“Then let’s go,” I said, starting off, but he stopped me short with his hand on my collar.
“No, no, me cabbun. Beg your pardon for pullin’ on ’ee, zur, but what art us to do on our own? I’m werry to the bone, and us don’t even know the way.”
“But it’ll take days to get the Tomahawk around there.”
He laughed gently. “Don’t be so grainy as to think us can taak they alone, me ’an’some. ’Ee bist a boy and I bin an ould maan.”
I was about to snap that he was half right, but I stopped myself. I poked my head out from the stern of the dray. “Looks like there’s a riot going on down at the Drie Lus, but it’s calm as clams between here and the waterfront. Let’s steal us a skiff and get back aboard the schooner.”
“Dos’t mean ‘borrow’ a skiff, zur?”
“Why, yes, ain’t that what I said?”
“Art learnin’, me luvver. My faith in ’ee grows by the minute.”
The bay was a lovely bay, with water the color of my coat when it was new, and palms swaying in the breeze along the shore, and a sandy beach as bright and pure as the finest sugar. The way I’d figured it, Peter’d had two choices: fight the northeasterly wind and the Atlantic swell all along the line of the Virgins before working his way south again through the cays around Anegada, or else drop down the wind to Hispaniola, Cuba, the Gulf of Mexico—anywhere in a wide arc from Bonaire to the Bahamas. That was the easy way, and that’s what I would’ve done; but if that’s what he done, I’d missed him. The bay was empty.
“Magen’s Bay, zur,” Gundy was saying, “where Zur Fraancis Draake whiled away the time between plunders. A West Country man and a vair bet ’ee was a brother in the coastin’ trade, like all of we a-times . . .”
“A brother!” I slapped Gundy on the shoulder and laughed. “You are a wonder to me, Gundy. Mr. Horne, there! Let’s bear up for Guana. I got a brother there.”
Assembly Pleasance’s head was like a boulder in the sea, with his bald dome being the top of the boulder, and his beard and the long curls that tumbled from the nape of his neck being the fringe of weed that surrounds it. We sat drinking under-sweetened chocolate on the veranda of his rambling, airy house, which sat between two peaks and faced north toward the Atlantic. He wasn’t a brother but a Brother, whose grandfather had established a colony of the Pacific Brotherhood on Guana Island some fifty years before. They’d lapsed into celibacy for some reason, which made recruitment hard, and eventually they’d died out; Brother Assembly was the last congregant and sole heir. He knew Phillip well, by bills of lading at least. He also knew that Phillip was overextended and having trouble getting insured.
“He is in danger of disownment from the Brotherhood,” Assembly said, “should he lose another hull.” He said it with complacent disinterest, as if commenting on the weather. “It helps him not that he has a warmonger for a brother,” he added. “However, I am situated in such a place as to observe commerce in action rather than seeing only its happy profitability. It upsets Providence none at all should a friendly man-of-war be sailing nearby when pirates heave into view.”
“Have you seen anything of an American pirate in a Bermuda sloop?”
“Probably. The Indies are full of Americans in Bermuda sloops.”
“This’d be a tall man, with a recent scar on his cheek and a port-wine stain on his forehead. Might be calling himself Mèche and pretending to be French.”
“French? Not with that accent. Maybe Canadian. I bought a load of silk from him in Magen’s Bay these few days ago.”
“That’s a bad business, dealing with pirates.”
He sipped his chocolate with a sort of triumphant distaste, like he was taking medicine. “I have already traded the silk for sugar. And thou hast no jurisdiction here, regardless.”
I went to the railing and looked out over the sea. It had been fussing earlier in the day, but now it lay greasy and hushed. “You got you a tremendous prospect from up here, Brother Assembly.”
“Aye. Two evenings hence, for instance, I noted thy schooner passing westward. I also saw a cutter at the same time, a low and black-hulled cutter, British from the look of her, beating eastward beyond Vandyke’s. She kept the island betwixt herself and thee, and sailed on into yon flat ugly yellow clouds.” He nodded to the east.
I got a crawly feeling between my shoulders, like I’d been hunting a panther and discovered it had been hunting me. “Well then,” I said, “I guess I’d best be shoving off.”
“Tomorrow is the first of October. There have been no hurricanes yet this season worth mentioning, but a noteworthy one approaches now, thou mustn’t doubt. Do not cling too tightly to ephemeral notions and worldly things, Brother, lest thou lose what thou most values.” He whistled an old Shaker hymn that was popular among the Brethren:
’Tis a gift to be simple,
’Tis a gift to be free,
’Tis a gift to come down
Where we ought to be . . .
I knocked on the railing, annoyed with myself for my superstitiousness but angrier with Assembly for baiting me. “Of all the infernal meanness,” I said. “Don’t whistle for a wind in hurricane season!”
“Oh, as for that,” he said, the corners of his naked lip turning up just a little bit, “God watches out for sailors and the wicked, is’t not what sailors say? And the wicked, too, I doubt not.”
I picked up my hat. “Good day to you, Brother Assembly. I’m obliged for the scuttlebutt.”
“Thou leavest already? As thou wilt.” He raised a hand. “But one thing more—that same cutter was at Charlotte Amalie. She had slaves aboard of her, but human chattels is one thing that cannot be bought or sold there, not openly. She was to meet ‘the turtles at the hat,’ or she was the turtle who would wear a hat, or something like it. Her people were very droll about it. Kept putting their dirty fingers beside their great red snouts when they said it, before dumping them back into their rum. Said it so often that even the dullest intemperant in Saint Thomas could have divined the answer. Dost glean anything by it?”
“Was the cutter called Shearwater?”
“She was called nothing that I know of. The name had been blacked off the transom.”
I consulted the chart in my head. “Much obliged to you again, Brother,” I said. “I’ll mention your kindness next time I’m at Baltimore meeting.”
“I thank thee not, Brother.” He set his mug aside and dabbed his lips on a plain cotton wipe. “I would not be associated with thy name. But thou mayest shelter here from the storm.”
“Thank’ee, but I mean to catch that slaver.”
“Is running slaves illegal now?”
“No. But they’re murderers too. I mean to do ’em a hurt.”
“Will that stop them from having murdered?”
“No, hang it. But they might know where to find a man I’m looking for.”
“Why dost thou seek him?”
“I aim to save him from temptation.”
“He must do that for himself. Thou wouldst best run for shelter with that little schooner of thine whilst thou mayest. The breath of God is soon upon us.”
We worked Tomahawk upwind through an ugly, tossing sea. I called a council of war with Peebles, Horne, and Gundy over dinner in my cabin. Dinner was cut-and-come-again of cold beans and cornbread with molasses, which I thought was bully fare, having grown up on it, but Peebles looked like his stomach ailed him.
Gundy waved his fork at him. “What ’ee need, zur, is a piece of fulsome pork to sit on your dinner and hold ’un down.”
“But it’s a banyan day,” said Peebles, white-faced. “No meat today.” He put two fingers to his lips. His shoulders heaved, and his cheeks puffed out.
“There’s a bucket abaft your chair, sir,” said Horne.
Peebles shook his head no, but I edged my plate out of range anyway.
“Now, like I was saying,” I cut in, “I want to figure out what Harrison was on about.” I looked at my personal lo
g, which was open on the table between us. “He mentioned a freebooter’s treasure, which I’m guessing has something to do with pirates.”
“And he said, ‘That’s the point’ afterward, sir,” said Horne. “I remember he stressed that word: ‘Freebooter’s treasure, that’s the point.’”
“Treasure’s always the point with such as him,” said Gundy.
“Yes, but he was so close to dying, he was choosing his words tarnation careful. I don’t think he was just being cranky.”
“Point,” said Horne. “Indicate, index, finger, fingertip, arrow . . .”
“Point of a compass, the reason why—neaps and nattlings,” said Gundy, looking at Doc, who’d just come in with the rest of yesterday’s pudding.
Horne looked cross. “What are neaps and nattlings?”
“Turnips and pig guts, of course, Mr. Horne. ’Ee bake ’un in a pie.”
“What’s that got to do with anything?”
“I’m wanting belly-tember—I’m leary with hunger!”
“Hunger? Hmmph,” said Doc, plocking the platter onto the table. “Man get better’n some, an’ da man what get da least complain da least.”
“Not the point,” said Peebles, sitting upright and with color coming into his face. “But a point!”
We all looked at him. “What?” I said, it being the first thing that come to mind.
“Freebooter’s Point,” said Peebles. “He meant a cape, a peninsula—”
“Freebooter’s Point,” said Horne. “Treasure Point—”
“Anegada got both,” said Doc.
“And Sombrero Island—” I started.
“Hat Island,” said Doc. “Dat’s about sebben leagues east of Anegada, or I’m my Auntie Greselda come back to life.” He clomped out.
The English renegades confirmed all, once I’d made them a certain swear. I made sure of my wording.
“That’s a promise I’m holding you to,” said Manson.
“On my honor as a gentleman, I promise I won’t turn you over to the Royal Navy,” I repeated.
“Nor to any other,” said Morris.
“Nor to any other. I swear it.”
Morris grinned at Manson. “Let him club-haul his way out o’ that one.”
Tomahawk behaved with her customary sweetness in Anegada’s meager shelter—shelter from the seas, not the wind, it being an uncommonly flat island—but as we rounded the long reef that reached to the southeast, she took the wild Atlantic rollers on her port bow and didn’t like it. We braced up and settled in for the ride.
“Mr. Horne,” I said, “keep them two islands in sight—I don’t have to remind you of the dangers of a lee shore.”
“That’s true, sir,” he said cheerfully.
I scowled. “Call me immediately if the wind shifts.”
“Aye aye, sir.” He laughed outright, and then so did I. The schooner was rocking and bucking like a mule with a briar up its funnel, but the groaning of her timbers and the creaking of her rigging was settling down to a steady chorus. The sun shone through the spray, and sun and wind and spray all felt good on my face. But I had business below.
I found our white-haired sailmaker working with a palm and needle in the light of a purser’s glim, which is to say near dark. His eyelids were constantly puffy, and he peered at me like a mole in a hole.
“Yancy,” I said, “do we have any black cloth?”
“Yes, sir. The men make going-ashore kerchiefs from it.”
“I need you to make me an ensign.”
“Well . . .” He looked at me over his little round spectacles. “It is silk after all, sir.”
With no purser aboard, each petty officer was assured of his own little fiefdom of graft, releasing the materials entrusted to him at a small but reliable profit. If I pressed him, he might have difficulty locating the desired material, which would result in bad feelings on both sides.
“A little ’un, then,” I said. “I’ll pay whatever’s fair.”
“I think I can find enough for a little one, sir. Maybe even bigger than little.”
“I’m glad to hear it. Now, here’s what I want you to do.” I handed him a design I had sketched on a piece of paper.
A large, low, black-hulled man-of-war cutter sat in the darkening east, hove-to with whitecaps running past her hull. At her peak she flew the Blue Peter, a white rectangle on a blue field. She looked to be the same cutter that had run from the Clytemnestra.
We’d struck our topgallant masts and the fore-topmast, and slung a painted canvas screen across the open rail where the three-pounders hunched; that and our gaudy blue and yellow should make us look like something entirely other than what they’d seen not so many days before. I hoped.
I looked at Gundy, standing at the conn with his petticoat trousers snapping like Mother Hubbard’s laundry in the breeze, and O’Lynn and Eriksson double-manning the tiller.
“Are you sure you’re well with this rig?”
Gundy took the tiller in his own hands. He let it press against his thigh while he stared up at the new leg-of-mutton topsail on the main. He pushed her head off the wind, but she came right up again.
He grinned. “She’s honey-sweet no matter what ’ee does to ’er, zur.”
I looked down at Jakes, sitting spraddle-legged in the lee of the rail. His ankles sported a nice pair of darbies, with an iron bar spreading his legs apart.
I went over to him. “That the Shearwater?”
He squinted through a gap in the hammock netting. “Aye.”
“Put us on the sta’board tack, Gundy. Let’s see how close we can get to her. And Mr. Horne, ready that signal.”
When we had thrashed to within a mile, fighting the wind and waves all the way, the cutter fired four guns to windward.
Rise and fall the Spanish Main, Harrison had said.
“Hoist away.” The red and yellow ensign of Spain rose to where our commission pendant should have been. I counted slowly to sixty. “Take it in again.”
A red flag of mutiny adorned with a skull and crossbones rose to Shearwater’s peak.
“Show ’em our colors.”
Peebles had already bent our temporary ensign on, and I watched it rise: a black banner with three white tombstones on it. Captain Graves was an excellent name for a pirate, and it would be a shame to have to change it.
I calculated I knew how a black widow’s husband must feel as we crawled upwind toward the cutter’s waiting guns. Assuming I was right in believing she carried four-pounders, her throw-weight of twenty-eight pounds a side was exactly seven pounds more than what Tomahawk could muster—and she had seven chances to hit compared with our four, and twelve pounds of our broadside was taken up by our short-range carronade. And I had no way of knowing exactly how many men she carried, but it was a good bet she outnumbered us by two to one.
We closed to within a few hundred yards, trying to get to windward or at least abreast of her, but she surged up to cut us off. A squat man in a monkey jacket called across from her quarterdeck, “Come into my lee! Damn your impudence.”
“That’s Mr. Agnell,” said Jakes. He shrank down, even though he was out of sight behind the bulwark.
I waved my hat gaily. Horne and Peebles and I had removed our uniform coats and gaudied ourselves up with ribbons and lace that had mysteriously turned up among the men after we’d been at Birds Island, and I reckon we made a sight. Having decided to be French as well as a pirate, I waved my hankie at the cutter and called, “’Allo, ’allo, Mistair Englishman!”
Before anyone could laugh, I muttered, “Ready about. Stations for stays. I’ll stop the grog of the first man who talks.”
The wind sent the stench of sweat and excrement roiling down upon us as we came into the cutter’s lee, but, barring a retch or two, the sail-handlers ran to their positions with their yaps shut. Gundy ran the Tomahawk through the tossing water, with the sails just on the edge of shivering but no closer.
“Ready . . . ready . . . ease down yo
ur helm.” We eased off the jib sheets and hauled the booms amidships. I glanced aloft; I felt the wind on my cheek; I glanced at Gundy. “Helm’s alee.” I caught the cutter out of the corner of my eye, closer than I liked, and I sang out the command in French for their benefit, “Adieu-va! Envoyez!” as Gundy swung the bow neatly through the eye of the wind. “Let go,” I added in a lower voice. “Of all, haul.” It was near about doing me a hurt not to bellow the commands, but the Tomahawks knew how to sail her, and we skipped along on the new tack as pretty as a Sunday bonnet on a summer brook. A summer brook with a thunderstorm brewing, I thought as the image come to me—the clouds were low overhead and the sea churned like a millrace.
I could get me a good look at the cutter now. I could see the small smokes rising from her gunner’s linstocks, and a knot of petty officers staring at us from her quarterdeck. I didn’t see any commissioned officers anywhere. I turned and strolled past Gundy. “Edge us around astern of her, if she’ll let us.”
“Wee wee, monsoor,” he said, startling me into a sputtering laugh.
“Ahoy,” Agnell called. “What schooner is that?”
I picked up the speaking trumpet and raised it to my lips. “La Tromperie. Capitaine Matthieu Tombe eez my names. An’ what sheep are yew?”
“Never you mind what ‘ship’ I am. You tell me what you’re doing at my rendezvous.”
“Air frien’ Capitaine Mèche ’ave send me.”
There was a long pause. I watched the smoke from the linstocks while I waited, and breathed the stench of captive humanity, and felt the hatred rising in my chest. The pause grew from uncomfortable to scary, and I wanted to kill.
Then, at blessed last: “Are you ready to buy?”
“Mais oui, if zey air in zee good condition.”
“In course they are. Twice what we’d bargained for and ten times as ugly. Can you handle fifty?”
“Off cairse, zat an’ mare,” I said. “Jig over,” I muttered to Gundy as we crept astern of the cutter. “Non, non,” I said to Peebles at the guns, and then quieter, “Hold your fire unless I give the word. They got a human cargo, don’t forget.”
Peter Wicked Page 24
