Pirate Freedom

by Gene Wolfe

  I had expected the musket to kick a lot, but it was too heavy. I never did find out how heavy those things really were, but if they had been any heavier one man could not have carried them around.

  The pistols were the same way. I said my father had a big gun, but it could not have been half as heavy as they were. The barrels were closer to two feet long than one, and I thought they would be better if the barrels were shorter. Later I found out how handy those long barrels could be once you had fired the one shot in the gun. I loaded one and stuck it in my belt, but pretty soon I took it back out. It was too heavy to tote around all day, as far as I was concerned.

  We ended up with four gromettos, like I had planned, which gave us a big enough crew to set the spritsail under the bowsprit and the topgallants- everything she had, in other words. There were topgallants for the foremast and mainmast. The old New Ark was no greyhound even when she was carrying all that canvas, and we had to take in some anytime there seemed to be the slightest chance of a blow. Mahu was scared to climb a mast at first, but we got him over that.

  There were two ways to sell slaves in Port Royal. The fastest was to sell everybody to one buyer. The other was to wait for the next slave auction, and auction them off one by one there. The advantage of one buyer was that we would get the money quick. Wait for the auction, and we might get more.

  There were disadvantages, too. As soon as I sold everybody to one buyer, the crew would expect some money, and that would mean no crew when I tried to sell the ship. I wanted crew so I would have a crew to clean the ship and fix it up, like we had the Santa Charita.

  That is why I decided to wait for the auction, which was only a few days off. The crew griped about it, but I got them to working hard, and kept them at it.

  There was another advantage to waiting that I had not figured on at all. I could get all the slaves up on deck, and get them better food, too. (I sold a few things off the ship, piecemeal, to buy the food.) Just a few days of that, and they were all looking a lot healthier. One more was that Lesage wanted to buy Azuka. I did not want to sell her right off, because I was pretty sure the rest of the crew would say I had not charged him enough. I would have had to give her to him on credit anyway, since he would not have any money until we paid off. That would mean that the rest of them would have wanted to buy slaves on credit, too.

  So we waited, and I got fruit for everybody. Fruit is full of vitamins, and oranges and limes were pretty cheap. We were afraid some of the women and kids would jump into the harbor and swim for it, but nobody did. Of course I had two men with muskets watching them all the time. That was the easy duty, so I gave it to the ones who had been working hardest.

  Another problem with waiting for the auction turned out to be that some of our slaves did not sell-five men and four kids. I turned that into an advantage. I paid the crew. (They were wild to get ashore and spend it and would have smoked me if I had not.) When they were gone, Lesage and I fixed up the ship some more with the men and kids we had left.

  Lesage was still on board because we had not auctioned Azuka yet. I put her up at the next auction, and he bid on her and got her. Lesage had killed one of the men, but I put up the other four and all four kids with lower minimum bids, and sold them all.

  After that I sold the New Ark to a man who had already been on board looking at her. I named a price just a little bit higher than his latest offer, and he took it.

  After that I had a lot of money, because the ship brought more than the slaves had. It takes two or three voyages to pay off a slave ship. But before I tell about that, I ought to cover the distribution. Things went by shares. Each man got one. The captain (me) got ten. The quartermaster (Red Jack) got seven. The mate (Lesage) got five. If there had been a barber-surgeon, he would have gotten four. A bosun, a carpenter, or a sailmaker would have gotten two. Capt. Burt got ten, too.

  There were four pirates originally, not counting the two officers. Add the four gromettos, so eight shares there. Seven, five, ten, and ten made thirty-two more, so forty in all. That was how I split up all the slave money. I gave everyone his fair share, and I bought a soft leather money belt that I could wear under my clothes for my share and Capt. Burt's. For the gold, really. I just put the silver and change in my pockets like everybody else.

  The ship money was different, because I had to buy a sloop for us to go back in, fit her out, and provision her. I did, too. Her name was the Windward, and I did not change it. She had the Jamaica rig, meaning a short mast and a long boom. I did not change that, either, but I had seen a Bermuda rig in the harbor, and it stuck in my mind.

  Before I go on, I ought to say that sloops are always pretty small and always one-decked. Flush-decked is what they say. Sloops are boats, not ships. If a boat like that has one mast, it is a sloop. Two, and things get complicated. Say the second is shorter than the first. If it is forward of the stern post, the boat is a ketch. Aft of the stern post, and the boat is a yawl. Is that clear? If a flush-decked boat has two square-rigged masts the same size, she is a brig. Same thing for a ship-two square-rigged masts the same size make her a brig. (The Santa Charita was a brig until Capt. Burt put a gaffsail on her main. Then she was brigantine. A brigantine is not a little brig, it is a brig with a four-and-aft main.)

  If the first mast is smaller than the second, it is called the foremast, like the first mast of a brig. We called a boat like that a sloop or a two-stick sloop, but it is a schooner now. The Windward had one mast, so she was a sloop for sure.

  When she was ready to go, I would need a crew. So I braced each man when he came for a share of the ship money. Most of them did not want to ship on her-they had money in their pockets, and they wanted to spend it. Lesage was the only one who hung on to his ship money, which told me something about him I had suspected already. He said he would stick with me if he could bring Azuka along. I said sure, so that gave me somebody to take care of the boat when I was ashore.

  I had quite a bit of money myself, as you will have figured. I went ashore then, looked around more than I ever had before, and bought a dagger, a pretty big one with a good, big guard and an ivory grip. I had some long, hard looks at the girls, too, and to tell the truth I did not like them as well as I had the girls in Veracruz. Some of those Veracruz girls had been trouble, and you could generally see it right off. I do not think there was a single English girl I saw in Port Royal who was not trouble, although some of the black girls might have been okay. On some it was easier to spot than others, but when you talked with them a few minutes, you knew they were trouble.

  Another thing was that I could hardly understand most of them. I have spoken English since I was a baby. I speak Spanish so well that a Cuban or Mexican will think I am from his country-of course I am dark and have black hair, which helps. English is still my native language. Capt. Burt had a British accent, but I could understand him fine. I could not understand some of those Port Royal girls for beans.

  One by one we got more men. Red Jack and Ben Benson came back, and so did Big Ned and Mahu. Some new men joined. When I had eight, not counting me, we put out. Nine men could barely have handled the New Ark, but it was a lot more than I needed for the Windward. I only shipped that many because Capt. Burt had said to bring back more than I brought, if I could. I had brought six, and I was afraid he might not want Ned and Mahu. If he would not take them, at least he had not lost men with me.

  Azuka cooked for us, cleaned up, and turned her hand to just about anything we asked her to. She had clothes by then (and some junk jewelry), but there was a fight just the same. Lesage did not kill that guy, but he hurt him so bad he might just as well have. With nine men and a woman on that sloop, we were living in each other's armpits. I had the only cabin, and it was like sleeping in a closet.

  I have told already how much I like the sea and the sky, the peace and beauty of it and how near to God I feel when I can just drink it in. Now I have to talk about something more-the thing behind my whole life, which is the way it seems to me
now. It was the first watch and the sun was low, all orange and gold behind clouds. That was Lesage's watch, and he had a man on the pump and Ben at the wheel. I told him I would take the wheel myself, which would give him another man.

  Pretty soon it got too dark to work, and everybody except me sat down or lay down, and most of them went to sleep. Finally I decided there were only two of us still awake, the Windward and me. We were on course for Tortuga, the big mainsail was drawing pretty well, and the sea so calm it seemed like it was sleeping, too. I knew that all sorts of things could go wrong. There could be trouble with the men, we could founder in a gale, Capt. Burt might not get to Tortuga for a month, and so forth-more trouble than you could get from ten girls in Port Royal. But the sea was calm, the weather was good, and the boat was alive under my hands. I felt I could count on Lesage, Red Jack, Ben Benson, Big Ned, and Mahu-which made it five to four, even if the rest turned against me. We would go where I said to go, and anybody who did not like it would have a long swim. There was no novice master to worry about, and no feds. Just about everybody on earth was chained up, even if they could not see their chains, but I was not. I could breathe in a way most people never get to breathe. I stayed at the wheel like that for the whole watch, and I cannot tell you how wonderful it was.

  The next day, I did it again. It looked like we might be in for a little blow, and I thought that with me at the wheel Lesage's watch would be able to handle the sails without my calling all hands. It was not bad at all. We set the spritsail, the main filled fit to bust, and we sailed along pretty good.

  The wind was singing in the rigging, and after a half hour or so it came to me that it was trying to tell me something. That was one of the things- just about the only thing-I had gotten out of music class: listen to the words and notes of hymns and chants and see what they are saying. I shut my eyes for a minute, and it seemed to me I could hear Fr. Luis. No words, but the sound of his voice. I was outside the classroom, and he was lecturing at the blackboard.

  When I opened my eyes again, I saw that I was standing in one of the drawings he used to make for geometry. The mast was a line, the mainsail a plane, the boom another line, and the shrouds that braced the mast were lines, too.

  And I could change that drawing.

  I had been thinking about the Bermuda rig I had seen, and wishing we had that instead, because I felt sure it would be faster. I could not change over the Windward to a Bermuda rig, because I did not have a taller mast to step in her. I could have shortened the boom-we had a saw and a few other tools-but I needed a new mast, and I did not have it. What I understood then was that I could change other things.

  During the next watch I made some drawings for myself on a blank page of the logbook. I put letters at the corners, the way we did in class. The backstay ran up from deadeye "A" to "B," the head of the mast, and so forth. I will not give all the rest, but the end of the bowsprit was "I."

  After that I got Lesage and Red Jack to look at it, and drew a three-cornered sail set on the forestay just as if it were a mast. One corner was the top of the mast, one was the end of the bowsprit, and one was cleat "J" on the deck that we would have to put there.

  "The stay's as stiff as a yard," I said, "because it's so tight. So why couldn't we do that?"

  Lesage pointed out that we would have to cut a square piece of sailcloth cattycornered, and half of it would be wasted.

  "It won't be wasted," I told him, "it will be a spare J-I-B sail."

  Lesage did not think my J-I-B sail would work, but Red Jack wanted to try it. So did I, and I was captain. We did not have a real sailmaker, but it was pretty simple and a couple of hands cut it and sewed the edges in one watch. We put cleats on each side a little forward of the waist, bent our new sail, and it worked so well we almost stopped using the spritsail. THE WEALD WAS already there when we got to Tortuga. Ned and I launched the little jolly boat that was the only boat our sloop had, and he rowed over to her. I told him to wait in the boat for further orders and went aboard. There are things about my life I cannot explain, and one is why I remember certain things clearly when I have forgotten a lot of others. One that I remember very, very clearly from those days is telling Ned I did not think I would be long, turning away, and grabbing the sea ladder. I never set foot on the Windward again-or saw some of her crew again either.

  Capt. Burt shook my hand, took me into his cabin, poured me a shot of rum, and asked for my report. I gave him the works-everything that had happened. At the end, I pulled up my shirt, took off my money belt, and counted out his shares of the ship money and the slave money.

  He thanked me and slapped my back. "You're a captain now, Chris my lad."

  I nodded. "I know it."

  "The sort I look hard for and seldom find, eh? I'm glad to have found you. We've had better prizes than the Duquesa since you've been gone. Much better. Add your sloop and your men to what we've got already and we might have a shot at a galleon." He stopped, waiting for me to say something.

  I thought hard before I spoke. I knew what I had to say, but it was hard to get out because I wanted to do as little damage as I could. "You told me you liked me once, sir. I like you, too, and I hope anything you try works out. The men I brought are yours, and so is the Windward. But I won't take part."

  He had his hand on the butt of his pistol by the time I finished. He never drew it, though, and I've always remembered that about him. All he said was "I knew it was comin', eh? Still, I tried."

  He kept me chained in the hold for three days after that. They did not always remember to feed me, but when they did the food was decent. On the third day, the man who brought it told me the captain was going to maroon me, which is what I had been figuring all along.

  Where I had been wrong was the size of the island. I had been figuring on a little one, one that might take a day to walk all the way around if I was lucky. This looked like the mainland-mountains rising out of the sea, all covered with the greenest trees in the world. Capt. Burt and I sat in the back of the longboat, so I got a good look before she beached.

  We got out, just the captain and me, he unlocked my chains and tossed them to the cox'n, and we walked up the beach a ways. I was barefoot, in a slop-chest shirt and pants to match. He had that blue coat with the brass buttons that he never buttoned, and he was carrying a musket. I thought it was probably because he was afraid I might jump him.

  "Know how to use one of these?" He took it off his shoulder.

  I said, "I can load and shoot one, but I'm no great shot."

  "You will be, Chris. This is yours now." He handed it to me, and the pouch with it.

  I stood the musket on its butt and opened the pouch. There was big powder flask, a little flask for priming powder, half a dozen bullets, a bullet mold, flints, and some other stuff, like the wrench you use to tighten the hammer jaws and the little piece of soft leather that lets them get a grip on the flint.

  I had been too busy looking at the island to notice that he was wearing my dagger, but he was. He took it off and gave it to me. "This was yours already."

  I tried to thank him. I knew he was a murderer and a thief, and those things really bothered me back then, but I tried anyway.

  "This is yours, too, eh?" He opened up his shirt and untied the money belt I had bought in Port Royal. "Your share's all there, every farthin'. Count it if you like."

  Since there was no point in not trusting him, I did not. I just took off my shirt and put on the belt. I kept that one up until the time the Spanish robbed me.

  "This is Hispaniola," he told me. "There are wild cattle here-quite a lot, apparently. Wild Frenchmen, too. Boucaners is how the Frogs say it. They shoot the cattle, dry the beef, and trade it to ships that stop here to buy it." He grinned. "Make first-rate pirates, the buccaneers do. I've a dozen or so, and I'd take another dozen if I got the chance. They'll cross your bow before long if the wind holds."

  He surprised the heck out of me when he held out his hand. As soon as we had shaken hands,
he turned as serious as I ever saw him. "They're dangerous friends, Chris, and foes hot from Hell. Make friends if you can, but 'ware shoals. If they see your gold, you're as good as dead."

  If I had loaded as fast as I could-I mean, as fast as I could back then-I might have gotten a shot at Capt. Burt as the longboat took him back to the Weald. I thought of it, but what good would it have done? When your only friend is a murderer and a thief, those things do not seem as bad as they used to.

  8

  How I Became a Buccaneer

  The bugs were bad. That is the first thing I have to tell about Hispaniola, because if I do not say it right up front, Hispaniola is going to sound like paradise. The bugs were terrible. There were stinging gnats so little you could hardly see them. There were red flies that went straight for your face every time. Where they were bad, you had to break off a branch and wave it in front of your face for hours and hours. Worst of all were the mosquitoes. There were a lot of good things about Hispaniola, but there was not one day there when I would not have been glad to go back to the monastery or the Santa Charita.

  I did not know about the bugs when Capt. Burt left me on the beach. There was a fresh wind blowing, and when there was a wind the beaches were clear of bugs. What I did know about Hispaniola was that it was not a desert island. There were people who lived there all the time, just like Cuba and Jamaica. I thought the best thing for me to do would be to find some and try to get them to help me. There had been Spanish maps on the New Ark, and I had spent a lot of time looking at them. The big town on Hispaniola had been Santo Domingo, and it had been on the south coast of the island over toward the east end. I did not know whether I was toward the east end or the west end (which is really where I was), but I could tell from the sun that I was on the north coast.