The other important rules he’d learned were: spot your enemy before he spots you, be first to draw your sword, rob him blind, and trust no one. Everyone was gunning for themselves, so you had to arrive first to get the prize.
When the new boys came aboard, he used to try and tell them these things, but he didn’t bother with all that now. They’d find out the hard way, just like he did.
One year, summer came with a hurricane. The hold was flooded and a pirate was washed overboard by a wave as tall as a mountain. Soon after, three pirates never returned from a raid on the Dregs Islands. They were found dead by one of the Captain’s spies at the bottom of a cliff. That same summer, two boys, Scab and Heartless, managed to escape by bribing a passing fisherman. And when the ship stopped near the Mainland, even the pirate with one leg braved the short distance from ship to shore on a moonless night, swimming his frog-paddle and vanishing into the bush.
The Captain was in a stormy mood for days afterwards, and disappeared with a bottle of rum down to his cabin.
The autumn brought unusually cool weather and several pirates came down with flu. Two developed pneumonia and had to be buried at sea.
‘We’ll sail to Devil Island earlier than usual,’ the Captain decided in exasperation. ‘Crew needs topping up.’
The pirates ground their teeth and exchanged bitter looks.
‘He’s got absolutely no human feelin’,’ Dogfish remarked for the hundredth time. ‘Toppin’ up indeed. Like us men are just rations of rum that need renewin’.’
‘Aye,’ agreed Squid. ‘Talkin’ of which, has the old devil taken the last drop?’
The crew were wary of the folk on Devil Island. They were a feisty lot, and their boys were famous for fighting back. They dropped on pirates from rooftops and treetops, pelting them with their poisonous pets. The pirates often returned scratched and bitten to the jolly-boats, the boys slung over their shoulders now as quiet and limp as wet sails.
‘But just think, maties,’ Squid said, rubbing his hands together with glee as he contemplated the next day’s capture, ‘won’t it be good to ’ave a fresh supply of varmints to order about?’
‘Aye,’ agreed the First Mate. ‘I feel like having a proper vacation – putting me feet up an’ lettin’ someone else trim the sails for a change.’
And so, the next evening, a new batch of boys came aboard like a delivery of fresh baked buns. Wicked cast a careless eye over them: Mischief, Hoodlum, Rip, Rascal … all loudmouths, all easy enough to manage. Even that big bossy one, Bombastic, who kept his poisonous pet frog secretly in his jacket. Wicked had spotted it lapping at spilt rum. The frog was always escaping, lurking around Squid’s secret stash. If the Captain ever got wind of it there’d be hell to pay. The Captain loathed amphibians. Wicked couldn’t see why. He remembered Treasure saying amphibians could live in water and on land. She found that fascinating. The Captain said it was infuriating: ‘Wishy-washy creatures, why can’t they make up their minds?’ For the Captain, you had to be one thing or the other, gilled or legged, friend or enemy, for him or against him.
But what did Wicked care about a poisonous pet frog or the lumpy boy who was hiding it? What did he care about any of them – they were all the same every year, and nothing different about this lot.
Except for one. The lad who’d pleaded to be taken aboard.
After the first week, Wicked had to agree that in all the Cannonball Seas, there’d never been anyone like him.
The boy called Horrendo.
Chapter 16
‘Anyone for garlic prawns? They’re delicious even if I do say so myself. Dogfish? That’s right, take a decent helping. Don’t worry, plenty left for you, Mr Goose,’ Horrendo said, spooning a generous portion of Seafood Delight onto the pirate’s plate.
When they’d finished, the crew lay back against the sides, sighing in contentment. It was just noon, and by now everyone looked forward to lunch and dinner as the best times of their lives.
Horrendo, the star of the last catch at Devil Island, was proving to be a wizard in the galley. Not only could he throw together any bunch of ingredients and turn them into a mouth-watering feast, he’d gone to the trouble of finding, mending and plaiting the old nets in order to catch fresh fish every day.
‘Size isn’t everything, you know,’ Wicked heard him confiding to Dogfish one day. ‘See these tiny whitebait? Why, just roll them in flour then fry in oil – hey presto, you have a tasty, crunchy snack to fill those little corners when dinner seems so far away!’
At first the pirates mocked him. The First Mate had wanted to swat him like a fly, irritated by Horrendo’s constant buzz: ‘What would you like?’ and ‘Do try the shark fin soup’ and ‘What about a little herbal tea to settle your stomach, sir?’ His eternal politeness in the face of rudeness was beyond reason, Squid declared; was he the village idiot? But once Squid tried the soup and followed it up with crusty French toast drenched in sweet syrup, he changed his tune.
Wicked couldn’t fathom it. Back when he was a kid, even younger than Horrendo, he’d climbed those rat lines like a monkey, saving the men from the job they dreaded most of all. From his first day he’d suffered up there alone in the crow’s nest, sick as a dog, rocked by the high winds and drenching storms, sword-fighting enemies twenty feet above deck. But did anyone ever thank him? Did anyone ever say a kind or grateful word to him? Not bloomin’ likely – all he ever got was black looks and the vicious slur of ‘Captain’s pet’.
Wicked refused to eat that slop Horrendo cooked – it was making the men stupid, telling silly stories about their childhoods. It smelled good, it was true, but like the Captain said, it made them soft. Didn’t they run straight to Horrendo with their cuts and bruises, sitting still like well-behaved infants while he cleansed and dabbed? And why were they acting that way now, after all these years that he, Wicked, had had to swallow their insults and jibes, their calls to ‘toughen up!’ and ‘stop yer bally-hooing, yer spineless lump!’ at the slightest sniffle of homesickness. What, suddenly the men had feelings? It was as strange as a fish suddenly getting up and walking, the moon falling from the sky. And Wicked was having none of it.
Neither was the Captain. The pirates warned Horrendo that the Captain wasn’t interested in food or having his wounds tended. ‘The man ain’t like anyone else,’ Dogfish explained. ‘Yer concern for his stomach annoys him. An’ ye don’t want the Captain annoyed.’
Horrendo nodded and agreed, as he was always polite, but the boy just couldn’t help himself. It seemed to Wicked that Horrendo must have a tic of some sort, like Scab who’d had to keep rubbing his eye even though it hurt. Or even like himself back in the day, when he used to get nervous and bite his cheek till it bled. Horrendo’s unfailing please and thank you was a kind of reflex, maybe. Wicked saw him purse his lips sometimes after he’d said something pleasant or urged a plate of lobster mornay upon a pirate who, only seconds before, had deliberately put his foot out to trip him, ‘just for a laugh’. The boy wasn’t able to exclude the Captain from his dinner invitations either, even though the First Mate warned him many times that if he kept that up it would be bad for his health.
‘He’s got a curse on him,’ Rascal explained to the men one evening. ‘Had it ever since he was born. It’s the Wise Woman’s doing – he’ll never be able to swear or fight. Even if you jumped on him with a drawn sword, he’d say, “Oh, so sorry, was I in your way?” Nah, under that curse he’s helpless as a kitten.’
‘And we’ll never know what he’d of been like without it,’ put in Mischief.
Curse or no curse, Wicked knew that even if he’d gobbled up every bit of Horrendo’s lobster or swordfish or whatever bloomin’ thing it was, he wouldn’t have liked the boy anyway. He just wouldn’t. So what did all the others see in him? And why hadn’t they ever liked him, Wicked, when he’d been skilled and eager and done the worst jobs willingly? No, perhaps it wasn’t strange at all that it was just he and the Captain against the rest. The Captain w
as the only one who’d ever thought Wicked was worth something.
‘Wicked is the most valuable look-out we’ve ever had,’ he’d said after a battle, right in front of everyone. Wicked used to hate being singled out, but he knew now it was the reason he’d survived. The others mightn’t like it, but what did he care? They were all unreliable, as wishy-washy as amphibians, as stupid as that frog the boy Bombastic tried to keep hidden in his jacket.
And now, Wicked’s guts were playing up. In the mornings it was worst – awful griping cramps that clutched at his belly and wouldn’t let go. He had to hang over the side for ages. Nothing much came out after a while, but he felt like it would, so he had to stay there. The others teased him and blew raspberries whenever they passed him. ‘Old Wicked’s worse than Dogfish now,’ they said. ‘Soon we’ll ’ave to toss you overboard with the fish heads!’
Horrendo circled him like a demented bird, squawking about the benefits of his calming chamomile and simple rice dishes for a ‘complicated tummy’. Wicked even ate some of his offerings, specially prepared with no fats or spices. But nothing seemed to make any difference. Somehow it made Wicked feel lonelier than ever, this inability of his to enjoy what the others enjoyed. He must be different to everyone on earth or at sea – except for the Captain, maybe. But then the Captain never looked lonely.
His stomach grew so bad that it wouldn’t let him climb the rigging. The pain when it came was crippling, and once he almost fell from the yardarm – which would have meant certain death. He had to go down to the Captain’s cabin and tell him. It was the worst thing he’d had to do since he’d come on board.
‘I’m real sorry, sir,’ he said, standing behind the Captain’s desk, his fingers tapping anxiously on his thigh. ‘Maybe if I just lay up in the berth for a few days, it’ll pass. But if I keep doin’ the climb I might fall and then I’ll be no use to anyone.’
Wicked stared down at his feet. Strange, a sharp lump in his throat made his eyes water, like a fishbone caught right where he swallowed. He didn’t expect sympathy from the Captain. He just hoped for a day’s mercy. But the Captain’s next words surprised him.
‘I agree,’ the Captain said. When Wicked looked up, he saw the Captain nodding. ‘We’ll send that boy Rascal up there. He’s a shirker and a weakling, always mooning about, coughing and spluttering. This will give him something to do, get him trained up and fit to be a sailor.’ He looked straight at Wicked then and it seemed that the light in the room shifted for a moment, dulling to grey, as if a candle had flickered. Goosebumps sprang up on Wicked’s arms, and the black thing stirred inside him.
‘They’re a useless lot, this crew,’ the Captain said evenly, his eyes never moving from Wicked’s own. ‘But you, on the other hand, I need.’
And with that, the Captain went back to studying his maps, motioning to Wicked to close the door behind him.
Lying in the gloom in his hammock, Wicked’s thoughts returned often to the Captain’s last words. His mind kept saying them, the way his tongue kept finding the hole in his tooth, tracing it over and over.
The Captain needed him. He’d actually said it. Being necessary was even more important than being valuable, wasn’t it? No one else cared if he lived or died, but the Captain of the whole Cannonball Seas needed him. That was something.
Wicked watched Rascal shiver and shake up the rat lines. The boy was as trembly as a jelly. It was obvious the seasickness was ruling him. And he had the flu – well, he always had the flu, that one. The lad possessed a faulty pair of lungs, no doubt about it. Those coughing fits could be fatal when you were up high on the rigging.
Truth to tell, when you first started, the job was hard enough even if you were well. For a moment Wicked remembered his own fear in those early days, the bleakness of that crow’s nest and the empty sky once he’d got up there. He almost called out to Rascal one morning, thinking he’d teach him about balance and discipline. But when he saw the boy wearing those stupid mittens that his friend Horrendo had knitted him, something closed over inside him until he couldn’t remember even a twinge of whatever he’d wanted to say.
Those two boys were as thick as thieves. Or best friends, maybe. They were always whispering together at dinner, and Horrendo had gone to the trouble of sitting up every night for a week making those mittens, even after he’d cooked dinner and washed up and wiped down the galley. No one had ever knitted mittens for Wicked. No one had ever cared a fig whether his hands were cold or raw or numb. He’d only ever had one friend on board. And Headlice had deserted him, like everyone else.
So Wicked lay low and rested, and then he went back to light duties on board. Every now and then he went up the rigging, but the Captain seemed to prefer to ‘use up’ the boys.
‘You should ask Horrendo to fix you something special for your stomach,’ Dogfish said to him one day when he saw Wicked wince from sudden cramp. ‘He works miracles, that lad.’
Wicked just shook his head. What was the point of talking?
‘He’s taken a set against the boy,’ the First Mate said to Dogfish. ‘Can’t figure it, meself. At least now we’ve got somethin’ to look forward to when we wake up. What’s on today’s menu, do you know?’
‘Fish pie, with garlic and rosemary,’ Squid put in. ‘Can’t wait, can you? How long till lunch?’
After a conversation like that one, Wicked just wanted to be alone. But when he went up to the crow’s nest, he couldn’t seem to find any comfort in his thoughts. Treasure hardly ever appeared anymore and when she did, she looked at him oddly. ‘Why don’t you like Horrendo?’ she asked one day. ‘Why not try that soothing fish soup? You’re getting strange, you know. I almost don’t recognise you!’
His mother made a sudden appearance, too. She was very small and far away. From over the horizon she called, ‘You’re losing your balance, dear boy. Remember to check your centre!’
He put his hand on his stomach. But everything heaved and gurgled in there now, and was never still. It was like the sea, driven by currents that he couldn’t see or fathom.
Chapter 17
When the Blue Devils came sailing in, it was Rascal who spotted them. But the boy was too late, of course. ‘Pirate ship, pirate ship!’ he yelled when he was halfway down the rigging. ‘They’ve got their cannons out!’
What had the lad been doing up there, daydreaming? If it had been Wicked in the crow’s nest, he’d have seen the Devils when they were just a dirty speck on the horizon. Timing was everything; it gave you the advantage, letting you shoot first and avoid battle.
And the Blue Devils were dead nasty, too. They’d attacked before and done a lot of damage. Wicked didn’t relish another fight, not with his guts the way they were.
Watching the ship glide in, his stomach heaved with alarm and bile rose into his throat. Or was it the grub left in the galley that made him want to spew? Earlier, he’d been so hungry his guts were growling. He’d given in and wolfed down Horrendo’s famous garlic prawns but they’d tasted foul to him, and he couldn’t figure why everyone raved about them.
He stopped wondering when the first cannon flashed like lightning over the deck. The mast exploded and the Devils swarmed aboard yelling blue murder. Cutlasses clashing and boots kicking, they were all over the ship like an outbreak of pox. It wasn’t until the Captain appeared and caught the Blue Devil captain in a headlock that they got the upper hand. He made the Devils drop their swords, but not before Buzzard lost an earlobe and Goose’s pinkie finger was sliced clean away.
Wicked had offered to go up the ratlines to defend the rigging – achy guts and all, he was the only one who could do it.
But halfway down, a pain stabbed him, taking his breath away. He burped sour prawns, breaking out in a sweat. That bloomin’ Horrendo was killing him, and just when he needed his strength!
That night, as he lay exhausted on the deck, Horrendo ran past with an empty soup tureen, and tripped over Wicked’s foot.
‘Oh sorry, I didn’t see you the
re. Are you all right? You don’t look it. Oh, I meant nothing personal about your … er … complexion, though a healthy diet might help with …’
‘No, I’m not all right, you little ship rat. You ought to be sorry, leaving bad prawns in the galley for me to eat. It’s a miracle I’m still here.’
Horrendo was puzzled, then horrified. ‘You didn’t eat those? They’d been out in the sun for ages!’ He shook his head. ‘I was so tired I forgot to throw away the leftovers, but I didn’t think anyone would be silly enough to … oh!’
Wicked gave him a hard look. But just then such a wave of nausea washed over him that he couldn’t be bothered saying anything more. He could still hear that milksop Horrendo tending the pirates – spooning out soup, bathing their wounds. He was coddling them, and in response, the pirates’ talk grew all loose and soppy.
‘Oh what a terrible injury, does it ache awfully?’ he’d asked Goose, who was wailing about losing his pinkie finger. Rascal was coughing fit to burst, and that boy Rip was cracking his knuckles till Wicked wanted to crack them for him. Squid even started talking about his mother: ‘Remember when she hugged you if you was hurt?’
Blimey! Truth to tell, at that moment, he was sure something inside him was about to explode, and it wasn’t just that pimple on the side of his nose.
But it was the Captain who exploded. So fed up was he with Horrendo’s courtesy and cooking and donkey-brained talk that he ordered him to walk the plank. And that’s when the boys planned their escape. Who’d have thought they’d ever have the gumption? The night before the plank-walking, in the quiet dead hours, the young scoundrels silently lowered the longboat. And in the morning they just rowed away, taking Horrendo with them.
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