Pirate Boy of Sydney Town

by Jackie French

  And what were the ship’s crew and passengers dreaming of now? Their own fortunes, once they had sold the cargo they were carrying and bought a cargo at Batavia to take home?

  At last he dozed, but it was a strange sleep. He saw snakes coiling around tree limbs, apple pies in the Sydney Town market, Sally’s face, and Mama’s too. And a rolling hill of golden wheat, not the gold they hunted now . . .

  CHAPTER 15

  Ben woke to a knock on the cabin door. Captain Danvers stood there, holding a candlestick.

  ‘Mr Huntsmore, sir, I’m sorry to disturb you, but it’s almost dawn. Would you give permission for Master Huntsmore to climb to the top again? His sharp eyes may see a ship before any of the men.’

  Ben’s father yawned and nodded. His eyes met Ben’s. Do what is necessary, his look said, but do not be familiar. Remember what I said.

  Ben dressed quickly, envying the sailors who did not have to dress each morning or button up boots. He clambered up the companionway, following the candlelight. The last faint stars still shone above, with a faint haze beyond the shore where the sun would rise. The wind blew strong and cold, though in gusts now instead of the ceaseless roar.

  He bent to unbutton his boots again. Stupid to have put them on for a one-minute scramble up to the deck, but he could imagine his father’s face if he’d seen his son go through the door barefoot. Ben’s heart beat faster than a horse could gallop. At least he was playing a part in this adventure, not simply hiding below.

  He pushed off his socks and clambered up the shrouds, felt the wind tug at his shirt and tickle his ears with cold. Finally his fingers found the cross-edge of the top platform above the futtocks. He hoisted himself up and clung there, monkey-like. It was easier this morning than it had been perched above the vast seas of the Southern Ocean, but he still needed to cling tight, for the waves that dashed against the ship’s hull were sharp and unpredictable.

  Grey washed across the dark horizon. The stars vanished. Colour seeped back into the world. Blue sky. Blue sea and wind-curled white caps. But no sails marred the thin line of the horizon.

  He watched.

  Men vanished down the hatch, emerging with pannikins of cold meat and potatoes. Of course, he thought, it might be hours before they had a chance to eat again. One of the sailors doled out mugs of lime juice laced with rum.

  Ben could hear a strange grinding noise, almost kitchen-like, then recognised it. The sharpening of swords and knives on a grindstone.

  He watched.

  The wind blew.

  A shark circled the Golden Girl in the clear blue water, and then another. Did the sharks sense there’d be blood in the water this afternoon, bodies to feast on? Or did they always prey here in such numbers, growing fat on the fish that bred near the river’s mouth?

  He watched.

  Surely the Dutch ship should have reached this far north by now. It must have gone further out to sea, as he’d thought last night, running with the wind swiftly, safely, to Batavia.

  And yet . . .

  He saw a cloud down south, and then the smallest speck of white.

  ‘Ship ahoy!’ he yelled.

  The wind carried his words into the emptiness, but the men below had seen his gesture. Captain Danvers signalled to him to come down.

  He moved carefully, aware of how stiff his hands and feet had grown, retracing his progress across the futtocks and down the shrouds. He staggered as his cold feet found the deck, then straightened.

  ‘Position?’ demanded Captain Danvers.

  For a moment Ben didn’t understand. The Dutch ship was on the sea and heading north. And then he did. ‘Further out from the shore than us, sir, but not by much, I think. She’ll see us.’

  ‘She may already have seen us if there’s anyone aboard with eyes as good as yours. Right, lads, get below. And you too, Master Huntsmore, if you please.’

  ‘Sir, is there nothing else I can do?’ asked Ben.

  The captain considered him. ‘I doubt Mr Huntsmore would allow it,’ he said at last.

  ‘Could I help the wounded? My mother tended to the tenants back home.’

  ‘Can you stitch a wound, or cauterise one?’

  ‘No, sir. But I can tie up a wound, if it is not too bad, and straighten a broken leg.’

  ‘And what would your father say about that, eh?’

  ‘I would like to help, Captain Danvers, if I may be of use.’ He did not answer the question about his father.

  He glimpsed Higgins behind him. Had he come with a message from Ben’s father, demanding to know what was happening? But Higgins seemed to be listening, not waiting.

  Finally Captain Danvers nodded. ‘Harry One-Eye will do the cauterising. You can help him with the wounded once the day is won. Till then, stay out of the way.’

  ‘Yes, Captain.’ Ben ran to the hatch and scrambled below.

  Mr Huntsmore sat at the table, already dressed and breakfasting on ham and pudding and a dish of nuts.

  ‘Well?’ he demanded of Ben.

  ‘I saw the ship, sir, right on the horizon. She’ll be here in a couple of hours, I think. Captain Danvers has ordered everyone below.’

  ‘He should have reported to me.’

  ‘I think he is busy, sir.’

  ‘I should hope he is. But he should also be reporting regularly.’

  Ben sat on the bed, and forced himself to eat and drink. Neither he nor his father spoke. Ben wondered if his father’s anger masked apprehension. He had risked everything, even his life and his son’s, on what would happen today. By tonight they would be rich, or dead.

  Ben moved over to the porthole in their cabin. There was still no sign of the ship behind them. Perhaps she had circled around to be sure the Golden Girl really was abandoned before coming closer.

  At last Mr Huntsmore sat back, his meal finished, a glass of claret in his hand.

  Ben shifted on the bed. ‘Will I take the dishes out, Father?’

  ‘Higgins will see to it,’ said his father shortly.

  ‘Captain Danvers may have given him orders for the battle, sir. And I . . . I’d like some water.’

  Mr Huntsmore nodded. ‘We may well be in here for some hours. Take the jug. Hurry.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  Ben ran for the door, unbolted it, then halted. Men crouched by the companionway, swords in hand or armed with muskets. They turned almost as one to stare at Ben. He stepped back at the sight of their expressions. Hatred.

  He had never been hated before, or had not known it if he had been, but he understood it. Today these men might die, while Ben and his father hid in the safety of their cabin.

  ‘I . . . I’m looking for Higgins,’ he stammered.

  The men moved apart to reveal Higgins sitting on the lowest step, a pair of daggers in his belt. Were they his, Ben wondered, or from the Golden Girl’s store of weapons?

  He tried to make his voice authoritative. ‘Higgins, we need some water in the cabin.’

  Higgins stared at him. For a moment Ben thought he was going to refuse, tell him he could fill the jug from the water barrel himself.

  ‘As you wish,’ he said at last. At least he hadn’t called him Sneezer.

  Higgins moved to the barrel in the corner and took the jug from Ben, then bent to turn the bung to fill it.

  Ben stood beside him, his back to the waiting men. ‘I have something for you,’ Ben whispered. ‘Here.’ He slipped the pistol from his belt. ‘There’s only one shot. You aim it by lifting it to your eyes and —’

  ‘I know how to use a pistol,’ said Higgins quietly.

  He slipped the weapon under his belt so his servant’s coat covered it, then handed Ben the jug.

  ‘Thank you,’ said Ben.

  Higgins said nothing, just walked back to the others at the companionway.

  Mr Huntsmore was at his desk writing in his logbook when Ben returned. Ben put the jug in the small rack that kept it from toppling in rough seas, just as a bell rang. And the world expl
oded.

  Ben put his hands to his ears automatically. The floor rocked.

  Shot after shot followed, the Golden Girl shuddering each time. Had the Dutch ship realised they were enemies and attacked them? But then Ben realised the vibrations were from the retort of their own cannons. Charge after charge. He ran to the porthole again, but all he could see were white-frothed waves and the shadows of waiting sharks. The Dutch ship must be on the other side.

  He had to see what was happening! Surely it didn’t matter if anyone on the Dutch ship saw movement now — they knew they faced an enemy. He crossed to the door.

  ‘Where are you going?’ his father asked. ‘Come back at once!’

  Ben pretended he hadn’t heard.

  He ran up the companionway, empty of men now, and through the hatch. And there was the Dutch ship. It was twice as high as the Golden Girl and half as long again, and close enough to see the faces of the men on deck. Ben saw it was high-masted, or rather had one high mast. The other two masts were already crumpled on its deck, sails trailing in the sea; and waves washed into a jagged hole just above its waterline.

  The Dutch ship shuddered as a cannonball shot from its amidships towards the Golden Girl. Ben ducked instinctively, but the cannonball fell into the waves, at least twenty yards from the Golden Girl. Just as Ben’s father had said: the Golden Girl was smaller, but her cannon reach was further than the Dutch ship’s. And with two masts down, the Dutch ship couldn’t manoeuvre close enough to cause any damage.

  Another shot. The Dutch ship’s final mast collapsed.

  A ragged cheer spread through the Golden Girl. The enemy ship was stranded now, at the mercy of the waves. It couldn’t be long before it sank.

  But if it sinks too soon, we’ll lose the treasure, Ben thought — just as Captain Danvers yelled, ‘Forward! Full sail, you sluggards! Get moving, you dog-faced sons of monkeys! Move!’

  The Golden Girl surged forward. Another cannonball flew from the Dutch ship, closer this time. The Golden Girl changed course.

  ‘Each man to his station!’ Danvers shouted. ‘Grappling hooks at the ready!’

  ‘Ready, Captain!’

  ‘Charge! A gold ducat goes to the first man to draw blood!’

  The coil of rope Ben had sat on so often had become a snake topped with hooks. As he watched, a burly sailor swung it round and round above his head and let it fly. It landed on the deck of the other ship, skidded across it, then hooked on fast near the rail. Another hooked rope whirled out, and it too held the Dutch ship fast.

  Hands reached up the ropes, the men sweating and straining as they pulled. The two ships clashed together in a shock of wood on wood and creaking ropes.

  Suddenly both decks were crowded with men holding muskets, swords and daggers. But the Golden Girl had twice the crew and so far they were unhurt. The crew upon the other deck looked already blood-stained. One man’s arm showed bone, Ben saw, and yet he held his sword steady.

  A cheer, and the Golden Girl’s crew leaped across to the neighbouring gunwales, leaving her decks empty, except for a boy.

  Men died, their necks slashed open, their insides toppling out. Men died slowly, crying in pain upon the deck. All around, men died.

  Ben watched from the Golden Girl, unable to move or look away. He had not realised how men died in battle, not when he was back at Badger’s Hill, dreaming of ancient Greek adventures, or at Government House, proud to be facing the enemies of the King.

  Some men did not die, and that was almost worse. They screamed for help, for water, for bandages to staunch their blood.

  Ben had not known that blood smelled like cold iron, that the insides of men smelled like slaughtered pheasants hanging in the larder, that even the cold wind could not blow the smell away.

  He had not known that so much musket shot left a haze of smoke that smelled of sulphur, the stench of hell. Nor could he help the Golden Girl’s wounded men. There was no safe place upon the Dutch ship’s deck to take them. A wounded man was still an enemy.

  The battle filled the world — the clash of swords, the musket shots, the stink of blood and sulphur — yet at the same time it was so very small. Two dots on the vastness of the sea, the giant, mostly empty continent beyond them.

  Suddenly boots landed on the Golden Girl’s deck. Ben stepped back, hoping he was hidden in the companionway. Dutch sailors, bearded, bloodied, swords in hands, slashed at their enemy. Others followed, Dutch and English. The fighting became even fiercer on the Golden Girl than on the doomed Dutch ship.

  Because it was doomed, Ben realised. It would have only one ship’s boat, or two at most, possibly already holed by the Golden Girl’s crew to stop any Dutchmen escaping with the story of what had happened on this day. Only one ship and its crew would sail away from this battle. The Dutch sailors’ only hope was to capture the ship that had attacked them.

  Ben had to get back to the comparative safety of the cabin. His father was right: he shouldn’t be out here. He hadn’t even thought to bring another pistol.

  Even as he thought it, a hand grabbed him, held him up, a dagger swung . . .

  And dropped, the body that held it dropping too as a pistol shot rang across the deck. Ben looked up to see Higgins by the ship’s boat, a sack at his feet and the pistol in his hand. Higgins had saved his life. Or given him seconds to escape.

  Ben half-tumbled down the steps and grabbed at the cabin door. It did not move.

  He beat on it. ‘Father! It’s me!’

  For long seconds he thought his father could not hear, or would not. At last he heard the bolt pulled back and the door opened a crack just large enough for him to squeeze through.

  His father shot the bolt again. ‘Well?’ he demanded.

  ‘The Dutchmen are trying to take over the Golden Girl. But I think our crew are winning.’

  And dying, he thought, while we wait here.

  ‘How is the Dutch ship? Sinking yet?’ Mr Huntsmore paced across the cabin and back again. ‘If she sinks before we can unload her, we will have to begin all over again — repairs, new crew . . .’

  ‘The ship doesn’t look like it’ll sink soon, sir, but it’s taking on water fast.’ Ben hesitated. He could not stay in this room while others died for him. Even if the men hadn’t been fighting for his fortune, he realised, he couldn’t stay here and do nothing while they suffered. ‘I’m going out again to help, sir.’

  ‘You will do no such thing.’ Mr Huntsmore strode over to the door as Ben pulled back the bolt. ‘Ebenezer!’ he yelled as Ben slipped through the doorway, but made no further move to stop him. Ben heard the bolt snicker shut behind him again.

  He paused, but this area below deck was still free of fighting. He made his way up the companionway cautiously. The noises had changed in the time he’d been in the cabin. Men still yelled, screamed, sobbed, but the clash of swords, the bark of cannon, even the blast of musket fire had vanished. Only the stinking sulphurous yellow smoke remained. And the blood.

  But there were no bodies lying on the deck, except for a few sailors slumped in exhaustion. As Ben watched, he saw why. Two men carried a bleeding crew member down the hatch towards the galley and Harry One-Eye, while another two threw a screaming Dutch sailor over the rail. And over on the Dutch ship, a line of men in strange leather trousers stood by the furthest rail. Ben stared as a single sword thrust cut their necks, toppling them over into the sea.

  For the sharks, he thought. We ate the sharks, now they eat us.

  Somehow, despite the Governor’s words, despite his love of England, Ben could not think of the Dutchmen simply as enemies. They too had crossed the seas, survived the waves, the doldrums, scurvy, cliffs, reefs and icebergs. What was the word of kings and governors compared to that? But they were dead. And men still alive on the Golden Girl needed tending.

  He ran over to the hatch that led to the galley, his boots sliding in blood that seemed to become more slippery as it congealed.

  He grabbed the top of the companionwa
y and climbed down into the galley. There was no sign of his father.

  CHAPTER 16

  Time seemed to stop. The world became a series of flickering moments as sailor after sailor limped down or was carried to the galley, bleeding, limbless, screaming or too quiet as they slowly died from loss of blood.

  Ben helped hold men down as Harry One-Eye used a red-hot iron to cauterise bleeding stumps of wrists, or wounds on arms or legs. In one case, a foot that dangled was quickly cut off and the stump seared, the man collapsing into unconsciousness that Ben hoped was respite, however brief, from pain.

  Footsteps thudded above. Ben heard his father giving orders for the disposal of the riches from the Dutch ship: the chests of gold and ducats to his cabin; the bolts of rich cloth and the stores to be taken to the hold. Even the ship’s fresh-water kegs would be brought on board.

  Ben held water to the lips of a man with blood still seeping from the edges of a cauterised wound across his forehead. Somehow he was still conscious, even giving Ben an almost grin. ‘We got ’em,’ he whispered. ‘We got ’em good.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Ben.

  He wondered if Higgins had survived, or Guwara. Or were their bodies lying on the Dutch ship? There had been only one shot in that pistol, and Higgins had used it to save Ben’s life. Had that moment of kindness led to his own death?

  Captain Danvers appeared. His left arm was tied with a rough bandage. Red seeped below it.

  ‘There you are,’ he said to Ben. ‘Your father wants you.’ And he vanished up on deck again.

  He didn’t call me Master Huntsmore, thought Ben. He glanced at Harry One-Eye.

  ‘Off you go, lad.’ Harry looked and sounded strangely sympathetic. ‘All of us must do the captain’s bidding.’ He hesitated, then added, ‘You did good here, lad.’ And then, ‘I’m sorry.’

  What did he mean? Sorry about the wounded men, the dead? But none of that was Harry’s fault.

  As Ben climbed the companionway, his body felt as if it were wading through jelly, his mind filled with so many bloody scenes that the ship and sea seemed unreal. He looked around. A team of weary-faced sailors scrubbed at the deck, while others hauled up buckets of seawater to sluice away the slippery gore. Others carried tankards of rum among the working men, giving each a few gulps before passing on to the next. One of them hesitated next to Ben, as if to offer him a drink, then passed on.