Freebooter

by Tim Severin

  Hector was about to abandon his spyhole when the door to the furthest cabin opened quietly. It was the cabin reserved for the emperor’s sister. Hector recognized the woman who stepped out as one of the attendants he had seen on deck seated beside her mistress. She had removed her gold jewellery and was now wearing a long piece of cotton cloth printed with a simple pattern wrapped around her. Draped over her head was a cheap shawl similar to those worn by the pilgrim women. She waited several moments, checking that the corridor was clear. Then the old lady and her second attendant emerged. Hector blinked in surprise. The small figure was unmistakably the emperor’s sister. She barely came up to her companion’s shoulder. Now that he could see her more clearly, Hector put her age at somewhere in her mid-sixties. She too was wearing a plain cotton wrap-around garment and with a similar shawl on her head. It was her taller companion who was dressed in costly silks. Treading softly, the three women came down the corridor, their slippered feet passing in front of Hector’s nose, and out of his line of sight. They were, Hector was sure, on their way to mingle with the crowd of humble pilgrims on the lower decks.

  Hector’s neck and shoulders were aching from the awkward angle he had been forced to adopt. He wormed back to his former position in the corner, and rolled his head from side to side to ease his neck muscles. The acrid smell of gunpowder smoke was seeping into his cubbyhole, and he was thirsty and hungry. He did not expect anyone to bring him food or water. All Tavares’ men would be too busy occupied with the fight. He closed his eyes and returned to his attempt to track the progress of the sea battle by its sounds. He listened out for the sounds of smaller, lighter cannon that indicated whether Pearl or Portsmouth Adventure had joined the fight. But there was nothing. He presumed that their captains were waiting for Avery with the much more powerful Fancy to overwhelm the defenders of ‘Exceeding Treasure’.

  As the day wore on it became evident that Fancy was gradually getting the upper hand. Her gunfire steadily came nearer. Eventually one of her broadsides resulted in a loud crash that shook the deck immediately above him. Something heavy had fallen on the upper deck. He guessed it was the spar that held up the mizzen sail. If it was shot away, Ganj-i-Sawa’i was half-crippled.

  One of the bigger guns on the ‘Exceeding Treasure’ had a distinct booming blast, deeper and heavier than the others. He supposed that it was one of the huge thirty-pounders on the lower deck that Tavares had pointed out to him. Each time it fired, the tremor of the recoil came through the wooden floor beneath him. This gun fired so regularly – five times an hour was his guess – that he was able to anticipate its next shot. It was well into the afternoon when there was a longer delay than usual, and he began to wonder if Tavares’s men were running out of suitably large cannon balls or the great quantity of gunpowder needed to charge such a giant weapon. Moments later came an immense explosion. It was unlike anything that had gone before, a huge detonation that nearly deafened him. ‘Exceeding Treasure’ quivered along her entire length. The floor of the cubbyhole bucked beneath him. He was certain the explosion had been what Tavares had most feared: the great gun had burst. In the stunned silence that followed aboard Ganj-i-Sawa’i he thought he detected faint cheering that could only have come from the crew of the Fancy.

  The sound of running feet, heavy sandals this time, brought him back to where he could use the spy hole. Three yellow-clad musketeers were in the passageway outside, bundles of clothing in their arms. He watched as they hammered on the doors of the cabins where the slave girls still sheltered. The doors opened, there was a quick shouted exchange and the men tossed the clothes inside. The doors closed, two of the musketeers raced back out on deck, while the third stayed waiting in the corridor. Hector remained where he was, watching. He was expecting the slave girls to come out in disguise, dressed as pilgrims. When they did emerge a short time later, he blinked in astonishment. The slave girls were also wearing the yellow uniforms of musketeers. Immediately the soldier who had been waiting for them ushered them out towards the deck.

  As the girls passed out of view, Hector knew the situation was now desperate. Tavares, or whoever was in charge of the defence, was trying to bluff that a large force of musketeers was ready to repel any attempt to put a boarding party onto ‘Exceeding Treasure’. Fancy must be closing in for the kill. He began to hear, very faintly, the sounds of drums and blaring trumpets – the freebooters’ way of unnerving their victims before the final assault.

  He struggled to stay calm. The gentle rocking motion of the ship had ceased. ‘Exceeding Treasure’ was no longer moving forward, but lay dead in the water. Instead of cannon fire there was now the rattle of musket shots. A gentle thump, and Ganj-i-Sawa’i lurched sideways a fraction. He guessed that the hulls of the two ships had touched, and Fancy must now be alongside. There were more trumpet calls and the rattle of a drum: the signal for a boarding party to attack.

  Hector could contain himself no longer. He yelled for someone to open up and again kicked at the door in desperation. But it had no effect. He heard more shots, pistols as well as muskets, and the distinctive hollow sound of a blunderbuss. A second slight jolt, from a different direction as if a second ship had come alongside. It seemed that Avery’s boarding party had been reinforced by Pearl or Portsmouth Adventure. From the deck above him came the noises of hand-to-hand fighting, wild shouts and calls for help, thuds and the clash of metal. Eventually – and by then he was hoarse from shouting – the sounds of battle began to die away. The last few pistol shots were followed by an unnerving silence.

  It was then that he recalled Tavares’ warning about what would happen if the freebooters seized the ship.

  ✻

  It began with coarse whoops of triumph mingled, as often as not, with the rush of feet, roars of ugly-sounding laughter, and the sounds of struggle. Then the screams started. Some cries were repeated again and again, others suddenly choked off. His imagination told him that the worst elements among the freebooters had gone on the rampage. Hard, violent men, they would satisfy their lust as a reward for the risks they had taken. No one would be able to rein them in.

  Hector must have fallen asleep because the next thing he knew someone was wrenching violently at the door handle to the cubbyhole.

  ‘Use the crowbar,’ a voice suggested. The speaker had a Welsh accent. ‘Doors only get locked when there’s something valuable inside.’

  Hector’s shout came out as a dry rasp. ‘Get me out of here!’

  A moment of surprised silence. ‘Who’s in there?’ demanded the Welshman suspiciously.

  ‘Lynch, Hector Lynch . . . from Captain Avery’s company.’

  ‘Don’t know about Avery’s lot. We’re from Pearl.’

  ‘Just open the door.’

  A series of jabbing crunches as the end of the crowbar was repeatedly rammed home, the splintering sound of the door frame splitting apart, and the door swung open. Hector climbed out shakily. He was faced with two looters. The Welshman was short and stocky with slightly bulging eyes. His companion, holding the crowbar, was taller, with narrow, crafty face and long greasy hair. From the way they were looking at him, the iron crowbar ready to wield as a club, Hector wondered if they were ransacking the ship on their own initiative, and not as part of its organized robbing.

  ‘What have we got here, cullies?’ A Londoner’s accent this time and Hector felt a surge of relief. John Dann, Avery’s coxswain, had stepped into the corridor.

  ‘Says he belongs to your company,’ said the first man sulkily.

  Dann walked down the passageway and stared Hector in the face. He looked haggard and drawn.

  ‘Lynch, isn’t it?’ said Dann. ‘How in God’s name did you get here?’

  ‘Fell off the Amity.’

  Dann grinned. ‘Should have held on tight.’ The grin vanished as Dann rounded on the two men. ‘Anyone caught pinching on the quiet will get a basting . . . or worse.’

  ‘I need a drink of water,’ Hector croaked.

  ‘C
ome along then.’ Dann treated the men to a hard glare, and led Hector away.

  The scene out on deck was a shambles. There were gaps where the ship’s rail had been wrecked by cannon fire, streaks and patches of blood on the deck planks, tangles of fallen rigging. To reach the water butt at the foot of the mizzenmast, Hector had to clamber over the mizzen spar that lay where it had fallen, the sail draped across it. A group of exhausted-looking prisoners had been herded together in one corner and made to sit. Hector spotted nakhoda Ibrahim among them. The loss of his ship had diminished the old man. He appeared to have shrivelled up and was gazing straight in front of him, his expression blank. By contrast the half-dozen merchants around him were clearly terrified. They kept casting unhappy looks in all directions as if expecting something terrible to happen. As Hector stood at the water butt, sucking up a drink from the wooden dipper, he looked for Tavares. Eventually he saw him. He had missed him the first time though the artilleryman was only a few paces away, seated with his back against the bulwarks and his legs straight out in front of him. Hector could only identify him by the embroidered waistcoat. Most of Tavares’ face was hidden by a bloody rag wrapped around his head.

  Hector hurried over, the dipper of water in his hand. Tavares’ mouth was barely visible below the bandage. He knelt down beside the artilleryman. ‘Jeronimo,’ he said in Galician. ‘It’s me, Hector Lynch. Here, drink.’

  There was no reply. Hector tried again, louder this time. Still no reaction. He leaned forward and brought the wooden ladle up to Tavares’ lips, and succeeded in dribbling a little water into the slack mouth. Tavares’s clothes reeked of gunpowder and charred cloth. His chest, exposed where the shirt was torn, had great patches, cherry red at the edges and dark black in the centre, where the skin had burned off.

  Hector raised the ladle again to tip more water between the blistered lips, then rose to his feet, and looked around for help. From his days as a loblolly boy he had some knowledge of how to deal with burns. Dann was nowhere to be seen, and a single guard armed with a musket watched over the prisoners. To his left, Fancy lay lashed alongside with the ropes and grappling irons thrown by the boarding party, and Pearl must have joined the attack for she was now made fast on Ganj-i-Sawa’i’s starboard beam. There was no sign of the Portsmouth Adventure. He crossed to the head of the companionway and when he looked down on the lower deck, the first thing that caught his eye was the shattered ruin of one of the great guns. Half the long barrel was missing, five feet of metal blown away. The remaining stub with its jagged rim was still attached to the gun carriage that lay on its side, toppled by the explosion that, Hector suspected, had caused Tavares such terrible injury. There was no sign of the pilgrims who had once gathered there, and their clutter of baggage had been pushed aside to clear a space. There, behind a plank-and-trestle table, stood Hathaway, Fancy’s quartermaster, and a thick-necked man with unruly grey hair whom Hector supposed was his opposite number from Pearl. They were supervising the collection of valuables from the captured ship. Already on the deck beside them were several elephant’s teeth, rolled-up carpets, a heap of garments made from heavy silk or cloth of gold, and – laid out in a neat line – half a dozen strongboxes.

  A giant of a man emerged from a hatchway that led deeper in the ship’s hold. He was cradling in his arms a heavy chest very like the one that Hector had seen carried away from the merchant’s cabin.

  ‘Jezreel!’ Hector called out. The prize-fighter looked up and his face broke into a huge smile, then he turned and shouted down the hatch, ‘Jacques, come on up! There’s someone you need to see.’

  Hector hurried down the steps as Jacques, looking equally pleased, joined his friend.

  ‘Thought we had lost you,’ announced Jezreel, setting down the chest next to the others. ‘Where did you spring from?’

  ‘I’ll tell you later. Right now I need to find the cooks’ storeroom on this ship.’

  ‘It’s in the forecastle,’ said Jacques promptly. ‘I’ll take you there.’

  As he passed Hathaway, Hector glanced down at the table in front of the quartermaster. Here were being gathered the smaller, more portable items of high value that had been discovered: flashy ornate daggers with jewelled handles, pearl necklaces, gold chains, belts studded with gems, silver tableware, bangles, brooches, rings, and pendants.

  Jacques led Hector and Jezreel forward between decks, stooping beneath the beams. This part of the great ship was dark and airless, and once again he noticed the smell that reminded him of the inside of a church. Hundreds of pilgrims had taken shelter in this confined space, huddled together so tightly they could scarcely move. Most had been able to sit down on the deck, but others were forced to stand, awkwardly hunched over. All of them followed the progress of the three newcomers with frightened eyes. Hector saw only men, and wondered what had happened to their womenfolk, and the children he had seen earlier. He tried his best not to add to their unease as he and his two companions picked their way through the mass of bodies.

  ‘Jacques never fired a shot during the entire battle,’ Jezreel said, edging around the base of the foremast and at the same time trying not to step on an elderly pilgrim who had fallen into a doze, his head lolling forward on his chest. ‘Avery kept him in the galley, insisting that the men had regular meals during the fight.’

  ‘Shows what a wise captain he is,’ said the Frenchman over his shoulder. ‘Lets the lame brains do the fighting.’

  ‘Where’s Avery now?’ Hector asked.

  ‘Still aboard Fancy. Long Ben never left the ship. He directed the entire battle from the poop deck.’

  ‘So who did he put in charge of the boarding party?’ Hector asked.

  The barest flicker of a pause. ‘Hathaway.’

  Hector knew that his friend was holding something back. ‘How was he?’

  ‘He led from the front, first across the gap between the two ships, yelling like a madman, and cut down anyone who got in his way. You’d have thought he was going to seize the ship single-handed.’

  ‘And then?’ Hector remembered the cries of pain and the screams after the boarding party had taken the ship.

  Jezreel gave a short, bitter laugh. ‘About what you would expect . . . it made matters worse that there were women dressed up as musketeers. It made it seem that they were defeated and should pay the price.’

  ‘I heard.’

  ‘Several of the girls threw themselves overboard rather than submit.’

  Hector wanted to change the subject. But the big man had not finished. ‘Hathaway’s savage and dangerous. As long as he’s quartermaster, I’m not happy about being on Fancy. We should think about getting off the ship as soon as possible.’

  ‘Avery’s the captain. He’s the man in charge,’ Hector said.

  ‘I think Jezreel’s right,’ Jacques cut in. ‘Hathaway is gathering more and more cronies around him. Soon there’ll be enough for them to vote Avery out and Hathaway to replace him.’

  ‘You make Hathaway out to be a monster,’ Hector objected.

  Jacques made a grimace of distaste. ‘This morning he sent the rest of us off to search the ship for valuables while he organized a gang of his cronies to check up on all the passengers on the lower decks. Anyone who looked too wealthy to be down there has been hauled out on deck and brought before him. He asked where they had hidden their valuables. If they didn’t cooperate, they got beaten up.’

  That explained the terrified looks on the faces of the pilgrims, Hector thought to himself.

  ‘One man was brought out because the searchers had noticed his soft pudgy hands and ring marks on his fingers, but no rings.’

  Hector wondered if this unfortunate had been Manuj Dosi, and waited for Jacques to go on.

  ‘Hathaway asked where he had hidden his rings, but the fellow kept on insisting that he never wore rings. In that case, Hathaway told him, he didn’t need so many fingers. Hathaway pressed the man’s hand down onto the table, and used his cutlass to chop off his l
ittle finger.’

  They had reached the bows of the ship, where a low half-bulkhead divided off a storage area. In the near darkness Hector could make out rows of rice sacks, bundles of firewood and a dozen earthenware jars the size of beer kegs. There was also a pungent aroma of spices. He recognized clove and garlic. The others were exotic and unknown to him.

  ‘What are you looking for?’ Jezreel asked.

  ‘Fresh cooking oil.’

  Hector stepped over the divide and lifted the wooden lid to an earthenware jar. He dipped in his finger, and licked: coconut oil.

  ‘This will do. We need to find a small container.’

  ‘What’s it for?’

  ‘There’s a Portuguese artilleryman on the mid-deck aft. He’s very badly burned. I need to dress his wounds with something oily to prevent putrefaction and help them heal.’

  ‘This might do a better job,’ said Jacques. He had been poking around and was holding up a clay pot. ‘Butter.’

  ‘In this heat that’ll be rancid,’ said Jezreel.

  ‘You stick to your backsword fights, the kitchen’s my patch,’ Jacques told him. ‘Butter that’s simmered and skimmed will last for months if kept in the dark.’

  ‘Let’s not waste time with cookery lessons,’ said Hector sharply. ‘We’ll use the butter. Bring it along.’

  On the way back to Tavares, Hector tried to recall the contents of the medicine chest that had been his responsibility when he was loblolly boy. He could still picture the surgeon’s fine mahogany box, its interior divided into two dozen neat compartments. Inside the lid had been pasted a strip of paper listing the contents of each compartment, and how it should be used on its own or in conjunction with others. The surgeon’s ornate slanting writing and some of the Latin words had so impressed his patients. Ointment was Unguentum, of course, and there had been at least two for treating burns – unguentum aureum and unguentum nutritum. Hector racked his brains for what they had contained. As they emerged on the open deck by the heap of plunder, it came to him.