Peter Wicked

by Broos Campbell

  My mouth was still open. I sang out, “Four points to la’board.”

  “Four points to la’board, aye aye, zur.”

  I glanced along the deck and up aloft. “They hit anything?”

  “Nobody’s screaming, sir,” said Horne. “That’s always a good sign.”

  “Very well.”

  Pointing our bow north by west brought the wind onto our starboard beam, buying us a little speed. The spray had been close enough to drift aboard of us, but no more than that. The frigate was still a good half-mile away and wasn’t trying to hit us.

  I took a couple of turns up and down the deck. A Frenchman’s usual tactic was to fire high, to disable his enemy, and then attack or run, depending, while the Royal Navy fought the same way we did—shooting to kill and dismay. The frigate must’ve aimed at the cutter’s rigging, and the shot had either passed overhead without hitting anything vital or had passed astern of her. The latter was likely; the cutter must’ve cast off her sea anchor, for she was headreaching on us already.

  The frigate had to be French. I took another look at her, and my brain kept jibing between what experience told me and what my eyes were seeing. She sure looked like a king’s thirty-two. But the cutter looked British, too, and she was climbing hand-over-fist to windward.

  The frigate had come about to close the angle between herself and the cutter. The white ensign streamed from her mizzen peak, and the sturdy elegance of her lines said she was the British cruiser that she proclaimed herself to be. In fact, I could swear I knew her.

  I studied her some more, and then I had to laugh. I handed my glass to Horne. “Tell me what you see.”

  “Clytemnestra, sir. My, how that man gets around.”

  “Plot me a new course for Birds Island from our present position. Gundy, ’bout ship and dismiss the watch below.”

  I like to died from wanting to know why Captain Sir Horace Tinsdale was in deadly chase of a British cutter in the middle of nowhere, but there are some things in this world we ain’t privileged to know. Not till their proper time, anyway.

  FOURTEEN

  On the evening of the autumnal equinox, below a golden crescent moon drifting toward the blue horizon in the southwest, we worked Tomahawk down the Aves Bank toward Birds Island. I put double lookouts aloft and promised an extra tot of grog to the man who first sighted land; but the island was supposed to be so low that I didn’t guess I’d have any takers. True to the chart, however, the tallow plug in the end of the lead brought up mud on the western side of the bank, and then showed the indentations of rocky ground as the bank rose to its apex, with the piece of leather with a hole in it that marked ten fathoms just topping the swell before the leadsman hauled the line back in. A squeaking and squalling cloud of seabirds reeled overhead, a sign that the island was close; but with the last of the twilight suddenly gone, I judged it was time to work our way back up to windward and try again in the morning. And then a sudden flash of phosphorescence revealed the northeastern barrier reef in a fleeting crown of green fire.

  “Land ho, zur!” came the cry from aloft, followed closely by a shout from Eriksson and a surprising number of others. A dozen Tomahawks were clinging to the rigging with one hand and pointing with the other, and hooting like baboons. Any more of them up there and we’d like to keel over.

  “Gundy,” I called, “what’re you doing up there? You ain’t on watch.”

  “Just keeping a good lookout, me cabbun.”

  “Well, we all seen it at once, I guess, so come down here where you’ll be some use.” There was a sort of dissatisfied silence all around, so I added, “Which means we’ll all splice the mainbrace once we’re squared away,” and the mood brightened considerable. “And douse the lights, damn it.”

  “Douse the lights, damn it, aye aye, sir,” said Horne.

  Surf hissed on coral, shooting the sea with pale light as we eased down toward the low island. The chart had indicated an anchorage of three and a half fathoms off its southwestern tip.

  “Ahoy der deck,” called Eriksson from aloft. “Dere’s a light, sir.”

  “A ship’s lantern?”

  “No, sir, on der shore. Looks to be a fire, sure it do.”

  I tried not to breathe too deeply as we crept up on the land. The air stank of bird dung, and the Tomahawks gave voice to their disgust.

  “Silence!” I hissed.

  “Put a stopper in it,” Horne added.

  “Mr. Horne, d’you see the fire?”

  “Aye, sir. And another yonder. A little one, sir, to larboard.”

  The fire on the main island was low to the ground, where you’d expect to find a fire, with shadows moving across it as I watched through my glass—a cooking fire, maybe. Sparks rose into the night sky as someone tossed a chunk of wood onto the coals. The other fire, which looked to be burning on the southernmost of the two guardian islets west of the anchorage, was small and barely showing, like it was hooded or dying. It faded from sight as we nosed up into the natural harbor.

  “By the mark, three,” came a mutter from the leadsman. Then, “And a half, twain!”

  Fifteen feet of water where there should have been twenty-one. Still, it was plenty enough to float us.

  “Steady,” I said.

  “By the mark, twain!”

  Two fathoms—twelve feet. We drew eight-foot-ten forward and eleven foot aft. I took a lump of tallow forward and charged the lead. It came up coral sand. No sense in dropping the hook; it wouldn’t hold well in that bottom anyway, and we could kedge off the soft sand easy enough if we went aground. And it wouldn’t be any use getting into trouble we didn’t have to. We came to the wind with the warm stink pressing against us like a blanket in the dark. The current, split by the island, came endlessly back together with a steady sucking whisper.

  “Keep her so.”

  I went aloft but could see nothing in the dark anchorage. I climbed down again.

  “Let’s work our way around to windward of the island again.”

  With the wind coming across the island toward me, and the ground dropping away aft to bottomless black water, I could hold my position without fear as long as the wind stayed steady. But if Peter was holed up there to windward, he wouldn’t have to come down to Tomahawk and give battle in the morning. He could just dance away and leave us in his wake.

  But, drag my Aunt Fannie through a house afire if Horne wasn’t looking at me in the dark; I could feel it.

  “Yes, Mr. Horne?”

  “I don’t guess this here island is likely to haul its wind and escape, sir.”

  Uncertainty shot through me. “Are you being sarcastic, Mr. Horne?”

  “I don’t know what sarcastic is, sir. I mean no disrespect.”

  “Then what do you mean?”

  “It’d be a shame to work up around this here island in the dark just to lose it again by morning, sir.”

  “Go on.”

  “Well, sir, we’ll have to feel our way pretty far up to be sure not to run up on the reef during the night. And the island’s so low we might not be able to see it even with the sun up. We’d have to go around the lee side to make sure we don’t run aground, and without knowing the speed of the current and our speed over the bottom, who knows where we’d end—”

  “All right, all right. I see your point. Keep her thus, like I said.” The uncertainty still hung between us. It would grow if I wasn’t careful. I took a turn around the deck. And suddenly I laughed. “I wonder how long it’ll take to get used to the smell.”

  Sunup found us half a mile offshore. On either side and aft as far as I could see, the sea sloped away as pale blue as a summer sky. The shadows of little fish darted around the shadow of the beard of weed on our bottom. We took in all our square sails, ran out our guns, and eased upwind.

  A pink ruff of flamingos edged the island at the shoreline, and gray-capped noddies and sword-billed terns wheeled in the sky in the tens of thousands. Through my glass I could see a great cauldron sittin
g in a pile of ashes and charred log-ends among the dunes, with boxes, barrels, and a few sailcloth tents scattered around it. On the islet where a low fire had burned last night stood a wooden platform, and sitting on the platform was a pair of—

  “Carronades, sir,” said Horne.

  “Got ’em.” There was nobody around them, which was some mighty lax watch-keeping ashore and I was grateful for it. I looked aloft. “Mr. Peebles there, d’ye see anybody moving?”

  “No, sir.”

  I swept my glass across the dunes. Everything in sight—boxes, barrels, tents, guns—glistened with a white rime, and seemed to be getting more so as I watched, like it was raining bird shit over there.

  The anchorage held any number of blue angelfish and yellow-tailed snappers as we glided into it, but no trim little eight-gun sloop with a cross-shaped patch on her course. On the white sandy bottom lay a small anchor with a few fathoms of cable still attached to it, cut clean, as if its owner had left in a hurry.

  “Mr. Peebles! What d’ye see?”

  “Birds, sir.” From forty feet up, he could easily see over the top of the island. “Some more tents. A couple men sleeping.”

  “Sleeping?”

  “Yes, sir. Dead to the world—haven’t moved a hand or foot since I’ve been watching.”

  “Since you been watching? You mean to tell me you seen somebody and didn’t tell me about it?”

  “You asked if I saw anybody moving.”

  “Don’t be a danged idiot, Mr. Peebles. Just for that, you can stay where you are till I tell you otherwise.”

  Leaving him with the best view in the schooner wasn’t much of a punishment, but mastheading was a time-honored punishment for youngsters and at least it gave the appearance that I was doing something. I looked at the gun platform again.

  “You don’t see anybody watching, Mr. Peebles? Nobody walking around?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Very well. Mr. Horne, get the boat in the water and secure those carronades.” He already had his boat’s crew told off, half a dozen likely lads with weapons bristling in their belts. “See they keep them pistols at half-cock,” I said, “lest they blow their balls off.”

  The men laughed, and Horne allowed himself a smile. I kept throwing glances at the island despite the lookouts aloft and alow, but I couldn’t see any sign of the fellows we’d seen moving around the fire the night before. Then Peebles sang out shrill enough to shame a Sunday school choir:

  “Hey! There’s a boat putting off.”

  “Where away?”

  “Far end of the island, sir. They’re heaving it through the reef and having a hard time of it. They’re upset—no, they’re all right now. Now they’re heading away from us.”

  “What course?”

  “Dunno, sir. East?” He pointed. “They’re hoisting a sail.”

  Horne was already lowering away. The boat touched water and the crew cast off.

  “Mr. Horne,” I called, “I’m taking the schooner to go fetch that sail. You take them guns yonder. If anybody tries to stop you, arrest ’em. If they defy you, knock ’em down. If they shoot at you, shoot back.”

  “Aye aye, sir.”

  “Gundy, let her fall off. Take us around the lee side.”

  “There, sir!” called Peebles. “A lugs’l yawl!”

  As we came around south of the island, I saw the yawl with her odd, trapezoidal sails running free on the larboard tack to the southeast. She would cross us if she kept her course. Three white men were sailing her; there was something moving beneath their feet, and as we drew near I saw it was two things; and as we drew nearer still I saw the things weren’t things at all, but another white man and a black man. The scoundrels didn’t have a chance of escaping, but that didn’t stop them from trying. Twice they crossed our wake as we tried to cut them off, and once they crossed our hawse and near got themselves run under. A musket ball across their course didn’t stop them, and neither did another over their heads. Only when the Tomahawk grazed the boat’s side, and I shouted as we passed that the next time I would run them under, did they drop their lugsail. There was a commotion in the boat as we hove-to: two men in chains struggling as the other three tried to dump them overboard.

  O’Lynn was closest. I said, “Come with me,” and jumped over the rail.

  The three men in the boat were none too friendly. O’Lynn had thought to bring a belaying pin with him, though, and he entertained them with it while I grabbed the end of the chain and near about went overboard with it. I braced a boot against the side, hauling and straining, but each time I gained a few feet I had to let go with one hand to haul in the next few feet, and I lost what I had gained. Finally Gundy hopped down and gave me a tail, hanging on to what I’d hauled in while I reached down to grab a few more feet.

  Then suddenly it got lighter, as if someone was helping from below, and up came a white man and a black man, chained together, gasping. We grabbed them by their kerchiefs and laid them out in the bottom of the boat. It’s amazing how much seawater a man can hold, I thought, as the brine come a-spewing out of their gullets. The black man, who was missing his left leg, finally rolled over and looked at me accusingly through his one good eye. He had a ferocious squint on him, and the whiskers were black and silver across his cheeks and throat. His head was shaved close, but he would’ve been nearly bald regardless. A long scar ran from his forehead to his chin, passing over the empty eye socket on the starboard side.

  “Why, Doc,” I said. “Why ain’t you in the Breeze?”

  “You sho’ took yo’ time, Mr. Graves,” he said severely. “Good thing I got a peg-leg, or I mighta sunk. Time pass mighty slow when yo’ drownin’, you hear you me.”

  “But what are you doing here?”

  “Why, looking out for Mr. Wickett, sah.” He reached out his manacled hands for me to help him sit up. “He da troublest man I know.”

  “None of your gob, now, Doc. What’re you doing here?”

  “Dat’s a long story, suh, best told over a pint o’ grog wif dry clothes on.”

  We got the three would-be murderers into the Tomahawk and put their own irons on them as we made our way back to the island. O’Lynn stood over them with his belaying pin, just itching to pound them some more if they so much as spit. The white man that Doc had been shackled to was a little fellow, near about my size; without a word he held out his wrists for me to examine. His wrists were raw where the shackles had been.

  “Dey done me da same way,” said Doc, “an’ my ankle is some messed up, too, sah, if you cares to look.” He pointed at the three men who’d tried to teach him to swim. “These here son of a bitches was tryin’ to run away from dat hangnail and sell us fo’ slaves in Guadeloupe. We all woulda drownded fo’ sho’ if you hadn’t showed up when you did.”

  “Wait, wait, wait. You were running away from a hangnail?”

  “Mr. Agnell, sah. Ain’t no hangnail.”

  “All right, then, Agnell. Who is Agnell?”

  “He da debbil, sah. He da debbil in hisself. I done tole Mr. Wickett he too bad.”

  “You seen Peter Wickett?”

  “I sho’ did, sah, same as I done told you. He da most sorrowfullest man you ever laid eyes on, now, ’cause he think he lost. He even readin’ da Good Book, lookin’ fo’ answers. But I done tole him: I said, ‘God don’t need no Scripture. God don’t need no translatin’,’ I says to him. ‘An’ you don’t need to read no book to be washed in da blood ob da lamb. You just need to do good works and stop yo’ wickedness.’ I tole him, but I don’t guess he believe me, ’cause he off bein’ wickeder’n ever, now.” He shook his head.

  “Where’s he gone to? What’s he up to?”

  “I don’t know, sah. I don’t listen to dem white men talk.”

  I gave him my coldest stare. “I can hang you right now as a pirate, Doc.”

  He stopped grinning, but if he was scared he didn’t show it. “I follows orders just like I s’pose to, Mr. Graves. Mr. Wickett, he s
ay, ‘Go here,’ I goes dere, same as if he give any other order. Mr. Wickett, he say, ‘Stay here till I knows what to do wit’ you.’ And dat’s what I aimed to do, till dem white trash decide to sell me off or wo’se.”

  “You mean to say them three decided to sail a hundred miles upwind in an open boat just to sell a one-eyed, one-legged, cantankerous, shifty, flea-bit sea cook like you?”

  “Well . . .” He glanced at the three men sitting in irons on the fo’c’s’le. “Not just me. Dey’s also gonna sell dat half-pint Irishman I was chained to, I expect.”

  “I don’t think they meant to sell you, Doc. I think they meant to drown you so’s you wouldn’t tell me something.”

  “Dem three? Dem three couldn’t drown turds in a shithouse. No, sah, dey was gonna sell us befo’ da other British so-an’-sos was going to sell us.”

  “What other British?”

  “Dat’s what I’se tryin’ to tell you, sah. It was da English bastards in da Shearwater cutter was goin’ to sell us. Dem French sugar plantations is desperate for slaves, what wif da Royal Navy got all dey ships bottled up at Brest or someplace.”

  “They must be desperate to waste their money on you.”

  He looked insulted. “I can cook, sah. I’se better’n some no-count field nigger.”

  “Course you are, Doc. Course you are. But listen now, does this Shearwater got a black hull, with her name painted out?”

  “Name painted out? How you speck me to know dat, sah? You think I spends my time gaping around the stern? ‘Oh, excuse me, Mr. Englishman, does you mind if I walks around on yo’ quarterdeck fo’ a while?’ No, sah, it don’t work dat way fo’ a nigger.”

  I was itching to hear about this Shearwater cutter and what it had to do with Peter Wickett, but I didn’t guess Doc would tell me the truth unless he wanted to. If he really thought I was going to hang him, he’d just blab any old thing he guessed I wanted to hear. All in good time, then, so long as it was a short time.