The Pirate Kings

by Alex Scarrow

  ‘We’re stuck with this situation until we get a chance to go ashore,’ he’d told Liam. ‘We’d better get used to it.’

  Just then Liam looked aft and saw Rashim emerge from the captain’s cabin, shaking his head and muttering something to himself. Liam excused himself, got up and made his way to join him.

  Rashim nodded as Liam leaned against the gunwale. ‘How was this morning’s meeting?’

  ‘I have a horrible feeling we’re being captained by a complete amateur.’ He looked out at the rolling sea. ‘He hasn’t the first idea about navigation. It’s guesswork with him.’

  ‘But he knows where we are, right?’

  ‘His best guess was worryingly approximate.’ He looked at Liam. ‘Somewhere along the west coast of Africa. I’ve tried the best I can to narrow that down a bit. I think we’re somewhere along the coast of Sierra Leone … or whatever that place is called right now.’

  Captain Teale should’ve taken the ship out to sea by now; they had passed the correct latitude to bear west towards the Caribbean on the far side. Teale had said he was waiting for a favourable wind. The real reason, Rashim suspected, was that Teale had got a last-minute case of the jitters at the thought of crossing the Atlantic and successfully navigating them into the Caribbean.

  ‘You know, he has no idea how to determine longitude or latitude. Which, I think, is why we’re hugging the coastline of Africa like a bunch of beginners,’ he said, nodding out at the faint grey outline of land on the horizon. ‘This way he doesn’t need to even look at a chart. He’s fine as long as land is in sight.’ Rashim laughed. ‘Very scientific, eh?’

  ‘That’s a bit worrying.’ Liam looked at him. ‘But you’re helping him figure out how to get to the Caribbean, right?’

  Rashim shrugged. ‘I’m doing what I can. I’m trying my best to work out how to use the backstaff. They don’t exactly come with a user manual.’ He shook his head. ‘It’s bad enough we got press-ganged on to a pirate ship, but to be press-ganged by a bunch of amateurs?’

  Liam nodded. If it wasn’t so worrying, it would be kind of embarrassing.

  ‘Oh well, look on the positive side, Rashim. The first time we put ashore, hopefully Maddy will be able to pick us up.’

  ‘Only if she knows where to look. And that’s a long shot.’

  Liam tapped his waistcoat. ‘We’ve got our transponder thingies.’

  ‘Still a needle in a haystack if she doesn’t know precisely where to look.’

  Liam clapped him on the back. ‘Relax. You’ll learn. She always figures it out.’ That came out sounding a little too cavalier. There were almost as many screw-ups as home runs thus far in their short history together. Perhaps marginally fewer of the screw-ups.

  ‘Eventually,’ Liam added under his breath.

  Chapter 17

  October 1666, aboard the Clara Jane

  The gruel tasted better than it sounded or even looked. Or perhaps it was just that Liam felt insanely hungry. The fresh air, of course. That and the fact that every moment of each day the constant shifting of balance to accommodate the gentle roll of the Clara Jane worked on the entire body and demanded every muscle do its part. It was no surprise, then, that each evening, by the time the ship’s cook was boiling up something in his pots and the smell of whatever stew, gruel or pottage he was cooking floated up from below decks, Liam was ready to clean his bowl whatever he was served.

  He looked out of the cannon porthole. The sun was low, an orange beach ball rolling along the horizon. Warm, diagonal, almost horizontal slants of light spilled in through the gun portholes and swept light searchlight beams across the wooden deck, glinting off chains and belt buckles, making pairs of eyes squint momentarily.

  All but the duty watch were below decks sharing the day’s main meal. The gun deck was a clattering scrape-tap chorus of wooden spoons on tin bowls, and the murmur of conversation.

  William, having finished helping the cook serve the crew, sat down beside Liam with his own bowl of gruel. He looked up at Liam. ‘Is it good? Do you like it, sir?’

  Liam nodded. ‘Very tasty.’

  ‘I helped Cookie make it,’ he said, spooning in a mouthful.

  ‘Good job you made of it too.’

  ‘Thank you, sir.’

  Liam shook his head. ‘Just call me Liam … like the others, that’s OK.’

  ‘Oh-kay?’ The boy looked up at him. ‘What does that mean?’

  Liam shook his head. ‘Nothing … just how they talk where I come from. It means all is well.’ He watched the small boy eat for a while. ‘How are you doing, lad?’

  The boy paused thoughtfully, his jaw working for the moment on a nugget of pork gristle. ‘I miss my mother so much.’

  ‘That’s perfectly understandable.’

  William looked up at him. ‘Do you think she …?’

  He’s asking me if she’s alive.

  ‘If she escaped the fire?’

  The boy nodded.

  ‘It was hard to see what was going on … ’

  Tell him a lie, for God’s sake.

  ‘I saw most of those people jump in the water as the flames came down to the jetty. Your mother amongst them.’ He nudged the boy’s arm gently. ‘I’m sure, no, I’m certain she got scooped up by one of them boats. Aye, and there was a lot of them around.’

  ‘I hope so.’ His voice was a whisper.

  ‘You know what I think, William? I think in a couple of years’ time you’ll make it back home to London. You’ll be nearly a young man by then and you’ll find your mum and she’ll be so proud of you. So proud of her son, the big, strong, swashbuckling sailor.’

  William frowned. ‘What does swashbuttle …?’

  Liam grinned at that. ‘Nothing. Another stupid word we use where I come from.’

  William gave that some thought. ‘Where do you come from? You talk so differently to the others.’

  What to tell him? Well, not the truth obviously. But, even then, what Liam used to consider the truth, a childhood lived out in Cork, was all someone else’s fantasy. Someone’s best guess at what Cork was like at the turn of the century, a mixture of clichés and stereotypes.

  ‘Ah, it’s a place called Williamsburg. No one I meet has ever heard of it. Funny little place, it is … with all sorts of odd sayings and goings-on. What about you, William?’

  ‘Me and mother live with me uncle. He’s a cooper.’ He corrected himself. ‘Lived.’

  ‘You got a father?’

  ‘Father died after the Big War.’

  Liam had to think about that for a moment. The Civil War, that’s what he was talking about.

  ‘Mother says he died for Mr Cromwell. She says he got hit by a musket ball that broke up inside him. It just took a few years to happen. He finally got sick and died when I was a baby.’

  ‘I’m sorry, William.’

  William shrugged. ‘I never knew him.’

  Across from Liam, Rashim sat next to Henry Bartlett who seemed keen to find out about Rashim’s regular conversations with their captain.

  ‘So, Mr Rach-eee … ’

  Rashim closed his eyes. Oh please …

  ‘My name’s pronounced Rashim,’ he said. ‘A “sh” sound. Not a “ch”. And, by the way, that’s my given name, not my surname.’

  Henry dipped his head in apology. ‘My ’pologies, Ra-sheeem. So it seems the captain ’as taken somethin’ of a shinin’ to yer. What is it you gents spend all the mornin’ talkin’ about?’

  Rashim wondered how honest he should be. The crew, it seemed, had faith in Teale to lead them to good fortune and great riches. He had to wonder why though. Behind the closed door of his aft cabin, Captain Teale was a nervous wreck. The façade, there at first for their first few morning meetings, had been one of bravado and cockiness. Teale came across to Rashim as a member of the lower gentry born with that inbred self-belief that he had only to bark loudly and common men would follow.

  Rashim had learned a little of Teale’s backgrou
nd. He’d served as a cavalry officer in the King’s army during the Civil War. A young man, then, reckless and brave. And once, after the Battle of Naseby, kissed on the cheek by King Charles I in gratitude for his hopelessly romantic bravery, leading a charge that routed a dangerously close line of musketeers and all but decimated his own company of horsemen in the process.

  After the war, Teale’s fortune hadn’t been so great. The modest family wealth had been confiscated by Cromwell and Teale had been forced to earn a living for the first time in his life. At first the captain had been guarded with Rashim, telling him how he’d been a successful businessman, learning the ‘art of making money’ from the grubby merchant classes. Refining the process, adding some glamour and elegance to the marketplaces he frequented, buying and selling commodities at great profit.

  But then the posturing and boasting began to give way to a more honest account of events. None of his commercial ventures had been particularly successful. His last endeavour had been a catastrophic failure. He’d used family connections to be granted a licence and thousands of acres to set up a sugar-cane plantation in Jamaica. And then, using his considerable salesman’s skills, he had talked a number of Bristol merchants into pooling their money and investing in a merchant ship loaded with slaves, seeds, equipment and money destined for the Caribbean to set up the plantation. Teale assured them all they were going to double, nay, quadruple their money within two years of the plantation being established. And, of course, Teale, for his business genius, his handy royal connections and setting up the entire enterprise, would receive a tidy commission on that.

  But the ship had been raided by buccaneers. They lost everything. Even the ship itself. Teale left Bristol the night he got the news. Left before his consortium of investors got wind of the same information and came after him for his blood.

  Down in London, he learned about a new opportunity: the business of privateering. Men no better than him, certainly less educated and in some cases with little or no maritime experience, were making their fortunes raiding Spanish ships. Under Cromwell’s rule, licences to raid and plunder overladen and underprotected Spanish ships were being granted letters of marque as quickly as the ink could dry.

  It was Teale’s bad luck, though, that before he could get himself into that line of business, Cromwell died and shortly after a monarch was reinstalled. Charles II, being Catholic and rather sympathetic to King Philip IV of Spain, stopped granting these licences after the Spanish king complained.

  ‘However, my second cousin, Lord Modyford, at present the governor of our recently acquired British outpost at Port Royal, Jamaica, is still granting letters of marque to men he can trust.’

  That was Teale’s unique angle. A guarantee to any crew of cut-throat buccaneers, scurvy sea dogs who would follow him that he could use his family connection to obtain a privateer’s licence and they could plunder away, raid fat Spanish ships to their heart’s content with a mere piece of paper protecting them from being considered ‘pirates’.

  It hadn’t taken Teale very long to convince another group of merchants to part with their money, to provide a schooner – the Clara Jane – and to talk a crew of experienced sailors into coming aboard and setting sail for Jamaica.

  Rashim had asked why, if he’d had no problem getting a crew, he and Liam had been press-ganged aboard. Teale explained that the ship had been ready to set sail from Tilbury when news of the fire in London reached them. His crew had decided there might be some easy pickings to be made heading back upriver: some looting, some ferrying at exorbitant cost. Teale had shrugged. ‘Misfortune to one is profit to another. It actually seemed rather too good an opportunity to miss out on.’

  Apparently the Clara Jane’s shore boat had earned them nearly a hundred pounds of rescue fees that Sunday night. Not a bad start for their adventure on the high seas.

  ‘Well?’ Henry Bartlett nudged Rashim for an answer.

  ‘You want to know what do we talk about?’ Rashim hoped his casual shrug looked convincing. ‘High culture. Poetry. Shakespeare. You know, that sort of thing.’

  ‘Poetry, eh?’ Henry laughed. ‘Our Captain Teale’s a right bleedin’ gentyman dandy, ain’t ’e?’ He slurped a spoonful of his gruel. ‘No matter. Captain’s a right smart fella. An’ well connected. I ’eard say ’e’s family to the King himself or somethin’.’

  No, it wasn’t poetry. Or Shakespeare. Captain Jacob Teale was beginning to discover that maybe there were some things a noble-born gentleman wasn’t going to be instantly adept at. And it seemed maritime navigation was one of those.

  ‘I still can’t make head nor tail of these confounded contraptions!’ Teale had confessed to Rashim only this morning, glaring at the backstaff sitting on his table. ‘And these charts? God help me – they are but meaningless scribbles to me.’

  ‘You really have no idea how to navigate this ship?’

  ‘No, sir, I do not!’

  ‘Well, er … does anybody on this ship know how to navigate it?’

  ‘Well, I was rather hoping you might, Mr Anwar.’

  Chapter 18

  1666, aboard the Clara Jane, somewhere in the Atlantic Ocean

  ‘It looks like we’re not going to the Caribbean any more.’

  Liam looked at Rashim. ‘What? You’re kidding! That’s where all the crew think we’re headed!’

  ‘Best keep your voice down,’ whispered Rashim.

  It was dark and Rashim had just come out of another meeting with the captain. The sun had left a stain on the horizon that was fast fading, and above them, in a cloudless, dark blue sky, the stars and the moon shone clear and bright. Below decks, they could hear the crew noisily going about their supper ritual: the clang of pots and pans, raised voices, laughter, the clatter of dice across a barrel top. On the foredeck now it was just the two of them, the night watch up above on the mizzenmast and the helmsman aft. A gentle breeze was luffing the sails lightly and the sea itself was flat, subdued like a chastened child.

  ‘Teale had a complete meltdown this evening,’ confided Rashim. ‘You know I said he hasn’t got the first clue how to locate latitude or longitude and he wants me to learn it for him.’

  ‘Yes, but you said you could get us to the Caribbean … ’

  ‘Well, I thought it was just that he couldn’t navigate but I think he can’t bring himself to steer this ship out to sea. I mean, beyond the sight of land. Though he won’t admit it.’ Rashim sipped his tankard of watered-down rum. ‘I presumed when we hit the equator, or some point shortly after, I could navigate us across the Atlantic.’

  ‘Well, that’s what some of the lads have been asking about,’ said Liam. ‘When exactly do we strike out west?’

  ‘The answer is we’re not. Teale’s decided we’re continuing south instead.’

  ‘South?’ Liam consulted a mental map. ‘You mean south … as in down to the bottom of Africa?’

  ‘All the way down, round the bottom and up into the Indian Ocean.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I think the real reason is he’s scared witless at the idea of crossing the Atlantic, though he won’t come out and say that, of course. But the reason he’s planning to give tomorrow, when he assembles the men, is that there are even better opportunities for fabulous wealth raiding Arab ships in the Indian Ocean.’

  Liam digested that for a moment. ‘The crew will be, well … I mean, they all signed up for Jamaica.’ But then actually, no, thinking about it … they’d all signed up to make a pot-load of money. After a moment’s sharp intake of breath they’d probably decide it didn’t matter where they were going, just so long as they were doing it somewhere easy, and still under licence as privateers, not pirates. That was the important thing. None of them wanted to live the rest of their lives with an arrest warrant hanging over their heads and, inevitably one day, a short sharp drop at the end of a rope.

  ‘There’ll be grumblings,’ said Liam. ‘But that silver-tongued fella? You know, I’ve got a feeling he’ll se
ll them on the idea somehow. They all seem to think he’s God’s gift.’

  ‘He’s a smooth talker.’

  ‘Aye and a moron by the sound of it.’

  ‘Indeed. In my time he’d have made a perfect digi-tech salesman.’

  Liam shrugged. ‘In my time he’d have made a perfect balm and potion salesman.’

  The lazy sea lapped softly against the hull beneath them, and Liam gazed out at the dark water, a vanilla glint caught every now and then of the moon above.

  ‘That might mean we hit land sooner rather than later.’ He looked at Rashim. ‘That’s a chance, right?’

  ‘Chance for a portal? Possibly. But only if they’re still managing to track us.’

  Liam nodded. And, if they did open a portal, chances are one might open right beside Teale, since he was wearing Rashim’s waistcoat. ‘If we do stop ashore at some point, you and I’ll have to stay close to the captain.’

  ‘All the men assembled, are they?’ Captain Teale turned towards the ship’s quartermaster, Francis Woodcock. The men referred to him as ‘Old Tom’, on account of his being neither called Tom nor that old. Liam was still trying to get a handle on what passed for humour among his shipmates.

  ‘Aye, Skipper, all present and accounted for,’ barked Old Tom.

  Teale stood by the railing of the afterdeck, looking down on the entirety of the ship’s company, eighty-six men assembled on the main deck before him. The helm was looped off to stop it spinning and the ship’s sails were dropped. The Clara Jane was at rest, gently lolling on a calm sea.