Pirates!

by Celia Rees

  'Where's Low?'

  'Broom put him in an open boat to shift for himself, along with any of his men who chose to go with him.' Minerva hooked her thumbs in her belt. 'Not many did.'

  I was glad that we'd won the day, but sorry that Low had got away. They should have made him eat his own ears, that was my opinion, but Broom always was soft-hearted – for a pirate.

  Low's was a big ship. Men scurried like ants to repair the damage she'd suffered during the recent fight. Besides the captain's cabin, there was a ward room for officers, and a dining room, even cabins. Minerva helped me to one of these.

  'I think we'll claim this one,' she said, and laid me in a cot slung from a beam. She stripped away my clothing, and fetched water and a cloth to see what wounds I had under the caked layers of dried blood.

  She frowned. 'Perhaps I should go and fetch Graham.'

  'No!' I caught her hand. 'He will have enough to do. There must be much worse cases than mine. I want you to look after me.'

  'Very well. But you do as I say and no complaining.' Minerva went away again and came back with fresh water, strips of linen for bandages and a bottle of rum.

  She bathed me all over. Her gentle touch and the feeling of being clean again made me almost forget my wounds. There were cutlass slashes on my hands and arms. She sewed the worst of them with button thread. There was a nick under my chin where Low had forced me back and a long cut starting at the hollow at the base of my throat, travelling down my breast bone and ending at my navel.

  Minerva swabbed the wounds with stinging rum and dressed them, then she wound me round with bandages. After that, she made me drink a cup of brandy, heated and laced with spices. The spices reminded me of Phillis, and I went to sleep thinking of her.

  Graham came to see me and congratulated my nurse on her care. My wounds were healing cleanly and I would be left with only a little scarring, although I carry the marks to this day: a white crescent under my chin and a line running the length of my upper body like a silver thread.

  My bodily hurts were mending, but I was having the nightmares again. The dream ended with his mocking whisper:

  I know where you are going.

  I jerked from sleep, and lay in my cot in the rocking ship, as though in some double cradle. It seemed that he knew about our run to Africa. But how could that be so? Perhaps there was no escaping him. I truly believed that he would follow me to the ends of the earth. A yawning pit opened inside me, a chasm of despair. I could hear Minerva's hammock creaking, hear her breathing in the darkness of the cabin, but I felt alone on the ocean vastness. Beyond the steady rush of our ship, I seemed to hear another, her bows cleaving the sea, quietly whispering through the water, coming after me.

  I tried to imagine the ship, with him upon her. In my dream I seemed to glimpse her, as if through a grey mist, but awake I could not recall her. Instead, I saw other ships sliding by us, packed with people whose lives had been stolen from them.

  We were sailing the African coast now, and it fairly bristled with forts and castles, their dungeons full of people: mothers, fathers, wives and husbands, children. More, and still more, were being herded down to the coast in coffles, chained together at the neck. Next to the stumbling columns, I saw the neat lists of figures in my father's ledgers, some in my own hand.

  'What is the matter?' Minerva whispered out of the dark.

  I could not answer her. To my very great surprise, I began to cry, and once I had started I found I could not stop.

  Minerva swung her legs out of her hammock and came to me. She lay down in the cot beside me and comforted me, stroking my hair as she held me in the hollow of her shoulder. I soaked her shirt with my tears. Lacking a mother, I had never been held by a woman like that before. I felt the roughness of the fabric under my cheek, the warm skin beneath it. I thought of the mark that marred its perfection, and cried more. Minerva rocked me, hushing me as if I were a baby, and eventually I quietened. Nights on the Guinea coast are hot and close. We did not sleep again, but lay talking.

  'Your heart's got to lay down its burdens,' Minerva whispered to me. 'That's what Phillis would say.'

  If my heart could lay down its burdens ...

  'I had the dream again.'

  'About the Brazilian? Is it the same one?'

  I shook my head. 'I see the ship clearer, with him upon her. Up on the quarterdeck. That great diamond cross swinging from his chest. He's still after me.'

  'How can he know where we are? We are not in the Caribbean. How will he know to come here?'

  I shook my head. 'I don't know. I just feel that he does.'

  'But you don't know. Not for sure. Remember what Phillis used to say? "Don't fear tomorrow, till today's done with you." It's a true thing.'

  'I know. That's just it. I still get frightened. When Low came at me ... when I thought of what he wTould do to me ... when he said he would give me to his crew ... ' I bit my lip, fighting off the tears that threatened to come again as I gave my secret fears to her. 'I belong nowhere. To no one. I have cut myself away from my family, from everyone except William. And he's probably disgusted with me for turning pirate and will find some proper girl to be his wife.'

  'Ssh! Hush!' Minerva held me closer. 'You still have me.'

  'But for how long? You have Vincent ... '

  'I do not have Vincent!' Minerva tried her best to sound indignant, but I could tell by her voice that she hoped it was so.

  'You could if you wanted, I've seen the way he looks at you. And you like him, you can't deny it. And then I will truly have no one. Nothing. No home. No family ... '

  'You will still have me. You will always have me.' Minerva made me listen in turn. She had burdens of her own. 'There is something you must know.' She wound a lock of my hair round her fingers. 'Something I should have told you a long time ago.'

  'What is it?'

  'You are my sister. Your father, was my father, too.'

  Minerva was my sister. I was so stunned, that I could not speak. We had been through so much together and she'd never said a word. I half rose to look at her, to search her face for a clue as to how she could keep such a thing from me, and for so long.

  'Why did you not tell me?'

  'Phillis made me promise not to.'

  'But why?'

  'Your father made her promise to tell no one. She gave her word and he never released her from it. For Phillis, his death bound her to silence,' She paused. 'You are not angry, that I did not tell you?'

  'Oh, no!' I marvelled that she could even think it. 'It is strange to me, that's all. So many things make sense now, that did not before.'

  The way my father spent part of every year in Jamaica; his special care of Phillis and Minerva. The way that sometimes, when I looked at her, it was like looking in a mirror. The differences between us had blinded me to the similarities. The likeness was there clear enough: a certain way of standing, the arch of the brow, the tilt of the chin, our stubbornness. Even William had noticed how alike we were in that. I was astounded that I had never recognised what it truly meant.

  Things were becoming clear to me and, in that moment, much of my fear left me. I had found one safe haven in a seething sea of threat and uncertainty. Men's love might change, prove fickle, but Minerva was my blood sister. I would always love her, and she would always love me.

  32

  A pirate ship is its own wooden world where each man depends on the other. Discontent and dissatisfaction among the crew can bring a ship to ruin, as sure as teredo worm eating through the hull. The Swift Return and the Deliverance before her had both been happy ships. Broom had renamed Low's three-master the Fortune, but that had not changed the atmosphere upon her. Tempers grew short, frustrations began to surface. Quarrels flared, as quick and ugly as fire in the hold.

  'Only takes one bad apple,' Pelling observed. 'And we got a barrelful.'

  Vincent was now captain of the Swift Return, Broom taking the Fortune. I knew Minerva missed him. She would not say so,
but was not above staring towards the horizon to where the Swift Return shadowed us, hoping for a glimpse of her mast and sails. I caught her climbing down from the topgallant crosstrees for the second time in one morning and asked her why she did not go with him.

  'I would not leave until your wounds are healed,' she said. 'Besides, Vincent would not allow it. He says for he and I to be together would make difficulties for both of us and have an unsettling effect on the men.'

  She missed him the most, but we all had occasion to feel the lack of his strong presence, and his influence upon the men. Although we needed as many hands as could be mustered to run two ships, the men taken on from Low's crew were surly and quarrelsome. They behaved like dogs who'd had a bad master, fawning one minute, snarling the next. One in particular, Thomas Limster, seemed intent on causing trouble. He'd had ambitions to be Low's quartermaster and now thought to take Pelling's job, making himself busy among the crew, trying to win them over to his side. He boasted Low's careless cruelties as the methods of a 'real captain'. Broom was weak, he said, leading us nowhere and passing fat prizes every day. Why leave slave ships when we could get a good price for their cargo further up the coast? Rumour whispered of a round robin to get rid of the captain. Limster was careful who he asked to sign, each one writing his name as part of a circle so none could be picked out as leader if the conspiracy were discovered.

  That I was a woman wearing man's clothes was generally known. Up until now, my sex had provoked little comment, but Limster changed all that.

  It was evening, the idle time before the night watch was set, when most of the men were on deck, smoking pipes and drinking.

  'Duck in drake's clothing,' he sneered as I passed by him. 'A whore's a whore, whatever she's wearing.'

  It was not the first time he'd made a comment, and before I'd let it go by. This time, I begged his pardon and asked him to repeat what he had just said.

  'You heard. Let's see what you got, then.'

  His lips curled as he spoke and I could see his scurvy-blackened gums, smell his rotten breath as he pulled me towards him, grabbing at my jacket. He was a big man, with hands like ham hocks and wrists as thick as hawsers.

  'Get your hands off me!'

  I wrenched at his fingers, but I might as well have been trying to pull apart a Turk's head knot. He was forcing my coat apart, ripping off the buttons. It made me furious to be manhandled in this way; to stand in nakedness in front of my shipmates would be more than I could stand. I took my head back, meaning to butt him in the face, when the steel of a blade came between us and a voice said, 'Unhand her!'

  Limster released me when he felt the cutlass across his throat. Minerva smiled as she sheathed her weapon and took my arm.

  'I know what this is about,' Limster jeered after us. 'Want to keep her for yourself, ain't that the way of it? Why don't you let us all have a piece!'

  Although he recognised me as a woman, he only knew Minerva as Jupiter and thought that she was a man. No one had seen the need to inform him otherwise. Now a word in his ear disabused him. Laughter gusted around him but, like many of a mocking nature, he did not like the joke turned upon himself. He let off a volley of the vilest curses that could be aimed at womankind. His slanders had Minerva walking back to him.

  'You have a bad mouth, Mr Limster. As foul as any I've heard. You'll take that back.'

  'Or?' Limster sneered down at her. 'What will you do?'

  'I'll consider myself insulted.'

  Limster snorted. 'Pox take the both of you!'

  Minerva took a step back from him and delivered a stinging slap.

  His hand went to his face. He rubbed his leathery stubbled cheek slowly, as if he could not quite believe that she had struck him. Then his fist went back.

  'Hold up!' It was Pelling. 'No fighting on board ship.'

  We were all summoned to the fo'castle where Pelling kept court.

  'Who struck first blow?' the quartermaster enquired.

  Minerva stepped forward.

  'Fighting's against ship's rules.'

  'We know that,' I said. 'But he insulted us.'

  Pelling ignored me. He unfolded a dog-eared sheaf of papers that he had retrieved from his sea chest and studied them.

  'Item Five of the Articles states: None shall strike another on board but every mans quarrel shall be ended on shore with sword and pistol,' he read, as prim as a clerk in a court of law. He looked at Minerva. 'You understand?'

  'Aye. I do.'

  Limster grinned, obviously thinking that he could overmatch her. She was only a girl, after all.

  'And don't you be thinking to save your skin by going to Broom,' Limster jeered. 'Cap'n has no jurisdiction in quarrels of this nature. Ain't that right, Pelling?'

  Pelling ignored him. 'You will be put ashore tomorrow morning, accompanied by myself and the doctor,' he said. Pirates are as nice about the points of their duelling as any London gentleman, their rules very similar. 'You may choose your own seconds to attend you.' He hesitated for a moment. 'May the best man win.'

  Pelling was meant to be neutral, but he had no love of Limster, so that night he came to our cabin and gave Minerva much good advice as to how to conduct herself in the morning.

  'Do not be afeard of him. A pistol is a great equaliser, and since you be the smaller, try to finish him with your one shot. But be prepared, he's a shifty bastard an5 like to cheat by turning before the count is finished, dodging so you can't get a bead on him, feinting to the side likewise. Beware of that. If it comes to the blade, keep your back to the sea, that way you're against the light and are harder to see. Push him back toward the softer sand, that'll tire him an' make it harder for him to move around. He'll likely be a might slow in the morning. There's rum going round, and for once I'm turning a blind eye. Sleep well, my pretty.' Pelling put his callused hand out to Minerva, clapping her lightly on the shoulder. 'I'll come for you at first light.'

  Minerva seemed to fall fast asleep almost as soon as she had climbed into her hammock. I stayed awake, listening to the bells sound the hours until morning, my mind flooding with fear for her, and guilt that Fd caused this fight to happen.

  33

  The sun was just above the horizon, turning the sea to silver, when I rose to help Minerva to get ready. I was her second, and she allowed me to dress her in a fine white linen shirt, white stockings and blue breeches. I wound a crimson scarf about her slender waist, fixing her sword belt above it.

  'This duel is my fault,' I said. 'I should be fighting him. If you hadn't stepped in ... '

  'You would have butted him. I stopped you. You're too weak to fight. Your wounds are only just healed.' She picked up her pistol, sighting along the barrel. 'That's what he wanted. Now he has me to contend with.'

  She seemed supremely confident, and I hid my fear for her, knowing how fast it can flow from one person to another, as she checked her weapons, rising the hammer on her pistol and letting it fall, click and thud. Click and thud. She took up her cutlass, testing the blade on her thumb, plucking a hair, cleaving it in the air.

  There was a knock. 'Ready to board!' Duffy, the bo'sun, called.

  Minerva stepped down, as seemingly light and carefree as if we were taking a run on shore. The boat crew held their sweeps aloft, dropping them at the command of the bo'sun, as neat and smart as any naval boat in Portsmouth harbour. We took our place on the thwarts. Minerva sat with Graham and me. Limster sat opposite with his second and Pelling. They did not look at each other and nobody spoke. The only sound was the splash of the blades in the water and the working of the oars between the tholepins as the men rowed towards the shore.

  Long lines of curling rollers made beaching the boat difficult, but the bo'sun had chosen his shore party well. The lead oarsmen leaped into chest-high surf, taking lines to tow us ashore. At command, the others shipped their sweeps and more jumped out to pull the boat up above the water line.

  Our feet marked the firm, wet sand as we walked up the beach. The sea
surged forward and back, washing our footprints away as quickly as we made them. We went on towards a dense line of trees, Pelling casting about for the right spot.

  'Stop!'

  We halted. Pelling stepped forward, turning the duellists back to back.

  'Seconds!'

  We came up with the weapons. xMinerva's eyes met mine as she took the pistol from me. Then she lowered her gaze and her face became expressionless, as impossibly distant as in the old days, when she was my slave. She would not let me see her hope, or her fear.

  Limster's second and I moved away to stand at a distance with Graham, who stood fidgeting with his doctor's bag, clasping and unclasping the fastening, his face pale beneath the freckles and etched with lines of worry and disapproval. He would dearly have loved to stop this from happening, but no one could intervene now. Not even the captain; Broom had kept well out of it. Such things had to be decided in the manner laid down in the Articles. They were our laws. Ours was a world turned upside-down, where normal rules did not apply. To lay our own code aside would be to jeopardise what little order there was upon the pirate ship.

  Pelling held the duellists back to back, and then stepped smartly away as he began to count. Limster was at least a head taller than Minerva, his bulk dwarfing her. They stepped from each other, pistols held at the shoulder, measuring their tread. Pelling calling the numbers sounded like a tolling bell. We were all listening for the pause, quicker than a pulse beat, when the counting would cease.

  Limster did not wait. Pelling was still counting when he turned. Pelling stuttered and Minerva must have heard the swish of Limster's feet in the dry sand, for she leaped round, only to find herself staring down the barrel of his gun. There was a crack and white smoke puffed out. The ball went past her, bedding itself in the tree behind her. Now, it was her turn.

  She raised her pistol, but Limster broke the rules again, diving sideways so that she would miss him.