Cerulean Isle

by G. M. Browning

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Good. Follow me.”

  Christoff led me down a narrow companionway to a lower deck. Light streamed in through iron grates overhead, but even so, the corridor was shadowy and dank. A heavy musk filled my nose and my bare feet splashed through cold puddles. The floorboards creaked.

  I heard harsh arguing from pirates above. “Testing me patience again, heh?”

  “Stay your dagger, mate. I won, right as rain! To the victor go the spoils.”

  “Take the prize and deal another hand before I cut yours off.”

  The ship pitched and yawed. At times I held the walls for stability. Christoff was surefooted and needed no assistance. His body moved with the subtle rocking while I wobbled and staggered behind.

  We stopped at a wooden door. A deep voice barked and cursed, then I heard a slap and a thud.

  “Damned scallywag!” Christoff kicked open the door. A boy lay on his side clutching his left ear. Thin streams of red trickled through his fingers. A greasy man with stringy brown hair recoiled as Christoff entered.

  “What goes on that justifies such an outburst?” Christoff demanded.

  The pirate did not answer. He looked down at the bleeding boy, then over at me. I froze under his dark eyes. I recognized him as one of the men who had pulled me from my father’s side. He had carried me out of the tavern and thrown me in the alley.

  “You can answer to me or you can answer to the captain,” said Christoff. “Make your choice.”

  “The boy don’t do what I tell him. I speak and speak but he listens to naught. Teaching him a lesson is all, sir.”

  “Is that so?” Christoff walked over to the boy, shoving the pirate as he passed. The man toppled backward and landed hard among a stack of empty barrels.

  The others in the room made way for Christoff. They watched me, a few of them nodding a silent greeting.

  “Easy now. Let me have a look.” Christoff pulled the boy’s left hand away from his swollen, bloody ear. Christoff touched it with his thumb. “You’re from San Juan. Am I not mistaken?”

  The boy did not respond. He cupped his wounded ear.

  “Speak up, lad. I say you’re from San Juan. Is that so?”

  No response. Christoff hardened his jaw. “Answer me!”

  “I am,” the boy muttered incoherently in a slurred, flat voice. “I am deaf.”

  Christoff reached into one of his pouches and produced a small clean rag, which he folded and pressed to the bleeding ear. The boy bowed his thanks and backed away. A groan came from under the barrels.

  “Strike the lad again and you’ll answer to L’Ollon. Now all of you listen here,” he said to the room of young men, “the lad in the doorway is named Jacob. Be fair to him, as you would have fairness in return.” Christoff turned to me and said, “You’ll do as the cooper instructs and as the boatswain commands. The cooper is the older of the lads, an experienced barrel maker, and the boatswain? Well, he is the one under the barrels.”

  Christoff made for the doorway, but before exiting, he turned and looked me square in the eyes. “Welcome aboard, lad.”

  Chapter 3

  A Friend

  The stale, salty air was tinged with body odor. Barrels of all sizes, some sealed and others broken, were stacked along the walls. Piles of wood scraps and metal bands lay on a large worktable. The cold floor was free of puddles.

  A hand touched my shoulder, and I spun around. A young man stood before me. Behind him the other children gathered, the deaf boy among them.

  “Good day, Jacob,” said the young man, extending his hand for me to shake. “My name is Grant. I am the cooper, the barrel maker. Welcome aboard.”

  A man emerged from under the barrels with a groan. He rubbed his head and glared at us. Muttering, he left the room.

  “That’s Beelo. He’s the boatswain, down here as punishment. No mates want to work the lower decks.”

  “What is a boatswain?”

  “The boatswain looks after the stock and tends to the ropes, rigging, and equipment.”

  “What did he do wrong?”

  “He got drunk a few months ago and insulted the captain. Captain L’Ollon commanded him to serve below deck, so the crew calls him ‘Beelo.’ Despite the conditions, we take care of each other down here.”

  I nodded. I guessed that Grant was two or three years older than me, fifteen, perhaps. He had a pale complexion with curly red hair that came just below his ears. He wore a patched gray shirt and tattered brown shorts. On his feet were crude but sturdy-looking wooden sandals. All the children here wore them.

  “Your sandals,” I said. “Where did you get them?”

  He smiled and wiggled his toes. “I made them. Would you like a pair?”

  “Yes, indeed.”

  Grant nodded to one of the boys among the crowd. The boy hurried to a barrel, opened the lid, and withdrew two wooden sandals. He tossed them to me.

  I put them on at once. A soothing feeling overcame my entire lower half as I stood in my new sandals. No more cold floor. No more sharp splinters jabbing my toes.

  “No worries. Come, there is work to do, and you must learn quickly.” He pointed to a stack of wood on the large worktable. “A good barrel is tight and strong to hold food, drink, and powder. The captain wants the food barrels replaced every six months. Great care is needed when constructing a barrel. The stock must stay fresh and free of rats.”

  I nodded.

  “Watch as we build. Ask questions if need be and then take up a hammer. Beelo will want you working when he comes back.”

  I watched them bend the metal ties and cut the boards to size. They pounded the bottoms with rusted mallets and soon had two new barrels. The finished barrels were cleaned and stacked, ready to mark and fill.

  The boys sang a simple rhyme while they worked.

  Hard at work, deep in the hull

  A cooper’s nail is never dull

  Be it morn’ or noon or night

  The work will always be done right

  And should the cap’n come he’ d find

  A brow of pride that drips with brine

  Let’s set sail and all will know

  The food is fresh but the rum is low.

  Their cheerful song reminded me of a celebration for my parents to honor my mother’s pregnancy. I recalled the night clearly. There was dancing, music, singing, and roasted pig. The three of us danced and feasted all night. I laughed and sang and when it was over and the fires were nothing more than dwindling embers, we retired to our cozy house. I listened to my father tell stories of pirates and tribal clans, until my mother came in and warned him not to fill my head with frightening tales. They kissed me goodnight, and I slept warm and happy. I couldn’t have imagined the betrayal that would befall me.

  We spent the afternoon working the barrels and repackaging the provisions. Grant painted labels for each stocked barrel: fish, salt, meat, cheese, nuts, lime, hard-tack, rum, wine, and water.

  We worked quickly to clean the room in time for the boatswain’s return.

  “Floggin’ rats did good afta all,” he said. “Keep it up and I may get me old job back and be rid of ya. Have suppa and be ya off to sleep. The morrow will be coming early and we’ll be setting sail for Curacao.”

  I joined the other boys in picking food from the barrels. I took a hard-tack biscuit, two bananas, and a wedge of smoked cheese. I ate everything but the biscuit.

  Grant laughed. “Hard-tack is a last resort, friend. You couldn’t eat it without a pitcher of water to soak it in. It’s as hard as a hammer’s head.”

  As night fell, the chamber grew dark. Pale light from the upper deck poured in through the grates over the main passage. Grant handed out dusty gray blankets to the boys, who set their beds throughout the room. Grant tied my blanket around one of the pillars and then attached the other end to an iron spike that stuck out of the wall, making it into a crude hammock.

  “The hammock is the most comfortable way to
rest, but not the warmest. If you get cold, take it down and sleep on the floor.”

  “Thank you. You’ve been kind.”

  “We’re all in this together. You’ll get used to this life.”

  “That’s hard to believe. I don’t understand how men like Christoff and L’Ollon could want a life at sea.”

  “L’Ollon wrote the rules that he lives by, Jacob. That’s what a seafarer loves about it.”

  I climbed into my crude hammock. “What do you know about Captain L’Ollon?”

  Grant swung in his hammock with his arms folded behind his head. “Captain Jean L’Ollon is the grandson of Francis L’Olonnais.”

  “Christoff told me that Francis L’Olonnais was a ruthless pirate.”

  “Indeed. He was known throughout as ‘the Flail of the Spaniards’ because he targeted Spanish ships with unmatched cruelty. Francis L’Olonnais thought nothing of cutting off a man’s head or tearing out his heart. And he was richer than you could imagine.”

  “Captain L’Ollon must be rich as well.”

  “Not anymore. Francis L’Olonnais was killed in 1668 by Darien Indians, and his fortune was lost. His son, Jacques L’Ollon, came forth years later to carry on the legacy. He made it his goal to slaughter the Darien Indians and reclaim his father’s treasure.

  “When he accomplished that, he built an impressive fleet of ships: the mighty galleon Hydra, the barque Obsidian, and the sloop Cutlass. Seamen from all corners of the world spoke of him. The son resembled the father so much that people said the wicked Francis L’Olonnais had returned from the grave.”

  One of the boys turned out the lantern, and the barrel room went dark. As my eyes adjusted, I made out small beams of moonlight shining through cracks in the floor overhead.

  Grant lowered his voice. “Jacques L’Ollon fathered Jean. He taught him everything he knew and raised him to the malevolent family name. During Jean’s eighteenth year, Jacques grew very ill and died. But not before he had signed his pirate empire over to his son. Jean loaded the inherited money, the entire family fortune, aboard his three ships.”

  “And where are the other two?”

  “Well, from what I’ve heard in the pubs and markets, L’Ollon sailed with the trade winds and met a terrible storm. The Hydra and the Cutlass were bested and destroyed. Many men died, but Jean escaped with the Obsidian. The great fortune of his forefathers was lost at sea.”

  “How is that possible?”

  One of the other boys called out, “Go to sleep before you earn us all a flogging.”

  Grant shifted in his hammock. “I’ll tell you more another day.”

  The others snored and muttered while they dreamed. My mind was restless and my body ached. I felt the ship moving with the ocean. The entire room tilted to the left, then to the right. There was a constant creaking and the patter of pacing footsteps overhead. From time to time, I heard a cough somewhere in the distance and the faded fragments of conversations resonating through the ship.

  There was never complete silence on the sea. I closed my eyes to see the small house my father built in the nameless village on the outskirts of Santiago. It consisted of shacks and hovels clustered around a common area packed with outdoor markets. A single road coursed through the center of our town. Travelers and peddlers passed through daily. Would I ever see my village again?

  The ship swayed, and my hammock swung. Two warm tears rolled down my cheeks.

  Chapter 4

  Setting Sail

  Grant roused me from my sleep. “Wake up, Jacob! You don’t want to miss it.”

  “Miss what?” I rubbed my eyes and rolled out of my hammock.

  “The hoisting of the riggings, the setting of the sails. The Obsidian is preparing to take wind.”

  He led me down the damp hallway, our sandals clopping as we hurried to parts of the ship I had not seen yet. Sunlight spilled through cracks in the deck and grains of sand and dust sprinkled down from passing feet.

  We came to a ladder leading to a square hatch.

  “Go up and lift the hatch. You can see the main deck and all that goes on. But don’t let them catch you.”

  I nodded, swallowed my fear, and climbed the ladder. I pushed open the creaking hatch to a blazing morning sun that nearly blinded me.

  The wide deck gleamed and seemed to stretch out endlessly. In front of me loomed the powerful mainmast, like a tree sprouting from the center of the ship. Though it looked like one mammoth trunk, it was made of three separate beams fitted perfectly together. Four other wooden beams intersected its length at varying heights. These sturdy arms, the crosstrees, held the ropes and bundles of sail. I watched as men climbed these riggings to the tops of the swaying arms. They crawled out onto the limbs and let loose the heavy fabric that would catch wind.

  Captain L’Ollon stood under the mainmast looking upward at the men. He wore a knee-length brown coat with bright gold buttons and wide square sleeves. His gray pants were tight on his legs, and he wore the same black boots. His pistol remained around his waist, as did his blade. The lengthy red scarf was tied over his head, the ends twirling in the wind.

  “On my word,” hollered the captain.

  The men readied themselves.

  “Main topgallant.”

  Near the top of the great mast, a wide white sail began to fall and flap in the wind. I could hear the rippling of the heavy fabric and the whipping of the lines.

  “Make fast,” L’Ollon called.

  The sail tightened to a crisp yet billowing square as the men pulled and secured the rigging. The first of the sails was set.

  “Top and studding sail,” yelled L’Ollon.

  From the second and third beams, four magnificent sails spread outward and fanned together.

  “Make fast.”

  The men pulled the lines, drawing the corners of the sails tight to the crosstrees.

  “Main course.”

  The largest of the mainsails opened. The white and slightly tattered sail was enormous. It took several men to ready the fighting fabric. The wind seemed to give it a life of its own as it writhed and resisted their efforts to keep it under control.

  “Make fast the main course!”

  Slowly, the great rippling sail was pulled into submission and the corners secured. The white sails bloomed, full of wind. The massive barque Obsidian began to move.

  L’Ollon watched the sails flap against the bright morning sky. When his eyes fixed on me, I recoiled and closed the hatch, hurrying down the rungs of the ladder.

  Grant waited below. “No going back now. We’re off to the island of Curacao. Come on, we’d better get back to our quarters before Beelo comes around.”

  Once back in the barrel room, we each took a broom and began to sweep. I asked Grant where he came from, how he came to be here.

  “I was born in Nassau on the island of New Providence, north of Cuba, a wild and lawless port town. My family cared naught for me. I left them when I was ten and took to thieving. I was cunning, patient, and no one suspected a mere child.

  “One day, not too long ago, I stole a loaf of bread from a docked merchant vessel and went to the beach to eat. I saw a mysterious and wealthy-looking ship in the distance. Its three masts were strong and tall, the white sails blooming like clouds, and as it drew near, I saw the figurehead of the corpse dangling from the bowsprit. I knew there was only one ship with a figurehead like that—one ship, one crew and one captain that everyone spoke of in whispers. It was the Obsidian, the last of the great L’Ollon’s fleet. I felt drawn to it. I waited until it furled its sails and entered the harbor. You see, Jean L’Ollon and his never-ending quest is known by all, and I—”

  “What quest?” I asked suddenly.

  “You don’t know the story?” asked Grant, eyes wide with surprise.

  I shook my head.

  “Well, then. I’ll tell you tonight when the others sleep. For now, let me just say that when I saw his ship coming, I knew I wanted to join his crew. L’Ollon’s
shipboard articles guarantee the best pay, not to mention the glory of being a part of the toughest crew on the Caribbean.”

  “How did you get Captain L’Ollon to take you aboard?”

  “It was Master Christoff who brought me. I followed a few of L’Ollon’s men around town and into a pub. I watched them. I saw an older man talking to a woman. This man had a huge pouch tied to his belt. Being a thief, I could not resist. I approached and attempted to make my move, but the man twirled around with a finesse I had never seen, and the next thing I knew, a sharp knife was pressed to my throat.

  “‘Do you know who I am, lad?’ he asked me. ‘I am the Obsidian’s quartermaster. You’ve made a big mistake, but you’re young and foolish. I will give you a choice.’ His knife cut me only a little. ‘Take my money and run as fast as you can, and we’ll see if you can elude my flying dagger, or you can put your sticky fingers to use. Captain L’Ollon could use a bold scrap like you. Make your choice quickly, lad. My knife knows no patience.’

  “I agreed to go with him and here I am. I am just a servant, but I was given the title cooper. I hope to one day become a fully articled crewmember, a pirate of the Obsidian.”

  Grant leaned on the shaft of the broom. With a flick of the wrist, he twirled the broom up and around, holding it aloft like a sword. He lunged in attack, then spun to deflect another imaginary attacker. The boys laughed. Grant turned and thrust once more, the tip of the broom handle smashing against a barrel. The wooden handle snapped in two. He shrugged and tossed the broken broom aside.

  “That’s enough sweeping for one day,” he said. “Come, let’s have something to drink.” Grant lifted the lid of a water barrel and scooped two cups. He handed one to me and we sat down at a workbench.