The Pirate Story Megapack: 25 Classic and Modern Tales

by Robert E. Howard

  “Some navigator, eh?” Swenson went over to a bureau and took a chart out of a roll, spreading it on the table and poring over it. It was a Great Circle Sailing Chart.

  He supplemented that with a colored physical chart of the Pacific Ocean, studying them intently. Jim had picked his false position from memory. He felt certain that it showed absolutely blank on the charts; still—“What did you say them figgers was?” barked Hellfire suddenly. “Reel ’em off now.” Jim repeated once again and Swenson checked. Then he rolled up the charts, unlocked one handcuff, allowing Jim to take the hundred dollars and pocket them, and laid on the counterpane the sandwiches and a pocket flask. Jim bit into the bread and meat with avid content, ignoring the flask.

  “Good hooch,” said Swenson, almost good-naturedly. “Real, imported American rye, shipped to France and brought back again.”

  “I’ll save it,” said Jim. He had no especial taste for whisky and he believed Swenson quite up to the trick of doping him for his own ends—to get back the hundred, for example.

  “Suit yourself.”

  “When do I get the other four hundred?”

  “As soon as there’s any chance for your using it.” Swenson grinned at him without friendliness, a grin of self-appreciation.

  “If we’d have got your little book, my lad,” he said, “we’d have given you a short trip down the coast—say to Colon. As it is you’re goin’ along with us all the way, just to make sure you’ve given us the right figgers. Savvy? Also you’re a handy man aboard. You’ll know the holding ground and save time in more ways than one. I’ll give you second mate’s job with full wages, the four hundred an’ the one you’ve got as earnest money. You’ll get a share of what we find, same as the rest. But you go all the way. If the island’s where you say it is, well an’ good. If it ain’t—well, you don’t come back. Splice that into your lifeline, my lad. I’ll read off them figgers to you. If you ain’t plumb certain they’re right, this is the time to alter ’em. Otherwise, we’ll get ’em out of you; if we have to keel-haul you once a day.” The emphasis Swenson laid upon his slowly spoken phrases was infinitely malign. Their effect was as bleak as the wind that blows across a polar ice-floe.

  “Suits me,” said Jim carelessly. “Only I’d like to get my hands on the four hundred. When I’ve got money coming to me it always seems like it was better off with me. But that’s all right. I’m not stuck on your methods, Hellfire Swenson, and, if I’m second mate, I’m not going to carry a belaying pin in my boot and back up every order with a wallop. Otherwise the berth suits me, and the share looks good. I made up my mind this afternoon it was no use bucking you. You’re liberal enough and I’d be a fool not to take ’em. Only—I’m no hell-driver. I’ll get the work out of my watch by my own methods.”

  Swenson, watching him keenly, as Jim did the other, carefully calculating the effect of ended resistance, plus a registered kick or two against Hellfire tactics, reached over and patted him on the back with a heavy hand.

  “You’ll do, matey,” he said. “Glad you’re sensible. This crew won’t have to be tickled with a rope’s end. They’re all partners, you see. We’ll go aboard in an hour, soon’s it’s dark. We go out tonight. Tide serves at midnight.”

  “Out of where?”

  Swenson winked. “Never you mind. I’ll give you your course when you take the desk. Don’t you bother about where we start from, sonny. It’s where we finish concerns you.”

  “All right. Turn me loose.”

  “Not altogether. I’ll cast you loose from the bed after I’ve ’cuffed you up. You’ll get liberty when we hit deep water, in case you change your mind about going along. You’re a smart lad, Lyman, but I’m a wise old turtle myself.” He took away the right handcuff and manacled Jim with the pair still on his left wrist. He cast off the ankle lashings and allowed Jim to get up off the bed and walk around the room, to look out of the window.

  The water was no longer visible but there were blinking lights showing through a slight mist. Then the intermittent flash of a lighthouse.

  “Hazin’ up a little,” volunteered Swenson. “Good weather for sayin’ a quiet good-by. There’s a dozen of us aboard knows the bay in our sleep. Have a cigar?”

  Jim took it, accepted the light and sat by the window smoking, elbows resting on the sill. The night gathered and the haze thickened. He wanted to find out the name of the place. Somehow he must make a getaway, and a plan, indefinite as the mist, was vaguely forming. To further it he should know where they were. Looking out did him no good so he turned and started talking to Swenson about the island. He gave him many details that he had not given Kitty Whiting; directions for getting through the reef, for example, bearings, and suggestions for anchorage that Swenson made note of with little nods of his head while he gradually grew more confidential, almost chummy. But if he ever tried to make mooring or work through the lagoon with those same directions, Jim could see his command piled on the coral. If Jim was along—but he did not intend to be. Still Swenson plainly imagined him as having accepted the situation and applauded his common sense—as viewed by Swenson. He insisted upon his sharing his own flask. Jim stuck his tongue in the neck of the bottle, corking it, when it was his turn. Swenson swigged deeply and grew almost jovial, though the stuff had small real effect upon him.

  At last a car came up the drive and hooted. Jim saw its lights before it sounded the horn.

  “Here’s our wagon,” he said. “Do I still have to wear these bracelets?”

  “Sure do, matey. We’re going by the back streets. No one’ll see you or know you. Take ’em off when we’re aboard an’ clear. Give you the run of the ship. You’re second mate. Bunk aft. Come on.”

  They went downstairs out through the garage to where a flivver wheezed and panted. The driver was a stolid individual who barely looked around but sat eating something out of a small bag. Swenson greeted him.

  “’Lo, Jakey. Have a little drink?”

  “No. Quit it.”

  “Chewin’ candy instead? Suit yourself. Git in, matey.” Swenson took seat at the back beside Jim and confidentially slid a hand under his arm. Jim abandoned a hope of getaway from the flivver. They chugged down side streets and roads where lights shone dimly in the foggy night, descending always. The smell of salt water came to them and Jim inhaled it as a desert horse snuffs the oasis. They reached a small creek, ran along its banks and stopped at a little wharf and boathouse, dimly seen, with a dull flare of orange showing in a window.

  “Here we are,” said Swenson. “Reckon the boys are on deck. All ashore, matey. You first.” Jim was directly back of the silent driver who now took the last piece of candy from his bag, screwed up the sack and flipped it from him. It fell on the running board and Jim retrieved it with his fettered hands, opened it swiftly and read the printed legend upon it by the headlights as he passed in front of the flivver. Fowler’s General Store, Wareham.

  Now he knew where he was and his heart quickened a beat as he dropped the bag and set foot upon it while Swenson followed, unsuspecting. The driver, sucking at his peppermint, noticed nothing.

  Wareham is on the Wareham River, head of Wareham County, Mass., emptying into the head of Buzzards Bay! And Jim knew Buzzards Bay! The light he had seen must be Wings Neck Light off Red Brook Harbor. To starboard, as they would run down toward Long Island Sound, there would come Sippican Harbor with Bird Island Light. Mattapoisett Harbor, Ram Island, Nasketucket Bay, West Island, New Bedford Harbor, Dumpling Rock Light opposite Woods Hole, the steamer connection for Nantucket. And, last of all, the Elizabeth Islands with the Cuttyhunk Light at the tip, a fixed white light that Jim knew well from early days. He had been born at New Bedford.

  He hid his exultation as, with Swenson’s grip on his arm, they advanced to the boathouse, and Swenson knocked on the door. Half a dozen men were playing cards by the light of a lantern. Bottles and glasses were on the rough table. It seemed that wherever Swenson ruled rum was still plentiful. Jim suspected him of pock
eting profits on those quarts of rye that were trans-shipped from France—if Swenson had spoken the truth of the course. It was good enough whisky. The men were a sturdy lot, inclined to be secretive, if not surly. Jim knew their type, longshoremen of Nantucket Sound, seafood providers, lobstermen not averse to making a living at anything they might find afloat or upflung, smugglers at heart and by inheritance; good seamen, withal. They gazed at him with wooden faces that might have been carved out of walnut. None of them appeared to notice his handcuffs.

  “Mr. Lyman. Goin’ to be second mate,” announced Swenson briefly. The incongruity of a fettered officer raised no comment. They were used to unusual sights, thought Jim, or else such sights were usual. “How’s the tide?”

  “Turned ha’f hour ago. Runnin’ strong.”

  “Then we’ll git aboard.” The flivver driver had turned the car. Jim saw the lights wavering away through the mist and silently thanked the taciturn chauffeur for his candy habit. They made their way down the wharf in a ghostly procession to where a boat swung at a painter, stretching with the tug of the outgoing tide. Jim expected a launch on account of the number of men ashore. Otherwise he had anticipated a dory, but the boat was a double-ended whaleboat into which they jumped with the celerity of saltwater men. Swenson was at the tiller with Jim beside him, and the six men took to the sweeps with a powerful stroke that, aided by the current, sent the boat dancing swiftly down the bay through the fog. They passed Butter’s Point unseen, but located by Birds Island Light and swung into the entrance of Sippican Harbor, a long narrow anchorage. Swenson steered as if it had been broad daylight, occasionally hand testing the water alongside for eddies. He brought them up to a trim-looking schooner with masthead light showing, and as they pulled forward toward the bows, the reflection of her green sidelight to starboard. Jim looked for a name, but the curve of the bows prevented that. He had seen none on the whaleboat, merely the number 4. A side ladder was rigged, up which Jim preceded Swenson, the men in the boat dropping back to the quarter falls. On deck a man met them whom Swenson called Mr. Peters. There was a crispness to his manner as well as the official handle he set to the man’s name that showed that Hellfire had taken up the reins of discipline. He did not introduce Jim but took him to the main cabin, showing him a stateroom.

  “Here’s where you bunk,” he said. “All by yourself. Plenty of room aft. She was a pleasure craft, matey, but we’ve stripped off the fancy rigging an’ made her seaworthy. She’s sweetlined as a racing yacht, but she’s stiff enough for any breeze. Seventy-two footer, with a fine engine for a kicker. Dynamo, wireless, all the rigamajigs. Take the screw off ’n her an’ she’ll sail with any fisherman ever went out o’ Gloucester.”

  “Sweet looking schooner,” said Jim. “Far as I can see. What’s her name?” Swenson looked at him quizzically.

  “Didn’t you see it on the boat? I don’t hold in stickin’ a ship’s name all over the place, buoys an’ boats an’ everything. You’ll see it in the mornin’. Not much room for cargo, but what we’re after won’t take up much room, eh, matey? And there’s the more space for stores. I’ll see you later.”

  He nodded and went out. A bolt slid outside the door. There was one on the inside also but it wouldn’t do him much good, Jim reflected. He climbed on the bunk and gazed through the porthole at the blackness. Overhead he heard the familiar scuffle of action, short commands, the inhaul of the anchor, the grunts of men as they hauled on the halyards, swaying up the sails. There was little wind in the fog, yet they had elected to use canvas rather than the engine Swenson mentioned. It made for silence. But if this craft was going down to the South Seas she must have papers of some sort for clearance, or she would find herself in trouble at foreign ports of call. The truth probably was that Sippican Harbor was not her usual anchorage, and for some reason Swenson preferred to slide out without attracting undue attention. Jim fancied that the schooner had used such tactics more than once. Hellfire Swenson, he imagined, was peddling firewater. But his own affairs concerned him more closely. If he was kept immured in the cabin until the ship gained open water it was likely that he was booked for a trip to the Panama Canal, the first stop Colon.

  Carried on the current, more than aided by the light airs, the schooner made good progress. Through the porthole Jim saw Bird Island Light. Now they were heading down Buzzards Bay toward the entrance to Long Island Sound where they would work out to the free Atlantic. The cabin clock chimed eight bells and the ship’s bell echoed the strokes of midnight. His bolt was slipped and Swenson came in. He unlocked the handcuffs.

  “Fog’s breakin’,” he said. “Hazy yet, but I wouldn’t wonder if ’t was clear outside. You’ll not take up your duty till tomorrow, Mr. Lyman, but if you want to stretch yourself a bit come on deck. I’m taking the watch. We’ll have a little touch of grog first.”

  He filled glasses in the main cabin and handed one to Jim.

  “Here’s to a successful voyage,” he toasted, and Jim drank to the toast. The whisky sent the blood surging through his veins. They went above together. Swenson kept close by Jim’s side, but it was plain that he had partially accepted him as one of his own kidney, or as a tool he could successfully use.

  The fog was thinning, shredding away, and there were holes in it here and there through which a star peeped. The beacon lights tore at it, rending paths for their warnings. They stood aft by the wheel. Suddenly the engine started to turn the screw and their speed increased. Jim calculated they were making a good eight knots. They had passed New Bedford Harbor with Clark’s Point Light flashing almost abeam. Dumpling Rock Light was the next. Then he would keep his eyes peeled for the fixed white light at Cuttyhunk, westernmost point of the Elizabeth string of islands. There, between Gooseberry Neck and Penikese Island, the inlet was at its narrowest, somewhere about five miles. And the main channel swung toward Penikese.

  Jim meant to stay on deck until they caught sight of the light at Cuttyhunk, then to take his chance over the rail. His shoes were unlaced, the ends tucked in, seemingly tied, but ready to kick off the moment he struck water. It was going to be a long swim—how long he could not gauge beforehand—and a hard one. The tide would sweep him down. If he missed Penikese he would have to fight hard to land on Cuttyhunk or be carried out into the ocean proper.

  The long odds were preferable to staying aboard the schooner, even if he had not had special reasons urging him. He could not disassociate Foster as the real master mind of Swenson’s activities, and he was fired with desire to block all Foster’s plans which doubtless were maturing back in Foxfield. He meant to be present at the conference set for the same night—now that midnight had sounded. He had a hundred-odd dollars in his pocket. Let him get away, make a landing, and however roundabout his route, he would get to where autos might be hired, and then travel on the funds of the opposition.

  Swenson did not seem to imagine that a man would dream of tackling a getaway by swimming; nevertheless he stayed closer to Jim than Jim relished. And he planned how he could avoid Hellfire’s attentions and even matters up with him a bit. So far he had been the underdog; from now on he hoped things would turn out differently.

  They chugged on through the dissipating mists which should lend a friendly cloak to Jim’s escape. The fixed ray of Cuttyhunk shone like a misplaced star, then was eclipsed by something that must be Penikese Island. He and Swenson were pacing up and down together. Jim had started the topic of rum-running in a manner that suggested that he thought such exploits highly creditable, adventurous, and profitable. Swenson rose to the bait. With a congenial soul inclined to admiration, Hellfire was not averse to boasting.

  “Good enough, when there’s nothing bigger on hand,” he said. “And it’s sure good fun to fool the raiders. They sing loud when they happen to light on a buried cargo or board a ship with contraband once in a million times, through some rotten informer telling ’em what they’d never find out for themselves. We keep ’em guessing. It’s a fine coast for hide an’ seek.”r />
  He went on to tell of exploits, not attempting to veil his own personality as a principal. He hinted broadly at the existence of a national ring with ramifications spreading out north to Canada, west to the Orient, east to Europe, south to the Indies, Central and South America. And Jim, with the right word now and then, led him on. Swenson stood at the port rail, elbows on it, leaning back, puffing at his cigar. Jim purposely allowed his to go out. He looked beyond Swenson to where he fancied he could see the loom of Penikese. Fortunately it was thickening up a little. He stood within easy distance of Swenson, judging the space between them.

  “Got a match?” he asked. “I’m out.”

  Swenson took his glowing cigar from between his lips. This Jim had counted on, though it was not vital. He offered it, butt first, in his right hand, the left swinging low. Jim stepped forward as if to take it and brought up his right first smash against the point of Swenson’s jaw, with all the impetus lent by the past hours of defeat and ignominy, with all the force of the pivoting weight of his body concentrated in that blow for liberty. Hellfire saw it coming; his cigar fell from his lips, but he was too late to shout, and Jim was well inside his guard. A sudden, fiery pain shot through Jim’s knuckles. He had driven them back with the impact against Swenson’s adamantine jaw, but they had served their purpose. The big man’s head rocked; he half swung around then dropped like a chain. There was no one near but the man at the wheel. He turned his head at the thud. Jim heard the yell as he leaped to the rail, catching at the stays to steady himself for a split-second, then diving clean into the tide, kicking off his shoes and striking out, under water at first, in the direction of Penikese.

  V

  Reaction

  The swift race of the tide gripped him, carrying him along parallel to the course of the schooner before he began to make transverse headway. When he was forced to come to the surface he heard confused shouts aboard and chuckled at the success of the blow that had temporarily paralyzed the brains of the boss. The weight of his clothes handicapped him so that he found he had miscalculated the power of the tide-rip and he settled down to a steady single overhand, swimming on his side, almost submerged, urging progress with powerful scissors clips of his legs, looking backward toward the ship from which he had so unceremoniously departed.