Freebooter

by Tim Severin

  Mayes gave a grim smile. ‘I heard that Amity came off worst. Tew should have known better than to race off, leaving the rest of us in the lurch.’ Addressing Avery, he asked, ‘Do you vouch for him as a navigator?’

  ‘He’s a good one, and can read a Moorish chart,’ Avery answered.

  Mayes scratched at his heavy beard, thinking over his reply. Hector detected a gleam of interest in the deep-set eyes. ‘Then I’ll take him.’

  ‘I will be coming along as well. So too will my big friend here,’ said Jacques, jerking his thumb at Jezreel. ‘The three of us stick together.’

  Mayes looked the two men up and down, then shrugged. ‘As you wish. Collect your belongings and be quick about it. But don’t expect to be made welcome by my quartermaster or the rest of the ship’s company.’

  Hector crossed the deck with his friends to pick up their bedding rolls and possessions from Fancy. As he passed within an arm’s length of Avery, it seemed to him that the captain gave him a slight nod. Hector had no idea what private message Long Ben wished to convey and he dismissed it from his mind. His immediate concern was with the captain of Pearl. He sensed that Mayes’ reason for taking him aboard Pearl had little to do with his skill with maps. It was something that Mayes had just heard or seen and everyone else missed. Whatever it was, he was sure that as soon as the captain of Pearl had no further use for him, Mayes would get rid of him and his friends without a qualm.

  TWELVE

  The division of the plunder had taken up the entire afternoon, and now the sun was low on the horizon. Clutching their belongings, Hector and his two friends climbed down the rope ladder and stepped aboard Pearl. Mayes ignored them. He was stalking up and down the deck, bawling orders to his men to cast off the grappling lines. He showed no sign that he had just lost his share of a great fortune though his crew were sullen and bitter. A slovenly lot, they grumbled and cast black looks at the three new arrivals, as well as shouting obscenities back at the men from Fancy who lined Ganj-i-Sawa’i’s side, jeering. One of Mayes’ men, a shambling loutish fellow, was slow in obeying his captain’s command. Mayes marched over, grabbed the man by the front of his shirt and flung him violently against the gunwale.

  Hector took in his new surroundings. It was evident that Pearl would have been no match for Fancy if it had come to a fight. Much smaller than Avery’s formidable ship of war, she had all the appearance of a workaday merchant vessel now used for piracy. He counted only sixteen small cannon and found it difficult to imagine how her crew ever expected to overwhelm any prey that put up a decent resistance.

  Jacques interrupted his thoughts. ‘You haven’t yet told Jezreel and me what happened after you went off with Tew to pilot Amity through the reefs, nor about that Portuguese officer we treated for his burns.’

  Hector related all that had happened to him from the moment he had been knocked overboard from Amity until his decision to follow up on Tavares’s suggestion and take service with the Great Mogul.

  ‘Of course, everything changed when Avery attacked Ganj-i-Sawa’i,’ he said. ‘And now, because of me, all three of us are back where we were more than a year ago in St Mary’s when we decided to join up under Avery. Except we are on a vessel with less than half Fancy’s armament and a captain who is a bully . . . and you two have walked away from your share of plunder.’

  ‘Hathaway would never have allowed Jezreel and me to have our proper shares,’ Jacques assured him. ‘Getting rid of the two of us meant more for everyone else. Most of Fancy’s crew will be glad to have seen the back of us.’

  Jezreel tilted his head back to look up at the side of Ganj-i-Sawa’i still towering over them. ‘I’ve a feeling that Long Ben may have overstepped the mark by pirating that ship. If she’s as rich a prize as she seems, the authorities will come after him in earnest, and it won’t be difficult to trace his crew. With so much money to spend, they’ll soon draw attention to themselves.’ He turned to glance towards Mayes, who had taken up his stance beside the helm and was glowering down the length of the ship at the grudging efforts of his men. ‘Maybe entering the service of the Great Mogul would be a good option for all three of us . . . if somehow we can get clear of this scruffy lot.’

  ‘They’ll tip us overboard given half a chance, especially that crook Gibson,’ Jacques put in.

  Jezreel grinned and clapped Hector on the shoulder. ‘Don’t look so down in the mouth, Hector. By the look of you, a rest would do you good. Things will sort themselves in the morning. We’ll stay just where we are for the moment and take it in turns to keep watch.’

  With barely enough wind for Pearl to get underway, the gap between the ships was widening slowly. Hector spread his bedding roll on the deck boards and lay down, but fierce pangs of hunger kept him from falling asleep. He could not banish from his mind the sight of Tavares’ terrible burns and he hoped that the drug offered by the kindly merchant was dulling the pain. He was reasonably confident that the salve he had concocted would prevent infection. If ‘Exceeding Treasure’ continued on to her planned destination as soon as Avery let her go, there was a chance that the artilleryman would survive to reach his family home in Surat. Hector found himself wondering whether the Great Mogul paid pensions to officers in his service if they were badly hurt. When he eventually nodded off, he was still waiting for the stars to come out and tell him on which course Mayes was taking Pearl. He needed a clue as to what the hardened captain planned to do next.

  ✻

  He awoke with a start. Dawn was just breaking, and Jezreel and Jacques had let him sleep through the night. His two friends were leaning on the ship’s rail close by, and gazing out over a calm sea.

  ‘Going to be another fine day,’ observed Jezreel, glancing back over his shoulder.

  ‘You should have woken me when it was my turn to go on watch,’ Hector muttered as he got to his feet. He tried not to sound crotchety, but there was no need for his friends to mollycoddle him.

  ‘No point. Everything was quiet and we’ve been heading on the same course all night: north-east,’ Jezreel assured him.

  Hector looked around the horizon. There was not another vessel in sight, and Pearl was under plain sail, easing forward over a gentle swell. Only the helmsman and a couple of deck hands were awake to mind the ship. The rest of her company lay scattered around the deck, still fast asleep.

  ‘Time we got ourselves something to eat,’ Jezreel suggested. The three of them made their way to Pearl’s galley where both the ship’s cooks were still snoring beside the hearth. They quietly helped themselves to stale bread, a dipper of water and some dried fish.

  They returned to their place, carrying their food and ignoring hostile glances from those of Pearl’s crew who were just beginning to wake up.

  ‘Captain’s up and about,’ muttered Jacques. Mayes had emerged from the cabin under the low stern deck and was heading in their direction. In the dawn light his heavy tread and hulking manner only added to his forbidding appearance.

  ‘Lynch, come with me,’ he rasped. He turned and began making his way towards the helm, kicking at sleeping figures and telling them to get up.

  Hector followed him to the helm where Mayes began to clang the ship’s bell as loudly as he could, a jarring, insistent rhythm. Pearl’s surly company responded sluggishly. Grumbling, they roused themselves and assembled, bleary eyed, scratching themselves, hawking and spitting. Hector decided he had seldom seen a less attractive group. They were very near to mutiny, and he understood what lay behind Mayes’ bullying manner: without the threat of physical violence, he risked losing control of his crew.

  Mayes’ sour gaze swept over his men. ‘Long Ben is not as clever as he likes to think,’ he announced. His harsh, gruff voice carried well.

  ‘How’s that?’ came back an unhappy shout. ‘He and his men have run off with our rightful prize.’

  ‘Pearl’s not strong enough to take on Fancy and get it back,’ called a man with a face heavily pitted with the smallpox scars. ‘
We’d be slaughtered.’

  ‘I’m not talking about getting even with those bastards on Fancy, however much I’d like to,’ Mayes retorted. ‘Instead we’re going after the Moors’ ship a second time.’

  ‘But we stripped their ship bare. Nothing left.’ Quartermaster Gibson standing in the front rank raised the objection.

  Mayes treated the quartermaster to a withering glare, then looked out over the crowd. ‘Didn’t anyone notice something very unusual about that vessel?’

  ‘Only that the musketeers had tits!’ came a voice. There was a smatter of feeble laughter.

  Mayes did not join in. He scowled at his men. ‘What about the great big yellow ensign flying at the stern? I don’t suppose you remember what it looked like?’

  There was silence. His audience had no idea why the flag was of such interest to their captain.

  Mayes beckoned to the helmsman. ‘I need one of those coins that Gibson gave you.’

  The man pulled out his shirt tail and unknotted the cloth where he had stowed his meagre plunder. He gave a coin to Mayes who handed it on to Hector.

  ‘Tell the company what is written on it,’ he ordered.

  Hector inspected the coin. It was silver money, newly minted, the inscriptions barely worn, easy to read. ‘It is stamped with the place and year where it was minted.’

  ‘And on the other side?’ Mayes prompted. ‘Speak up so all can hear.’

  Hector turned the coin over and read out in a loud voice, ‘The blessed coin of Muhammad Aurangzeb Bahadur Alamgir Badshah Ghazi.’ He looked up at Mayes. ‘That must be how the Great Mogul styles himself.’

  Mayes plucked the coin from his fingers and held it up to show the crowd. ‘And some of the marks on the coin – that foreign writing – are found again on this.’ With his other hand he tugged from his pocket a length of yellow silk and held it up. It was one of the banners that had fluttered in the rigging of Ganj-i-Sawa’i. ‘What do you think it signifies?’

  His gaze swept the crowd. He was met with blank looks. Some men frowned as they tried to puzzle out their captain’s meaning. Others looked away, bored.

  Mayes answered his own question. ‘No ordinary merchant ship carries flags and banners written with the titles of the Great Mogul himself.’ He jerked his head towards Hector. ‘And I’ve heard this man say there was a royal officer aboard.’

  He lowered his arms, then spoke again, his voice hard and assertive. ‘That was a royal ship, and those musketeers were there as guards. You don’t hire musketeers in smart yellow uniforms to stand over merchandise. Their job is to escort people of importance. So who were they guarding? My guess is that they were guarding members of the Great Mogul’s own family.’

  He paused a moment, waiting for the slowest of his listeners to catch up with what he was saying. Then he announced flatly, ‘I intend to turn Pearl around and go back to sniff over that floating fairground. Somewhere aboard that ship there’s a person or persons who will fetch a royal ransom, and I intend that we share it!’

  His words were followed by several moments of silence as his audience thought about his proposal.

  ‘How do we find the right person?’ demanded someone from the back of the crowd.

  Mayes allowed himself a dangerous grin. He draped a burly arm across Hector’s shoulders and drew him close. Hector could smell the rank sweat on the captain’s shirt. ‘This man has a friend among the Moors. I’m sure that together they can identify for us the person we are seeking.’

  Hector’s stomach dropped. He had underestimated Mayes. Behind the scowling brutish exterior was a cunning brain, and a shrewd observer. Mayes was sharp enough to have noted the identical pattern of script on the coins and the flags, and he was ruthless. He was prepared to try extorting a ransom from the Great Mogul himself. Hector shivered at the risks involved. Robbery at sea was one thing, but to be involved in planned kidnap and ransom was quite another.

  A murmur of excitement spread through Mayes’s audience as the ship’s company savoured the possible change in their fortunes. As each man decided he was pleased with their captain’s plan, his approval turned in a grin of hungry anticipation. All disappointment forgotten, Pearl’s crew dispersed to tend the sheets and braces and reverse the ship on to her new course, heading back towards her prey.

  Hector was left where he stood, filled with a sense of foreboding. He was trapped, so too were his friends. Mayes would show no mercy if he refused to take part in the captain’s dangerously reckless scheme, and Pearl’s crew would gladly follow his orders if he decided to dispense with the three of them. And that still left Tavares: Hector dreaded to think what methods the captain would use on the badly wounded artilleryman to force him to identify the royal passenger aboard Ganj-i-Sawa’i.

  ✻

  Three days later, at daybreak, Pearl’s lookout called down from the masthead that he had the Mogul’s vessel in sight, and by noon Pearl was within cannon range. Mayes fired a gun, aiming wide, and the great ship meekly dropped her sail and hove to. The once-proud ‘Exceeding Treasure’ was a sad, bedraggled spectacle. Battered and half-crippled, she still lacked a mizzen sail, and her mainsail was tattered and full of shot holes. All the jaunty flags and pennants were gone. The only signs of life were a handful of the native sailors securing the lowered mainsail, and a small group on the topmost deck.

  ‘Hurry up, Lynch! Time to make yourself useful,’ Mayes called to Hector. Pearl was putting a boat into the water and her captain was ready to be rowed across. With him were half a dozen freebooters armed with pistols and cutlasses.

  As the oarsmen ferried the boarding party towards Ganj-i-Sawa’i’s cliff-like side, Hector recalled being hauled up it like a gasping fish, then the curious stares of his rescuers as they looked down at him on all fours on the deck. This time as he stepped out on the identical spot, he could almost smell the fear. The same brown-skinned sailors were waiting, but their thin features were drawn and strained, their eyes ringed in shadow. The crowd of pilgrim passengers that once thronged that part of the ship had disappeared, leaving behind their untidy piles of baggage. He caught glimpses of frightened faces peering out from the dark recesses of half-closed hatches. There was an ominous quiet as if every living soul was holding his breath, waiting for the worst.

  Mayes led the way as if he owned the ship. He mounted the companionways, two steps at a time, to where nakhoda Ibrahim stood, his face a mask of resignation.

  ‘What do your people want now?’ the old man asked, treating Hector to a cold look full of disdain.

  Over the nakhoda’s shoulder, Hector could see the Surati merchants standing in a terrified cluster. Manuj Dosi was among them, his hand heavily bandaged. He was glaring at Hector with unconcealed loathing.

  ‘Lynch, tell him that we’ve come to collect his royal passengers,’ Mayes prompted.

  Hector translated the request and Ibrahim’s face set like stone. ‘I don’t know what you are talking about,’ he answered.

  ‘No need to translate that reply,’ Mayes growled. ‘We’ll find what we want for ourselves.’ He turned to his men and told them to search the ship. ‘Look for anyone who seems out of place, a pearl among swine.’ He gave a coarse laugh.

  ‘May I go to check on my friend Tavares?’ Hector asked.

  ‘Of course.’ Mayes was expansive. ‘We’ll call on your help when we need it.’

  Hector went down to the deck where he had been locked in the cupboard. As he had requested, someone had moved Tavares into one of the cabins that the Turkish girls had occupied. Tavares was lying on a mattress in one corner, propped up with cushions at his back, legs outstretched. His head was still swathed in white silk bandages, but his eyes were visible. They watched Hector approach and squat down beside him.

  ‘I hadn’t expected to see you again, at least not until the Mogul’s court,’ Tavares murmured. His voice was little more than a breathy whisper through the slit left for his mouth.

  ‘I’m with a boarding party from one of t
he freebooter vessels. They’re searching for members of the Great Mogul’s family,’ Hector told him, keeping his voice low. ‘The intention is to hold them to ransom. These men are cruel and ruthless, so please cooperate.’

  ‘I cannot.’ The eyes blinked.

  Hector recalled the artilleryman’s fierce loyalty to his hire. ‘I’ll do what I can to keep them away from you,’ he said, ‘but if they do come to question you, please re-consider.’

  The grotesque white sphere of a head made a small movement from side to side. Then, with an effort that must have caused him great pain, Tavares reached out and touched Hector on the knee. ‘We’ll find a way to protect the old woman. For my sake, and perhaps for your own.’ Then his hand dropped away.

  Hector had only just got back on his feet when he heard voices in the corridor outside. A moment later Mayes walked in followed by the men he had sent to search the ship.

  ‘Dead easy,’ one of the sailors gloated. He stood aside to allow his companions to bring forward three women. ‘Found this lot among the pilgrims in the main hold. Everyone else was packed like herrings in a barrel. But these had their own space. Seems it’s disrespectful for the common herd to come too close. They had draped themselves with sacking to hide their clothes.’

  He pushed forward the two taller women. Both were heavily veiled. One wore a full-length silk robe dyed a deep yellow and embroidered with patterns of tiny flowers in silver thread. The other was dressed more simply in a gown of plain ivory-coloured cotton. They were the same women he had seen leaving the royal cabin during the sea battle with Avery’s Fancy, attendants for the Great Mogul’s sister.

  ‘Couldn’t shake off this old hag, though. She’s a right pain in the arse,’ the sailor added. The third woman in the group was Aurangzeb’s sister. She was dressed in the simple clothes of a pilgrim, a dark shawl partially covering her features. Her grey hair was scraped back, emphasizing the sharp nose and tight mouth, and her expression managed to be both imperious and indignant. When Hector caught her eye, she gave him a brittle glance that reminded him of a hawk about to launch itself on its quarry.