“Did his team win?”
“Yes, d—n them!” Starkey loudly cursed.
“Smee!” I called, seeking him out in the crowd.
“Yes, Cap’n?” the little round man shouted back.
I couldn’t help but smile at this familiar moniker. “What do you make of all this?”
“Bloody business, ’tis, sir, and I pray it won’t be bloodier.”
“Who should live and who die?”
“No one should die, Cap’n. It’s sad and far too messy.”
“Who should be captain then?”
The little man paused, chewing his lower lip.
“Come, come, now. I want an honest answer from an honest man. You’re the honest-est one I know.”
A few of the men chuckled at this.
“Well, Cap’n, if ye’re askin’ me, I’d say Cap’n Starkey has done a fine job but he’s not gotten us home, or to the Carib, or to wherever we’re supposed to be goin’. Mr. Raleigh, on t’other hand, is a strong brave fella who survived isolation and abandonment and he’s a nice young man to boot and if he were to say he could get us home and that I might be seein’ my dear Rosie again, then I’d vote for him.”
More than a few of the men cheered.
“I’ll get you home to Rosie, Mr. Smee,” Raleigh promised. “You’ll be kissing her lips before winter.”
“I don’t wish to be kissin’ her lips, good sir. I wish to be milkin’ her.”
Nearly everyone laughed at this.
Smee blushed and protested, “I raised her from a calf and it’s her I miss most in this world.”
Now everyone did laugh, everyone but Starkey. As the laughter died, I addressed Raleigh.
“Mr. Raleigh, if we were to name you captain, on the condition that you would pardon everyone and hang only Her Majesty’s flag, would you agree?”
“Heartily, so long as I can choose the positions I wish each man to hold, and so long as each will swear his loyalty to me. I do so agree.”
“Hip-hip-hooray!” Cecco cheered (the first words from his mouth I ever understood). And everyone followed suit—but for Starkey and Teynte.
“Mister Teynte,” I said to my old enemy, observing his reluctance. “You seem as disgruntled as good Captain Starkey. May I ask why?”
All eyes turned to Teynte. Everyone fell silent.
“He led us once before,” he said very quietly. “He’s not to be trusted, with liquor around.”
No one said a word, until at length Raleigh spoke. “Mr. Teynte, I promise you,” he called out, “I am now a sober man.”
There were mumblings of assent, murmurings of doubt, and the problem at hand remained unresolved.
“I think we need to sleep on this,” I finally said. “Bury the dead, tend the wounded, and put aside all grudges for twelve hours. We’ll meet again on deck in the morning and put it to a vote. There’s been enough bloodshed for the day, I’m sure you all agree on that at least. You need a good meal and a night’s rest. Alcohol, I’m sorry to say, will not help matters, so I ask you, on your honor as gentlemen of the high seas, to abstain for this one night. Any dissenters?”
No one said another word.
I dismissed them all, then leapt from the roof (where Daisy had fallen asleep in the sun) and strode across the deck to Arthur Raleigh.
“I think we need to have a word, you and I,” I said.
“It’s good to see you, James. You’ve grown.” He smiled.
“Yes, indeed I have. It’s good to see you too. Father.”
His smile wavered, just a little.
* * *
Anticipating the morrow’s vote in Raleigh’s favor, we settled across from each other in the Captain’s Quarters, a dining table between us.
“How did you guess?” he asked once we were seated.
“I met your other son. George.”
He was puzzled for a moment, until he remembered that second son. “It’s a boy? He’s healthy?”
“And grown and happily married. In fact you’re a grandfather.”
“My, my. Time has certainly flown in England.” For a moment he looked confused. “Speaking of flying, is that how you returned? I figured that would be the best way. I never quite got the hang of it, mind—the boy wouldn’t show me and I never learned where he kept the—whatchamacallit—sand.”
His statement satisfied another suspicion I had, but more of that later.
“So,” he said, coming back to his original query, “how did you ever guess?”
“When I first met George, I couldn’t help but notice how familiar he looked to me. I thought at first it was myself I was recognizing, but then I realized I had seen my older self only once or twice in a mirror. It was you I saw in his face. How could George look so much like Raleigh? I asked myself. And then of course the obvious answer arrived.”
“My dear boy,” he said as he stretched his hand across the table to touch mine. I firmly pulled away.
“Why didn’t you tell me when we first spoke?” I demanded.
“You wouldn’t have understood. You were a boy. I didn’t understand at first—about—you know—Time and all. I’d been absent from England but a few months—or so I thought. How could you be my son? And then, when I learned the truth—about Time and your mother’s passing, well—it was upsetting and rather complicated. I needed to think things out.”
“You lied.”
“Not in everything.”
“Mostly, yes, you did.”
He took a deep breath. “Then I intend to set things straight. Where shall we begin?”
“It’s always best to begin at the beginning.”
“But which beginning? There were so many.”
I waited for him to continue.
“My mother, as I truthfully told you, died birthing my younger brother, Arthur. My father was a stern man who hadn’t a clue how to raise two motherless boys. You were either with him—which is the path Arthur chose—or you were a rebel.”
“Like you.”
“Like me. Much more gratifying and quite a lot of fun. He sent me to Eton for improvement—useless, though I did leave my mark there.” Inwardly I winced at the pain his past had caused me. “Then he tried to set things right with money, thinking he could buy my good behavior; I gambled it away. Finally he bought me a position in the Royal Navy, praying it would give me discipline. The discipline it enforced was all at sea; in port the Navy didn’t give a d—n if I drank and gambled and wooed beautiful women. I met your mother, I met George’s mother, I met a number of other women, and I loved them all.”
“But you lived with my mother. You loved her best.” I sounded like a needy child.
A careful silence. “I—saved her. From a terrible disease—”
“I met Slinque. I know the story.”
“—and as a consequence I felt a deep . . . obligation to provide for her welfare. When I learned she was expecting, I asked my father to care for her and her child if something were to happen to me at sea.”
“Which he did. He didn’t approve of my mother, but he wasn’t niggardly in his financial support. He was rather fond of you, I think, in spite of your profligacy.”
“Well, bully for him. At the same time there was Angela, who was expecting my other child. She was married, so I felt less . . . obliged. Her husband knew nothing about me. Still”—he looked away, reliving his quandary—“I was terrified. Of fatherhood. Of the promises I’d made. And I owed a lot of money. I therefore did what any red-blooded Englishman would do—I ran away. Seeking adventure, of course, and— Well, I wasn’t sure what that map would lead me to but hopefully to some solution to my problems.”
This brought me to my second topic of conversation.
“A dying sailor, you said you got it from a dying sailor?” He nodded. “Did you kill him for it?”
“No, someone else did. I was celebrating my new captaincy at the Admiral Benbow Inn in Penzance, near my home. My father had bought the position for me; he knew the
ship’s owner and he paid him quite well. The inn was a sailors’ haunt—disreputable to say the least—but there was one old fellow there I took a liking to, so I stood him a few rounds. He was even drunker than I was. He’d found something, he told me, that would make his fortune. I went outside to take a piss and he followed shortly after—with a knife in his back. He handed me a key as he died, telling me to wait until his murderer had been there first. I had no idea what he was talking about. He was staying at the inn, so I went up to his room and found the door partly ajar. I pushed it wide and discovered a man kneeling before a seaman’s chest he was trying to open. He didn’t hear me. He was busy prying the lock loose with a scythe of all things. He succeeded at last, lifted the lid, and a very large black snake reared up and bit his hand. He started screaming. He saw me and begged me to save him. I seized the scythe and chopped off the hand. He died anyway—of blood loss. I looked around—no snake in sight. I peered into the chest, and the only thing left inside was the map. And there you have it.”
It struck me that the man’s death from loss of blood may not have been the whole truth. I suspect it resulted from a delay on my father’s part in applying a tourniquet or calling for help. Quite possibly it resulted from an additional amputation—of a head, most likely. The map was all.
“So you sailed . . .”
“To the map’s location. A storm came, and here we are. My crew was desperate. Teynte in particular wanted to return to England or India or wherever our Duty demanded. I just wanted the treasure. I told them about it, promising a rich reward once it was found, but they didn’t believe me. We sailed around, no luck, they mutinied, put me in a dinghy, and cast me off.”
“Was that before or after the incident on Long Tom?”
He looked a bit sheepish, I must admit. “Oh, yes, that, well—” He cleared his throat.
“The truth, Father,” I reminded him.
“The truth. Very well. I’d been drinking a bit more than I should—Teynte was correct in his comment about my liquid habits at the time—and when we spotted the island you call Long Tom I was certain that that was where the treasure lay buried. I took a bottle, a brace of pistols, two shovels, and six men, intending to disinter the entire island, if need be. The men dug, I drank, the sun grew hot, they refused to continue, and I shot them all. I could expand on the details but I don’t think that’s necessary.”
“It was kind of the mutineers not to hang you for that.”
“Teynte’s an honest fellow, I must admit. They put me out to sea instead, most likely to certain death . . .”
“But you landed . . .”
“Not on the island where you found me, no. I didn’t land at all, really. I sailed for several days, nearly died of dehydration, and then one morning I heard a cock crow.”
At last he arrived where I was expecting he would. “Peter,” I stated.
“Yes. He picked me up and flew me to the island.”
“He never mentioned you when I was with him.”
“I’m not surprised. I was a bit old for his fun. We never hit it off, really. He had a mind like a sieve. He probably forgot all about me by the time you arrived. I asked him if he knew of the treasure. He had no idea what I was talking about. There was, however, this little fairy he spoke to . . .”
“Tink?”
“Yes, that’s her name.”
“Did you see her?”
“Of course not. There’s no such thing as fairies. The boy was quite mad. At any rate, his invisible friend told him that the tribe—whatever they’re called—might have hidden it somewhere. He took me to their village, and having read several British treatises on colonization, I announced that I was the Great White Father bringing them God, Sovereignty, and Civilization.”
“That was you then?”
“Yes! I told them they should give me all their pearls and yellow gold and I in exchange would give them a Religion and a Parliament and put them under the protection of Her Majesty Victoria. It didn’t go over well.”
“I don’t think they have pearls and yellow gold.”
“Well, I know that now,” he snapped. “Unfortunately, I had developed a very bad cold. I think I caught it in the storm that swept us here, and all that burning sun and thirst at sea didn’t improve my health in the slightest. My nose was running, I was sneezing five times a minute, it was bloody awful. At any rate, it seems they don’t have the common cold on these islands, and, as so often happens when we whites mingle with brown and black and red savages, some of them caught it and died.”
“How terrible!”
“For me especially. They had a trial and condemned me to something they called the Deep Well. I went down it, and oh, it was disgusting. Rotting carcasses everywhere. But the god who they said was awaiting me—”
“The Great-God-Below-Who-Is-Death.”
“Yes, that’s right. You’ve heard of him.”
“Her.”
“Really? Well, she wasn’t there.”
“She was probably off laying eggs. You were fortunate not to meet her.”
“You have?”
“Oh yes.”
“You were down the Well too? What did you do that set them off?”
There were many details he didn’t need to know.
“It’s a long story, but when I was down there, I found your watch.”
His eyes lit up. “So that’s where I lost it.”
“On the little island in the middle of the underground lake. Where you were digging.”
“For the treasure, yes. It was a perfect place to hide one. But there was nothing there but sand. Do you have it? The watch, I mean. I was quite fond of it.”
“Daisy has it in safekeeping.”
“Oh. Good. I’ll get it from her later.”
Best change the subject. “How did you escape?” I asked.
“I eventually found a pathway leading out of the cavern.” This, I assumed, was the very pathway I had followed in. “I took it to the end, following a stream which eventually disappeared under the rock. But there looked to be light coming from the other end, so I took a deep breath, dove in, and chanced it. It led me to the most beautiful blue lagoon.”
“The Mermaids’ Lagoon.”
“Oh, you’ve been there too. You do get around.” He seemed a tad resentful that he wasn’t the only Englishman who had visited. “As you know, the ladies had very attractive bosoms but hideous tails. I’m a sailor—I know the dangers of mermaids—so I kept my distance. Nevertheless, I was quite exhausted from swimming and happily discovered, in the center of the lagoon, a very large rock.”
“Marooner’s Rock, I believe they call it.”
“Yes, well, the only thing marooned there was a bird’s nest. It was quite densely matted with sticks and mud and shells and things, and big enough to hold a man. So I took a chance, pulled it off the rock, and to my great good fortune it floated. I climbed in. There were two eggs inside. And the mother soon was screaming at me from the air above, diving and swooping to defend her babies. She came close enough for me to grab her, I wrung her neck and dined on her and the eggs for the next several days. Eventually I floated to another island, where I proceeded to live for many months in the cave where you found me.”
“It was years, not months.”
“Well, it seemed months. It was only after I boarded the Roger that I learned it was 1874. Astonishing. Fourteen years since I had disappeared in the storm!”
“Now it’s even longer. Time is very odd here.”
“What do you mean ‘longer’? What year is it now?”
“In England? Eighteen eighty-eight. Possibly ’89. I mean I have been back here for several hours.”
I meant it as a joke, but it was more than he could fathom.
“I do miss the old country,” he said. “What did you find there? Were things very different?”
“Yes and no. I met your father, who was still alive until a few days ago.”
He became very quiet. After a short
while he spoke, but softly: “Sorry I didn’t see him again. He would have hated that, my turning up and still defiant.” He gave a wry smile. “I suppose my brother’s in charge now.”
“His widow, perhaps.”
He looked at me. I didn’t explain.
“And I met up with Slinque,” I added.
“Uriah! How is the old fellow?”
“I didn’t care for him, frankly, but Daisy grew quite fond of him. I think she found him a man of excellent taste.”
He smiled at the memory of his dear old friend.
* * *
The following morning the crew met and voted for captain. Raleigh—or should I say Father?—or should I say James Cook the Second?—won handily. (He now admitted his true name, by which those who had served on the Alice knew him. Consequently, to some he was Captain Cook, to others Captain Raleigh. To avoid confusion, everyone simply called him the Cap.)
As his first mate he appointed a Scotsman from the Alice by the name of Alsatian Foggerty, a sailor so inky with tattoos that from a distance one might mistake him for Black Murphy. Charles Turley (a sober, religious fellow whom I found an absolute bore) was named quartermaster, and Cecco was allowed to keep his position as chief gunner.
Black Murphy replaced the late Bloody Pete as carpenter and smithy, while Jukes remained in the galley. Assisted by a generous supply of dried apples, which had been found on the Alice, he now added apples to everything.
Smee was officially appointed ship’s physician and seamstress. As promised, Father assigned him the job of sewing a Union Jack to replace the skull and crossbones we currently flew, but Smee was so busy sewing up wounds that that task was put on hold and, quite frankly, was never completed. Smee, by the way, wished henceforth to be called Doctor Smee, but needless to say nobody bothered.
The remaining crew consisted of
1. Sylvester Skylights, a towering paragon of muscle who suffered from an unfortunate lisp; when things got dull a crewman had but to ask him his name and the resulting “Thylvethter Thkylighth” kept the ship entertained for hours;
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