochran, but my uncle bids me to remind you that he still wishes you to keep his room ready for him. He asked me to give you this”—here I fished a small bag of golden coins from my shirt—“and says he trusts that all is in order.”

  Mrs. Molly Cochran, the most levelheaded and straightforward woman I had ever met, turned and stared at me.

  Then she screamed.

  Some time later, she hovered over me with a scolding tongue. “Davy Shea, ten years you took off my life with your foolishness! Eat; you look like your own ghost, you do!”

  I nodded apologetically and stuffed another half rasher of bacon into my mouth. After she finished yelling at me for being an inconsiderate rascal, Mrs. Cochran insisted on making enough breakfast for me and at least three other boys. Fortunately they hadn’t shown up.

  “I’m so sorry, ma’am, I wasn’t thinking. …”

  “Like your uncle you are—sets a goal, heads for it, and Lord help anything in his way. Is he himself well?”

  “Was when I left, ma’am. More eggs, please?”

  “What? Oh, yes, eat up.” She dished another mound of scrambled eggs onto my platter with a look of pleasure on her face. In truth, she was about the best cook I had ever run across, and even a homely dish of scrambled eggs tasted the better for her touch. She beamed as I began to eat, and said, “You just missed Jessie and dear Miss Fairfax….”

  I almost choked. “I thought Jessie and Helena, uh, Miss Fairfax had returned to England?” Jessie was Mrs. Cochran’s daughter. She was a brown-eyed, brown-haired girl a little older than I was. The best I can say of her is that she tended to make life interesting everywhere she went. For that matter, so did Miss Helena Fairfax.

  “No, bless you, the lady is living at her great-uncle’s house in Spanish Town. That would be Sir Reginald Fairfax who sits on the council—frankly, because Governor Molesworth had to put him someplace.”

  “Beg pardon?”

  “Sir Reginald has lived in Jamaica in perpetual disgrace for as long as anyone can remember. He’s the living definition of an old rake, he is, and thrilled to have someone as respectable as his grandniece to run his establishment for him. Quality folks are calling on him that haven’t set foot in that house for thirty years. Or so I’m told, since I’m not a gossiping woman like some I could name. …”

  Mrs. Cochran rattled on like that until I was through with all the eggs and bacon and had sopped up what was left with half a loaf of freshbaked bread. Finally, stuffed full as a Christmas goose, I asked the question I had been sent here by Captain Hunter to ask.

  “Beg pardon, Mrs. Cochran, but I’ve been sent back with a mission to complete. I have to learn what the feelings are toward Captain Hunter and the rest of us that sail on the Aurora. What do they think of us here in Port Royal?”

  Mrs. Cochran sat there in silence for a moment, her lips pressed together in a tight little line. Even before she finally spoke, I knew the news would not be to our liking.

  “I’ll not lie to you, Davy Shea. It’s not good, not good at all. In fact, it’s as bad as it can be. At least two English ships have been found plundered and left as derelicts.”

  “Aye, the Lord Marlborough and the Princess of Wales.”

  “True, but there are others that have not reached port. They now are weeks overdue. And there were … things found on the derelicts that point straight and true at William Hunter and your uncle. Things were done to, well, to the bodies of some of the dead … and … and there were … there were …”

  I finished her thought: “There were messages and signs that plainly said ‘Mad William Hunter.’”

  She sat back and stared at me. “If you know the answers, Davy, why are you asking the questions?”

  I told her about the Elizabeth Bingham and what we had discovered on board her before we had sent her to the bottom of the sea. She nodded sadly. “That’s the rumor we have had swirling around Port Royal for the past weeks. And you are telling me on your honor as a Christian that there is not a short ounce of truth to them?”

  “On my honor and hope for salvation, Mrs. Cochran, we had nothing to do with those horrors!”

  “Then that’s enough for me.” She smiled. “Not that I could’ve believed it to begin with. Folk don’t change like that. I’ve had your uncle here in this house off and on for more than five years and William close unto death in it for more than five months. And my Jessie can no more keep a secret than she can flap her arms and fly to the moon. I know what the lot of you are doing out there and it has nothing to do with slaughtering fellow Englishmen, and that’s the end of it!”

  And with that final stern statement of support, I was hustled up the stairs to our old rooms and told to go to bed before I dropped off from exhaustion. Stuffed full of a good English breakfast and tired beyond belief, I tumbled into my own bed and was dead to the world in a manner of moments, no matter how much sunlight came streaming in through the dormer window.

  “Only a mooncalf would go to bed at dawn and wake at dusk!”

  That argumentative voice met me with full force as I staggered back down the stairs later that day. At the foot of the stairs, hands planted on her hips, was Jessie Cochran staring up at me. In a world of constant change, s
he alone seemed to stay the same.

  “Hello, Jessie,” I said with a great yawn. I had just reached the foot of the stairs when I was caught up in a strong hug that took my very breath away.

  “Oh, Davy, it is so good to see you alive and well!”

  Miss Helena Fairfax, who had spent most of our acquaintance disguised as a British naval officer, was much different as a woman. For some reason she seemed smaller and smelled … different. Mrs. Cochran smelled of baking and good hard English soaps. Miss Fairfax smelled of exotic flowers and vanilla and clean red hair.

  “Hello,” I said as she let go of me. Jessie was glaring at me, so I judged it wise to add no more than that.

  “Dear Mrs. Cochran has told us of your mission. I know that it is most important. I spent some time with Captain William Hunter, and I know he is not capable of the horrible crimes attributed to him!”

  Her cheeks had turned very pink, and her eyes flashed. I stammered, “Th-thank you, miss, it would make him feel good to hear it.”

  “It would? Really? How delightful. Still, that does not change the fact that nearly everyone else considers him the most feared and hated freebooter in the West Indies. Captain Steele seems to have been quite successful in that.”

  “Yes, miss. That’s why I plan to spend my time roaming the streets in hopes of hearing more of these cruel rumors.”

  “Why would you do that?” demanded Jessie. “You know what they are saying out there! How many times do you have to hear it? That’s not what’s important, you mooncalf!”

  I gave her a cold look. “Oh, and it’s a better idea you’d be having, Jessie Cochran?”

  “I’d be hard pressed not to! Why go wandering the streets when all of Port Royal now comes to the King’s Mercy?”

  For a second or two, I stood blinking at her. “But I thought no one came to the King’s Mercy because pirates had stayed here!”

  “That was before you became famous bloodthirsty pirate murderers! Now everyone has to come and have a drink in the famous King’s Mercy!”