by Brian Eames
Kitto nodded. “And this is to get your revenge on Morgan? For your hand?”
X smiled and nodded. “Très belle, no? And not just for the hand, but for Panama, too, and all of us who fought there for him.” X giggled and poked a finger at Kitto’s ribs, his eyes a swirl of dancing lantern light. “But I think that revenge we will be collecting tomorrow, no?”
Kitto smiled. “If the wind will blow again.” He reached out for the fine leather folio at the bottom of the stack. “And what is inside this one? It looks special.” Kitto drew it out a few inches, but X slapped a hand down on it and pulled it to him, with a look devoid of his former glee.
“What made you do that?” X said. “Why you reach for this?”
Kitto raised his hands in the air. “I am sorry. I did not mean to . . .”
X stared at the boy solemnly for a moment, as if trying to read Kitto’s deepest intentions. Finally he tucked the leather folder back beneath the pile.
“That is my tour de force. My rabbit in the hat. The straw that will break Morgan’s back.”
“And what is it?” Kitto found himself very curious to know what could possibly be contained in that slim folder that had the power to do so much.
X glared at him again. “You are not ready to know what it is yet.”
“I am not ready?”
X’s eyes darted down to the pile. He cleared his throat. “What I mean is, I am not ready to share that with anyone. Now if you do not mind, I have work to finish.” X turned away to show Kitto his shoulder and dipped his quill into the ink.
Kitto felt the sting of rebuke. There was much to this strange man, and Kitto could not help feeling that more notions spun in the pirate’s swirling brain than he would ever tell.
* * *
CHAPTER 21:
* * *
Spanish Galley
“Sail ho!”
The call brought Van and Kitto springing from their hammocks. Sarah sat up in her own next to Kitto.
“What is wrong?”
“Someone has spotted a sail. Could be nothing.” Kitto thumped off to catch up to Van. When they reached the main deck, X was calling up to Pickle from the quarterdeck.
“Do not just call ‘sail ho’ and then just sit there mute like a giraffe, idiot! You were shot in the leg, not in your head!” Flecks of coffee beans sprayed from Exquemelin’s mouth. Kitto could see the table loaded with papers behind him, and judging from the redness of the captain’s eyes, he had not slept. “Tell me ‘square rigger,’ or ‘lateen,’ or ‘frigate,’ or ‘big purple sea monster.’ Tell me, Pickle!”
“Galley, captain!”
X stiffened. “You are certain?”
“The oars are in the water, sir. They be turning our way.”
“Quid! Quid! Where is the wind, man?” Quid stood at the tiller arm, shaking his head.
“What is a galley?” Kitto whispered to Van.
“A ship with oars as well as sails. Huge ones, able to move an entire ship. In a calm like this they can still maneuver, while we are stuck to this spot until the wind picks up.”
“Is it the navy that uses galley ships? English?” Kitto said.
“Not that I have ever heard. The only ones I have heard of in use are by the Spanish.”
Kitto issued a sigh, a disturbing mixture of relief and disappointment: relief at not having to fear another ship of Morgan’s, disappointment that the ship could not be the one holding Duck.
Van shook his head. “No breathing easy yet.”
“We’re not at war with the Spanish, are we?”
“No, but we are in a pirated ship. The Spanish are happy to hang pirates too.”
X madly gathered up his papers, clutching them and the leather satchel to his chest. “Everyone get below! Everyone! Let the sails go slack! Quid, leave the tiller to flap about. We have no time to lose! And someone get below and find the signal flags.”
They all gathered below in the fo’c’sle, not a soul out on the upper decks where they might be seen by spyglass.
“Did you find them?” X said. Pelota and Black Dog had burst into the room, knocking Pickle aside to lay a small chest on the deck.
“Aye, Captain. Signal flags.” Black Dog snapped the latches at the front of the wooden chest and swung back its lid. X leaped upon the neatly folded contents, lifting one toward the lamp that Quid held, then tossing it behind his shoulder when it did not please him.
“No. Not this one. No.” Flag after flag was tossed to the floor behind him, a jumble of bright color. “Ah!” X ripped a flag from the chest and held it up. “The quarantine flag!” he said. It was a yellow and black square flag, two small yellow squares at opposite corners, and two black squares at the other corners.
“Quarantine?” Fowler said. “You mean to act like we are carrying disease?”
X giggled. “Brilliant, no?”
“Me, I’d rather fight if I am to die.”
X threw Fowler a withering look. “I am trying to save your neck, idiot! We cannot fight a ship like that. At least a hundred men aboard.” He looked about the room, standing tall, taking the time to meet them all eye to eye. “You are all sick. We all are. Believe that or you will die by the rope.”
“Shall I put the flag up?” Fowler said, pointing the way to the deck.
X scowled at him. “Do you look sick? You are too fat to be sick. Fat people do not look sick.” X inspected the crew, his eyes coming to rest on Akin and Kitto.
“The two of you, ah? A strong wind could knock you down,” he said, pointing to Akin. “And with that stump, it looks like the strong wind already had its way with you,” he said to Kitto, who glared back at him. “Take the flag and put it up.”
Kitto stepped forward and snatched it from X’s hands. He and Akin had just stepped from the fo’c’sle when X shouted out again.
“Wait! Come back here!” Akin and Kitto shared a look, then walked back into the fo’c’sle where the men still huddled about X. The captain had produced another flag from the chest, a large red X in a field of white.
Fowler made a face at X. “That one means we need help. What we want to hang that for?”
X smiled. He turned to Fowler. “If you are dying of sickness, you want help, oui?” Fowler nodded. “If you need help and are sick, would you ever hang the quarantine flag? No! If you did, you might risk that no one would help you.”
Little John piped up. “But suppose we hang the help flag and they come to help?”
X stood up and walked to Kitto. He yanked the yellow and black flag from his hands and thrust the white and red one at him.
“A ship like that is coming either way. But! If they believe we are truly ill—terribly ill—they might well leave us alone.” Kitto spun on his stump. Akin followed him.
“Remember! You must look très sick!”
While the rest of the crew skulked about below, Kitto and Akin and X lingered on the upper deck watching as the galley made slow but steady progress toward them. The red and white flag they had hung drooped slack from a line at the foremast. Whether it had communicated anything to the approaching ship Kitto could not tell. The sea separating the two ships lay nearly as unrippled as glass, eerily still, as Kitto had never seen it before.
X had demonstrated his theatrical flair by running below to fetch a few handfuls of flour that he rubbed through his hair and beard. Kitto thought the effect more ghostlike than sickly, but he chose not to criticize. The pirate complemented his appearance by hobbling about using Kitto’s crutch—impossibly small for a man of his height—but it did make him look, if not diseased in body, then in mind.
Kitto and X stood side by side, looking over the port rail. X held the spyglass. He lifted a beaded strand of his beard to his mouth and nibbled on the bead, then spit it out vigorously, rattling the remaining beads and sending a dusty cascade of flour onto the breast of his coat.
“I hate people from Spain,” he said. “They are so . . . Spanish!” Kitto threw him a quizzical look. Exquemelin raised a hand
and waved it slowly at the oncoming ship, a gesture that might possibly have been visible to someone looking through a glass. The beads on his beard clattered.
The galley was now no more than a mile off. The swing and rhythm of the huge oars were impressive indeed. Kitto wondered how many men it took to operate a single oar.
What will happen to us? he wondered. He found it hard to fear the Spanish any more than he feared meeting up with an English naval ship, but the reaction of X’s crew seemed nearly the opposite. The looks and murmurs below were somber.
There was little to do while they waited. X nibbled coffee beans until the galley was only a half mile off, at which point he tucked the sack away out of concern that snacking roasted beans might not be something a sick person would do.
“Leave the talking to me,” X said unnecessarily.
“Have you done this sort of thing before?” Kitto said.
X giggled and had to wipe the smile away with a bony hand. “Of course not. This is madness.”
The tension of the moment forced its way through Kitto into a smirk of his own. He turned away. “Madness or brilliance,” he said.
“Ja, ja! Always they are so close to each other, no?” X said.
The Spanish captain was dressed in fine red wool and wore a hat with gallant sweeps of felt and adorned with a large crimson feather. The ship had drawn close enough for Kitto to pick out the details of the hat without the spyglass. He decided that such a hat would surely get a man shot in Falmouth. Another officer stood at his side, and the two of them bent toward each other to speak privately. About them a few dozen sailors stood by their stations, and a uniformed line of six soldiers stood rigid with muskets affixed to their sides. The galley’s giant oars were still in the water, and through the galley portholes Kitto caught occasional glimpses of faces looking across the water at them. He counted twenty oars on the side facing them, which happened to be the galley’s port side, the two ships lying bow to stern of each other.
The officers parted and the captain lifted a cone-shaped instrument to his mouth. Kitto had never seen one before, but its purpose was immediately obvious when the man’s accented English rang out clearly over the water.
“Are you an English ship?”
X nodded. “Aye, English,” he called weakly, not sounding very English at all as far as Kitto was concerned.
The Spanish captain pointed to the flag. “You require assistance?”
X cupped his hands around his mouth. “Have you a surgeon? Have you a good supply of medicines?”
The captain took his time in responding, huddling first with his mate. Finally, “Is there someone sick on your ship?”
X leaned toward Kitto. “Pretend I am telling you something secretive,” he said.
“What?” Kitto said, shaking his head in confusion. X nodded at Kitto, as if the boy had said something wise. He turned back to the Spanish captain.
“Fever! There are only a dozen of us left alive, out of forty.”
“That’s a wee bit excessive, don’t you think?” Kitto said out of the side of his mouth.
“Shut up,” X said, patting him on the shoulder.
The Spanish captain exchanged alarmed looks with his mate. He lifted the horn to his mouth.
“Greatest apologies. We have no surgeon. Very sorry for your loss. When the wind comes again, head due west. Barbados is only a few days’ sail. Should we see another ship, we will make inquiries on your behalf. But we must sail.”
“Wait! Please do not leave us!” Exquemelin wailed.
“What are you doing!” Kitto hissed behind his hand.
X mumbled back, “Realism, boy. Harrowing circumstances require the finest of the dramatic arts.”
It seemed to Kitto that the first mate and the captain were having some sort of disagreement about leaving the ship in its “forlorn” condition. The two ships were close enough that Kitto could see the captain’s jaw muscles clench in frustration.
Into the midst of this argument a third man appeared, quite small in stature, and without the military uniform. He wore a fine jacket and a black felt hat sporting a showy peacock feather. He stood between the captain and first mate, his eyebrows puckering as he inspected the Port Royal across the water.
“Ezel drol!” Exquemelin wheezed, turning his back quickly on the other ship.
“What is wrong?” Kitto said.
“The man who just came up, he is looking over here, oui?” X tugged at his beard absently, his fingers searching for the beads.
Kitto narrowed his eyes. “He seems to be looking at you, mostly, more than the ship. And now he’s pointing, and saying something to the other men. They are looking now too.” For the first time since he had heard the call of the sighted sail, Kitto felt a hollow pang in the pit of his stomach.
“You know that man, don’t you?” The little man in black was stomping his foot on the deck and pointing across the water at them.
“You remember I tell you we . . . helped ourselves to a ship? And then the worms sank the ship?” X said, his back still to the galley.
“That man is the captain of the ship you stole?” Kitto’s voice quavered.
“In the flesh.”
The Spanish captain was hailing them again. “Captain! Captain, have you perhaps heard of a ship, the Santa Rosa Alegra? It was taken by pirates a few weeks ago in these waters.”
“And that was the name of the ship,” Kitto said. X grunted in agreement. An idea struck Kitto. “Captain, you do not look well, sir.” Kitto placed a hand on X’s arm. “It would be terrible if the fever caused you to fall to the deck at this precise moment.”
Exquemelin raised a finger as if to tell the Spanish captain to wait just one moment, his back still to the galley. He removed his hat and allowed his head to loll loosely on his neck. He reached out to grab Kitto by the shoulder.
“I will get below,” X said. “The men must vote on whether to fight or surrender.” With that X wilted and fell to the deck and out of sight of the galley behind the solid ship’s rail. Kitto pretended to tend to him where he had fallen, though X scampered like a crab along the port rail, trying to get to the stern hatch where he could get below without being seen by any of the Spanish sailors.
Kitto turned to the galley. He pointed down at the spot of deck where X had fallen and contrived a distressed look.
“He is very sick!” Kitto called out. “He needs a doctor! Have you a doctor?” The little merchant captain had gone purple in the face now, spouting a veritable fire of Spanish to the two officers. The captain held up his hand to the merchant, then lifted the speaking horn toward Kitto.
“We will send over assistance! Please prepare to be boarded!” The Spanish captain turned from the rail, speaking quickly to the first mate, who turned to bark the orders to the men.
“But I fear you might catch the fever!” Kitto shouted, suddenly frantic. But no one was listening to him.
In perfect unison every oar quickly withdrew into the ship, and the hatch doors were slammed shut. Just above these hatches, a row of twelve doorways swung open, and the rumble of cannons being rolled out on their trucks carried clearly over the water. Kitto now stared at the gaping mouths of a dozen cannons. He gulped.
He forced himself to step slowly over to the rope ladder and toss it over the side. It occurred to him that he could choose not to do so, but that would only fuel the Spanish captain’s fury.
Is there any way out of this?
Kitto turned and walked to the hatch leading down to the fo’c’sle.
There the entire company hovered in silence about X, who peered out a port hatch, his left eye twitching with nerves.
“A hundred men. Easily. Ezel drol! We cannot fight,” he said.
“Bollocks! We’ve fought before against these Spanish, ain’t we?” Fowler said, pushing his way to the middle of the men.
“Not this many, you ass!”
“Please!” Sarah said. She stepped forward. “Please.” The men, surprised
to hear a woman’s voice among them, fell into silence. Sarah was a picture of contrast, Bucket tucked in the crook of one arm, the other arm resting on the pistol hilt at her hip. “Fighting would be suicide. Surely you all can see that. Surrender at least gives you all a chance at life!”
Now Pickle stepped forward. “I know the Spanish,” he said. “Have you forgotten, Pelota?” he said. Pelota shook his head slowly. “We surrender, and many of us find ourselves on a Spanish plantation again. Slaves! I will fight.”
“You will bloody well do as told!” X snapped. “I am the captain.”
“That’s not the articles we live by,” Fowler said. “We vote, X. We put it to a vote.”
Exquemelin thrust a finger out the open hatch. “They are lowering boats with armed marines, you pigeon-head! The men must be told. Perhaps I am the death of us all!”
“We vote,” said Fowler. Enough nods about the room silenced any further protests by Exquemelin.
“How many say ‘fight’?” Pickle called out, his own hand raised. Pelota’s hand shot up, as did Fowler’s, Xavier’s, and several more. Kitto counted the hands, and he couldn’t help noticing that nearly every one of the dark-skinned seamen chose a nearly certain death rather than face the consequences of surrender.
“I count eight,” X said. “Agreed?” Fowler pointed a chubby finger at each of the hands around the fo’c’sle, checking the count. He grunted approval.
“And how many risk surrender?” X said. Hands raised. Van lifted his own, but X swept past him.
“You are not one of us,” he said. He counted on, and Van lowered his hand with a scowl.
“Eight again,” X said. “A stalemate, ah? In such a case the captain should be the one to decide.”
“There ain’t nothing in them articles about that!” barked Fowler. He stepped roughly to grab X by the lapel of his frock coat. X did not flinch as Fowler dug about in X’s coat pocket and came out with the oilskin pouch. He thrust it before Exquemelin’s nose.
“Fine,” X said, his voice eerily calm. “What, then, do you propose?”