Pirate Freedom

by Gene Wolfe

  Melind cleared his throat. I was not looking at him. Neither was Gagne. We were looking at each other.

  "Un." It seemed to take forever. "Deux." I was ready-so was he. I could see the hate in his eyes even twenty paces away. I knew what I was going to do.

  "Trois!"

  I jerked my musket up, pointed it at Gagne, and shot. My musket jumped up and back, but for some crazy reason I held on.

  For a second or two, I lost Gagne in the smoke. When I saw him again, he was bent over. He had dropped his musket, and all I could do was stare at it. I was the one who was supposed to do that.

  Melind went over to him and squatted down beside him. After a minute or two he stood up, told us Gagne was dead, and said we ought to eat now and get some sleep. Gagne was the first man I ever killed, and I prayed for him that night.

  The next morning he was still there when we went out to hunt. I downed a bull with one shot that day although Joire had to shoot it again, in the head and up close, to finish it. By the time we got back to camp, the servants had done something with Gagne's body. I never did know what.

  After that I hunted with the buccaneers for a couple of months. I made some good shots and missed some easy ones-if you are a hunter, you will know how that is. By the time we went to Tortuga, I was pretty good friends with all four of them.

  It was a shantytown there, huts made out of whatever they could cut down roofed with palm fronds. You could buy just about anything, and that included white servants like Valentin had been and black slaves. People told me that the slaves got better treatment, usually. That was because you had the slave for life. If you bought a white servant for three years, and he died after two years and eleven months, why should you care? Look at all you had saved on his food! I watched some auctions, thinking that if there was a big price difference between Tortuga and Jamaica somebody could turn a quick buck. Prices were a little cheaper, maybe, but pretty much the same.

  I bought a musket for Valentin, too, with a musket bag. And a pair of pants and a shirt. We wore leather, mostly, but I figured Valentin would not want to look like he'd been on the island a long time, so this was better. I wanted to get him a copper powder flask like mine, but they only had horns. The big end had a plug in it that you pulled out to fill it, and the little end had a little one you pulled out to pour the powder in the gun. That was what all the other buccaneers had. The bad thing about those horns is that you have to guess at the right amount or use a separate measure for the powder.

  I asked about priming powder, and the shopkeeper had small horns for those. But he said you could just use the coarse powder and maybe grind it a little finer in the pan with the end of your finger. Nothing metal, because it might spark. So I just bought the big horn. It was too big to go in a musket bag. You just slung it over your shoulder on a cord.

  By now you may have guessed what I almost forgot. It was not until the morning of the day we were going to leave that I remembered. Then I ran off quick and got a mirror, a comb, and a pair of scissors for Valentin.

  I had been able to buy everything (and more besides, because I bought stuff for myself, too) from what I had made hunting. My money belt was still under my shirt. I had never let anybody see it, and I never touched the gold. When we were about ready to go, the others came to me one at a time, asking to borrow a little for things they really needed. Mostly it was powder, and lead to cast into bullets. They had gone through all the money they had made in months of hunting in just a few days-drank it, or gambled it away, or spent it on women. All three for most of them. I lent each of them a little because I wanted to get in good with them, but I kept the amounts small. They promised to pay me back before we went Tortuga again.

  But to tell the truth, I was not sure I was ever going. Pretty soon a ship I liked that needed another hand was going to come by to buy our smoked meat. That was how I was thinking then. I kept thinking about the Windward, and how nice that had been. I was a good sailor by then, and I knew it.

  So we paddled back to Hispaniola, me thinking to get a good berth and them just thinking to do more hunting as far as I know. We did hunt for a few more days, but before I get into that I ought to say that we had a piragua, a big boat made by hollowing out a tree, Native American fashion. They are very handy boats, those piraguas, although they do not have keel enough for you to put a mast and a sail in them. Or at least, a sail will not work very well unless the crew keeps its paddles in the water to stop the piragua from drifting too far to leeward.

  The same day we got back to our camp, I went inland and found the cave, way up on a mountain, that Valentin and I had hidden our smoked meat in. I left the new musket and that musket bag there for him, and the mirror and so on. I left him my big powder flask, too, because by that time I had got to liking the horn so much I wanted to keep it. If you had asked me then, I would have said Valentin would be joining us in a few days. He never did, and pretty soon I was glad he did not. Now I wish he had.

  It was not more than a day or two after we got back that the Spanish men-of-war came. There were three, one of about sixty guns, one of about forty, and a flushed-decked three-master of twenty. At first we thought they wanted to buy from us.

  The officer who came talked to us in Spanish with the Castilian lisp. I could understand him, but nobody else could, and I played dumb. After that he used French about as bad as mine.

  "This is the island of His Most Catholic Majesty," he told us. "You are here without his permission, which you will not receive. You are to depart it at once. If you do not, your lives are forfeit."

  Melind asked, "Who is this who will kill us, Monsieur? You?"

  The officer shook his head. "His Most Catholic Majesty."

  "He must be a fine shot, Monsieur, to fire so from Madrid."

  We laughed, but the officer frowned, and the men who had rowed him ashore looked like they were ready to kill us. I counted a coxs'n and twenty-two at the oars of the longboat, and it looked like every man had been issued a pistol and a cutlass.

  "His Most Catholic Majesty has long arms," the officer told us. "This you yourselves will see, perhaps. He is a good and a humane king, however. Thus he sends me to warn you. You are to depart his island of Hispaniola by the couching of the sun, all seven of you. You are not to go to His Most Catholic Majesty's island of Tortuga when you quit this place. Nor are you to go to any other place in his domain. Other than that, you may go where you please. Depart, and you will not be molested. Remain, and you will be killed, or taken for slaves should you give yourselves up."

  Melind started to say that we were doing no harm and had resupplied many Spanish ships, but the officer cut him off. "I will not dispute with you, as it would be without point. His Most Catholic Majesty has made the decision, not I. You will die or be enslaved if you remain where you are. You have been warned."

  "We will not go," Melind told him, "and we will kill anyone who tries to force us to go."

  A real Frenchman would have shrugged. The officer turned up his palms instead. There was more talk, but I have written everything that mattered.

  As soon as he got back into his longboat, I started backing away toward the rain forest. I motioned for some of the others to come, too, but nobody did.

  The longboat went back to the big galleon, and I watched the officer go up the sea ladder, and the crew go up, and the longboat hoisted back aboard. The galleon squared around and the hatches of the gunports went up.

  I yelled for the buccaneers to scatter and get down then, but nobody did much of anything until the guns were run out. Then Melind shouted for everybody to get back.

  Nobody had moved more than a couple of steps when the broadside went off. I had been on Capt. Burt's Weald when she fired her broadside at the Duquesa, but that had been smaller guns and a lot fewer. Besides, I had been behind them, and that makes all the difference. This was thirty big guns on two decks. For a second it was like being in a hurricane. Trees and limbs were falling, water was jumping up out of our littl
e bay, and the noise was terrible.

  As fast as it had come, it got quiet again.

  One of the buccaneers was dead and so was his servant. I cannot remember the buccaneer's name now, but the servant was Harve. He only had three or four months left on his contract, and used to talk a lot about raising pigs. He knew more than I did about it, and I knew a lot. Joire's arm had been taken off, too. We did what we could for him, but he died that night.

  The worst thing for me was the dogs. We had about a dozen, and four were dead or hurt so badly that we had to kill them, all of them good hunting dogs. We pulled back into the rain forest that night, and buried Joire the next day.

  After that we went back to hunting, but we kept away from the beach and had the other servant watch the sea. He was supposed to tell us when a ship came.

  What really came was more buccaneers, forty or fifty of them paddling down the coast in piraguas. They said there was a Spanish army on the island. They had fought and lost, and they were going to Tortuga until things quieted down on Hispaniola. They had not been able to bring the beef they had dried and had nothing to eat.

  We fed them, and everybody talked a lot that evening. I said we ought to go inland and hide in the mountains. Melind told me it would not work. The Native Americans had tried it, and look what had happened to them. We might be all right until we ran out of powder, but when we did they would slaughter us.

  "Like shooting the horses to see them die," I said, but nobody got it. Finally we bedded down, all of us having decided we would go to Tortuga in the morning.

  9

  How I Became a Pirate

  It was the middle of the night when I woke up. I sat up, thinking I had heard a shot. All the dogs were barking. There was another shot, and I rolled out and grabbed my musket.

  That was about as bad a fight as I have ever been in, and I have been in some bad ones. It was dark, and you could not be sure who you were fighting. I heard Melind yelling and recognized his voice, and ran over and helped him out. After that we called the rest over, shooting at just about anybody who did not answer in French. The sky got gray, and the shooting got better, everybody hiding behind trees and popping out to shoot. There seemed to be six or seven of them for every one of us, and they drove us toward the sea and finally out onto the beach.

  That was bad, because they could see us better. But it was good, too, because there were rocks and driftwood we could hide behind, and they were afraid to follow us out into the open. One or two tried, and they were shot the minute they stepped out from behind their trees. I figured the ships would come back, and then it would be over for us.

  What really happened was that they hollered for a parlay. They swore they would not hurt anybody we sent to talk to them, but they would not send anybody out to talk to us. There was a lot of jawing back and forth about that because nobody on their side could speak much French and Melind could not speak much Spanish.

  That was when I did one of the dumbest things I have ever done in my life. I told him I spoke Spanish better than he did, and I would translate for him. So before long Melind and I left our muskets and knives behind and went up the beach and into the edge of the rain forest to talk to them.

  There were two, a Spanish officer and a Spanish farmer. From what I saw, the officer had about ten soldiers and the farmer maybe a hundred other farmers. Once they got us into the trees they grabbed us and searched us for weapons, and of course they found my money belt and kept the money. Melind protested and I yelled my head off, but it did no good. Before long they told us they would kill us both if we did not shut up about it.

  That was when I tried to jump them. A farmer standing pretty near me had a big knife in his belt, with the handle sticking out. I grabbed it and went for the Spanish officer. I would have killed them all then and there if I could, and I have never hated anybody in my life the way I hated that guy. That was my money, I had earned it with worry, hard work, and tough decisions, and they had sworn we would be okay if we left our weapons behind and came over.

  I got that officer in the side, before somebody hit me. When I was conscious again (and feeling like something scraped off a shoe), my hands were tied behind me, and so were Melind's.

  What it came down to was that we had to go-get in our piraguas and go off the island. If we did that, they said, we could leave in peace. If we did not leave, they would hold us where we were until more men came. They had sent for them, they said, and they would be there the next day.

  We pretended not to believe them, but we did. I did, and I know Melind did, too. They were too happy about it for it not to be true. (It is pure hell to see somebody you hate happy. I found that out then.) Parties of soldiers and farmers had been searching the island for the past few days, and now that this one had found us the others would join it. They agreed to let us bury our dead and fill our water bottles, then we had to go. I would guess it was about noon the next day when we left, twenty or thirty men in four piraguas, but I was still feeling rocky, and I do not remember a lot about it. We camped that night along the coast, and made Tortuga the next day.

  The shantytown was gone. The Spanish had blown it apart with their ships' guns, then landed and burned what was left. A lot of people were left just the same. They had run off into the woods when the Spanish guns opened up. Melind got a bunch together that night and talked to them.

  Only first, he talked to me. I told him the truth. It was the first time I had told anybody the truth since I had talked to Capt. Burt in his cabin on the Weald, so maybe that knock on the head had done me some good. I told him I had been a pirate, could navigate, and was a pretty fair sailor.

  I do not remember everything Melind said when he made his speech. Besides, it was in French and there were some things I did not understand. As close as I can come, it went about like this.

  "My friends, we have been driven to the wall. If we remain here, they will come again and kill us. If we return to Hispaniola, they will hunt us down and butcher us like cattle. Can we return to France in piraguas? You know that we cannot.

  "Every man must choose to live or choose to die. I choose to live, and here is how I propose to do it. With a few friends to whom I have already spoken, I shall follow the coast to San Domingo. Not until very late will we enter its harbor in our piraguas. We will show no light and fire no shot, boarding a likely vessel before the cowardly curs know we have come. As silently as any ghost we will sail out of the harbor, and once we are at sea-well, my friends, I pity anyone who tries to prevent us from going wherever we choose.

  "Those who want to accompany us must be ready in the morning. Some of you will not want to come, for whatever reason. We wish you well, and ask only that you pledge our success when next you drink. There remains plenty of water on this island."

  When we left next morning, there were seven piraguas in all. I would guess each held ten men. It took us a lot longer to get there than I had expected. It might have been two weeks, but I think it was nearer three. Whenever we came to a Spanish settlement, we robbed the people. We had to, or we would have starved. A few fought, and some got killed while they were begging for their lives. We tried to stop it whenever we could, but I could not be everywhere, and neither could Melind.

  In one way, all that time was valuable. We got to know each other, and who could do what. When we were so close we knew we would reach the harbor after sundown the next day, Melind divided us into two crews, fighters and sailors. My crew was the sailors, and that was half a dozen men plus me. Melind had the fighters.

  They would board whatever ship we picked first and take care of the crew, killing everybody who did not give up. My crew would come after them, leave the fighting to them, and get her under way as quick as we could, cutting the anchor cable and running up sails. I would take the wheel and do my best to pilot her out of a harbor I had never seen, at night.

  The whole thing scared the heck out of me-I would say it scared everybody-but that was the part that scared me the most. I knew w
e had a good chance of grounding on a mud flat or whatever, and we would be dead meat if we did. If the ship had a kedge anchor, we could try to kedge off before the guns in the fort blew us to splinters, and dear, dear Saint Barbara, please pray that the nice gunners get a real good sleep.

  Next day off we went, all of us knowing that there was a swell chance we were seeing our last sunrise. I had picked out two men to cut anchor cables, and four men to make sail. I told them to set the mains as quick as they could, and we would worry about the rest afterward.

  I have seen plans go right and plans go wrong. That one went crazy. Melind and I had said we would look over the ships in the harbor, and try to take the one that looked easiest. Fine, except that there was only one, unless you counted the little fishing boats.

  What was worse, I recognized it the minute I saw it, even by moonlight. It was the little flush-decked three-master, the smallest of the Spanish Navy ships that had come into our bay to tell us we had to go. I do not know whether Melind recognized it, too. He may have. He went for it anyway.

  So we followed, seven men in the smallest piragua of the bunch. We had planned to wait until the fighters were on board, but we did not. Melind and his bunch climbed over the rail, there were two or three shots, and up we went.

  The two I had assigned to cut the anchor cables both went to the bow cable and cut it. I had to cut the stern cable with my dagger, which meant I had to stop cutting and fight twice before I got it cut through. My dagger was sharp, heck yes. Try cutting a thick, tarred rope with a good sharp knife and tell me how it goes.