“This is going from bad to worse to horrible,” I groaned. There was a ring of truth to everything, and it had put me in a very dismal frame of mind, which I told him.
“Welcome to the West Indies,” he beamed. “In any case, cheer up, it’s a nice climate, very lush, and you’re ashore, bare feet in the sand and about to get a drink of cool, fresh water. One of the English buccaneers (as they pronounce the word) gives you an orange, and it is without question the most delicious thing you have ever eaten. You tell him some of your woes, and he tells you he’ll help you if you want to desert. So what’s it to be? Back to the king’s ship, and more of what you’ve just been through? Or casting your lot to the winds in a place where there are oranges and sweet water and friendly buccaneer chaps?”
I had no wish to revisit the ship he had described.
“The other English buccaneer sells the Marines some palm wine, and while they’re distracted, you slip away into the bushes, and follow your new mate up the forest trails and away from that ship forever. By the time your escape is noticed, you’re too far gone to chase. As you watch them raise anchor and sail off toward the Windward Passage, you eat another orange, and try a bit of your mate’s palm wine. I suppose I’d better have a last mug of your mother’s tea and honey. Maybe I’ll get a taste for it.”
“Why would the buccaneers help me?” I asked.
“Why?” His dark eyebrows shot up. “How should I know why? There aren’t any whys. Anyway, why wouldn’t they? Like you, many of them have deserted from ships, or jumped their indentures, fled the plantations, or religious wars, or are runaway slaves. At the very least, they’ve all deserted the world and its rules, and they’re free of them. They’re refugees, and now you are, too. Without whys.”
“Why aren’t there any whys?” I wanted to know. I felt it was a reasonable question, but as I asked it, he made a careless movement of his foot, winced, and became testy.
“Because any why answer is a lie, including this one. Now, mark what I’m saying, Jim lad, and let’s not have any distractions, because this is the beginning that I’m telling you about, the conception, the root of the whole Brotherhood of the Coast. Here’s where it started, on Tortuga, and Hispaniola, and on other islands where other bands of Europeans are making a living in little refugee communities with their own rules.”
“Making a living?”
“Quite. And in a very sporting way: hunting, living in forest camps, surrounded by all kinds of first-rate free food. Like your oranges. There are other wild fruits, vegetables, gourds, fish, crabs, land turtles, sea turtles (both delicious), eggs, pigeons, and of course thousands of the wild pigs you’re about to start hunting. Back in the previous century, the Spaniards left some pigs and cattle here, where they got on very well, bred prolifically, and their descendants make not just another food source for you, but an independent income as well. When properly prepared.”
“Prepared how?”
“First, you have to get a pig, meaning you have to learn to shoot the long-barrelled musket you’re loaned. The pigs are quick and elusive in the underbrush; you have to be a good shot. Your mates teach you marksmanship, and they’re the best teachers you could hope to find anywhere. You’re taught to wrap your legs so you can run through the undergrowth without getting them torn up. There are no poisonous snakes or insects on Tortuga, but you have to mind the flora. You shoot your first pig, then butcher it, cutting its flesh into thin strips that are smoked and dried in a dome-shaped hut called the boucan, until they are jerky. That word is an English corruption of the Spanish-American charqui, by the by. It makes an invaluable kind of provision, very useful not only to ships, but just about everybody before refrigerators came along, because it keeps indefinitely.
“So, after you’ve brought home the bacon, and processed it, you can sell a bundle of a hundred strips for six silver cobs, or pieces of eight. That’s good enough money to sustain you in your new life. It pays for your necessaries, and for a jolly old romp in town every few months. There you have women, rum, music, life, like cowboys in from the range, or sailors from a voyage. You spend your money in the little French port, contribute to its economic flow, and peaceably provide a valuable commodity. In fact, you are an exemplary person, except in the eyes of the Royal Navy, which you do not plan to revisit, and which holds no vote in your new community.
“You, however, do have a vote, for the first time in your life, as a citizen of the brotherhood. It’s the first democratic society in all the Americas, and maybe the first true democracy in the history of the world, when you consider that in Greece, with the alleged democracy inventors, you had to be a person of means in order to have a vote. The rules of the brotherhood have nothing to do with money and pedigree, what religion you are, or colour, or anything else. You’re all refugees. You have a fresh start; you’re truly on your own, altogether.”
“Sounds all right,” I commented.
“Quite. And your whole new world would be all right, except for the Spaniards. Remember, Spain claims everything in and around the Caribbean. She can’t begin to protect it all, but she can and does harass everybody she considers an interloper, which is anybody who is not Spanish. Spain gets her knickers in a twist over you and your mates, just your being, and from time to time she sends out parties of soldiers to find and kill you. Your band is wary, but after a night of drinking palm wine, you’re surprised by a war party of Spaniards who’ve landed on your island and been led to you by somebody or other. Before you know it, they’re among you. In the confusion, you escape into the forest, where you hear the screams of many of your new friends, your family, who are being put to death in various obnoxious ways.
“Now, like Drake, you conceive a visceral hatred for Spaniards. It is widely shared in your community. You escape the massacre to join another band, which welcomes you. All the brotherhood, English, French, Dutch, Flemings, blacks, Indians, the lot, is united against the Dons.
“Your chance comes when a Spanish brigantine drops anchor, and sends out a party of soldiers. You watch from behind the foliage. Off they march to somewhere where you are not and, in the dark of the night, you swarm aboard the brigantine from your canoes and overpower the crew. Now you and your mates are the new owners of a small, armed ship, and there are plenty among you who know how to handle it. And its guns. And out you go, raiding the Windward Passage, which is where much of the north–south traffic passes into or out of the Caribbean. It is the happiest of all hunting grounds, ever so much more lucrative than shooting pigs. Now you’re back at sea, but with far, far different circumstances than before, eh?
“Here you have a real charter of rights, to which the rules are cut. Here, the biggest crime is to steal from a shipmate, either directly or by concealing loot that rightfully should be divided according to due process. That’s conducted by the officers, who are elected. Here, your officers are made or unmade according to the vote of the crew, so those who endure are those who have commanded your confidence, and kept it. A vote can happen at any time except in action, and you get natural hierarchy.”
“And now we’re pirates?”
“Filibustiers is the word in French, and as soon as you lay hands on your ship, you sail her to Cayona, which is the one indifferently good port on Tortuga. It has a fort, and a French governor. He is an authority who can write you a letter of marque, or of reprisal, or at least some document to say you are working for his government, which you are, in a manner of speaking.”
“But Spain claims the island and can land soldiers on it?”
“Again, Spain claims everything, but the islands belong to whoever can take and hold them. Most of the islands change hands again and again. Tortuga has been repeatedly raided by the Spaniards, but the French have held onto it with the help of her filibustiers. That’s the quid pro quo. You get your piracy authorisation from the governor, plus a home port where you’re safe, and you help the place stay safe. In case it’s attacked, you and the rest of your brethren and their sh
ips are its defence. The governor has no real force of regular troops. You’re it. He’s been given a post where he’s expected to make profits for the government that appointed him, and after that for himself, but he’s given precious little to work with, except the authority to collect taxes from the plantation owners, and write authorisations to his buccaneer chaps. He has to make sure there are enough of you at all times to do the job. Aside from that, you’re on your own. Have you ever been on your own?” he enquired, with a pleasantness that had a hard edge to it. I shook my head.
“No. Neither have most folks. It’s a very groundless place to be. Very demanding, having to think for yourself instead of what people tell you to think. And out here, everybody gets a chance—you, your friends, the colonial governors, the lot. Even the Spaniards. Maybe especially the Spaniards. Just about everybody except for all the slaves and indentured Europeans who can’t escape the system.”
“But the English governors . . .”
“Were in exactly the same position as the French ones, or Dutch ones. With little or no support from home, they all had their own filibustiers, privateers, sea beggars, letters of marque, corsairs, what have you. The Dutch got hold of Curaçao, Aruba, some of the other islands in the Lesser Antilles; the Brits got two or three of the Leeward Islands, but primarily Jamaica. Everywhere it was the same: you overwhelmed some badly defended Spanish island, ran up your country’s colours, settled in, got comfortable, and . . . ten or twenty years later, suddenly here’s a powerful force of Spaniards out of nowhere to take over again. It was such a big free-for-all.”
“When was this?”
“The whole system lasted into the 1700s. The first of the boucaniers formed up around 1630 or so. But let’s put you in their next generation, say 1670, when you might have met Mr. Esquemeling. He was a Fleming who wrote a book about it. I’ll lend you a copy. In brief, he came to the colonies under indenture, a mistreated refugee like yourself, who joined the buccaneers. Arrrr.” He had again shifted his foot.
“Es, Esqu . . .”
“Alexander Olivier Esquemeling. He was an artist. That is to say, in his case, a barber, and dentist, and physician of sorts, for jobs that weren’t too complicated. Your Miss Titherington is going to ask you for a bibliography of the source material you’ve consulted, and Esquemeling should be at the top of your list. He arrived in Tortuga and was the first of the pirates to give an account of it. Your dentist is an angel, by comparison to Esquemeling. He used to spit on his hands before starting in on you. But he could do a workmanlike job of taking off your leg, if it came to that.” So saying, he tossed off the last of his tea, and started to gather up his pipe and tobacco.
I told him I was still confused about who was a pirate and who wasn’t. “By what you say, even the authorities were still pirates.”
“Quite.”
“Which makes the very word pirate meaningless.” I challenged him with his own logic.
“On the contrary. Look at it like this: Johnson’s book was called A General History of the Robberies and Murders of the Most Notorious Pirates, and it sold rather well with that title. But how popular would it be if it was The Robberies and Murders of the Most Notorious Authorities? Or Most Notorious Politicians? Nobody would bother to buy it, because everybody’s tired of hearing it. But pirates . . . uh.” He grunted, hoisting himself to his feet and hobbling off to bed. “Stay alert,” he said. I was left with unsettling dreams and dark images, as the storm rattled the windows of my room all night.
Nor was the weather any better in the morning, so I had to make it to school on foot, which I did with no sign of Grendel. My biggest challenge was dodging some iceballs thrown at me by the Moehner boys. Life was back to usual. Miss Titherington returned my essay with an A-minus. Her written comment read, “Very comprehensive, but you have failed to make the criminal case against pirates (presume this will follow in your Part 2), and I want to see some more source material. Where are you getting all of this history? Give your bibliography!”
Later, at recess, Jenny echoed the question. Over the holidays she had fruitlessly combed our rural library for references to Grace O’Malley, or Granuaile. However, Jenny was wearing the gold link she had been given, tied to a cord she wore around her neck. She had done a complete turnaround on the captain, who was now back on her list of possible avatars. As a direct result of pondering Granuaile’s story, Jenny had gone to her mother, as though to Queen Elizabeth, respectfully requesting an audience, “woman to woman,” even dressing for the occasion.
Perhaps caught off guard by this novel approach, her mother had heard Jenny’s case for more freedom, and at last granted it, so that Jenny was permitted to walk or bicycle to town and back “without armed guards,” as she put it. “Now I can come visit on my own, and I will, too, when your captain has any more women pirates to talk about.” I promised to keep her informed. She asked me if I had experienced any more dog trouble lately, and I said no, and about an hour later I found myself again running for my life from Grendel.
I was mostly home, right to the road behind the inn, and saw Grendel as I was crossing. I couldn’t have been in a worse place. In front of me was the whole length of the driveway to the inn, a hundred-yard dash where he’d catch me; behind me was no better. I ran for our gate, slowed by galoshes that felt suddenly huge. I knew I was going to hear him behind me any moment, and when I didn’t, I peered back over my shoulder. A truck had stopped at our entrance to have a conversation with somebody in a car, and Grendel had been slowed; he was slinking past them, still coming for me, but sneakily, not charging.
The truck started up and pulled away, its wheels churning slush; I was almost to the gate; I heard Grendel’s panting just as I hit the latch, spun through the door and slammed it in his face, safe by a couple of seconds.
“You seem distressed,” the captain observed, looking up from his macramé. I told him about what had just happened to me. “Quite.” He glanced at the clock. “And this is the time when you ordinarily arrive from school?” Grateful for his interest, I told him it was, and that it was my most dangerous moment, because whichever way I travelled home, here’s where the dog could ambush me. My only salvation had been that there were people around, and Grendel was too well trained to attack me under the eyes of witnesses.
“I meant,” he said, “I need to know when I can rely on your being here to build a fire. The universe has a mortal chill on it, and I’m consigned to tea and honey, and I’d be obliged if you’d tend the hearth.” He picked up his pennywhistle, played a quick, angry little tune, and put it down again. “I should be working on my poor little Merry,” he fretted, “but I can’t even get to her, through this weather.” He regarded me and sighed.
“I’ve decided I’ve had enough of this getting-older business, Jim lad. It’s been entertaining enough but, as of now, I’m going to get younger again. Since I’m blessed with that choice. And I’d drink a toast to that with ye, mate, but I don’t even have a cup of tea unless you bring it.” I did, then left him to his mumbles and his macramé. I felt no hurry to pursue the darknesses of his latest teachings, and he seemed in no hurry to resume. He did loan me the Esquemeling book.
Grendel was there again on the day following, except this time, by luck, I had gotten a ride down from school with Roderick Hirtle, who brought me right up to our gate. Just on the other side of it I was surprised to find the captain stumping around, enshrouded by his cloak, looking like a big black tent. “One needs to get out of doors for a bit,” he explained, asking me where I was in my reading of Esquemeling. I told him I was with the buccaneer Pierre Le Grande, who was ambushing Spanish ships in the Windward Passage.
“Aye, ambushing,” was his comment. “The trick’s to ambush the ambusher.” A gust of sleet hurried us both inside. On Friday, I found out what he meant, and in full measure.
Homeward bound, at the bottom of Princess Street, I reconnoitred the road from the shelter of a fence, and there was Grendel, again awaiting me. My own
best tactic was to crouch unseen, also waiting, for anything that would distract him. Cars and trucks went past, but none stopped. Grendel just sat, poised, panting steam in the wintry air, sniffing from time to time, but not detecting me. Just as I was considering returning to school and telephoning somebody for help, down the road came the highway department’s snowplough, and I darted right in front of it. If Grendel charged, I could jump up on the rig, which had to slow down for me. But Grendel did not, and I sprinted for home as the plough went on past.
Nearing the gate, I realised I was not going to make it this time. I would have been just clear if I didn’t have to open the catch, then go through and close the gate again, but I knew Grendel was too close for that. The tearing of his claws put him right on my heels. There was nothing to do but plunge for the gate anyway; it opened as though by a magic hand; I went through it at speed, noticing the captain as I flashed past him, which is when the whole scene was obscured by a boil of smoke accompanied by a powerful explosion. I kept running until realising I wasn’t being chased anymore. I turned and trotted back to where the captain was standing with his ancient blunderbuss smoking at his hip. Right inside the gate was what was left of Grendel, after catching a terrific blast. Around the corner of the inn, a window slid open.
“What was that?” came Mother’s voice.
“Backfire,” called the captain. “Must have been a truck.” He handed me a sack. “Dispose of the remains, put a rock with it, and sink it off the cliffs. Get this blood and gore sloshed away with some buckets of water; put the bits in the bag with the main corpse. Best look lively.” Regarding the odious job, I protested there was no reason for secrecy, because the dog had been shot while attacking me on our own property. I thought Klaus should have to come and clear the mess.
“Quite,” he nodded, “but then you’ve got an incident on your hands, and Klaus’s revenge as soon as he can think one up, and prob’ly the cops taking my dear old musketoon away from me. Now that Grendel’s served his purpose, best thing all around is for him to just vanish. So you tidy up while I dispose of this weapon.” Off he went with it under his cloak, trickling smoke like some infernal figure.
The Brotherhood of Pirates Page 13
