Heart of Steele

by Brad Strickland

  “Where’s the captain?” Uncle Patch asked. “He was wounded, I know, but he did not report to sick berth. How is it with him?”

  “He had me tie up his cuts,” Mr. Adams told him. “He said he would have you do a proper job in time.”

  Behind Mr. Adams, Captain Hunter emerged slowly from the cabin. He wore no coat, only his shirt and breeches, and the shirt was nearly as red as it was white. His face was deathly pale. “Sir!” I cried out, and ran to offer him support.

  Captain Hunter’s pale blue eyes seemed not to recognize me for a moment. Then he murmured, “I thank you, Davy.”

  My uncle said, “William—”

  “In a moment, Patch,” Captain Hunter said, sounding as if he were speaking in a dream. He patted my shoulder and then limped forward. I saw that he carried a prayer book.

  The men in the waist and the forecastle paused, looking around at him. I wondered where Captain Barrel was, but then realized with a shock that one of the figures working on the broken bowsprit was Captain Barrel, stripped to the waist and with a scarf tied round his head. He slipped from the stump of the bowsprit to the deck and then limped on his wooden leg to meet Captain Hunter.

  The captain leaned against the mainmast with one hand and raised his voice: “Men!” They all turned to him, silent and solemn. Captain Hunter held up the prayer book. “We have to bury our dead. I would read the service for each of them, but we have no time. Instead I will say only that we commend their bodies to the sea and their souls to God, who will surely understand.”

  “Amen,” said Mr. Tate, who stood near the closest body.

  “Go help them, Davy,” said my uncle.

  I hurried over to Mr. Tate. Together he and I lifted the heavy body to the rail. Mr. Tate hoarsely called out, “Matthew Parson, bosun’s mate!”

  The crew on deck returned, “Go with God!”

  I felt my skin crinkle into gooseflesh. This was the old pirate’s burial service: “Go with God,” and a heave overboard.

  Twelve times in all it was repeated, the naming of the dead and then that final splash. By the time we had finished, I was shaking with weariness and in reaction to all I had seen and done that day.

  After the men had been fed, Uncle Patch insisted on treating Captain Hunter’s wounds. “Do it in the cabin, then,” the captain said peevishly, “for I have to learn from John Barrel what is what.”

  So it happened that I was in the cabin when my uncle ripped the bloody bandages from Captain Hunter’s arm and side. His hurts were not fatal, but they must have made him sick with loss of blood. His shoulder wound took several stitches. His left biceps had been thrust through, and he panted and gasped as Uncle Patch sewed that gash together. A pistol or musket ball had scored his right side between his armpit and the bottom of his rib cage, and again that called for cleaning and stitching. “Faith,” said my uncle with a grunt, “ I believe ye have only a pint of blood left in you.”

  When he had been bandaged and dressed again, Captain Hunter asked Mr. Adams to bring in Captain Barrel. I sat in the corner, thinking that both my uncle and Captain Hunter looked as gaunt and as sallow as the dead. Captain Barrel, now wearing his shirt again, came stomping into the cabin. “How’s it with ye, shipmate?” he asked.

  “I’ll do,” Captain Hunter answered him. “Sit, Captain Barrel.”

  “Mighty obliged I am,” said Captain Barrel, sinking into the armchair. “We’ve woolded the bowsprit. It’ll serve until we can get to Cruzado. The Fury will take a mort o’ carpenterin’, too, but she’s sound, she is.”

  Captain Hunter had some brandy brought in and then asked, “How did you come to be prisoner on your own craft, Captain Barrel? You’re not a man easily fooled.”

  Captain Barrel drank the brandy at one go, his face darkening. “I thought it was you, at first,” he said. “We spied a sail, and closed on her. ’Twas the spit of the Aurora, from any distance—a black-and-yellow French-built frigate. She hailed us, an’ I saw you—somebody dressed up like you, any gate, in a green-and-gold coat—on the quarterdeck. I figured ye wanted to gam, so I had some men row me across. No sooner did I put my timber toe onto that deck, than did somebody lay me low with a blow that put out my lights. When I come to again, I found the men from that ship had boarded the Fury. And who should be a-commandin’ of the frigate but that bald-headed Satan, Shark.”

  “Aye,” put in my uncle sharply. “The same man William shot in Tortuga.”

  “Did ye shoot him?” Captain Barrel asked, with a chuckle of delight. “Good for you, says I, and too bad your aim wasn’t true! Aye, ’twas Shark, one o’ Steele’s chief lieutenants. Then it was I learned the ship was the Janus, near twin to this one here. That blasted dog told me to my face that was I friend to William Hunter, I was enemy to Jack Steele. And before I knowed it, he had me an’ my loyal men in irons. We sailed that way for days. But ere long, I learnt from what few words the crew dropped that they was lookin’ for the Aurora. They knowed your cruisin’ grounds and knowed ye put in at Cruzado for repairs. They meant to do ye the same way they done me. Make ye think ye were approachin’ the Fury an’ friends, an’ then kill ye if they could.”

  “So,” my uncle said. “Well, well, William. I cannot say I approve of slaughter, for that would go against my training as a doctor. Still, you heaved Shark’s body overboard, and I can but say good riddance to him!”

  “So says I,” added Captain Barrel. “Devil take his sorry soul!”

  Captain Barrel excused himself to go back to the Fury and oversee repairs there. When we were alone, Captain Hunter stretched his bandaged arm and groaned. “Patch,” he said, “I ask your pardon. I have been a right fool.”

  “Aye, that ye have,” replied my uncle carelessly. Then, with his creaking laugh, he added, “But ye know it now. That’s half the way back, William.”

  Fever

  WE SPENT JUST enough time in the harbor of the low Bahamian island of Cruzado to make the most-needed repairs. The pirate colony there had news of Jamaica: King James II had seen fit to send out a new governor for the island and to restore Sir Henry Morgan to the council. When he heard that, Captain Hunter said, “Then that decides me. Some of the men are suffering from wounds, and we’ve lost far too many to death. We’ll sail to Sir Henry’s plantation at Port Maria, on the north shore of Jamaica. I need his advice, and I need new recruits if we’re to continue to pursue Steele.”

  The Fury had taken a far worse pounding than we had and needed more repairs, but when John Barrel got wind of Captain Hunter’s intentions, he came stomping aboard, hemmed and hawed, and finally came out with his intentions. “Which the boys an’ me wants to ask Sir Henry for the king’s pardon, now he’s in good again. But we’re naught but a skillington crew now, as ye might say. I’d take it kindly if we could sail in consort with the Aurora”

  Captain Hunter readily agreed. After a few days of intense activity, and of great irritation because of the clouds of biting flies and mosquitoes that plagued Cruzado at that time of year, we had enough of a “lash-up,” as Captain Barrel called the repairs, to set out. The winds were faint and contrary, and it looked to be a long sail to Port Maria, a matter of weeks or more, especially with the undermanned Fury struggling along in our wake.

  We were not many days at sea when I awoke one morning with a dismally aching head. Breakfast was skilligalee, a thin porridge of oatmeal sweetened with molasses. We also had, at my uncle’s insistence, cheese and fruit. My stomach lurched at the sight of the food, and I ate nothing, but sat shivering with a chill.

  “Here,” rumbled Uncle Patch, frowning from his side of the table. “What’s this?”

  I mumbled something, but he was out of his seat in an instant and leaning over me. He took my pulse, held back my eyelid, and peered at me with his emerald-green stare, then clapped a cool palm on my forehead.

  Captain Hunter, from his seat, asked, “What is it?”

  “Fever.” My uncle, with no more ado, hurried me to the sick berth and in
to a hammock. He brought me a vile, bitter medicine, compounded of tree bark, and made me swallow it down. So began three or four of the worst days I spent aboard the Aurora.

  By that evening, I ached in every joint and shivered with wave after wave of chills. I had no strength, and my uncle had to lift me from the hammock and hold a chamber pot for me so I could make water, as if I were a baby. I almost wept from the shame of it. He hoisted me back onto the hammock and told me to lie easy, but with the pains in my head and limbs, that I could not do.

  I passed a terrible night, swallowed more nasty-tasting medicines, and somehow slipped into a very strange state, half dreaming and half awake. A hanging lantern with a solitary candle swung back and forth from a hook, giving me a dim light. As I stared up at the beams above my hammock, it seemed to me that one knot in the wood looked like an elephant. In truth I had never seen an elephant, but that was what I thought. And somehow, a whole parade of elephants lumbered across the sick berth and passed close by my hammock. In my fevered imagination they were great hoglike creatures, with flopping pointed ears like a pig’s and a pig’s snout, only three or four feet long. They had red, shaggy fur, and glared at me from small, mean eyes. One of them stopped, looked at me, and said, “Delirium,” in my uncle’s voice.

  The next thing I truly knew was that I lay gasping and wet in the hammock, and my uncle was standing beside me. “And how is it with you, Davy?” he asked kindly.

  “I’m soaking,” I muttered. My cheeks flamed with embarrassment. “I didn’t—”

  “’Tis nothing but sweat,” my uncle answered comfortingly. “A laudable sudation, as ’tis termed in medicine, a beneficial sweat. Your fever has broken, that’s all. And now you’ve had it, you need never fear the yellow jack again.”

  From that moment I mended, learning that I was one of four aboard who had come down with yellow fever, or “yellow jack” as the sailors called it. I was first to recover, and was already helping my uncle in the sick berth again a few days later when Samuel Vetch, a maintopman, died of the fever, the whites of his eyes as yellow as an egg yolk. He was the only hand we lost. But on the very day I was myself again, my uncle brought John Barrel into the sick berth, ill with the disease. “Tell the lads t’ sail back to Cruzado an’ hole up,” he groaned through chattering teeth. “If I live through this here yellow jack, I’ll bring ’em word from Sir Henry.”

  And so the Fury turned back, with hardly enough sailors left aboard to sail her. Captain Barrel weathered the fever remarkably well, and after a few days he, too, was up and about, though weak. “You an’ me, Davy lad,” he said with a twisted grin, “we stared ol’ Yellow Jack in his face, didn’t we?”

  “Aye,” I answered. “And stared him down!”

  “That we did!” And Captain Barrel roared with laughter, slapping his thigh in his pleasure at having once more cheated death.

  How many days we were at sea I no longer remember, but we raised the north coast of Jamaica at last and came in close to glide along within sight of the Blue Mountains, which looked cool and inviting to those of us sweltering through the days of a West Indian high summer. We passed a few craft, but no one hailed us or seemed in the least interested. Uncle Patch remarked that the north coast was a little wilder than Port Royal. “There’s no need for a coat of blue paint here,” he said. “So long as we anchor in some out-of-the-way spot and come quietly in to Port Maria.”

  Evening was closing in as the Aurora dropped anchor in the estuary of a small creek. I was to go ashore again, with Captain Hunter, my uncle, and John Barrel. Abel Tate readied the longboat, and we had four able-bodied seamen to row us in, around a headland and then into the port itself. We gathered on deck. I was wearing a brown suit that my uncle had bought for me a year and more before in Port Royal and was finding that it was now short in the arms and in the legs. My uncle was decently dressed in the black he favored as befitting a doctor. He also wore a simple gray wig, probably to hide the spot on the side of his head where at last he had consented to allow Mr. Grice to shave his wound and put a few neat, small stitches in the gash. It was healing well, but the bristly shaved spot looked odd.

  Captain Hunter wore his gorgeous green coat, though he had settled on a more modest hat than the one with an ostrich plume that he wore from time to time. “Do I not look the image of a wealthy merchant?” he asked.

  In a dry tone, my uncle answered him. “Or a pirate king, as played on the boards of a provincial theater!”

  “Ready, gents?” asked a rough voice, and John Barrel hoisted himself up through a grating. “I asked a man to barber me, an’ he found me this here coat, which I hope I may borrow for the occasion.”

  I must have gawped like an openmouthed fish. Captain Barrel had had his beard trimmed short so that it no longer fell in kinked bunches halfway to his waist, and his long dark hair was tied back. In a decent blue coat that probably belonged to my uncle, for it was far too large in the shoulders for Captain Hunter, he looked nearly respectable.

  We glided into the harbor, exciting no attention, and quickly found our way to the plantation house owned by Sir Henry. Captain Barrel fidgeted like an embarrassed boy as we stood on the verandah and knocked on the door. A servant opened it, and Captain Hunter sent a note in to the master of the house. The servant allowed us into the entryway before vanishing down a hall. Moments later we heard quick footsteps, and then to my astonishment Miss Helena Fairfax emerged from a passageway, a candlestick in her hand.

  “It really is you!” she said with a delighted smile.

  “It is enchanting to see you again,” answered the captain with a deep bow. “But surprising! How came you to be here?”

  “I came with my granduncle, Sir Reginald, who is a member of the council,” she said. “This way, gentlemen.”

  She showed us into a parlor, where a tall, bony old man sat in a fancy chair. A bottle of wine and a glass stood on a round table at his elbow, and I could see pretty well the symptoms of some determined drinking on his face. But he rose, and he greeted us with a polite smile and not the least slurring of his speech.

  Before Miss Fairfax could speak, the captain bowed again and said, “Sir Reginald, I understand. I am Captain Hunt, with some business for Sir Henry. Permit me to introduce my friend Mr. Patrick, and Mr. Barr, a fellow sea captain.”

  “Pleasure,” murmured Sir Reginald. “I believe Sir Henry will be available shortly. My dear niece, do you mind playing the hostess? I am somewhat fatigued and was just going up to bed.”

  “Not at all, Uncle,” said Miss Fairfax.

  I noticed that Sir Reginald took his bottle of wine with him. “My uncle is a very discreet man when he wants to be,” Miss Fairfax confided. “Now, Captain, you must tell me of your adventures.”

  “They are hardly fit for your ears,” said Captain Hunter with a shake of his head.

  “Must I be disappointed? Very well, then. Let me show you to Sir Henry’s study. He should be with you shortly.”

  She took us to a spacious room with a desk, a long mahogany table, and plenty of chairs, and there she took her leave of us. But we were not alone for long. I heard slow, heavy footsteps in the hall, the door swung open, and Sir Henry Morgan, the old buccaneer himself, stepped into the room. He threw his head back and laughed, and then said, “Blast my eyes! Old John Barrel, in the flesh! They haven’t hung you yet, man?”

  Captain Barrel had not taken a seat. He laughed too and limped forward on his timber leg to give Sir Henry a hearty handshake. “No, Your Honor,” he said. “They’ve shot me an’ they’ve cut me an’ beat me an’ chained me, but nobody’s hung me yet. Not ’less ye plans to do it now!”

  “Sit, sit,” said Morgan, and he collapsed into his own chair at the big desk. Only then did I notice how pale and ill he looked. He was a big man, but he seemed to have lost weight everywhere but in his belly, which looked swollen. And my uncle stirred at the sound of Morgan’s heavy, labored breathing. After a few seconds, Morgan tilted his head at Captain Hunte
r. “You’ve done pretty well, William. I suppose you need help, though.”

  “I’ll not hide it from you, Sir Henry,” Captain Hunter told him. “I’m short of hands and short of hope, and look to you for a new supply of both.”

  Morgan nodded. “Sawbones?”

  “Faith,” muttered my uncle. “I came but to see whether you’ve been taking your medicine and staying to your diet. And one glimpse of you tells me you have not!”

  With a wave of his hand, Morgan said, “I have other doctors. They are treating me.” With a gleam in his eye, he turned to Captain Barrel. “And you, old shipmate?”

  Captain Barrel coughed. “Well, Your Honor, we’ve had word that you’re back in favor. Me an’ the lads were hoping ye might have a king’s pardon about ye.”

  Morgan shook with rumbling laughter. “By the Powers! I never thought the day would come. D’ye stand there, John Barrel, and tell me you’re turning honest?”

  With a shrug, Captain Barrel answered, “Aye! I’ll tell ye the truth, Morgan. I’ve sailed for the devil hisself, or for Jack Steele, which amounts to the same. What have I got for it? My ship stove in, an’ me clapped in irons by that swab that called hisself Shark. Shiver me timbers, but if Steele treats me such a way, why, I won’t say no to sailin’ for King James. After Steele, Lusty Charlie’s boy will be a step up.”

  Morgan sat silent for a little space. Then he opened a drawer, withdrew from it a piece of parchment, and reached for a quill pen. He dipped it in ink and signed the document, then sprinkled sand onto the fresh ink. He blew this off carelessly, waved the parchment, and passed it over to Barrel. “There’s your pardon, John Barrel. And I hope you and your men have learned your lesson.”

  “That we have,” said Captain Barrel with a wide grin. “Ye have my affydavy on that!”

  Sir Henry took two or three deep breaths, and my uncle leaped from his place. “Let me feel your pulse, sir!” he ordered.

  “I’ll be well enough,” Morgan said, shaking his head. “William, you need men and you need hope, you say. I can help you with the former. I think my other guest may help you with the latter.” He raised his voice and called, “Miss Fairfax!”