“Do not speak to Mr. Beal,” I said into Jimmy’s ear. “He’s a spy.”
Jimmy looked at me with surprise, but then nodded sagely.
“I miss my freedom, Mr. Wren. And I have been most desperate.”
“I, too.”
“I have a dreadful sense about this voyage,” said Jimmy. “Are ye not fearful?”
“I am, Jimmy.”
“These dull old jackies ’ave no more mind left to ‘em than this black sea,” Jimmy continued. “I’ll not settle for this, Daniel.”
“Keep such thoughts to yourself, Jimmy,” I replied sharply.
Jimmy suddenly caught the scent of something in the air.
“Do ye smell that?” he asked.
“Smoke.”
“The wolf is hard by,” he declared. He called out for an officer. Mr. Brooks came on the run, slipping and sliding, and smacking into the rail.
“What is it?”
“Warm smoke, sir,” said Jimmy. “She’s on fire still.”
Mr. Brooks angled his nose into the wind and sniffed; he exhaled, then inexplicably removed his hat as if to gain a finer purchase, and took another sniff.
“Aye,” said he. “She must be under our very nose. Watch for lights, any light, even the flicker of a candle. Pass the word.”
We watched and waited. Then it came; a twinkling halo, no bigger than a weevil’s eye, perhaps a half a league away. I told what I saw to one of the boatswains, but others were already reporting the sighting.
A flurry of orders was given, and the gun crews sent to their stations. I scrambled to gun number six, where I found Stempel, Hines and the others already positioning the gun. With a nod from Stempel, I retrieved our charge from the orlop and returned to find the barrel wedged up to its highest point.
“Won’t we discharge into the water, Mr. Stempel?” I asked.
“Captain’s order is all guns are to rip the water line, and sink her,” said he. “We’ll be firing point blank.”
Our ship changed course and was cutting directly for the light, which I could make out with growing clarity from our gunport. Other, smaller lamps now revealed themselves. This thoughtless captain had plainly decided to risk his repairs by night, hoping to be prepared for full sail by morning.
As we came within two hundred yards of the craft, I knew there would no reprieve for her. I could espy the shapes of men on ropes below the ship’s stern near the rudder.
“Keep a hand over your candle wicks,” cautioned Mr. Brooks in a subdued voice, “lest they see the light. Prepare to fire.”
At fifty yards we were discovered, but the stunned men aboard her had had only time enough to pause in their occupations before we were upon them. With a scant twenty yards between us, all sixty of our starboard guns sounded in unison.
I do not know how we appeared to those poor devils—perhaps as a malevolent inky cloud, or the face of Satan himself. Nor can I measure the shock the blast of our guns induced in their breasts. What I did see, after the smoke was swept away, were the faces of a dozen men with lost, vacant stares, as they saw this world slip away.
There were a score of explosions in the wolf’s belly, which sent magnificent showers of smoke and flames into the air. Then down she went, first rolling over onto her side. Men and cargo spilled into the water. The fireworks from the ship suffused our deck with a cardinal light—our faces, cannons, even the dripping raindrops. We clewed our sails, and slowly, patiently as a shark, stood aside and watched her blood flow.
Two boats were lowered into the water, armed with marines, with orders to search for officers among the wreckage. I would hear the voices of swimmers shouting out to the boats as they picked their way through. A bare handful of men were plucked from the stew while the others were left to drown.
Cannon number six was secured. Our sails were hoisted, and we sailed off into the storm, leaving the corpse behind. Our business was complete.
The next morning, our six new passengers were arrayed on deck under blue skies. Bound and on their knees, they were a ragged, scurvy lot. Clearly they had been months at sea, for all of them had sunken eyes and jaundiced skin. They were a mix of French, Portuguese and Dutch sea rabble. The leader of their group was in the worst repair. Many of his teeth were missing, his fingernails were as coarse as bark, and his neck plagued by running sores.
Hearne stood before the officer, casting a cooling shadow over the kneeling man. He squinted and spoke first.
“’Name’s Simon Wouk, sir,” said he, mildly, in a faint Dutch accent. “Captain aboard the Trident.”
“Well, Captain Wouk,” replied Hearne, “You didn’t have stomach for the fight.”
“No, sir,” the man replied. “We had enough. My men wanted dry land, sir.”
“But you wanted to snatch one more chicken before you docked.”
“Aye, sir. That’s the truth, sir. I won’t deny it.”
Here a soggy trunk was dragged on deck, with markings in another language. It was opened beneath a bath of salt water. Inside it, I could make out packets.
“Captain Wouk,” said the Captain, tapping the top of the chest. “I have fourteen injured men below and not a thimble of laudanum to blunt their pain. There’s not an apothecary in London with so much as a drop of the remedy. And here you fine fellows have a stomach full of opium.”
“Not a stomach full, sir, begging your pardon,” replied Mr. Wouk. “Six chests, nigh one thousand pounds, an’ the price of ‘em come to us dear, sir. All at the bottom now.”
“Poor honest merchants?”
“We liberated it from an Indian trader outside Bombay, Captain,” Wouk explained. “We meant to buy at auction, but none could be had. All the chiefs from Calcutta to Bombay had none to sell, so they said.”
“Why not?”
“Don’t know, sir,” Wouk returned. “Some say the Mughals’ tax on farmers bled the crop out, and now the farmers won’t plant. Others say fields are diseased. Rumors are there are a thousand chests waiting in a Dutch harbor. So we come home with a hatful of spices and dye. Then we saw the convoy.”
“The others?”
“One we started with,” answered Wouk. “Our investors were French gentlemen. Four others came along to beat away the Dutch patrols. We haven’t touched port since before the Cape of Good Hope.”
Mr. Greyson appeared and addressed the man in a harsh voice.
“You say you come from the Indies?” The man Wouk nodded. “Then you know Captain Belfry.”
“I have heard the name, sir.”
“And what can you tell us?” demanded Greyson.
“He has made some fame there,” answered Mr. Wouk, wiping his face with the sleeve of his jacket. “The whole of the gulf of Benegala, they say, has felt his sword. He’s left a bloody mark on many a Dutch plantation. Half of the Dutch navy is on his heels. The Mughals have a high price on his head.”
“Why can’t they subdue him?” inquired Greyson sternly.
Mr. Wouk shrugged then smiled with some admiration.
“He knows the rivers and the inlets,” answered he, “and they say he’s something of a hero to the Chinese rebel chiefs, who hate the Dutch and trade with him.”
Simon Wouk was the first living pirate I had ever laid eyes on. He was brown as a coffee bean and showed the gleam of intelligence in his eye. I looked upon him eagerly, taking in every detail about his person. There were rude tattoos across his neck and arms in a language I didn’t know. Captain Hearne gestured to one of our boatswains.
Hearne cut the man’s bonds with his sword and helped the gentleman to his feet, tossing a friendly hand on his shoulder.
“A thousand chests you say, Captain Wouk?” said Hearne.
“Maybe more,” said Wouk.
“‘Maybe more’?” repeated Hearne, now smiling broadly. “And what port did you say that might be?”
“Elmina, Captain. So I heard.”
“Well, you are presently all jolly members of our cannon crews,” Hearne said pleasantly. �
��Any trouble and we’ll give you all a quick christening.”
“Understood, sir,” responded Wouk.
“We must share a nice ripe port, captain to captain,” said Hearne, guiding Wouk in the direction of the gallery. “And you can retail more about your enterprising endeavors. I am most interested.”
Greyson watched the two captains depart, then pressed his foot to one of the pirate’s chest and shoved him onto the deck.
That night we turned directly southward, leaving the dead ship still showing her stern. It was a windless, brilliant evening. The waves were placid and glassy, and my roost was a most pleasant corner to view the waxing midnight, despite the gnats that were in my eyes and mouth. Grimmel approached and observed my study, but simply stood there in obstinate silence, occasionally darting a look here and there on the horizon.
“Venus can be seen in daylight, what months?” Grimmel suddenly demanded.
“From November to—”
“Nay!” he cut me off. “Mid-December to the end of the year, then again in January through the middle of April! On a morning shot you have a day moon, too.” He softened a bit. “You have three spheres rotating, Mr. Wren—the moon and sun, the planets, then the stars—all reeling around you, one inside the other. Paint them in your head, mister.”
For the next several minutes he threw up the names of constellations and I pointed to each with accuracy. These examinations became almost a nightly ritual, shifting from quadrant, to log line, to leeward drift. Grimmel spoke of the sea’s treachery—the deathlike stillness of the Sargasso Sea, the Doldrums; to the North, the swift and icy currents which can lull a vessel into its frozen arms and crush her hull before she can flee; of the hot trade winds to the south; of the shifting monsoon winds, gales and hurricanes. And the clouds above, which augur the secrets to these perils.
“The secret to seamanship, Mr. Wren,” Grimmel concluded, leaning so close I could smell the meat on his breath; “when the currents turn queer and the wind fitful, is to be calm in yourself. Out here in blue water there are no natural markers to betray onward movement. Sky, ship and sea can be as still as a picture on canvass. You must make a log count every hour by the hour and record your drift. If you don’t, you’re lost in Time. Remember that!”
“Aye, aye, sir,” I replied.
“You have improved some, Mr. Wren,” remarked Grimmel.
Those were Mr. Grimmel’s first encouraging words and I stammered out a thank you. I slept easier that night and for the first time enjoyed a brief reprieve from my yearning thoughts of family and home.
Grimmel, it seemed, could be won over by no man, for his friends were few. I learned more history about the man from the other crewmembers. Grimmel had been impressed at an early age as a servant to ship’s master navigator Robert Locke, who served aboard The Queen Anne. He had been married for a time, and had two sons. His family, however, had been taken by the plague while he was at sea. It was said that he had taken part in a great many battles and had earned a reputation as a man of brass on these occasions. His authority as a pilot was unsurpassed.
Chapter 6
Our Dutch Friends
My difficulties with Lieutenant Brooks did not abate. He was joined in his persecutions by one of the boatswains, Mr. Trout, who carried with him in his belt a hard piece of rope he called his “starter.” At the slightest provocation I would receive a lash and a threat of more to follow. Once when I protested, I was tied up and gagged with an iron bar fixed in my mouth. Mr. Grimmel offered no protection or assistance to me.
If the truth be known, the man’s poisonous hatred bled away much of the salt in my spirit. Mr. Trout was a useful tool in breaking a man. My stomach would contract and my hands shook every time he came near.
I was taking water at the scuttlebutt one hot afternoon when he appeared out of nowhere. I responded by jostling the barrel and spilling a cup of water onto the deck. He cracked me viciously with his starter, and I began to bellow, an utterly broken man.
“Stop, Mr. Trout!” I pleaded.
“Water is more precious than your worthless hide, Wren,” he said, raising his arm to deliver another blow.
It was Lord Douglas who interceded.
“His punishment is not equal to the crime, Mr. Trout,” he declared, stepping in between us. “That is all today.”
“I take my orders from Mr. Brooks, my lord,” returned Trout.
“I will take this up with my cousin,” Greyson said. “For the time, however, I ask that you be more deliberate in your duty.”
Trout put his starter back into his belt and walked away, as did Lord Douglas. I returned to my duties, but an hour later observed Mr. Trout and Mr. Brooks conferring a short distance away. I sensed I had become a small cog in the disharmony between Mr. Brooks and his cousin. The thread of their acrimony, from the few fragments that was passed to me from others aboard, was attached to Greyson’s Catholic family history. The one family (Mr. Brooks’) renounced the faith in favor of the King’s and gained considerable profit by the other’s refusal. Neither man, however, displayed much by way of religious temperament. By his father’s lights, Mr. Brooks had become a dissolute young man in need of proper shaping. Lord Douglas, indeed, was said to be a man sternly set on the course of reclaiming his family name.
As I watched them, Mr. Grimmel laid a hand on my shoulder.
“You have the favor of one and rancor of the other,” he said in a quiet voice, indicating Brooks with a discreet glance. “Both will bring misery on you, Mr. Wren.”
“Would you help me, Mr. Grimmel?”
“In good time,” he replied. He peered up at the sun, then handed me a quadrant. “It is near noon. Practice your shots, then go below and report to the captain. He wishes to see you.”
As Grimmel understood, I feared Lord Douglas’ kindnesses as much as I did Mr. Brook’s wrath.
To my great relief, the captain came to trust my record keeping, not for my accuracy so much as for my discretion. The records I kept would eventually find their way to the Admiralty for review. I scrupulously removed any candid and offensive remarks Captain Hearne made about those gentlemen in his more frank moments. When I reported to the captain that afternoon he had my records spread out on the table before him.
“Well done, Mr. Wren,” he said, indicating the records. “Only the glowing news.” He collected the records and held them out to me. “I trust you sufficiently now that I have been delivered the burden of reviewing these entirely.”
“Thank you, Captain.”
“No, thank you, Mr. Wren,” he replied. “On a ship, order is freedom. You will come to appreciate that.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Old Grimmel tells me you have the makings of a pilot.”
“He has said so, sir.”
“He is not the man to say what he does not mean.”
“Yes, sir.”
“On your way, Mr. Wren.”
I saluted and left the cabin twelve feet taller than when I had entered. It was the sustenance needed to lift my heart and endure. And it was Mr. Grimmel who had delivered it to me.
For the next few weeks Mr. Grimmel led me through the gentle art of helming a ship, which was a welcome relief from the book learning. It was a starlit night when he led me to the helm, where one of the mates stood with his hand on a stout vertical rod that disappeared down through the deck.
“This we call the whipstaff,” he said. “She’s attacked to a yoke on the tiller below. The whipstaff works opposite the tiller. If you give her a nudge to larboard, the ship will to move to starboard. Take hold of it.”
The mate, Mr. Walters, stood aside and I put my hands on the whipstaff.
“Starboard the helm!” ordered Mr. Grimmel.
I shifted the rod to my right and cheerfully received a knuckle on my head.
“You pushed in the wrong direction, Mr. Wren.”
“I cannot see above the prow,” I protested.
“A helmsmen listens for orders and d
oes not trouble himself with a view of the sea,” he instructed. “Port the helm, starboard the helm, amid ship, these direct him which way to steer. His eyes are on the compass.”
He clapped a hand on a cupboard just before the whipstaff. In it were a candle and a compass as large as my open hand, which was fastened to a board and plainly in view. With the soft flame dancing intimately above the compass, together in its sacred little confine, it recalled a pretty church tabernacle.
“What do you notice about the construction of the closet?” inquired Mr. Grimmel.
I inspected the cupboard, which he called the closet, and saw nothing to remark on. I shrugged.
“It is all held together and fastened down with wooden pegs, no iron nails,” said Grimmel. “Iron will draw the compass. Never place anything of iron in or near her. Understood?”
“Because she won’t steer accurately, Mr. Grimmel?” I ventured.
“We don’t ‘steer’ a ship, we con her,” said Grimmel. “How does the tiller feel? Feel resistance?”
“Yes, Mr. Grimmel,” I replied, now noting a constant tension on the whipstaff.
“If you can feel the helm, she’s being governed,” he said. “When a ship draws down the helm or sucks wind, the whipstaff can be torn from your hands or you feel nothing at all, like she’s floating in air.”
“Why is that, Mr. Grimmel?”
“It means the ship gripes, Mr. Wren,” he responded. “She’s trying to tell you something is foul. The standing of her masts are too much aft or the sails are out of trim.”
Grimmel continued with the points on the binnacle compass, but I wasn’t listening. Steering the ship, with the breeze embracing me, and the stars chasing overhead was nothing short of magic.
The Scarborough continued to bruise the sea southwards. The Dutch were true to our treaty, and our ship was granted victualing rights at Arguin and Goree. There was not a Dutch ship in sight at either port, save a handful of coasters. The men were given shore leave, while the other pressed men and I stayed aboard. Captain Hearne exempted himself and most of the officers from leave and remained on board while supplies were ferried to the Sovereign. Soon our manger was alive with the squeal of pigs and the squabbling of chickens.
Mean Sun (The Diaries of Daniel Wren, Privateer Book 1) Page 5