Pirate Freedom

by Gene Wolfe

  Antonio shrugged. "I have done it, but I have seen other men do it better."

  I asked, "Can you navigate?"

  He smiled. "Si, Captain. I am a skilled navigator."

  "Can you teach others to navigate?"

  He rubbed his beard again. "It is long since I have done that, Captain. But yes. Where there are instruments, I can."

  Jarden told me, "You can navigate already."

  "I know," I told him, "but Rombeau can't, and neither can you. I could teach you as much as I know, but Antonio here may know more than I do. For sure, he'll have more time to do it than I will."

  "I ought to be on deck," Jarden said. "Are you about finished?"

  "Almost." I motioned toward the door. "Go ahead if you want to." Actually I wanted him out. With him gone I could have spoken straight Spanish. I knew that better, and it would have saved a lot of time.

  "I shall wait until you finish in that case."

  "Swell. Antonio, did you offer to join the pirates who took the San Mateo?"

  He shook his head.

  "Why not? You were willing to join Captain Jarden here."

  "Captain Burt wanted only young men, Captain, and wanted no married men. I am married and no longer young."

  I had hardly gotten past the second word. "Wait up! Captain Burt was the one who took your ship?"

  "Yes, Captain. He was."

  Jarden said, "Do you know him?"

  I nodded. "He's an old friend. I'd like to hook up with him, if-"

  Right then is when they started shouting out on deck.

  13

  Escape, Murder, and Reunion

  Do you know the joke about the turtle getting mugged by two snails? When the police ask what the snails looked like, the turtle says, "I… don't… know… It… all… happened… so… fast…"

  That was what it was like. It probably took fifteen or twenty minutes really. But Jarden, Antonio, and I were running around like crazy, yelling at people and trying to get things done, and it seemed like the whole thing was over before it started.

  When we got out on deck, there was a Spanish galleon making for us, all plain sail set and heeling to a quartering wind. Jarden's crew was loosing the sails as fast as they could, which was not very fast, and trying to get Rosa under way. Azuka was screaming at nobody, and the first thing I did was to make her shut up.

  The second was not much different. The lookout who had not spotted the Spaniard until she was on top of us was still yelling from the masthead. I laid aloft and told him to shut the hell up and get down and do some work. After that I helped with the mainsail.

  Magdelena had more sail set than we did-Rombeau had a heck of a lot more men-and was firing her stern chaser. The Spaniard's bow chasers started answering as I watched, and the men at those guns were faster than ours. I would have tried to get Rosa's stern chasers into action if she had any. She did not.

  I wish I could say now that we went flying down the wind. Magdelena did, and was out of range before long. If God had blessed us with a handy crew and a whole lot more luck, we might have gotten away, too. As it was, we did not have either of those things. There at the end, I was just hoping that the Spaniard would chase Magdelena and let us alone.

  It did not happen like that. I was on the quarterdeck trying to surrender when the Spaniard fired her broadside into us. It killed two or three men and knocked down the mainmast. After that, the Spanish captain accepted my surrender. I could have kissed him. You can laugh at that all you want, but a second before he did it I was certain we were all going to die in the next five minutes.

  It would have been nice if I had been brought before him for some witty conversation. That was how it happened in one pirate movie I watched on TV. It was not like that for us, and I never even learned his name. We were boarded by what seemed like a hundred Spaniards and roughed up quite a bit. Then the Spanish officer, a young guy who was probably some kind of junior officer, had our hands tied behind us.

  That was when Antonio yelled that he was no pirate, he had been captured on the San Mateo and so forth. I got close enough to tell the Spanish officer it was the truth. I told him I was the pirate captain, these were my men, and Antonio was our prisoner. I was hoping, of course, that Antonio would help us if he were free. I got smacked hard enough to knock me off my feet for my trouble, and Antonio was thrown into the hold with the rest of us.

  I have had worse moments in my life, but that was a bad one. They put the hatch cover on when we were all inside and battened it down. Once it was closed, that hold was as dark as the inside of a cow. Somebody began cursing in French. He was pretty good at it and kept it up for a while before he started repeating himself. Finally I told him to shut up. My jaw still hurt, and I was not real nice about it.

  "You are no longer captain! You are food for the gallows bird. We are all food for the gallows bird!"

  "That's right," I said. "That's what I'm hoping to fix. If you want to hang, keep on cussing and I'll see to it as soon as possible."

  He started calling me names, but he had not gotten very far with it when a woman's voice whispered, "Would you like me to put your knife in him, Chris? I have it."

  "Azuka?"

  "Who else?" She kissed me. "Am I still so black? Down here?"

  "I never saw anything wrong with black. Cut my hands loose, will you?"

  She tickled my chin. "Let me stab him for you first. It will teach him a lesson."

  Jarden must have overheard us. He yelled, "Be silent, Michet!"

  "Who cares what you say, gallows-food?"

  I told Azuka, "I want you to kiss him on the cheek for me, and make two cuts there afterward. Deep scratches is all, because we're going to need him. A cross, okay? It doesn't have to be perfect. Can you do that? His feet are loose, and he may try to kick you."

  Her voice got louder. "If he kicks I will stab him no matter what you say."

  After that it was as still in that hold as I have ever heard it. Sure, there was a little chop to the sea. Maybe the timbers creaked, and you could probably hear the slap of waves on the hull sometimes if you listened for it. But everybody seemed to be holding his breath, and the silence was so thick you could feel it pressing on your face.

  "I have done as you told me." Azuka was back. It seemed like an hour later. "The right cheek."

  "He didn't kick you?"

  "I would have killed him. He knows that."

  "Or make a noise when you nicked him? I was listening for some and didn't hear any. He's got balls, that Michet. A real soldier. Now cut me loose."

  My hands were numb by then, but I felt my arms move as Azuka started working on the ropes. She said, "I could cut off les couilles, if that would make you feel better."

  "Nope. We're going to need them."

  She stopped sawing my ropes. "Azuka saves you, Chris. Are you going to marry me?"

  "Cut rope. I marry." (That was Willy.)

  "I have a good offer. You must say at once. Will you marry me, Chris?"

  "What about Estrellita?" The ropes seemed looser. I was trying to work my hands out.

  "Marry her, too. Such men as you have many. I will not object."

  Jarden said, "Free me, Azuka, and I will marry you and shoot that sponge Michet."

  Azuka said, "We will be most happy together, Chris darling." She sort of moaned it, rubbing her hip against me and having the time of her life.

  By that time I knew I was going to get my hands loose. I could feel the life rushing back into them. It hurt, but that was fine with me. I said, "I wish you two well, and I'm going to give you a swell present as soon as we have the ceremony. Only we need Michet. We need every man."

  Michet started ordering Azuka to cut him loose right about then. She did not pay any attention, and neither did I. I was too busy rubbing my hands.

  By the time my fingers worked again, she and Jarden were whispering, which made it easy to locate them. I did, slid my hand down her arm quick to locate my dagger, and took it.

 
; "You-you rital!" I suppose she had picked that one up from Lesage, along with the rest of her French.

  "That's pronounced wop," I told her. "This is my dagger and I took it back, that's all. You can be mad at me, but I'm not mad at you. I owe you a lot. Everybody here does."

  That got the rest of them to begging for somebody to cut them loose, too.

  She was quiet for a minute, which gave me time to start wondering what else she might have.

  Jarden said, "Give me the knife. I will free my men."

  "I'll do it," I told him. I found somebody and started in. It was not Michet, but I am not sure who it was. Louie the Bull, maybe.

  Azuka said, "You're going to fight the Spanish?"

  "Sure," I said. "How did you get down here, and how did you get my dagger?"

  "You will be angry, Chris."

  "Try me. I'd still be tied up if it weren't for you. Did one of the Spaniards give it to you?"

  "I took it from you when you would not let me go in. I saw how some men were looking at me. You would not be with me. Neither would Paul. I left the sheath in your belt and took the knife. When the Spanish came, you struck me so that I would not cry and I hid here."

  "I'm sorry I slapped you," I said.

  "Sometime I will slap you. Or slap your child, the child I shall bear. How are we to get out?"

  "I don't know. Jarden, are you untying somebody?"

  "Aye, Captain. Is Azuka mine or yours?"

  "Yours, if you want her. Have you any idea what the cargo is?"

  "Chain, what I have seen of it. I had only a moment to look, you understand."

  Somebody said, "It is in crates, Captain."

  "Marked chain?"

  "I broke one open," Jarden said. "It was chain."

  Somebody growled, "We can fight with chain."

  One of the others said, "We should break open more. There may be other things."

  "I'm for that," I told him. Groping in the direction of his voice, I touched his face. He turned, and I put the dagger blade to work on his ropes. That dagger was pretty sharp, but the ropes were tough and tarred. Some people have said since that I am cracked on sharpening knives and cutlasses. Maybe it is true. If it is, I got cracked when I cut the Magdelena's anchor cable and got darn near broken down in Rosa's hold.

  It was easy to say we ought to open more crates. But without tools, that was not so easy. After a few crates we found some tools, though. There were saws and hammers and even a couple of hatchets. And brackets and those iron doodads with spikes you stick candles on. It was ironware, in other words. Some of it was useful and some not.

  The Spanish had battened down the aft hatch good, but the forward hatch was pretty sloppy. Three men pushing on the hatch cover got it up far enough that we could get at the ropes with saws. The problem was that the boat was on top of it, and we were afraid it would make a racket when we moved the cover. We took it slow and careful, and no one heard us-or if they did, they did not think anything was wrong. It was dark by the time we crawled through the hatch and out from under the boat, and I am pretty sure most of the Spanish prize crew was asleep.

  I have never known how many there were, but there were more of them than there were of us, and they had better weapons-ours were hammers and the hatchets, except for me. Mostly I used my dagger, but toward the end I got a handspike. That is a long wooden bar with an iron tip you use for prying. On a lot of ships, handspikes double as capstan bars, too.

  When the fight was over, I had the men come up to Jarden and me one at a time. I shook hands with each of them, told them how well they had fought and how much I appreciated everything they had done, and got Antonio to clean out any wounds and bandage them.

  Antonio himself was next to last, because he had been busy with a couple of wounded men. I had Simoneau and Yves holding lanterns so he could see what he was doing. I shook his hand like I had everybody else's and told him he was a full member of our crew now, a made man. "If you want or need anything, if you've got any kind of problem, you come to me, capeesh? You'll get a hearing and fair treatment." I was leaning on the handspike when I said that, and to tell the truth I was just about tired enough to fall down without it.

  Michet was last. There was a cross of dried blood on his cheek, and that is something I can never forget. I had thought he might give me trouble, but he had his hammer stuck into his belt where he could not get to it with his left hand. I shook hands with him like all the rest, but when I got his I held on. "It's about respect," I told him. "I'm the captain, and to be captain I've got to have respect."

  I brought the handspike up and over with my left hand when I said that, and to tell the truth I do not think he even knew it was coming. The first one knocked him down. I think the second one killed him. I used both hands for it.

  After that, Jarden took the feet and I took the head, and we threw him over the side. He was not what anybody would call beefy, and weighed down by the hammer in his belt he rode pretty low in the water and was out of sight before long. I would have liked to throw in the handspike, too. It had killed Michet and the Spanish officer, and I felt like it had done enough. But you cannot just pitch things you might need later when you are on a ship, and I did not.

  Do I feel bad about offing Michet? Yes, I do, but not as bad as I do about certain other things. To start with he was a pirate. The Spanish would have tried him in about half an hour and hanged him five minutes afterward, and from their standpoint they would have been dead right to do it. At sea, the captain is the only law you have. Sure, Jarden was captain of the Rosa, but he took his orders from me.

  I had been hoping the Spanish would settle Michet for me. We lost two or three men to them-I am not sure now exactly how many-but Michet was not one of them. That was just the way the dice came up, and as it turned out he died in the same fight. So what is wrong with that?

  But the main thing is that I had to do it. I did not really have a choice. If we had been a regular merchant ship, I could have had him flogged and that would have been plenty. On a pirate ship you cannot get away with flogging people, or much of anything else. I have confessed to erasing Michet and I wish to God it had not been necessary, but He had plucked me out of my own time and plopped me down where He did, and if I were back on the Rosa again, with Michet coming up to shake hands, I would do it over again. I would have to.

  Jarden and I flipped a real to see who got to sleep and who had to stand watch, and I won. I told him to wake me up if anything happened, went into the captain's cabin, and sacked out in the bunk the Spanish officer had been sleeping in. It was still warm. Maybe that should have bothered me, and maybe Michet should have. Maybe they did, but I know I was sound asleep almost before I lay down.

  Jarden woke me to go on watch. He said, "I did not wish to disturb you, Captain, but there is a large ship to starboard."

  "Spanish?"

  He shrugged. "Who can say?"

  I went up onto the quarterdeck and had a look. It was not as big as the galleon and showed no lights. That was enough to spook me or anybody, and it started bothering me that I had nothing to fight with except my dagger. Then the man at the wheel said, "She has been closing with us since I came on, Captain."

  That did it. I grabbed Cicatrice and told him to find all the stuff the Spanish had taken from us. "I want my cutlass," I told him, "and any spare pistols you can round up. Give the rest back to the men who lost them."

  After that, I sent men aloft to let out sail. The other ship did the same, and did it so fast I knew the watch there had not been asleep on deck.

  It was quiet, too. If anybody had been yelling at those sailors, I would have heard it. Faint, sure, but it would have been there. And it was not.

  There was something else that bothered me, too. I scratched my head and rubbed my eyes, but after that it still bothered me. When I ordered the watch to load the guns, they told me they were already loaded. The Spanish prize crew had done it before they went to sleep, it seemed like-loaded them, but not run th
em out.

  I stationed men with slow matches at every gun on the starboard side, and told the watch they had to be ready to run them out any minute. Five little four-pounders that was, and one of the men located a swivel gun and stuck the swivel in the quarterdeck rail. By then the other ship was about half as far as it had been when I came on deck.

  The sea was calm, with just enough wind to fill our sails. So I jumped up on the quarterdeck rail myself, next to the gun, waved, and yelled in English, "Ahoy the Weald! Captain Burt on deck there?"

  14

  Thousands of Miles

  "The Spaniards knocked off the mainmast," I told Capt. Burt when we sat in his cabin, "and cut away the wreckage after they took the ship. All that's left is the stump. I'd say she's making two knots with the foremast and the mizzen. If the wind freshens a bit she might make two and a half."

  He was whetting his dirk and gave it a couple of good whisks across the stone before he spoke. "Rig a jury mast, eh?"

  "With the men we've got now, we'll be in Port Royal before it's ready."

  "I've a hundred and nine aboard. Suppose I lend you a dozen?"

  "If they're good seamen, sure. Why not?"

  "Ever done it before, Chris?"

  I shook my head.

  "Pity. I have, and there can be complications. Stick with it, though, and you'll get through. Port Royal, you said?"

  "Sure, that was where we were going to sell the Rosa."

  "And this other ship of yours, the Magdelena? Bound for Port Royal as well, is she?"

  I had to think about that one. "She was, Captain. Our idea was to sell Rosa and get the men some pay. Without the Rosa to sell… I don't know. I can't guess what Rombeau might do."

  "Your guess'll beat mine, Chris. You know him and I don't. Will he try to retake Rosa?"

  I considered it. "You know, he might. He might do exactly that, or try to."

  Capt. Burt wiped the blade and tested the edge with his thumb. "Loyal to you?"

  "I think so. Of course, if the men would elect him… They'll want to get the Rosa back, though. They were counting on the money. Some of them will have friends on board, I'm sure."