Pirate In My Arms

by Danelle Harmon

  Reluctantly leaving his mate on deck, Ingols followed his guide through the mob of men who reeked belligerence as surely as they did the combined fumes of wine and rum. The pirate, chattering nonstop, informed him that his name was Stripes, leaving Ingols to wonder whether he took that odd moniker from his striped trousers or from possible, if not probable, scars upon his back. He decided it was wiser not to ask.

  They made their way across decks that were surprisingly neat given the fact that Whydah was a pirate ship, Stripes tipping a bottle of Madeira to his lips and Ingols’s cold, sweaty shirt pasted to his back. He was on his way to share a drink with the infamous Black Sam Bellamy, and whether he would exit the pirate’s cabin in the same state that he would enter it—alive—only the gods and the pirate captain himself, knew. Feigning courage, Ingols commented on the galley’s tidy decks and clean lines.

  “Aye, this ’ere Whydah ain’t nothin’ t’ trifle with,” the pirate warned, wagging a finger in Ingols’s face. “Ye can see why Black Sam wanted ’er. Laid ’is eyes on ’er an’ swore by every god in the Good Book that ’e was going t’ have her if he had t’ fight the very devil ’imself t’ do it.” He leaned close, blasting Ingols with fumes of alcohol. “An’ ye know somethin’? If Satan had dared take up ’is own sword, I do believe our Sam would’ve run ’im through an’ tossed ’im t’ the sharks!”

  The deck was rolling beneath their feet. The weather was worsening.

  “I have no doubt,” Ingols said faintly.

  They reached the door of a cabin. There, the pirate turned. “Now, don’t ye be goin’ and doin’ anythin’ t’ make the cap’n cross, ye hear? He ain’t been in a good mood lately.”

  Ingols nodded tightly and Stripes opened the door.

  The infamous Black Sam was seated at a knife-scarred desk, a quill pen in one hand, a half-empty bottle of wine before him. Above his head a lantern swung with the roll of the ship, casting a warm glow upon his hair and throwing eerie shadows across the papers on which he wrote. Though seated, he was no less intimidating than he’d been up on deck. And though his wind-tousled, magnificent black mane had been queued at the nape with a bit of ribbon, on such a man the effort seemed nothing more than a hopeless attempt at refinement.

  “Ingols, lad! Make yourself comfortable.” He tossed the pen aside, slid the bottle across the table and leaning back, crossed his arms behind his head. “We took a ship full of Madeira just hours ago, and I couldn’t resist a sample. Here, have some.”

  The “small sample” consisted of two empty bottles and another that was more than half finished.

  Ingols eyed the bottle uncertainly. “I must decline.”

  “Suit yourself.” Uncoiling himself from his chair, Bellamy rose and crossed the cabin, the top of his head almost scraping the deck beams above. Ingols glanced at the pirate’s feet, hoping to find part of that commanding height donated by a pair of silver-buckled shoes with the high, blocky heels that were so popular among seamen. He was sadly disappointed. Black Sam’s feet were quite bare. And before he could ponder such an odd mix of polish and barbarity, his host returned with a Queen Anne-style tea server complete with an ebony handle and a spout fashioned in the shape of a dragon’s head. The beauty of the object was not lost on Ingols.

  “Tea, then?”

  “Thank you.”

  Perhaps Black Sam was accustomed to entertaining prisoners, for he seemed very much the gracious host as he poured hot brew into one of two pewter mugs and the remainder of the wine into the other. He slid the first across the table to Ingols. “To our health, eh?”

  “To our health.”

  The pirate regarded him shrewdly. “Yours would stand a better chance if ye’d share a drink with me. ’Tis lucky you are that I’m not easily given to offense.”

  “As loath as I am to admit it, spirits don’t sit well in my stomach during rough seas. I’d be of little help to you if I were lying abed, seasick.”

  Bellamy studied him for a long moment, his eyes dark, calculating, and contemptuous. Then he drained his own mug as if to prove he had no such weakness, slammed it down upon the table, and shoving his chair back, stormed across the cabin. The veneer of civility, then, was just that.

  A veneer.

  Ingols held himself steady as the pirate flung open the door and bellowed to the men just beyond. “Damn ye for a pack of irresponsible whelps! Where the hell are Julian and Lambeth? Do they think I have all day to sit around and wait for them?”

  So far, Stripes was right about one thing. His captain’s moods were as unpredictable as Cape Cod weather and just as inclement.

  Ingols said nothing as Black Sam stalked back across the cabin and flung himself into his chair once more. But his anger seemed to have spent itself like a bluster of wind and now he seemed only weary, or perhaps at the end of his patience as he leaned his forehead into his hands and kneaded his temples with thumbs and fingertips. “A damned nuisance, those two,” he said, then looked up at Ingols as though such was the bane of every ship’s captain. “I tell ye, I must’ve been daft in the head to hire them on as pilots. One an eternal drunk, the other an Indian barely out of swaddling clothes.” He glared out through the stern windows, watching the rising seas for a long moment. “Said he’s familiar with this coast though, told me he grew up on Cape Cod and knew it like the back of his hand. Hah! That remains to be seen. He has yet to show me he knows the coast of Cape Cod from the back of his hand!”

  “So that is why you wish me to pilot for you.”

  “Aye. The abilities of those two are questionable in fair weather, let alone in a stormy night with a lee shore off our larboard bows. I’ll be damned if I take any chances with my ship or the lives of my crew.”

  Like a restless panther he rose, began to pace the cabin, and finally ended up leaning against one of the big guns that stood leashed to the bulkhead. Hazy light shone through the stern windows, gleaming dully off the scrollwork of their iron barrels. Black Sam’s cabin, Ingols noted, was not a room designed for comfort, but for battle: just a scarred table, a chair and desk, a bunk covered with a beautiful blanket that seemed oddly out of place in this warlike setting, a cutlass hanging on a peg, and dominating the room, the two stern chasers that looked ready and willing to do business.

  Black Sam reached out and ran a palm over the barrel of the one against which he leaned. “Since our friend Stripes deems himself such a font of information today, did he think to tell ye just how generous I can be when someone pleases me?”

  “No sir, I’m afraid he did not. But you did say you’d grant me my freedom if I guided you into Provincetown Harbor.”

  “And so I shall. Do you doubt my word, Ingols, because I’m a pirate?” He smiled coldly as Ingols averted his eyes. “And here, I’d hoped you might find our life far more…shall I say, rewarding, than that of a simple merchant captain’s.”

  “Would you force me to join your crew, then?”

  “Force you? Bah, we don’t force anyone. We simply give them a taste of what they might have if they sail with us and most are quite willing to sign the Articles.”

  “I—I’m not sure I would find the calling to my liking,” Ingols said nervously.

  “Ah, but I think you would. In truth, Ingols, piracy has other rewards besides wealth and a life of ease. The laws of no country govern us; the only rules we follow are our own. We pledge loyalty to no nation save ourselves. And if ye doubt my word, ask any member of my crew from whence he hails. He won’t tell you England, Ireland, or even Scotland. D’ye know what he’ll say?”

  Ingols shook his head.

  “He’ll tell ye, ‘From the sea’! For her laws are the only ones we heed. No more serving aboard His Majesty’s ships where you’re rewarded with naught but a crowded, stinking berth, little pay, and the sting of the lash for the smallest misdemeanor. No more tyrannical captains who are dictators, not leaders of men. No more serving anyone but ourselves! Our mistress is the sea, our master our own wants and desires. Do ye thi
nk I really give a damn about the riches, the treasure stored below? There’s a damn sight more to this calling than that!”

  Ingols met Bellamy’s defiant eyes. “And that is?”

  “Freedom!” the pirate snarled, beginning to pace once more. “And I am its most faithful advocate.” He seized a yellowed chart and shoved it beneath Ingols’s nose. “Now, here. Take this. I know ye’re familiar with these waters, but ye’ll study this all the same.” He put both hands on the table and leaned close, so close that Ingols, shrinking back, could see the menace in his dark eyes. “And study it well, mind ye. Any mishaps and ye’re a dead man. Got that?”

  “Yes, sir.” Ingols nodded jerkily. “Of course.”

  “Good.” Bellamy straightened up, snared a bottle of wine, and stalked toward the door. There he turned and bestowed an innocuous smile upon Ingols that didn’t fool him a bit. “And when you’ve memorized that chart, come topside. I’ll be at the helm. If ye know what’s good for ye, ye won’t delay.”

  Chapter 8

  Where beyond the extreme sea-wall, and between the remote sea-gates,

  Waste water washes, and tall ships founder, and deep death waits.

  —Swinburne

  Ingols did indeed study the chart, though he was more than familiar with Cape Cod’s deadly shoals—and their breakers that could smash a ship to bits should she venture too close. He waited a long moment to be sure the pirate captain was really gone and then, with a treachery in his eyes he could never have hidden from the astute gaze of the Black Bellamy, pushed the chart away from him. He had no need to study it further. For Ingols, law-abiding to the end and determined not only to save Provincetown from the ravages of the pirates but, if need be, to die a martyr’s death, had already plotted Whydah’s course—straight toward the harborless shoreline of Cape Cod’s great Outer Beach. And if the storm came on as it appeared it would, by the time the pirates realized his betrayal, it would be too late.

  Topside, Whydah’s bell tolled mournfully as the watch ended. Off the larboard bow the distant, thin line that was Cape Cod appeared, vanished beneath a large swell, reappeared. To the east, massive black thunderheads began to thrust themselves over the horizon.

  And as darkness fell and the rising wind whipped up the sea and pulled streaks of foam from the breaking waves, a figure stood silently at the helm. Far forward,Whydah’s jib-boom, a long, dark silhouette spearing the night, rose and fell, rose and fell.

  But Sam Bellamy wasn’t worried about the storm. He wasn’t worried about anything. For in several more hours, he’d be with Maria.

  * * *

  Nightfall brought the storm on in full force.

  They heard it coming when it was still a good ten miles away, the low rumble of thunder rolling across the water as lightning flickered eerily upon the horizon. And then it was upon them, an unholy roar as rain exploded out of the sky, hammering the decks and ricocheting off the monstrous black guns like grapeshot.

  At the helm, Sam, Ingols, and the pilot Lambeth stood shivering as the seas rose and the galley kicked up her heels like a skittish filly, making it nearly impossible to keep their footing on decks that were already awash with frozen spume and seawater. The wind gathered force, snapping the masthead pennants this way and that until they barked like gunfire over the howl of the storm. The night grew blacker than pitch, snuffed out the lights of the three ships in their wake and scattered them to the darkness. A lantern swung madly in Whydah’s shrouds, another at her stern, but neither they nor the glow of the binnacle could pierce the darkness of the night.

  The ship’s nervous crew needed no light to see the black, angry ocean thrashing and boiling around and beneath them. The storm rose in intensity, screaming its lungs out and raising the waves until they clawed at the mainyard. Wind ripped the foam from the toppling crests, drove it against raw cheeks and into eyes already blinded by salt, sleet, and driving rain. Coats grew sodden and heavy. Hands became reddened and raw. Feet and legs went numb in icy seawater not yet warmed after a long, cold winter.

  The seas rose higher.

  A line snapped like a shot and somewhere in the darkness above a sail blew out. Men, reeling drunkenly with the violent motion of the ship, began puking over the rail, and into the foamy, swirling water in which they struggled to stand.

  Whydah groaned with effort.

  Sam, hanging on to the mizzen shrouds, stood knee-deep in the frigid black seawater that surged over the deck with every dip and plunge of the ship, cursing the storm, cursing the gods, and now cursing his crew’s incompetence. He spotted a gun that hadn’t been properly lashed down and seawater surging in great foamy floods through an open port. His patience snapped like a strained backstay.

  A group of men huddled about the mainmast got the brunt of it. “You there! Have ye nothing better to do than stand around like a flock of bleating sheep? Damn ye, get that gun hauled in and lashed down before it breaks loose and kills someone!”

  At the helm, Lambeth fought back his seasickness enough to yell through chattering teeth, “She’s fighting me, Captain! I’m afraid I can’t hold her!”

  “Keep her closer to the wind!” Whydah took a sudden nosedive, nearly throwing him off his feet. As she staggered up the side of the next giant swell, it broke over the ship, soaking him to the bone and carrying off his hat. The wind whipped his hair from its queue, lashed it across his frozen cheeks, stung his eyes. He clawed it free, trying to see in the darkness.

  “Madigan!”

  The freckle-faced lad fought his way across the heaving decks, his shock of red hair whipped by the wind. “Cap’n?”

  “Where the bloody hell is Julian?”

  “Below, sir!”

  “For God’s sake, d’ye think I don’t know that? I want him on deck, now! What the hell’s he doing down there?”

  “The last time I saw him he was in the galley—”

  “Doing what?”

  Whydah bucked madly, throwing Sam to his knees. Salt water flooded his nose and he clawed himself to his feet.

  “Uh, teaching knife tricks to one of the black slaves you freed—”

  Coughing and sputtering, Sam bellowed, “You tell Julian that unless he wants me to demonstrate them on him he’d best get his god-damned carcass up here now!”

  Lazy pack of wound-licking curs! Sam was about to go looking for the pilot himself when Julian, clutching a rum bottle, lurched toward him from out of the darkness.

  “When I give an order I expect it to be obeyed, is that understood? Take your place at the helm, ye miserable dog! And you, Lambeth, cut yourself loose and go seek your berth!” But the pilot, his hands all but frozen to the wheel, couldn’t move. Swearing once more, Sam grabbed the bottle from Julian and dumped its contents over Lambeth’s frozen fingers. The pilot screamed in agony. Shoving him toward Madigan, he yelled, “Take him below, damn you!”

  “Aye, Cap’n!”

  He’d rotate the two pilots, swapping them for a turn at the wheel while he sent the other below to rest. But for him there’d be no rest, no shelter, no warm berth until harbor was reached. Around them, giant swells clawed heavenward, black, evil monsters in the night, the wind shrieking through the rigging now in a piercing whistle. Spray drove hard over the rail, lashing his face and numbing his already frozen bones. No, Sam dared not leave the helm. He wasn’t about to trust his ship and crew to a drunkard, a half-wild savage, and a man he’d met only hours before. But they were his only hope. Just get us to Provincetown, he thought, and I’ll do the rest.

  But Lambeth, vomiting into the surge, was too sick to be much help, Julian lacked experience, and Ingols was whiter than bleached bones. Clawing the hair from his eyes, Sam yelled, “Ye sure ye know where ye’re going, Ingols?”

  Ingols, who’d been skittish all night, wouldn’t meet his gaze. “If we hold course we should make harbor by midnight!”

  “Well, mind that ye keep a close eye on our bearings! I’ve no care to make our glorious entrance as just another shi
pwreck against the Outer Bars!”

  Somewhere out there in the darkness beyond the lee rail lay Cape Cod with its dangerous shoal waters, its harborless shoreline—and Maria Hallett. Above, Saint Elmo’s fire sizzled between main and mizzen and flooded the decks with pulsing, purple light. Thunder exploded around them and the very seas trembled in awe. Whydah heeled so far over that her rail was buried in the foaming seas, the tip of her mainyard scraping the monstrous combers that heaved and thrashed all about them.

  Stripes stumbled out of the darkness just as a lightning cracked the sky and slammed into the sea a mere fifty feet off the larboard bow. Ingols ducked. Stripes dove for cover. Julian cried out in his native tongue. The thunder came, blasting out of the heavens with such terrible, awful force that it stunned their senses and smothered their screams. And as it boomed all around them before fading into the roar of rain and shriek of wind, they heard their captain’s voice.

  And he was laughing. Laughing?

  Aghast, they stared at the figure clinging to the shrouds, his hair whipping about his face, his eyes glinting with exhilaration. Black Sam, they concluded, must certainly have gone mad.

  “Ye pack of hen-hearted whelps, what ails ye? A bit of lightning, a scrap of thunder? Why, ’tis the gods, drunk on their tipple and having a bit of fun!” Thunder burst from above and he saluted the sky, shouting now to be heard over the deafening roar. “See, lads? Even they pay tribute to us! ’Tis a damned shame the seas are so rough I can’t run out my own guns to return the salute!”

  If such a declaration was meant to instill courage, it had the desired effect. But Sam Bellamy wasn’t laughing a moment later when the first indications that something had gone terribly, fatally, wrong became apparent through the shrieking rage of the storm—a far off, rhythmic boom that was definitely not thunder. His stiffened in alarm. The hairs on the back of his neck stood up. And at the exact moment the sound registered in his brain, the wind flung the terrified cry of the lookout down to the wildly pitching decks.