The Guardship

by James L. Nelson

  Marlowe was alone on the quarterdeck, leaning on the taffrail, enjoying the calm of the evening as best he could. The image of that black flag, with its skull and crossed swords, kept swimming in his head.

  He was back. LeRois was back. The sight of him was as frightening as it had been the first time, so very long ago, when Marlowe had been no more than a sailor aboard a merchantman. When he had been someone else entirely.

  No, that was not true. It was more frightening now. Now he knew what LeRois was capable of, knew what fury LeRois would unleash upon him, given the chance. Pray God he did not get that chance.

  Bickerstaff stepped out into the waist. Marlowe hoped he would come aft, distract him from his thoughts, offer him some counsel. His old friend paused and looked to larboard and starboard, taking in the lovely Chesapeake Bay, lighted as it was by the lowering sun, then climbed up the ladder and walked aft. He had a precise, almost delicate way of moving, as if he were dancing, or fencing.

  “Good evening, Thomas,” he said.

  “Good evening.”

  “It would seem to be as perfect as the original garden, this Virginia.”

  “Indeed it would, though I seem to recall that the garden had its serpents as well.”

  “By this awkward and altogether uncharacteristic allusion to Scripture I take it you are making reference to Monsieur LeRois?”

  “I am.”

  “Do you think he is here? On the bay?”

  “I do not know. He could be. He could be anywhere.”

  The two men were quiet for a moment, watching a pair of swallows twisting and turning overhead. They looked black in the red and fading light of the day.

  “You called him the devil himself,” Bickerstaff said at last.

  “An exaggeration, perhaps. Not by much.”

  “I saw him only the one time. Is he much worse than the others?”

  “Most of these piratical fellows do not live so long, do you see? A few years, and then they are caught and hanged, or die of some disease, or are cut down by their own men. But LeRois, he has managed to survive, as if he was blessed by Satan and cannot be killed.

  “He was not so bad, you know, when first I was pressed into his service. But by the time I…we took leave of him, he was quite mad. Inhumanly cruel. Drink, I believe, rotted his brain, the drink and the pox and the hard, hard living. And that would not matter so much if he were not so cunning as well, and so able with a sword. At least he was then, and I have to reckon he still is.”

  “You defeated him in this last fight,” Bickerstaff pointed out.

  “I drove him off, I did not defeat him,” Marlowe corrected. “And that will only serve to make him more dangerous still, because he will be furious over it, and now he will be cautious.”

  “You bested him once.”

  “Once. And it was a close thing. I would not like to try that again.”

  It was first light, with the edge of the sun peaking over Point Comfort, when they won their anchor and made their way upriver under topsails alone. Marlowe had expected word of their return to spread. He had expected boats to greet him, people on the shore to be waving at the mighty guardship, with her bright flags and bunting flowing in the warm breeze. But it seemed as if there was no one there to take notice, as if the very colony had been abandoned.

  By midafternoon they had arrived at Jamestown. The Northumberland was there, tied up to the dock, deserted, as was the dock itself, save for one black man, who paced and flapped his hands. Marlowe put his glass to his eye. It was Caesar, and he looked as if he could not wait another second for Marlowe to step ashore. Agitation was not in Caesar’s nature. It made Marlowe uneasy. Something was not right.

  They dropped the anchor and put the longboat over the side, ready to pass the warps to the warping posts and haul the Prize up to the dock. Marlowe took his place in the stern sheets, Bickerstaff beside him, and he directed the coxswain to deliver them ashore before the work commenced. Marlowe climbed up the wet wooden rungs onto the dock, Bickerstaff right behind.

  “Caesar, what the devil is going on?” he asked. “Has no one heard of our return? Where is everybody? Where is King James?” Where, for that matter, were the governor and the burgesses and all of the admiring multitude he had come to expect?

  “I ain’t seen King James, Mr. Marlowe, not since he left with you. And the others, I reckon they wants to keep out of your way.”

  “Whatever for?”

  “I reckon folks afraid of you, don’t know what you’ll do. Some is afraid to be seen with you. It’s on account of Mrs. Tinling, sir. Mrs. Tinling’s in jail. They done arrested her. Arrested her for playing some part in the killing of her late husband, that son of a bitch, God rest his soul.”

  Chapter 24

  “THIS IS Wilkenson’s doing, you know that, of course? Is there any doubt?” Marlowe paced back and forth, bent at the waist to avoid striking his head on the overhead beams of the Plymouth Prize’s great cabin. Three lanterns illuminated the area in big patches, leaving the corners in darkness. A swarm of insects swirled around the lights, having come in through the open stern windows. It was hot, despite the slight breeze.

  “I have no doubt his hand was in this,” Bickerstaff said. He and Rakestraw and Lieutenant Middleton were the only other occupants of the cabin. They were all sitting, watching their captain pace, watching his anger build like a tropical storm. “But we must discover more. We have only the slightest facts of the case, and those at third hand.”

  “Sod the facts!” Marlowe was surprised by his own anger, a little afraid of it. He had not experienced this intensity in some years. “The goddamn Wilkensons make up facts as they choose, and everyone else just nods their heads and says, ‘Yes, sir, whatever in the world you say.’ I’ll not suffer their lies.”

  “We will go and speak to the sheriff in the morning, and the governor,” Bickerstaff said. His tone was even, his suggestion reasonable, but Marlowe was not in the mood for reason.

  “Yes, the sheriff and the governor. Disinterested parties, to be sure. We’ll get justice from them, I’ve no doubt, just as we did when our tobacco was condemned.”

  “The sheriff is a villain in the Wilkensons’ employ, I will grant you that, but the governor has always been fair….”

  Marlowe stopped pacing and turned to Bickerstaff and the others. “I’ll not wait for morning.”

  “What do you wish to do, sir?” Rakestraw asked eagerly. The first officer, perhaps more than most aboard the guardship, had embraced his new captain’s way of running affairs. He worshiped Marlowe, that was plain.

  “I wish to have Elizabeth Tinling out of jail, and so I intend that we shall go and get her out of jail. Pray assemble the men. Cutlasses, pikes, and pistols,” he said to Middleton.

  A grin and a nod, and the second officer disappeared.

  “Thomas, you cannot propose we forcibly remove Elizabeth from jail?”

  “I do. Who will stand up to us? The militia? There ain’t a force in the colony to reckon with the Plymouth Prizes.”

  “That is not the point, not the point at all. You are a king’s officer now, sir. What you are proposing is against the law.”

  “Against the law? I am the law!”

  “You are not the law!” Bickerstaff shouted. Slammed his fist down on the table, made Rakestraw jump, so uncharacteristic was the outburst. “It is your duty to uphold the law, not…not brush it aside just because you have the power to do so.”

  “Merde! Such talk about law. What law? Wilkenson’s law? If they have the right to make up law as they see fit, then so do I!”

  “Oh, it is very pretty to think so, isn’t it? Thomas, this is a violation of everything that justice and honor mean—”

  “Don’t lecture me, teacher, I have had quite enough of it.”

  The two men stared at each other. Through the windows they could hear the clamor of the Plymouth Prizes turning out, the rattle and clash of small arms being issued, the excited buzz of speculative
conversation.

  “Your army awaits you,” Bickerstaff said at last.

  “You are goddamned right it does. You may come or stay, as you wish. I shall not think the worse of you if your misguided conscience will not allow you to accompany us.”

  “I will come with you, as I did before, after you bested LeRois. But I will not have a hand in what you are about to do. Like our years at sea. I will hope only to dissuade you from this course.”

  “Hope all you want, pray if you wish, but it will do you no good.” Marlowe shed his coat and draped his shoulder belt and sword over his head, then pulled his coat on again. He was silent as he loaded a brace of pistols and clipped them to the leather strap. “They have driven me to this,” he said at last, “I did not go willingly.” He picked up his hat and stepped out of the great cabin, leaving Bickerstaff alone.

  He made his way to the quarterdeck and stood at the top of the ladder, looking down into the waist. The Plymouth Prizes were assembled there. Some had pistols thrust in their belts and sashes, some had boarding axes. Some leaned on long pikes whose bright blades winked in the lantern light, high above the men’s heads. They all wore cutlasses. Most had bright-colored cloth tied around their heads and ribbons tied around their arms and legs. Various bits of gold jewelry glinted dull yellow. They were grinning and joking among each other. They were ready to go.

  “Listen here, you men,” Marlowe shouted, and the buzz on deck dropped off and all heads turned aft. “I reckon you all know what’s acting here. There’s some might think what I intend ain’t right, and I’m not sure they’re wrong on that point, so any man here who does not wish to go tonight can stay behind, and there’ll be nothing said about it.”

  He looked out over the upturned faces. No one said a thing, no one moved. And then from somewhere forward a man yelled, “Bugger every one of them fucking Wilkensons!” and the men erupted in a spontaneous cheering, shaking their weapons at the sky, shooting off pistols.

  A lantern was opened and a torch thrust in. The clothbound end burst into flames, casting a bright and flickering light down on the cheering men, and then another and another was lit until the crowd in the waist took on the aspect of some savage, primeval hunting party.

  “Let’s go, then!” Marlowe shouted, drawing his sword and leaping down into the waist. The men stood aside as he made his way over the brow and onto the dock, and then, still cheering and shouting, they followed him ashore.

  They were a disorderly army, marching up the rolling road to Williamsburg. The cheering dropped off quickly as they fell into the rhythm of the walk, the only sound the steady padding of bare feet on the road and weapons thumping at the men’s sides.

  Like most sailors, the Plymouth Prizes were powerful men, but they were not much used to walking long distances. Soon they were huffing like a herd of cattle as they trudged along the dusty, hard-packed road, illuminated all around them by the torches held aloft.

  An hour into their march Marlowe heard the sound of hooves coming toward them.

  “Hold up!” he shouted. He raised his hand, and the footsteps behind him stopped. “Stand ready!” He heard cutlasses draw from their frogs, flintlocks snap back.

  The sound of the hooves came closer, and then horse and rider appeared in the circle of light. The man pulled his mount to a stop, half turning on the road, looking down at the villainous band below him. Marlowe did not recognize the rider, just some traveler on the road, and the man did not stop for introductions. His eyes went wide and he said “Dear God…” as he wheeled the horse around and charged back up the road, kicking the horse hard with his heels and lying down across its neck, as if fearing he would be shot in the back.

  The entire encounter lasted no more than half a minute, and then horse and rider were gone. Marlowe looked back at his men. He could see why the traveler had been so frightened; the Plymouth Prizes must have looked as terrifying to him as Pharaoh’s army did to the Children of Israel. And Marlowe knew that they were quite capable of acting as vicious as they looked.

  He stepped aside until he could see to the end of the crowd. At the edge of the torchlight Bickerstaff stood patiently, his hand resting on the hilt of his sword. He wished the teacher would step forward and walk with him, but Marlowe knew he would not. Bickerstaff was there, but he was not a participant.

  Explain that to the judge when they try to hang us all, Marlowe thought, then waved his men forward again.

  It took them another hour and a half to reach Williamsburg, and by then the men were starting to tire, their pronounced step becoming more of a shuffle.

  Ten minutes shy of midnight they left the dark fields with their darker patches of trees, the split-rail fences hemming them in, and came at last to the big brick building that housed the College of William and Mary, the western end of the capital city.

  Their arrival in Williamsburg seemed to reinvigorate the Prizes. Their steps became more distinct and the light fell in a broader circle as the torches were held higher overhead.

  Of their own volition the men holding the long boarding pikes fell into two fairly straight columns and began to march in a regular step at the head of the tribe. Their ordered march, followed by the rag and tag Prizes, with torchbearers fore and aft, rendered the entire procession even more martial, and thus even more frightening, to those citizens who witnessed it.

  Marlowe heard shutters and doors open on either side of the wide street and then slam shut again, caught the occasional glimpse of a face peering out at the night raiders. A fluke of the breeze carried the words “…but where are the damned bullets?” to his ears, and he smiled. Not all of the people of that city had reason to fear. Some, but not all.

  The ad hoc army tramped down the center of the street until at last the jail came into sight. There was light in the windows and spilling out of the door, where three men stood, watching. Marlowe drew his sword and turned off the road, and behind him like the tail of a dragon his men followed. They crossed the grass, stopped in front of the small stone building.

  It was Sheriff Witsen, standing by the open door, with two of his men behind him. Just inside, Marlowe could see the jailer, a fat, greasy man dressed in his nightshirt and breeches, obviously trying to keep well clear of any potential danger.

  The sheriff and his men carried muskets—three guns against the Plymouth Prizes’ hundred or more.

  “Good evening, Marlowe,” Witsen said, as if they had just met on a country lane. “I heard word from some poor frightened bastard that there were brigands on the road, but of course with the rumor of a pirate being on the bay, everyone here-abouts is fit to be tied. Now, there ain’t any such villains abroad tonight, are there?”

  Marlowe held his eyes for a moment. Witsen seemed not in the least bit frightened, which was to his credit. The same could not be said for his men, who were nervously shifting the guns in their hands, and the jailer, who was sweating mightily and seemed on the verge of bolting.

  “I’ve seen no villains abroad tonight, sir,” said Marlowe.

  “I thought perhaps that was why you had turned out.”

  “I think perhaps you know why we have turned out. I will thank you to step aside.”

  “That I cannot do.”

  Then Bickerstaff was there, at Marlowe’s side. “Sheriff, you and Marlowe are both men of the law. I can see nothing amiss with giving Marlowe custody of the prisoner until such time as this is all worked out. She would still be in custody, whether it be yours or the admiralty’s. And it might well stave off any unpleasantness.”

  “Perhaps what you say is fair, Mr. Bickerstaff. I ain’t a judge, so I don’t know. But I can’t do that, not until I have orders.”

  “Orders from whom,” Marlowe snapped, “the governor or the Wilkensons? Or will either do? Or perhaps there are others who own shares in your soul?”

  He could see that those words had struck home, and he could see the truth in them written on Witsen’s face, but still the sheriff did not move.

 
The jailer stepped forward, his bulk cutting off a good part of the light coming through the door. “Perhaps the captain should read this,” he said. He held up a sheet of paper, fluttering like a sail braced to a shiver. “The, ah, confession. From the slave girl.”

  Marlowe snatched the paper up and read it, then read it again. A transcription of a statement, a story of the old cook murdering Tinling. At the bottom a shaky X, the words “Lucy, her mark.” He looked up at the sheriff. “It says nothing here about Elizabeth Tinling’s involvement. Quite the opposite, the girl says she had no knowledge of the affair.”

  “And Mr. Wilkenson says that ain’t so, says there’s been a murder and the Negro girl is protecting her mistress.”

  “Oh, this is not to be tolerated. You will release Elizabeth Tinling this instant!”

  “I will not. This is none of your affair. I order you to go from this place, Marlowe. I’m prepared to kill whoever I have to, to stop you doing what you’re here to do.”

  “Kill us, will you?” Marlowe said. Turned to his men. “Disarm them.”

  The Plymouth Prizes swarmed around Marlowe, moving with the nimbleness of men accustomed to working aloft, where nimbleness meant life or death. They grabbed the sheriff’s men, jerked the guns from their hands, met virtually no resistance. Six hands snatched Witsen’s musket away as the sheriff tried to bring the weapon to bear on Marlowe. Unarmed, humiliated, the governor’s men waited on their fate, which was now entirely in Marlowe’s hands.

  “Get them inside,” Marlowe ordered, and the Prizes pushed the three men roughly into the jailhouse. They herded them and the jailer into a corner, held them there at the end of their long boarding pikes. Witsen made no protest about this treatment, no argument concerning his own legal or moral authority. That, too, was much to his credit.

  The small, filthy room where the jailer lived was lit by a couple of lanterns hanging from hooks in the wall. Marlowe ran his eyes over the dirty, stained sheets on the bed, the stack of chicken bones on the plate on the table, then saw what he was looking for: a ring of keys hanging beside the door to the cells.