by H C Storrer
Nathan, Jack’s thoughts gripped upon the vile man, the pain of his blows suddenly real again. Snapped from his trance, his anger towards his stepfather heated his ears as the cavern seemed to pulse with hate. It was a strange and scary feeling that forced Jack to marshal his wayward musings. As the calm within his soul returned, he was suddenly caressed once again by the rush of another damp, cool wind. Inhaling the breeze deeply, his lungs filled with a delicate floral fragrance. He could not place the smell, but immediately it drew his thoughts to Anna. Following a movement in his peripheral, Jack’s eyes darted to the darkest corner of the room, blinking rapidly. Fearing that the knock to his head must have done something to his eyesight, he stared in awe as for the briefest second, he could have sworn he saw Anna standing in the shadow, reaching out to him. Completely forgetting the hatch, Jack dashed to the corner as the image vanished. In its place was a strange, intricate rune carved into the wall. Running his fingers over a Celtic leaf, Jack placed his digits along the veins as they formed the head of a stoic lion in the center. His education as a child had taught him the coat of arms for the larger and more important families in England, but this had the look and feel of something older, nobler.
His fingers paced over the symmetrical lines that created the lion’s mane, then to the veins highlighted in the broadleaf. As he stepped closer, his hand applied more pressure to the rune, forcing it to smoothly sink into the wall, the stones to his left breaking formation and revealing a door to another passage. He could see escape, the outside world, and the light of the sun within his grasp, but worried at the strangeness of it all. Jack timidly took one awkward step from the chamber after another, as if the ground beneath his feet would not be solid. Sighing with relief in the light of the natural sun, Jack’s reprieve turned to panic when without warning the door slid shut behind him, sealing the chamber. Scrambling back, he scratched at the wall where the opening had been, but it was too late. “Oh, good job, Jack!” his exasperated voice echoed in the passage as he rested his head against the immobile stone. Slapping the wall in frustration, the rock shifted back ever so slightly, the movement bringing him to attention. Jack studied the wall where his hand had been, time and weather had not been kind, but he could just make out the rough shape of the rune, worn almost smooth. Relieved, he smiled at his fortune.
***
“There’s nuffin for it, Jack. We can’t pick up where we’s left off. Them’s Runners are all over the city like rats! I see’s Talker wif me own eyes try and lift a Gent’s pocket book. That bloke George come outta nowhere and nabbed ’im. Say’s to ’im, ‘you’s ’is majesty’s newest sailor you is.’ Why I‘s ’erd them brag about Sam. They’s shipped ’im to work in the colonies. They’s goin’ ta hang you if they finds you.” Bill was more agitated than Jack had ever seen him; it had been a rough couple of weeks.
“Alright! I get it, Bill,” Jack whispered back, flustered. “What about our stash? Did the Runners ever find it?”
“No.” Bill had calmed a bit. “I’ve been ’ere, watch’n. They ’asn’t found it, but they is always ’angin around close, sometimes ’idden there and there.” He motioned to two spots where a man could stand and avoid being seen. “They’s there now. I don’t sees ’ow we could get it wifout them noticin’.”
“There has to be a way, Bill. That’s my. . . our coin down there. If you can cause a distraction farther up the alley a bit, maybe I can sneak down and—”
“No, Jack,” Bill cut him off. “It ain’t worth it. If we get caught it’s the gallows for us! I’s only been able to find a ’andful of the lads, and they is gonna need you ta take care of ’em.”
“If we run real quick—”
“It won’t work, Jack, they would ’as us in irons!” Bill cut him off with force.
“Blast,” Jack muttered under his breath, loath to give up his bankroll. He could see the logic behind Bill’s reasoning, but it tasted more like cowardice.
“Ja-ack?” Bill was hesitant to continue.
Jack turned to face his friend. “What is it?”
“Me finks it would be best if you stayed at that church.”
“I can’t do that, Bill. Like you said, the boys need me. Besides, I think that priest wants me to join the cloth. I don’t know how much longer I can take it.”
He quickly overrode Jack’s disagreement. “You’re right, they do. But you ’as food an shelter an safety from Talmage. You is going to be no good to us if you’s dead. We’ll get by and stay ’idden, just like you taught us. Maybe you can sneak out an bring us a kipper now and then, eh? You know, or baptize us?” Bill couldn’t help the jab at Jack’s predicament.
The joking aside, Jack didn’t like it, but he knew he could have a steady supply of table scraps and the first pick of the donations box to help his boys survive. “Alright. But just until the Runners bugger off. When did you get so smart?” Jack asked.
“I’s been paying attention, I suppose. You know, when you’re not being a prat.” Bill smiled back.
“I best get back before the priest notices I’m gone. I’ll try to bring some food in a few days.” He shook Bill’s hand and then snuck back across the rooftop. Wrapping his feet around the lead drainpipe on the other side, he deftly slid to the cobbles below. He was reluctant to leave his boys floundering, but for now the best he could do was to go back to the church and con that old codger while he stole the donations box empty.
He was halfway to the chapel when the melancholy of his thoughts made him walk a little slower. The bell tower was just in sight, and like a cold guard, the large, brass main bell beckoned him like a prison guard to return. Jack stopped on the street, rubbing the side of his face. From nowhere, the same floral scent from earlier accosted his sense. Gazing toward the red of the setting sun, his thoughts drifted towards Anna. She would be done with her daily tasks soon, he suspected. There was still a bowl of fruit and cream on the offering. Turning on his heels, he put the bells of the grand church behind him, skipping over the cobbles in the other direction.
Chapter 18
“Y ou have a good heart, Jack.” John caught him unawares. “You truly see those boys out there as your own.”
Jack froze, hovering over the donations box with a drab coat in his hands, chastising himself internally. No matter how attuned his senses were, John had a gift at catching him by surprise. “I was just thinking how Gags could use a new… I’m sorry, Your Eminence, it won’t happen again.” Jack dropped the coat back into the bin.
“Would you think me so heartless.” The Priest stepped closer with a calming hand on Jack’s shoulder, lifted the coat up, and draped it over the boy’s arms. “I know you care for those lads. I know you take table scraps out to them nearly every night. It isn’t stealing if you are taking what is meant for the poor anyway.”
“You knew I was out and about to meet me boys?”
“I’ve known for the past two years.” John smiled kindly.
Jack felt as if he had been punched in the gut—he suddenly realized he wasn’t as clever as he thought. “I… I’ve only lived here for two years.”
In silence, John’s smile was all the more sincere as his eyes twinkled in a way Jack had come to expect. It seemed to him that there was nothing the old codger didn’t know.
Jack let the coat slip from his fingers back into the donations box as he stretched to his full height and mumbled, “I had best get back to my chores.”
“I am not angry,” John replied. “Those boys need you. I understand that.”
Jack remained silent as the priest approached him. He was a good head taller than the old man, but in a way, to Jack’s internal reflection, he was still a small boy scratching a living in London’s gutter. The initial rush of pulling the wool over John’s eyes had faded ages ago but knowing that the priest knew what he had been doing, pricked him with resentment.
“Take the coat, Jack.” John picked up the clothing and put it once more into the boy’s hand. “Just remember, you are doing
God’s work. You can do more for those lads with the church behind you. It’s not right that they sleep on the street. We can find them a place, a chance for a real life.” It was something the priest had suggested before, an offer always hanging in every conversation, and one Jack had become adept at dodging. “Your mother was a kind woman. Nathan was the product of living like those boys do now. We can save them, you and me.”
Nathan’s name was like fuel to his smoldering forge of revenge. It may have no longer caused him to flare in anger, but all the same it continued to heat the slow burn that was ever present in his gut. “How did you know?”
“Anna came to me to see if I could help, some time ago.” John replied with a shake of his head. “She had it in her head that giving away old rags and table scraps was a near unpardonable sin. Such a kind-hearted girl.” He could see the shadow walk over Jack’s features. “Now don’t you go and start with her. She cares for you and those boys more than you know.”
Jack deflated his lungs in a rush. He didn’t know what his expression said, but the priest was right, if there was a person to be cross with, Anna would be the last one on the list. She was the only person he saw more than his boys, and theirs was a relationship wrapped around his core. Anna knew everything there was to know about him, and she still stood by his side. She had even taken on the role of a ‘mother’ to his lost boys, mending clothes and bringing them scraps of food on her own.
“Out there, my boys are free. I won’t chain them down—”
“Jack, you can’t run away from who you really are.” John reached out and placed a hand on Jack’s chest, stopping him as he passed. “Is that how you see yourself? As a prisoner? No one is chained to this place. Take the good in your soul and bless the lives of those around you.”
Jack investigated John’s eyes and saw a deep sadness there. “Why do you care so much about who you think I really am? You know nothing about the real world or about me. I’m a thief! Plain and simple.”
John shook his head slowly. “I have seen many seek something that would give them answers to questions about the dark beast within. Men have spent lifetimes within walls such as these, but they never fostered the good that exists in all of us, right here.”
Jack’s eyes fell to Johns finger as the priest prodded him in the space over his heart. He had had many discussions with John, but this was the first time that he could remember the aged clergy speaking with such passion.
“When they were faced with challenges… challenges even more difficult than you have had, there was nothing there to keep them in the light. If you are unable to be in the light, Jack, you can never control what is in the shadows and you will become lost, just as those that have gone before you.”
Jack tucked his head, chewing the side of his cheek in silence. The anger and confusion in his soul battled the Good Father’s words at every turn. With a shrug, he stepped out of John’s reach and headed off to his duties. He spent the rest of the morning sweeping out around the pews and dusting the sanctuary, avoiding John, but musing on his words. John had spent nearly every moment trying to coax him into following his footsteps. It was as if he saw Jack as his surrogate son, and he was grateful for everything John had done for him and the safety the church offered. The Runners only passed by now and again, but still there was a splinter in his heart. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t put aside all the wrongs he had suffered. The priest’s mantra was forgiveness—Jack’s was vengeance.
It was after lunch; Jack had climbed above the priest’s office to clean out a nest of pigeons who had invaded through a hole in the roof. It was stuffy work, but it was going to make for a good story when he met Anna later that evening.
“ ‘Ee is the darkest man I ’as ever laid me eye’s on.” The voice was a gurgle, hard, and when the man coughed it seemed as if his ribs may crack for the violence of it. Jack paused his work and put his ear to the ceiling to hear the conversation below him.
“Are you quite alright?” John asked. “Here, have a drink of tea.”
“I is close to the grave now fa’er. Noffin’ is goin to save ol Frenchy. But I cant’s go wifout clean’n me soul of this—” Again, the man started to hack. Jack inwardly cringed, his mind raced to his mother’s last days, the cough much the same. When the fit ended, the gurgling voice returned. “Me fanks you for the tea, Your Grace.”
Jack shifted his vision to a crack in the boards. Even from this angle, he could tell that the man was a hulking mass of muscle and girth. His clothes were tattered and torn, the royal blue nearly faded to a pale albatross from years of sun exposure; but even so, Jack could see that at one time it had been the fine suit of a very wealthy man. His long, scraggly hair etched over his face like fine silver wire, shimmering from a sheen of grease. As he drank his tea, he would smack his lips where his teeth had been, smiling eerily as to adjust the temperature of his mouth.
“Now, you say your ship’s Captain was evil? But surely you can’t carry the guilt of another man?” John tried to console.
“Not just evil, fa’er, ’is soul be black, black as the grave.” Frenchy leaned forward. “When I sees the gates of Saint Peter, ’ee will know me sins sure as daylight, but I ’as to confess of the dark deeds me Cap’n forced upon me.”
***
“To the guns, lads, don’t spare the shot!” the Captain barked out orders as he scampered about the rigging, spyglass in hand, smoke from the burning whale blubber billowing about him like the death throes of a slain dragon. It was the perfect deception. They had run all the cannons, shot, and whatever else was in the hold to the port side, making the ship list badly. Then, setting alight the fat of a whale carcass they had come upon, the pirates let the sails flap weakly in the wind, the colors of Venice flying proudly astern. It was the sight of a ship ready to be taken by the crushing black, distress banners raised up to the topsail. The Captain opened his spyglass once more—he could see their prey closing, the red and blue of the Union Jack rippling in the wind as its bow cut the spray at top speed, heading for the rescue. “Mr. Akers, ready to run out the guns when they come to assist. I wants a full broadside soon as we correct.”
“Aye, aye, Cap’n.” The first mate turned and started barking to the crew. “Ready the ropes, dogs! Load them guns. Move like the devil’s ta pay!”
About him, the nervous anticipation of battle left a permanent grimace on every man’s face. A whole gang gathered about on the slanted deck with cutlass, pistol, and blunderbuss, bracing for the moment when they would be called to board.
“Tis a merchantman!” the Captain barked. Slowly, he started to make out the white letters painted upon the black field of the name plates. “The… F… air… y G… u…ll. Judging by the draft, she be fully loaded!”
“Ho!” The jubilation from the pirate crew could hardly be contained. This was a grand payday for two months of hard hunting.
“Prepare the black ’eart and right the guns on me mark!” the Captain ordered. The seconds seemed to drag on for hours, the minutes a lifetime. Like a standard, he lifted his cuffed hand into the air, sunlight gleaming off his brass buttons as his index finger pointed heavenward. “MARK!”
“Alright, ye scurvy scum!” Mr. Akers bellowed, “Give them the fires of hell to remember us by!”
Below deck, thick hemp ropes tugged at the imbalanced guns and cargo as the crew worked against block and tackle to force the weight to the other side. With a great groan, the entire vessel rushed to starboard, the hold shifting to balance. The oak boards of the ship balked and creaked at the weight as the boat bobbed up and down in the water from the near-instant change. With a snap, the men on deck yanked themselves from where they had clung and pulled the rigging taut, the masts springing to life with advantageous wind. Just then, the Venetian flag disappeared, a large ruby banner with a single black heart taking its place. It was in that very moment of deception that the cursed shadow of the pirate ship’s sails blackened the deck of the Fairy Gull. As if accepting her fate
, the sloop’s own cloth slackened as it coasted in the placid sea to come aside.
“Run out the guns!” Mr. Akers yelled as the ports flipped up and out of the way. “Fire!”
In a roll of thunder that started from one end of the ship and roared to the other, all twelve guns along the starboard side fired in quick succession. “BA BOOM, BA BOOM, BA BOOM…” The Fairy Gull shuddered from the blast, hunks of the ship’s hull and deck showering out into the open sea beyond. Then, with a great groan, the main mast began to sway, a bar shot severing it at the base. With a great gust of wind, the tree of timber crushed down upon the forecastle, tearing through the sails of the foremast, leaving the ship nearly motionless. Screams and cries of wounded and dying sailors shredded the sky as the pirate ship slipped in a wide arch.
As quickly as the guns were reloaded and aimed, they fired again and again, circling about the rear of the Fairy Gull, blasting holes into the Captain’s quarters and severing the chain that controlled the rudder. Before she had even fired a shot in return, the Fairy Gull was a crippled hulk.
“Ho there, Cap’n of ye ship!” the pirate yelled out in the break between gunfire, “Prepare to be boarded, or strike yer colors an we will let them that lays down their arms go free.”
There wasn’t an audible reply, but before another blast sounded from the pirate’s guns, the Union Jack was struck, a large white sheet raising in its place. Only then did a thin voice call back, “Our Captain is dead. We beg mercy!”
***
Frenchy looked up over his cup of tea and twisted uneasy in his worn, buckled shoes, the priest intensely held in the grip of his story. “It’s that boy that me memory ’as fevered on most.”