Pirates!

by Celia Rees

  Broom shook his head.

  Thornton shrugged, as if to say it was his loss.

  'Here we are!' He stopped before a wooden door. He selected a long key from the bunch he wore at his hip, turned it in the great black iron lock and the door creaked back. One of the soldiers held up his torch to show the soft gleam of gold from bars stacked to the ceiling. Against other walls stood great chests of oak, and two of red and green leather, bearing a coat of arms on the front and bound in silver gilt. These had belonged to a Spanish nobleman, but now contained Thornton's own fortune.

  'Very stout, sir, very stout.' Broom patted the red wood of the door. 'Very secure.'

  'Camwood. Four inches thick. See that?' Thornton put his hand on the surface of the wall. 'Carved out of the solid rock. It would stop Black Bart himself.' He laughed, and we all laughed with him. 'Gloomy down here for a young lady.' He offered me his arm. 'Why don't we take a turn around the garden?'

  Thornton's private apartments were kept cool by the thickness of the walls and were well appointed. They gave out on to a courtyard and beyond to a garden filled with fruit trees and all kinds of plants. Paraquets wheeled above our heads in bright formation, and monkeys chittered from the branches as we walked among orange and lemon trees and the governor pointed out pineapples, guavas, bananas and a nut called cola that the Portuguese use to sweeten water. Fie was obviously proud of his garden, so Broom and I were quick to admire and praise what we saw. The groves ran down to the harbour. A route of escape if others were blocked, '

  It's an interest of mine,' Thornton explained. 'This garden was a patch of hog-trampled mud when I first came, but it's coming on. I mean to take seeds and cuttings and send 'em to Gleeson.'

  He was speaking of his country house in England. He was getting it ready for when he returned after his tour of duty. Much of the wealth he made here was being spent on improvements to the house. He told us all about them as he led us back to his residence, where he ordered tea for me and poured more brandy for the gentlemen. Minerva, of course, was offered nothing.

  The room was furnished in the way of an English drawing room, but the fittings from an English country mansion looked strange here, unsuited to the place, or the climate. Damp was attacking the books on the shelves: the pages were thickened and swollen, the covers eroded by mould and insects. The veneers were springing from the surfaces of the furniture and something was eating the sideboard to powder. Black blotches and tarnish marred the mirrors and silverware.

  Thornton's talk reverted to Gleeson and his plans for it, but every so often he was forced to leave off his account, afflicted by a wheezing breathlessness. His colour was poor, and he was constantly dabbing at his face with a handkerchief, mopping at the sweat rolling in oily drops down his grey-and-pink mottled skin.

  'He's decaying as quickly as his belongings,' Graham whispered to me. 'He won't see Gleeson again. Are you quite well, Sir?' The doctor rose to go to him, but Thornton waved him away.

  'Beware and take care of the Bight of Benin; few come out, though many go in. Is that not what they say?' His bitter laugh brought on another fit of coughing and wheezing. 'Damned climate!' He drained his glass. 'I usually rest in the afternoon. Perhaps you would like to join me this evening for dinner. It generally cools somewhat after sundown.'

  'We would be delighted.' Broom stood up. 'And we will impose on you no longer.' He looked around. 'I see you are a man of taste, Sir, and discernment. I have a couple of bottles of very fine French brandy; I wonder if you'd care to share 'em with me?'

  'I'd be happy to, Sir.' Thornton rose to see us out. 'What say you return about eight o'clock or thereabouts?'

  Back on the ship, we were all told to get ready for the evening party. The officers were to dress in the best uniforms they could find, and Broom selected a gown for me, a low cut, fine silk dress that he'd bought for me in New York.

  'For just such an occasion. I want you to look particularly fetching. And you will wear this.' He produced the ruby necklace from his pocket and placed it on the table.

  I stared at it.

  'I thought you had left that with Brandt, the banker.'

  'No,' Broom shook his head. 'Why should I? Never know when it might come in useful. Like now.'

  'I won't wear it.'

  'Why ever not?'

  I just shook my head. I could not explain to him.

  'You have to Nancy! It's just the touch we need! Thornton won't be able to take his greedy little eyes off it, or you in it. Neither will any of the other men in the room, and I want them distracted.'

  In the end, I was persuaded. Minerva fixed the thing around my neck and I gulped at its choking grip. I pulled and worried at it until Minerva told me to stop it. We were rowed back to the fort by six sailors, very smartly turned out, every one with a brace of pistols beneath his sailor's blue jacket. Each pair had a cask of rum with them, to share with their new friends in the fort.

  'Don't stint now, lads,' Broom winked as they left us for the guardroom. ' 'Tis our way of showing thanks for all this kind hospitality.'

  Broom, Graham and the other officers all had weapons hidden about them. Minerva and I both wore shawls around our shoulders and sashes wide enough to take a pistol. The governor met us and took us to a dining room overlooking the harbour. A glance out of the window would have showed him that our ships had changed position, moving to face the fort.

  Dinner was not quite ready, so we were invited to join the other guests and to share a bowl of punch. Broom opened one of the bottles of brandy, much to Thornton's obvious pleasure. The captain of the guard, a battered-faced old rummer with a nose like a strawberry, joined them for a round of toasts. Graham began a conversation about tropical maladies with a pasty young man from the Royal Africa Company. The noise from the guardroom carried, and the captain looked as if he wished he were with them, but Broom plied him with more brandy and Phillips got him talking about his old campaigns.

  The rubies did their work. They drew Thornton from right across the room. As Broom predicted, he could not take his eyes off them. I was talking to a weasel-faced factor who traded up-country for slaves, when the governor came towards us.

  'Come, Riley, you cannot monopolise this charming young lady all evening. Now, my dear, you must tell me all about yourself.' He led me to a corner by the window, Minerva following, head down. 'That is exquisite!' he said, staring at my neck. 'I'm rather a connoisseur. Beautifully matched stones.' He peered even closer. 'Each one perfect. May I ask where the necklace comes from?'

  It was a family heirloom, I explained. Thorton stood with his back to the room. Over his shoulder, I watched Broom approaching. He could tread quietly for a big man.

  'Well, it is a very fine – '

  He stopped speaking when Minerva jammed her pistol into his side. Broom strolled up and put another at his head.

  'You will surrender the fort to me, and everything in it.' Broom's voice sounded loud in the sudden silence. 'Or you are dead.'

  Each man turned to find himself covered. Broom nodded to Minerva, who went to the window and discharged her gun. That was the signal to the guardroom. Distant cries and scuffling ended with a single shot.

  'The fort is ours.' Broom dragged Governor Thornton to the window. 'See there.' The two ships had removed the painted canvas shielding their gun ports. Thirty cannon were trained on the fort.

  'What do you want?' the governor asked, his face the colour of waxed paper.

  'Everything,' Broom replied.

  Broom meant what he said. The fort was secured without another shot fired. The soldiers were locked in their own guardroom. The Union colours were struck on the topmost tower: the signal for our men to swarm from the ships to the fort. Broom marched the governor down to his strongroom and made him open his impregnable door. Troop after troop of men weighted down with gold staggered off down to the quay. For once they were not complaining about the loads they had to carry. The boats rode low in the water as they ferried the gold back to t
he ship. The last things to be taken were the governor's own chests. Once the room was emptied, the governor was put in and the lock turned on him.

  Toby led a troop of men to the trunks and barracoons, releasing all who had been taken captive. He was given a choice to come with us, or stay. He chose the latter, so he was given his share there and then.

  By morning we were gone.

  36

  'Pretty, ain't it?'

  The gold stood in stacks in Broom's cabin. He could not stop gloating over it.

  Look at this.' Fie picked up a lozenge-shaped piece all stamped about with seals and coats of arms. 'Portuguese. And this,' he picked up another. 'Spanish. Gold from every nation.' Fie turned the bars in his hands. 'Each one a regular work of art.' Fie returned the ingots to their stacks and paced up and down his cabin, the boards creaking under him. 'I swear we're riding lower in the water just from the weight of it.'

  Broom was not the only one to be fascinated. Men came just to look at the gold, to touch, even sniff it, as if it had a smell to it, a sort of sweet spiciness. They would ask to hold a bar. It weighed heavy in the hand, slippery as butter. They would hold one piece against another, comparing the colours: burnt orange, daffodil, pale primrose yellow. They would go away, only to return again. No one had ever seen such wealth.

  But the nearness of such riches was making the crew jittery. They no longer trusted one another. They grew suspicious. Each one was set with a gnawing worry that he would be cheated, not receive his deserts, get less than his brother. They took to making calculations on scraps of paper, scratching figures on wood with knife point or marlin spike, drawing with their fingers on salt-encrusted surfaces.

  The ship grew quiet. The men went about their duties without their usual singing and shouting. They no longer came together in the evening to drink and yarn and smoke a pipe. Joking and laughing had gone from the company. They kept apart, each lying on his hammock dreaming of the riches due to him.

  Broom noted the change in his crew and asked Graham if it was the scurvy, which can bring on melancholy, advising the doctor to dose them.

  'They're healthy enough,' Graham replied. He tapped his forehead. 'The gold is fevering their brains.' He looked at Broom's anxious expression, his constant fidgeting agitation. 'Yours, too, my friend.' He sighed. 'Too much gold is worse than too little. Pelling here, says there are new round robins circulating. Everybody is plotting and calculating. I fear mutiny. Worse.' He passed a hand over his eyes. 'I fear a massacre. You, me, Pelling, Phillips and Halston. All who have a greater share. And Nancy here, and Minerva, I don't need to say what fate could befall them. My thinking is that they'll try to seize this ship, then give the schooner the slip.'

  'Hmm.' Broom stroked his chin. Graham's words had sobered him. 'It's the idle rogues from Low's crew at the back of this.' Broom shook his head. 'I should have marooned the lot of 'em.'

  'Especially them musicians,' Pelling chipped in.

  'The musicians?' Broom looked at him with disbelief.

  'Hack and Croker and them off Low's ship. Look like butter wouldn't melt. Charm the gulls off the yard-arm. They're the worst of the lot, they are. I seen 'em, screeching and scraping while all around men are being slaughtered or put to the torture, till you can't tell their music from the screams of men dying. Riles the men up, leads them on to madness. That's why Low had 'em on board. You ain't been on the account as long as me, or you'd know. I said at the time, but no one would listen. Should have thrown them to the sharks when we had the chance, along with their fiddles and flutes.'

  'That's as maybe.' The doctor's pale eyes creased as he stared out to sea. 'It's too late for that now.' Fie turned back to Broom. 'It's not just the booty, though that's the bulk of it. They tire of Africa. Once they've taken the ship, they'll set course for the West Indies where they can find punch houses and women. What else will they spend their riches on? They complain that the climate here doesn't suit them. They plan to sail to somewhere more clement in order to whore and drink themselves to death.' He gave a mirthless laugh at his own black joke. 'The gold is inflaming them. My advice is to get it out of sight. Things should calm down once it is out of common view.'

  Gabriel was set to build a false compartment at one end of the great cabin to act as a storeroom. It was given out that the hoard would be kept there until such time as it could be divided.

  Broom called Vincent over from the schooner to tell him that the ships' companies would be dividing. He did not need to ask why; he sensed a change on the ship as soon as he stepped on board.

  'It's the gold breeding greed and mistrust. I saw it on Madagascar.'

  We were sailing south for the Portuguese islands of Del Principe and St Thome. It was Broom's plan to land at Annobono, it being the smallest and least frequented. Here he would divide the booty, and the ships' companies if need be. All could take their share and be free to go. Until then, he asked Vincent to stay close and be in readiness.

  The mate agreed and left the ship. From now on the ships would sail together.

  'They're waiting till we cross the line.' Pelling came to warn Minerva and me. 'I'm telling all I can trust. You two watch yourselves. They'll take advantage of the festivities. That'll be their signal to seize the ship.'

  'Why don't we call ship's council?'

  'Oh, no,' Pelling shook his head. 'Can't do that. Not a good idea at all. The feeling's so strong that they'd seize the ship from under us. Best to keep our powder dry.' He cocked his head towards the schooner. 'Vincent will be over first sign of trouble.'

  37

  I'd long felt a prickle of nervousness about crossing the equatorial line that divides North from South. The men teased and tormented any who had not journeyed into the southern hemisphere with tales of all kinds of rites of passage and strange ceremonies of initiation overseen by Lord Neptune. The sailors were secretive about what was involved, but Fd been reassured by Graham that the goings-on were more boisterous than anything, involving a kind of baptism, easily borne by any ready to enter into the spirit. I had a feeling that the rites had a darker side that sometimes got out of hand. The most dreaded of all was keel-hauling, where a man was dropped into the sea and dragged from prow to stern, ninety feet under water, his flesh ripped to shreds by the barnacles that clung to the hull like clusters of razors. Death was almost inevitable. He was like to bleed to death if he did not drown.

  We were supposed to be making for the Portuguese islands at all speed, but as we drifted towards the equator, the weather turned as sullen as the atmosphere on board the ship. The sun beat down upon us, melting the tar between the planking, drying the boards to cracking, turning the sea around us to a cauldron of brass. The wind had dropped to nothing; the sails hung drooping and useless. Broom ordered every inch of sail out, but there was less than a breath to stir them. Then the schooner was seized by a contrary current and began to drift away from us. Broom ordered the oars out, but the men rowed with little enthusiasm and we made no headway.

  Vincent had no such trouble on his ship. His African sailors were fiercely loyal and only to him. They pulled with a will, but the current was too strong even for them. We watched, helpless, as the schooner dwindled until it was the size of a toy ship, then it was gone altogether.

  We were alone.

  They did not need to take a sighting. Instinct told the men when we would cross from one side of the globe to the other. Normal duties were more or less suspended. There was a feeling of holiday about the ship. All day the men had been drinking and busying themselves with secret things. Some were up in the rigging, attaching block and tackle to the main yardarm. Others were making what looked like a cradle or child's rope swing. Still others were raking the hull, hauling up weed and barnacles.

  Everyone was ordered below or to their cabin, even the captain. We were summoned by the roll and beat of a drum and there was something eerie and strange about the air of mock solemnity that greeted us as we came upon the deck.

  The day was mov
ing towards evening. The sun had lost some of its strength and grown huge in the sky, a great red disc falling into the sea. The deck and everything and everyone on it was bathed in a dusky pink light. Pirates stood in the waist of the ship, lining the rail. Those who had not crossed the line before were hooded and paraded between them towards the fo'castle. Here, we were pushed in the back and made to kneel. Our hoods were pulled off and we looked up to see Father Neptune sitting on a makeshift throne above us, his trident held in judgement. He was naked except for a breech cloth, his body glistening as if he had risen fresh from the sea. He wore a long wig made from seaweed and frayed tarred rope. His face was obscured by a great false beard, streaked brown and green with dripping weed.

  We had been told what to expect.

  Each of us would be challenged by him: take a ducking or pay a forfeit of a pound of sugar and a pint of rum to make punch. I had a feeling that it wouldn't matter how much rum we proffered. We would still have to pay a forfeit and could expect a dunking. Barrels had been made ready for just that purpose, brimming with a disgusting mix of bilge, tar, rotten greens, old cooking water and whatever else the men had thought to deposit, slopped behind Neptune's throne.

  Andrews, the young navigator, was standing next to me. This was his first deep-sea voyage, so he had not crossed the line either.

  The smell was enough to make us turn pale and gulp.

  'What's in 'em, d'you think?' he whispered.

  'I'm not sure,' I sniffed the pungent rottenness, 'but I think I can guess.'

  'Barbers' waited with pots of more unspeakable filth to daub on to our cheeks and then scrape off with old bits of rusty iron. I could see by their grinning faces that they could hardly wait to get at Minerva and me, shaving being something new to us. After that was done we would be taken for a washing: put on the makeshift cradle and hauled high up into the rigging. There we would swing above the water, glittering and wrinkling some fifty feet below. Then the rope would be released and down we would plummet, hitting the water at speed enough to take us past the great bulge of the hull, with its waving weed and clinging barnacles, into the muffled silence of the dim green depths where the only sound would be the beating of our own blood. We would be left floating, our lungs near to bursting, and then we would be hauled up for the same thing to happen twice more until we were lowered, dripping and dizzy, on to the quarterdeck.