by Sally Watson
Anne laughed too, and tossed her red mane. “I’ll have Mark work with you on the cutlass,” she promised. “His style will suit you. And we’ll—”
“Sail off the port beam!”
There was an instant rush of bare feet for the shrouds. Morgan at once fell into hysterics and fled, swearing horribly, while the crew swarmed up the rigging. Jade, clinging like the rest, while the mast swung a great oval in the air, wondered how she could have been so scared aloft such a short time ago. It was glorious, like flying! She laughed at Tom, who had still not got over his air of shocked admiration, and peered at the horizon, where the two masts and square sails of a brig could just be seen.
“French lines and rigging,” muttered Rory, squinting. He had been unusually sour of late, but now he was coming to life again.
“She’s low in the water,” called the knowledgeable Mark presently, and there was a cheer. This meant she was heavy-laden with possible loot, and also that she would be slow and sluggish in action. A pity she wasn’t Spanish as well, said the pirates cheerfully. They’d rather fight Spaniards than anyone. However, they added, swinging purposefully down to the deck, this ship would do very well indeed.
As if she had heard, the French ship altered course and veered off nervously on the other tack, the sails narrowing as she turned.
“Give chase!” yelled Anne joyously, and took a short cut to the deck by sliding down the backstays. Jade, not to be outdone, followed at a rash speed that blistered both palms. “Prepare for action!” Anne was bawling unnecessarily. “Sam, go below and see if Jack’s sober enough to come up for the fun. Toby, see if there’s any turtle blood. We’ll put on our best show for you newcomers: it usually scares and confuses the enemy so badly they forget to fight.”
The Queen Royal at once turned into a comic romp. Men were either dressing up in wild and brilliant costumes or smearing their bare torsos with the livid crimson of turtle blood. Pierre dragged out a battered tailor’s dummy, stained with previous use and set it up in the bow with a bucket of turtle blood ready beside it. The scarlet pirate flag was made ready to hoist at just the right moment.
Jade and Domino, Rory and Joshua stared, looked at one another wonderingly, shook their heads, chortled, and fell happily into the spirit of the thing. Jade felt a slight sense of relief, almost as if she had been dreading a real battle without even knowing it. Only Domino tended to grunt with renewed scorn for pink-skinned beings.
Piles of astonishing weapons were appearing. Every broad canvas waistband now bristled with pistols, cutlasses, and machêtes. Long wicked pikes and boarding axes flourished dangerously—particularly when Domino got hold of one. Chief armorer Peter Mazer clucked lovingly over a pile of peculiar looking flasks and jars, which, he explained to the fascinated Jade, were his inventions.
“Them flasks ’ave a fuse sticking out, you see, an’ we lights that and flings it at the enemy and it goes off bang. Sometimes,” he added sorrowfully, “it goes off bang too soon. Poor Will Potter lost ’is arm that way just afore Christmas.” He cheered up. “The jars is stinkpots. Filled with sulphur, they is. Makes an ’orrible stench when we throws ’em. And I’m working on a new gun, wot—”
But the demonstration was cut short by Anne grabbing Jade’s hand and tugging her aft to the cabins. Jade came, bouncing with excitement, and strongly inclined to giggle as she looked about her.
Here came Calico Jack, strutting up from below as if he really thought he commanded the whole operation. There was Joshua, in whom freedom had suddenly unleashed a brand new mettlesome personality, armed to the teeth. Rory stood deep in conversation with Mark, over the wheel, a garish red kerchief around his head. And an entire band of musical instruments had now materialized in the waist, and was drumming, strumming, tootling and trumpeting at least three different tunes at once—if not more, decided Jade with another giggle as Anne dragged her into the big cabin.
“We’ve got to get dressed,” she explained. “Shall I wear my yellow shirt or none at all?” And she laughed at Jade’s dropped jaw. “Pirates shouldn’t shock so easily,” she jeered, and put on the saffron shirt, leaving Jade not in the least certain she’d been joking.
In her cabin, Jade looked over her own shirts. It seemed that one dressed to scare the enemy rather than fight them; otherwise the oldest and least colorful costume would be best. As it was—she chose her new flame-colored shirt, hoping no one would get any of that turtle-blood on it, and put on a waistband as Anne had showed her. Two pistols went in it for effect, and perhaps a cutlass as well. Armed like an arsenal, she strutted out on deck.
The French ship was close enough now for Jade to read the name Belle Marie and see the scared-looking faces over the bulwarks. Queen Royal’s scarlet flag was up; and the dummy was a gory sight, Pierre prancing dramatically around it with a machête in one hand while he tried to play his flute with the other. Belle Marie came about in a panicky attempt to escape.
It was just what Mark had wanted. Over came the helm, and presently Queen Royal was closing in from behind, undeterred by an occasional shot from the stern chasers.
“Showing more fight than most,” said Sam, as Belle Marie tried to come around and bring her heavy starboard guns to bear. “Most ships just haul down their colors at this point in the game.”
Jade swallowed, gripping the shrouds where she was now perched with fully half the crew. Those guns looked extremely menacing! But Mark, skilled tiller-artist that he was, swung around to head terrifyingly directly into the broadside.
“Less target!” bawled Sam, wincing slightly as two or three cannon balls actually tore through the rigging and killed one pirate on the spot. Jade stared unbelievingly as his comrades dumped the body callously overboard and turned at once to repair the damage to shrouds and sheets. The farce was suddenly a farce no more.
Now Queen Royal was back at Belle Marie’s stern again, and closing with her. The crew was swarming into the fo’c’sle and the bow rigging, and Jade could clearly see the French faces staring in horror at the gruesome dummy and the bloodthirsty-looking pirates. Now Dickson with his single eye took his place at the small bow-chaser gun and silenced Belle Marie’s stern guns with half a dozen shots, one of which took away half the taffrail and another the mizzen backstays.
And now, with nothing but musket-fire to stop him, nimble Toby Harris was crawling out on the bowsprit, a mallet and wedge hanging around his waist . . . had swung himself right onto the enemy aftercastle, scrambled down, and neatly driven the wedge between rudder and sternpost. . . and the Belle Marie was crippled.
Jade’s heart was pounding. What a dangerous thing to do! She yearned to learn it herself! She almost forgot what was happening for an instant. Then the scene leaped into her eyes again: the gory dummy and the terrified eyes on the other ship, torches flying toward Belle Marie’s sails and stinkbombs bursting on her deck. Drums beat and trumpets blared and Pierre tootled his flute. Grapnels sailed across the short space between ships—gripped—held—and with a perfectly diabolic din, led by Anne, the pirates swarmed aboard. . . .
And Jade stayed where she was. Like the slap of a giant hand across her mind came revulsion. A young, scared, resolute French face vanished in the melée, to haunt Jade forever. A cry of pain cut her ears. This was what happened, then, when the victims had the courage to turn and fight!
Below, the battle surged across the quarterdeck and down to the waist. Anne, yelling and blazing like a fiend from hell was enough to scare anyone to death without a blow. Domino and Joshua, shoulder to shoulder, wreaked impartial havoc, as if avenging themselves on all white men in general. Tom was in the middle of it looking bewildered while Mark protected him with big-brotherly concern. Even Calico Jack fought with an aggressive skill that reminded Jade of the name and fame he still had. And all for what?
Those poor seamen weren’t at all the ones Jade wanted to fight! This wasn’t reform, or justice, or even vengeance. It was plain ordinary pillage and murder, quite as ugly and vicious
as the other evils men committed against each other. Sickened, she clung to the shrouds in a fog of disillusion. She wanted no part of it!
And then, almost before battle had reached the waist, it was over. The French were throwing down their arms. There seemed, after all, only a few casualties. The pirates at once became a splendidly organized team, rounding up prisoners, disarming them, searching the ship for loot, even keeping discipline when gold was unearthed from the captain’s cabin. When everything of value had been taken aboard the Queen Royal, the crew was good-naturedly invited to join the company of Free Brethren. There were, explained the pirates, no hard feelings.
Then the two who accepted were brought aboard, the grapnels were thrown off, and the hapless Belle Marie cut adrift. Rudder still locked, she heeled over slightly, main topsail flapping like thunder, to drift off in the sweep of trade winds until the remaining crew could get her under control again. And the Queen Royal jibbed and came about to a starboard tack, to sounds of rejoicing.
Jade came down from the shrouds at last, stiff and numb in body as well as mind, still trying to sort out her bewilderment.
Anne, passing, gave her a withering look. “Chicken-hearted?”
Having once proved her courage, Jade felt not the slightest need to defend it. She just turned her head to stare at Anne squarely and silently.
Anne laughed a little and conceded the point. “Oh, all right then: squeamish.” But her voice still held a certain amount of scorn. Anne was anything but squeamish.
Jade considered the matter. It was true she had been quite sickened by the bloodshed. But she didn’t think that was the real point. She hadn’t been squeamish on the Pearl, and she didn’t think she’d have been squeamish if Belle Marie had been a slaver.
“I don’t know,” she said at last. “I have to think.”
Anne, still wildly excited and inclined to be aggressive, lifted a condescending shoulder. “I was a good deal younger than you when I first killed,” she bragged.
“Oh?” Jade looked at her without approval. Sometimes she didn’t like Anne Bonney at all. “Who was it, your baby sister?” she asked, scathing.
Anne reddened. “A bond slave drew a knife on me!” she snapped.
Jade, wondering what Anne had done to goad the bond slave, merely curled her lip, deliberately infuriating. Anne looked ready to slap her. Very well, let her try! Jade was spoiling for a fight.
But Anne confined herself to words. “Very moral and virtuous, aren’t you?”
“Well, if I were a plain robber and bully, I’d say so, and not call myself Robin Hood or St. Nicholas! You’re as big a hypocrite as all the rest!”
“What an odious little jade you are, after all!” said Anne, angry and amused at once. “I begin to sympathize with the late captain of the Pearl. And you needn’t expect a share of today’s loot, you know, since you didn’t help.” “Well, of course not!” said Jade blankly. It had been the last thought in her mind. They stared: a long, baffled, green-and-hazel stare. But Anne had got fighting out of her system for the time being. She shrugged and was about to move away when the grizzled head and scarred face of Barton loomed up, scowling.
“I told yer we shouldn’t sign on little girls,” he told Anne, aggrieved. “Scared, she were. I seen ’er. Scared ter fight!”
All Jade’s frustration and bewilderment exploded into a fierce need for action. Action against this brute of a shipboard bully would do splendidly: she’d enjoy taking out her anger on him instead of the unoffending French crew. She smiled.
It was her straight, slit-of-bared-teeth smile, eager and menacing, and highly disconcerting to a man accustomed to intimidate.
“Am I?” she crooned softly. “Am I really scared to fight, Barton? Want to find out?”
Barton looked at her in sudden doubt. She wasn’t reacting at all the way she should.
And Anne laughed. “Go on!” she urged him. “Challenge her to a duel, Barton! Enhance your reputation! And it will give her the choice of weapons, don’t forget. Have you ever seen Jade with a rapier, Barton?”
Barton blinked, frowned, shook his head. He didn’t like Anne’s laughter any more than Jade’s smile. It occurred to him that there was no use killing a green girl, not yet even blooded in battle. Besides, he didn’t like the rapier. Fussy, twiddly things, not fit for men’s fighting. He growled and turned to look for a better fight to pick.
“Say you’re sorry!” Jade challenged him, and was rewarded by another grumble. She sighed, deprived of an outlet for her bad humor, and said a word that she had just recently learned. But there wasn’t much satisfaction in it, because there was no one to be shocked.
Anne moved on, puzzled but tolerant, and Jade headed for her favorite spot on the fo’c’sle to brood. But it was already occupied by a glowering Rory, who would doubtless produce a few caustic remarks of his own about Jade’s failure to join in the battle. Glaring at him, she took an unsociable position on the opposite side of the bow, back firmly turned, and stared down at the surging smoothness of the bow wave.
Unhappiness swelled over her. She thought she had found her place in the world—and she hadn’t. There was no point to piracy—except loot, and that meant nothing whatever to Jade, so long as she had enough to eat. She had supposed, somehow, that it would be a kind of righteous revenge on the world, setting slaves free, and punishing horrid men like Chidley Bayard and Governor Lawes.
A black thatch and beaky nose loomed over her, and Rory glared down. “What’s the matter?” he demanded.
Jade hunched her shoulders disagreeably, but he just turned her around to face him. It wasn’t her nature to struggle uselessly; she met his angry eyes with her own.
“What’s the matter?” he repeated. “Why didn’t you fight?”
At least he knew without asking that she wasn’t chicken-hearted. Jade shrugged in a vast helplessness.
“Didn’t feel like it,” she muttered. “Wasn’t angry at them; why should I try to kill them?” Then, as Rory still stared down at her, a sardonic look on his hawk’s face, she gave a small, impatient, bare-footed stamp. “It’s no good saying we’re Robin Hood, because we aren’t. Unless he was just an ordinary robber, too. And I don’t see any use in it, just stealing things.” She turned away from him again, blinking against the sun which was just exploding into sunset.
“What did you think piracy was, you daft little loon?” Rory demanded harshly. Jade whirled back again to peer into his face with sudden suspicion. She searched it carefully.
“You feel the same way!” she discovered with a sense of profound relief. “What shall we do?”
But Rory’s face was set tight. “Drink our own brew,” he said tersely, and stalked away.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
The Second Armada
“Oh, a pox on you!” cried Anne irritably. “Stop nagging, you young vixen! D’you think we’re a flaming Crusade, or something? What do you want, anyway?” She threw herself across the width of her huge four-poster and glowered at Jade, while Jezebel squeaked and chattered from the top of the canopy and both parrots tried to out-shout her.
Half a dozen other pirates were lounging in the salon in the heat of the afternoon, and they looked up from various amusements, all interested in the running battle with this cheeky youngest member of the crew. Pierre lowered his flute and Mark a captured book and Toby paused in the act of dealing cards to Domino (who had grasped such games with astonishing brilliance and was becoming richer by the day) and Joshua. Only Sam went on stroking the purring Morgan. Rory, an unsociable soul, was doubtless aloft somewhere.
“What d’you want?” repeated Anne, sounding exasperated.
Jade frowned. “Well—something besides just robbery. We have a big strong ship; why can’t we pick on people that deserve it instead of just ordinary harmless ones?” Morgan, falling into the spirit of the thing, began sharpening his claws in the deep pile of the carpet. Mark tilted his fair head, quizzical.
“But my dear girl, accordi
ng to you the entire world needs punishing, and that’s just what we’re doing.”
Everyone laughed except the militant Domino, who nodded with vigor. Jade grinned sheepishly, scowled, scratched her nose (which still tended to sunburn a trifle), and sighed. She felt in danger of becoming greatly muddled. “Well, yes—but—but some are much worse than others.” Morgan jumped on her lap and curled up, purring. “I mean, like that Mr. Bayard.”
“And your uncle,” suggested Domino, unforgiving. “Kill he.”
Jade shifted uncomfortably on her stool, causing Morgan to dig in protesting claws. If it really came down to it, she wasn’t at all sure she wanted Uncle Augustus to be actually killed, however arrogant and bullying he was, and however infuriatingly certain that he had some God-given right to order other people about, and however much he considered slaves and females and horses to be inferior creatures . . . But by now her blood was beginning to simmer again, and she was more inclined to agree with Domino after all. It was all extremely confusing. She sighed again.
“In any case,” pursued Anne, sensing victory, “you don’t really expect us to stop and cross-examine everyone on board the ship we’re fighting before we cross swords with him, do you? Or even tell a Good Ship from a Bad Ship before you grapple and board?”
“You can tell a slaver.” Jade hated giving in. “I know, because Rory told me. They’re low and fast, without much hold space. We could go for them.”
Domino made a small fiery sound of agreement, and Joshua put a restraining hand on her arm, as she seemed ready to go search for one at once. Anne looked at her with understanding, and Toby entered the conversation. “We does when we sees ’em. Got yours, didn’t we? Don’t see ’em all the time.”
“Aussi” added Pierre, coming out from behind his flute with a surprising flash of practicality, “we could not at all make a living at freeing slaves, voyons, unless we should then to turn around and sell them instead of setting them loose. And where would we to find a crew who will remain if there is no loot and no food? Hmm?”
